of reconstruction to world war ii. i do agricultural history and economic history. i am happy to be here. end --to begin the introductions to our panel. we have a tight timeline. i am going to try to control our panelists. in a good way. haveke sure that we adequate time for everyone. minutes get to five left, i have a five-minute card and i will lay it up so you can see. we have time for everyone. i'm going to introduce each panelist as they come forward. i have found a few introduced them all at once, people forget who they are. i will begin with our first panelists, -- panelist, john polk. he received his phd of mathematics from the university of delaware in 1979. he served two tours in the army. a 45 year career as a scientist and senior advisory of international research collaboration at the u.s. army research laboratory in maryland. he is currently the clan historian for clan polk international. he has published two books on historical topics "beyond dam to polker: the history of the family on the eastern shore in the colonial era." "somerset recor 1692-1696, abstract transmissions for maryland." 2002. published in yes a published an article in it journal of scotch irish history. in 2008.published initiated dna project and served as the volunteer administration. -- administrator. speak is of his re-examining the ancestry of president james k. polk. thank you. i appreciate the introduction. -- near the be the microphone, or back here, is it not good? i will try to be nearby. as you see, the title of my talk is "re-examining the ancestry of james k. polk." i will say the main point i want to make is that the ancestry of the polk family that arrived from north carolina in the 1750's is not as it is stated in the popular history books. andreferring to the polk ken's len published by harrison polk. these are the two most popular books on the family. with respect to the early ancestry, they are in private. -- incorrect. i will show you why they are incorrect and how i know they are incorrect and it will offer alternative answers. where they did actually come from. if i can figure this out. the first thing i show is the immediate line of the president. married samuel polk who knox. -- jane knox. samuel polk. a lot was written about him. then his grandfather, william polk. not a lot known about him. he will be the main focus of what i have to say and where he came from. what we know about him is that he married a lady by the name of martin -- martha taylor. they lived in maryland and i moved to pennsylvania and moved to north carolina in the early 1750's. they had five sons. they have three daughters. -- had three daughters. no one knows where they lived in north carolina. no one knows where he is buried. he is not a well-known figure. course -- the president was the fourth -- generation of in north carolina. by that time, they have lost track of their early history and where they had come from. what they know about it was expressed in the words of colonel william polk of raleigh. late in his life, when he is in his 70's, 1830, he wrote a short biographical sketch in which he talked about himself. he has this short statement of the origin of the family. he says that william polk, talking about himself, a third is an autobiography, descendent of a family who emigrated from ireland about the year 1722 and settled on the eastern shore of maryland, where they resided until about the year 1740, when he removed into the state of pennsylvania and into the neighborhood of carlisle. presidentobably what polk would have known about his family as far as his early roots. he probably did not have particular interest in the early roots of his ancestry. he was too busy running for office and pursuing his legal career. when he got to be elected president, and went on to washington, like any president, yes -- people claimed they were , claiming relationships and saying things about his family. he did not pay a lot of attention to these. two people that are important for our purposes in this, this goes on. there was a colonel william winder. josiah pope. both of whom lived in somerset county on the eastern shore of maryland. they got in touch with the president and he said, my family came from the eastern shore of maryland. the think we are related? they said, yes. we will tell you about our family. it goes back to a fellow named robert polk, who arrived in 1687 with his wife. .hey had seven sons the eldest son, john, had a son in william. -- named william. inherited the property in 1708 and then he left in 15 years. for partslk left unknown. they said, this looks like it should be the right guy. president polk said, yes, it makes sense to me. it must be our connection with the maryland polks. ,e got together with his cousin bishop polk. they put together a family tree. maybe some of you have seen this family tree. there is a picture of it. this is my personal copy. it is a beautiful piece of draft work. in the main part of the tree at the top is the north carolina and tennessee polks. the little part is the maryland polks. close --ooking at it looking at it closely, you can to the bottom, robert polk, the immigrant from ireland is at the bottom of the tree. the next