“23<39.” Burnett’s Topography, “23<39.”

“23<39.” Burnett’s Topography, “23<39.”

subtext:

Oregon is the only state in the United States of America that constitutionally outlawed Black people from living there. As such, the territory was established to be a white utopia. Upon the genocide and mass removal of indigenous people and the exclusion of black people from the territory, the white settler were able to successfully enact their racist vision of the American promise: the opportunity to enact your vision into the physical, political, social, and economic material world. This policy was so effective that the population of black people in the state is less than 3%. Time is not linear from this departure. Instead, it is a continuous cycle that can be entered and exited at any moment subsequent. 

The law has been recorded as such:

“The Oregon Archives Division has been unable to locate an official copy of the law, but fortunately, in addition to numerous detailed summaries, the complete text has been reprinted in several sources. Be it enacted by the Legislative Committee of Oregon as follows: Sec. 1. That slavery and involuntary servitude shall be forever prohibited in Oregon. Sec. 2. That in all cases where slaves shall have been, or shall hereafter be, brought into Oregon, the owners of such slaves respectively shall have the term of three years from the introduction of such slaves to remove them out of the country. Sec. 3. That if such owners of slaves shall neglect or refuse to remove such slaves from the country within the time specified in the preceding section, such slaves shall be free. Sec. 4. That when any free negro or mulatto shall have come to Oregon, he or she (as the case may be), if of the age of eighteen or upward, shall remove from and leave the country within the term of two years for males, and three for females, from the passage of this act; and that if any free negro or mulatto shall hereafter come to Oregon, if of the age aforesaid, he or she shall quit and leave the country within the term of two years for males, and three years for females, from his or her arrival in the country. Sec. 5. That if such free negro or mulatto be under the age aforesaid, the terms of time specified in the preceding section shall begin to run when he or she arrive at such age. Sec. 6. That if any such free negro or mulatto shall fail to quit the country, as required by this act, he or she may be arrested upon a warrant issued by some justice of the peace, and, if guilty upon trial before such justice, shall receive upon his or her bare back not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes, to be inflicted by the constable of the proper county. Sec. 7. That if any free negro or mulatto shall fail to quit the country within the term of six months after receiving such stripes, he or she shall again receive the same punish- ment once in every six months, until he or she shall quit the country. Sec. 8. That when any slave shall obtain his or her freedom, the time specified in the fourth section shall begin to run from the time when such freedom shall be obtained.4”

• Mcclintock, Thomas C. “James Saules, Peter Burnett, and the Oregon Black Exclusion Law of June 1844.” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 86, no. 3 (1995): 121–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40491550.

art description:

set against an early map of the state of Oregon, the official provision within the Oregon Constitution is depicted in a bright red cursive. It is bordered in by a picture of early black pioneer Louisa Sewell and a painting depiction of another early, black woman pioneer, Letitia Carson, across the four corners of the state.