R. Gregory Nokes
R. Gregory Nokes is a Northwest author whose books embrace major events in the history of the American West, including the settlement of early Oregon, the debate over slavery in Oregon and California, and the treatment of Chinese and other minorities. His latest contribution is a chapter on early settler and abolitionist Jesse Applegate in the newly published “Eminent Oregonians: Three Who Matter.” His other books are also listed below.
Also by the author:
Breaking Chains
They were brought in bondage from Missouri.
Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory tells the story of slaves brought to Oregon from Missouri in the mid 1800s. It is told against the background of the national controversy over slavery that led to Civil War in 1861.
Relying on court testimony, Nokes’ book includes a rare account of the relationship between a slave and his master from the slave’s point of view. He recounts the 15-month court battle in which former slaves Robin and Polly Holmes sought to free their three children held by Missouri emigrant Nathaniel Ford.
The book is certain to shock the many readers who were unaware that there were ever black slaves in Oregon, or that the question of whether Oregon would be a free or slave state was hotly debated when voters approved the state constitution in 1857. Also, the book details Oregon’s exclusion laws against black immigration during most of its early history.
Eminent Oregonians
Three Northwest authors contribute biographical portraits of eminent Oregonians:
Steve Forrester, a seasoned interpreter of the U.S. Senate’s history and culture, skillfully appraises the brief but consequential career of Senator Richard Neuberger.
Jane Kirkpatrick weaves an intense account of pioneering journalist and women’s rights champion Abigail Duniway.
R. Gregory Nokes concludes with an insightful reading of antislavery campaigner and political maverick Jesse Applegate.
R. Gregory Nokes is the author of Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon; Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory; and his latest work: The Troubled Life of Peter Burnett. He travelled the world as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press and The Oregonian. He is a graduate of Willamette University and attended Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. He and his wife, Candise, live in West Linn, Oregon.
The Troubled Life Of Peter Burnett
The Troubled Life of Peter Burnett: Oregon Pioneer and First Governor of California is the first, full-length biography of this western explorer and California’s first governor. A former slaveholder, he could never seem to get beyond his single-minded goal of banning blacks and other minorities from the West.
Peter Burnett helped organize the first major wagon train to the Oregon Country, where he served on Oregon’s first elected government and was Oregon’s first supreme court judge. He opened a wagon road from Oregon to California, and worked with the young John Sutter to develop the new city of Sacramento. Within a year of arriving in California, voters overwhelmingly elected him as their first governor. He also served on the California Supreme Court, remembered for a notoriously racist decision in the Archy Lee slavery case.
Burnett resigned from many of his important positions, including the governorship, where he was widely perceived a failure. Historians, scholars and readers with an interest in western history will welcome this accessible and deeply researched account of this puzzling historical figure.
Massacred For Gold
Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon is the first authoritative account of the long-forgotten 1887 massacre of as many as 34 Chinese gold miners in Oregon’s Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America.
The killers were an improbable gang of horsethieves and schoolboys in northeastern Oregon’s remote Wallowa country. Even though the killers were known, and one confessed, no one was ever convicted of the crime. A cover-up followed and the crime was all but forgotten for the next 100 years, until a county clerk found hidden records in an unused safe.