branch up his job. -- john. off of that is william polk. the connection between the maryland polks and north carolina and tennessee polks. the great-grandfather of the president. see his son is he healed. his son samuel and samuel's son, the president, james k. polk, who was at the top of a left in a yellow oval there. left, i'm sorry, on the right, is bishop polk, is second cousin. the two of them put this tree together. that looks like it was put in there by an act of congress. as entered by act of congress in 1849. you know it is completely accurate. this was widely accepted by everybody and became the accepted family history from north carolina to the eastern shore of maryland. robert polk of ireland came from donegal. in 1908, something happened. harrison polk was in the final throes of finishing his monument to work. -- monumental work. he got a letter from the eastern shore saying, there is a problem. william pollack that left here in 1723, he only made it into dorchester county, maryland. the next county north of somerset, then he died. the is not great-grandfather of the president, clearly. this caused a big problem. william harrison polk was anxious to get his book out after working on it for 45 years. this is the situation. of robert to the sons polk, there were seven of them. he got into correspondence with his long team -- longtime colleague and they said, which son would have in the right one? we should have picked someone else. they didn't have any more and -- new information. all they could do is speculate. in the end, william harrison polk decided, it must have been william, the second son. the guy thatbeen was the father of the william that ended up in north carolina. that is the way he wrote the book. he states that as a fact. it doesn't make any qualifications or caveats. he just says that is the way it was. that is the way the family history has come down for a while. and theinto his book second book, because she used what was in his. that's what has come down to present day. the problem is, it was just speculation. it is wrong. that's what i want to mention now. definitely wrong. i have a couple of statements were william polk made the statements, i don't need to read through them, but i want to mention, you find several places where he just makes statements and even relates to another fellow called charles polk, the indian trader, a well-known polk on the frontier. under the sameas william of somerset. both of them turned out to be incorrect. how do we know that? two ways. one is the traditional way of paper trail genealogical research going to the original colonial records. days over the years at the maryland state archives going through every record they have to offer on the family and the colonial. areay colonial period somerset county was very rich and you find lots of references that mention the polk family, specifically robert polk, and his sons. nowhere amongst his records is there anything to back up that there was somebody might have ended up going to north carolina and tennessee. in particular, i would mention the tasks -- tax lists. they're probably the best piece of evidence, because every year, they went around, collecting the names of the taxable's in the county. they were people over 16 years old. the peoplee names of and everybody's house, including william polk. he had sons by the names of james and david. none by the name of william or charles. that is conclusive, based on." on your records. wants to accept something that has been believed especiallyrs, connecting summary to a president in the u.s., you need to have more complete evidence. it is hard to prove a negative. myself and my long-term city, he is kansas a polk genealogy researcher. we began a dna project. the dna is definitive. we have had a successful project. we have tailored 15 members who continue to dna to -- we have 215 members who contributed dna. many of them contributed y-chromosome dna. that's what gets passed on from father to son without change. whatever robert polk had what happened past to his descendents. differentctually two emerged.at merged -- robert polk of the eastern shore, belongs to one half of the group. descendents of william belong to a different group known as r-m269. i have three seconds or -- three minutes remaining. they are genetically different. no possibility that the william pollack, the great-grandfather of the president could have been the he or descendent of what -- could not of been a descendent of the robert polk of the eastern shore. now the question is, where does he go? that is the last part of this. since it was not in somerset, but we know from what william pollack of raleigh had said, he did come from the eastern shore of maryland. i found, if you go a ways further north, you get into sessile county maryland. -- cecil county maryland. part --rely can center considered part of the eastern shore. it's on the chesapeake bay. you can see there, the new monster plantation, which was recently patented in 1683. years,lived there for 25 but around 1708, a group of scotch irish moved into this area. right in new monster in particular, you found a whole the alexander family, who settled there in 1708. they purchased