a thesis by Flora Jane Satt - Shealtiel

Flora Jane Satt—annotated by Miles Saltielwhich reprinted a letter to Elijah Sholman by Mordecai Jalomstein, an American journalist who frequently served as a correspondentto the newspaper. Jalomstein wrote that after his “intensive study” of “the reports which [had] reached him”, hehad learned that the Cotopaxi colony had “eaten up twenty thousand dollars.” If we subtract HEAS’ original budget of$10,000 and the October 1883 settlement of $2,000, we are left with other expenditures, presumably on store credit, of$8,000. The table below summarises the expenditures arising under these alternative assumptions.Scenarios1 2 3 4 NotesTravel from New York toColorado 1,250 1,250 1,250 1,250Infrastructure at Cotopaxi 8,750 8,750 8,750 8,750Final settlement with colonists 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000Estimates of store creditScenario 1 1,555 1Scenario 2 4,620 2Scenario 3 6,615 3Scenario 4 8,000 4Total 13,555 16,620 18,615 20,000Notes1. Figures from Schwarz (p15).2. Based on weekly family stipend at the Vineland NJ colony, Geffen, Page 7 of 283. Based on the earnings of 21 adult males from the Denver and Rio Grande R/R; Schwarz, p13; Satt,, p26.4 Deduction from total cited by Jalomsten; Geffen, p. 24 of 28.This gives an estimating range (in round figures) between $1,500 and $8,000 for store credit, centring around $5,500; andtotal obligations (also in round figures) of between $13,500 and $20,000, centring around $17,500. Sums of this kind wouldbe bound to add to the anxieties of the colonists.Clash of culturesWe should also recognize how much the pioneers were at odds with their physical and cultural environment. They fell foul oftheir neighbours, who grabbed the best land (Roberts, p127) and whose cattle trespassed upon and ate their crops (Schwarz,p11; Roberts, p127; Satt, pp20, 24, 25), not to say whatever further depredations HS Henry was hinting at in his Februaryletter (RMJHN, p6). The settlers lacked familiarity with stock—the ox-team lost on arrival (Gulliford, para 5); the roamingcattle of the Wet Mountain valley or game—the bears preparing for hibernation (Schwarz, p11; Roberts, p127; Satt,p20); as well as the wherewithal to see off such threats as might be posed by begging tribesmen (Satt, p25). We detecttheir distance from local mores in the attitude of the Rocky Mountain News which responded to the stories of the difficultiesat Cotopaxi by noting that “all pioneers must endure some hardship” (Satt, p27). The cultural clash extended to the colonists’coreligionists. It is a commonplace of immigration that new arrivals have to contend with the suspicion of their predecessors.Russian Jews certainly ran into this, with, for example, H S Henry making no secret of his impatience (RMHJN, p6). Norshould we lose sight of the distance between the rugged individualism characteristic of America—in particular the frontier—of the period, and the priority attaching to alms as a mitzvah, blessing, among traditional Jews.Conspiracy theoriesIt is another commonplace that those feeling themselves powerless are prone to conspiracy theories. We find a contemporaneousexample in the lamentation of an anonymous colonist from Winnipeg. He wrote a letter, published in Ha-Melitz onJuly 27 1882, the first summer of Cotopaxi.“Like an outcast, I sit looking towards the sky and I hear voices of [my fellow-colonists] weeping…‘Look how we were deceived bythe people we trusted and who seemed to be concerned with our welfare. They have sent us to a desolate place as servants andmaids to work for nothing for the local inhabitants…Why did they deceive us? Like sheep without a shepherd…we are bruisedfrom top to bottom.’ ” (Geffen, op cit, pp22-24 of 28 in reproduced document).If we hope that this unfortunate found his feet before the Manitoba winter set in, we need not take his bereft tone fullyto heart: those familiar with the Jewish literature of the period will recognize hyperbole of this kind as nothing out ofthe ordinary. His tone anticipates the heartfelt remonstrances recalled by B Prezant and similar sentiments handeddown to us by the descendants of the Cotopaxi pioneers, which later writers—unfamiliar with the conventions of largerthan-lifeidiom—took at face value.45