the land in 1714. you can see the parcels where they settled. any of you who've spent much time studying north carolina history, you know how prominent the alexander family was. all of those people were the sons and grandsons of these alexander's from cecil county maryland. colonel william polk described how his family moved from the eastern shore to the carlisle area of pennsylvania, then down into north carolina. that is the way colonel polk described his family. that is exactly what the alexander family did in the next generations. right in the middle of the alexander's, that is a piece of land purchased by a gentleman known as william pollack. in 1727.sed it that fits pretty well. pollack is the original scottish form of the name polk. usedck and polk are interchangeably and colonial documents. how long did he let their? 1736. who was his wife? his wife's name, was margaret. we know that william polk, the great-grandfather of the president, his wife's name was margaret taylor. you will find tailors living here in new monster. one of them, james, signed a petition in 1722. all the pieces come together that point to the fact that this william pollack is the william polk who became the great-grandfather of president polk. i can tell you from my own research of all the other possible counties in maryland, that there is nothing else out there, no other possible candidate other than this one. as far as i'm concerned, it is 100%. i will have to leave the rest to you. if you decide to agree with that, -- there is no smoking gun document that the pokes in north carolina, saying, we came from sessile county. you won't find anything like that. to me, all of the facts are pointing that way. until somebody comes up with a better theory, i'm sticking with this one. thank you for that. i have written all of this up in a lengthier paper, which i hope will end up in the proceedings. we have proceedings of this conference. if they are not, i will publish it in an appropriate journal. meantime, they are my conclusions. at the bottom, you will see my gmail address. if you have a question, get into contact with me at jmpolk@comcast.net. do we have any questions at the -- questions? one last plug. i have several copies of my book ase and i can part with them my cost, which is considerably better cost then you would pay if you ordered it. -- it was published four years ago. it did get a prize for book of the year from the maryland genealogical society. it has all the answers about the polks on the eastern shore. it has nothing to do with the families and north carolina and tennessee. i had so much information i decided it was worth putting together a book. thank you. [applause] prof. lester: our second aesenter is lucas b. kelly, phd candidate at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. he completed his undergraduate degree at center college and his ma in history at virginia tech. he is the maynard adams fellow for the public amenities university of north carolina. has made numerous presentations at conferences in virginia, louisiana, north carolina and the united kingdom. he currently has papers accepted for conferences at cardiff university in wales and the annual meeting of the southern historical association. inhas published two articles the journal of east tennessee history, divided state in a divided nation, an explosion of east tennessee's support of the secession crisis of 1860-1861. that was published in 2014. -- 2013. the second article was published in 2015. he also published an article in the southern historian "ardent nullifier and gradual emancipator: the paradox of governor john floyd." that was published in 2016. if mr. kelly sounds familiar to you, he was a student assistant at the journal of east tennessee and the fall of 2014. -- in the fall of 2014. lucas: thank you for the introduction. happy to be here. on a rainy march 4, 1845, his inauguration day, james k. polk is on the east portico of the u.s. capitol and addresses the nation. tylerng president john had signed a congressional resolution three days before to annex texas. an enormous victory for democrats like pulp, i've been casting their eyes on texas since before tyler's presidency. annexation,cheered but used it to articulate his expansionist vision for the nation. as our population is expanded, the union has been cemented and strengthened. beenr boundaries have enlarged and our agricultural population has been spread over large office, our system has acquired additional strength and security. thet shall be extended, bonds of our union, so far from being weekend, will become stronger. for president polk, u.s. strength depended on covenantal expansion. the connection between polk and expansion has not gone unnoticed. an ardent expansionist, a -- anneannexation is to are a few ways historians have described them. associated -- he is often associated with american expansionism. historians frugally cite his election and is a administration's policies as a victory for advocates of manifest destiny while recognizing the disastrous consequences for nonwhite inhabitants of the americas in the 1840's and how territorial expansion maturity to the growing sectional crisis of the century. it often overlooks pokes benefit k's benefit from private -- previous expansionism. he moved to his grandfather's land in williamson county, tennessee. over the next two decades, they would become one of the county's most politically influential and wealthy a families. as much of the family's social prominence depended on slavery, it was on a possible through the disposition of tennessee's indigenous peoples. andfamily members speculative heavily on chickasaw lands. as indians lost their national lands. actedl merrill relatives for as agents for as into landowners after the territory had been open for white settlement. so landected friend, and surveyed for a fee. andollected rent, surveyed for a fee. the william winder -- lucas: investment -- lucas:t the polk family invested heavily. legislature passed a number of flaws in the early 1780's to facilitate land sales, including a 1783 act that opened all of what would become tennessee. seemingly designed to make the state's debt, the 1783 law was the brainchild of north carolina speculators. knowing of the intended passage and legislature, speculators identified deep muscles with the tracts of land and they have entered over 3 million acres in north carolina land offices. taking the nose of indian sovereignty claims over most of the region. got more rewards of the 1783 lamp on because of their political connections. james is great on cold-blooded army of polk to lay claim to tracts and the chickasaw and charity nations. before the offices closed in 1784, they entered over 50,000 acres of land, much of it in the duck river valley. this vast acreage would serve as a foundation for the family wealth. it would take two decades before they could take advantage of the massive speculation. you can see on this map, the duck river, you can see columbia. the duck river is the line that separates the yellow portion from the pink. similar to great britain's various attempts to better -- limit settlements west of the operations can leaders of the early u.s. worked to prevent --ricans to -- to stop them to prevent americans from settling the interior of the country. they figure they provoked conflict with india nations and appeared willing to shed their american citizenship for legions to indian -- european empires. used the centralized power of the constitution to control what expansion in the 1780's and 90's. federal recognition of indian sovereignty proved the most effective check on access to native territory in the american southeast. the polk family would have been particularly distressed by a series of treaties with the chickasaw and turkey nations that located the duck river valley with an indian country. forced theals and treaty boundary lines by prohibiting further speculation and forcibly relocating white families over the international border. despite the fact that many sellers possessed legitimate land claims to many land grants. polk family members recognize the damaging consequences of the federal government recognition of indian sovereignty. five years after the trip across the mountains, william polk, limited to speculators what will become of our western that -- net? is there any probability of it being any use to us? there fortune in western lands was on the verge of collapse. yet they eventually did benefit from their investment in indigenous territory. the 1790's and early 1800s, investors in native land repeatedly petitioned congress and national leaders to open territory for white settlement or repay them for the costs of locating and claiming the land. tennessee statehood in 1796 give more power to white speculators and sellers. the new congressional delegates allied with north carolinians in the house and senate to advocate for charity and took a shot secession. the federal system allowed the landowners to pressure congress for duck river valley territory. it held important charity -- cultural and economic significance for charity and chickasaw people. it was home to richard supplies of wild game. they sell these pelts and scans to traders. hunting was a deeply embedded gender practice within both nations. without the opportunity to supply game to their families, indian men would be forced to labor completely in agricultural pursuits are you work considered only fit for women. native leaders were well aware how speculators coveted their land and refused to negotiate with commissioners unless the united states offered a high price. ultimately, american officials were able to rest three subsections -- wrest three sections. only after offering large sums to both nations and disturbing bible tracts of land in special payments as inducements for the cooperation. polk attended the treaty negotiations with the cherokee nation in person. so interested in -- was he an outcome. you can see these on the map. the yellow portion of the duck river was seated -- ceded. the investment in the indigenous dispossession paid off. they benefited directly from it. samuel polk settled his wife and children, including young james, on land that had been his father's. much of the income during the early years in tennessee came as the agent to the first cousins. he could manage his tenants and sell the river land. in the words of one speculator, the polk's land claims have become active property. the economic and social benefit facilitated james k. polk's rise to political promise. -- prominence. thead experience with ideological underpinnings of colonization when he made his case for per the u.s. and aansion in our aching for five. -- expansion in 1845. the discovery of -- a troubling celebration of christopher columbus's conquest, pulled indigenous number of people's have been asked a list formation of the states. the president renumbered his family's economic gains from land session and -- cessation and helped to make it available for white settlers. the unitedted states'adherence to manifest destiny. he also embodied the american history of native american dispossession east of the mississippi river. [applause] prof. lester: thomas cohens is our third presenter. he received his phd from harvard university in 2004 and wrote his dissertation on the formation of the jackson party, 1822-1825. he received a fellowship, a harvard graduate merit fellowship and a fellowship at the american antiquarian society in support of the completion of his graduate work. an undergraduate at yale university, he was inducted into mhi alhppha kappa -- i' sorry, phi beta kappa, and he is the associate editor of andrew jackson's papers and an associate professor in the department of history. he is the author of a book manuscript titled "the forked tongue: the andrew jackson indian removal act and the betrayal of indigineous american." the title of his speech today k and the k. pol bank war." >> when james k. polk was elected speaker of the house in 1835, it was widely seen as a reward for services rendered as congressional floor leader in jackson's administration. in their war against the bank of the united states. hereafter, simply the bank. of 1833, as a member of the house ways and means committee, he offered an expose of minority report detailing bank misdeeds, and during the following session, as chairman of the committee, he skillfully outmaneuvered bank supporters and secure passage of a resolution approving andrew jackson's controversial movement of government deposits. months later, during a summer 1834 visits tennessee, jackson polkusly gushed " deserves a medal from the american people." as far as we know, he did not receive a medal. the words he rates were far more substantial. the awards he -- reapaed were far more substan and in the presidencytial,. other than exchange from the occasional letter and social visit, jackson and polk interactions before 1834 -- 1832, were limited. for an exception of a draft a road veto that was not used, polk country did nothing to policy or the passage of legislation. , before 1832, interested in the subject of banking. it would be a mistake to see his bank war services as asortunistic or passive or the result of unthinking, slavish devotion to jackson. he drew inspiration and direction from jackson. there's something misleading about the disruption of polk as ide-de-camp and the war against the bank," which implies he was just taking orders. after cementing the title of my paper, i began to regret my nameng, especially the young hickory. both of which i began to worry minimize polk's contravention to the struggle -- contribution to the struggle. i would like to highlight two facets of his bank war services that make -- make that point. during the bank war, he was much more than an obedient party functionary. i want to talk about his march 1833 report on the bank. vetoed the banks recharter in 1832, but the charter had four years left to run. as he explained in a letter to him that year, as far as old hickory was concerned, "corru ption is only staunched, not dead." jackson had been on the hunt for hard evidence that could bring them down after all. banknted to prove that the interfered in elections and five congressmen, that it placed moneymaking before public service. the house in early 1832 had conducted an exhaustive investigation of the bank. little was proven. in november 1832, jackson wrote himself a memorandum about the desirability of a renewed inquiry "whether the bank has not violated the charter, and whether its present situations not required for the safety of the government that the united states deposits be withdrawn from it." in his annual message delivered the following month, jackson accordingly expressed his concerns about the solvency of the bank and asked conference -- congress -- told congress that the safety of the deposits was "worthy of their serious investigation." when they -- when the task of investigating fell to the ways and means, jackson wrote with tips and possible sources and stressed the importance of creating a report that could "kill the bank and it supporters dead. ' over the next few months, polk pursued in unsparing in unrelenting investigation into the banks affairs. the grilled bank investors under oath, reviewing reams of the correspondence with the government. friendsately for polk, of the banks had a majority in the ways and means committee. they vouched for the banks. rather than going along with such a whitewash, he publishes on findings in a minority report that, despite only having three signatories had a profound effect on the course of the bank war. a the center of his indictment of the bank was a scandal relating to the government's 3% that and its retirement. a scandal so boring and complicated, that it is guaranteed to put you to sleep. it something that we were up to our eyeballs in unfortunately in the production of our last volume. 1832,st of it is that in the government told the bank to pay off $8.5 million at -- of 3% revolutionary stock. it was comparatively low yield any terms are such that the government can hand off or not whenever it wanted as long as it made interest payments. the jackson administration, on the verge of extinguishing the last of the national debt, wanted off the books. the bank had other ideas. comeing it didn't want to -- affect borrowers, and balked at making the payments. admitted arrangement to delay reduction for a year to make interest payments in the meantime. there was plenty questionable about this. the bank was prohibited by its charter from buying government stock, which is what it was trying to do.to make matters worse, the bank's president tried to keep the subterfuge hidden from the banks own directors and the government. healy fessed up when it was, that she was cost he only fessed up when he was caught -- he was only -- he only fessed up when he was caught. it makes no sense to voluntarily redeem stock at the percent -- 3%st when you can lend interest when you can lend the money out at five or 6%. to're better off continuing pay at 3% interest while talking about the difference you can make while investing elsewhere. polk and the bank's opponents, tried to put a negative spin on the affair, tried to make it look like the bank failed to redeem the 3% because it did not have the money, which was nonsense. the whole transaction was shady, even if you can see that the bank was solvent. banker was told to do something. they refused to do it. it engaged in simulation and evasion. jackson could not have been more pleased with the minority report. on march 1, 1833. the washington globe, the administration's newspaper organ, sang the praises of pokes documents."owerful " in a manner so clear and convincing, it must satisfy every honest man who reads it/" ." was ordered and 19 -- 1833, jackson wanted additional evidence of malfeasance, including reports of extravagant bank expenditures on pro-bank propaganda. charges to say that the so devastatingly compiled by james polk made a deposit removal of viable move for jackson. jackson had long been pining for charges against the bank that could stick. i would argue that with his minority report, he had long last had been. the timing and specific arguments jackson and his aides would make in favor of the deposit removal bear this contention. two weeks after the report, jackson queried his head about jack -- security -- deposit removal. drafts onr of early time, removal from that they draw from figures and facts drawn from his investigation. in his final paper, ordering deposit removal, we find old hickory paraphrase. the minority report . " the bank's effort to retain the public money to use for ."eir private interests he denounced it. i have two points to make about polk and the bank war. point wasand final when you look at his decisions, within the context of policy in tennessee, when you look at the behavior of many of his colleagues in the congressional delegation, many of whom bolted jackson's party during the second party over the deposit rule and his election of -- selection of van buren. when you look at his decisions within that context, you see there was nothing inevitable about his whole hog embrace of the war. in 1832, while the vote on reach was pending, a meeting attended by 100 people was held in columbia, tennessee which instructed polk to vote for charter. a national bank is of the utmost utility both to the government and the people of the united states." polk's friends tried to reassure him that the information emanated from political opponents. these were troubling signs. he was receiving letters and instructions telling them to vote against the bank. that were troubling signs gave him pause, if not second thought before he voted in july against recharter. was hise controversial 1830 means -- ways and means report. they said it had overextended its liabilities and the west, where it was lending to debtors at question. and see. -- questionable solvency. that polk would further worsen western credit. in 1833, a meeting was held at the national courthouse by margins convinced that "tennessee, as well as other parts of the west, have been mr. calumnated by the committee of house and means." polk addresses constituents in columbia to rebuff the " unparalleled efforts by the banks and friends." intuition, his gamble that these meetings were so much sound and fury. it was a sense that those in the district and support would support him. it paid off. , hisver his motives decision in 1832 to throw in his lot with jackson was the right one at least measured by the short and long-term clinical gains. -- political games. he won reelection to his congressional seat handily. he "literally demolished his opponents." the following year, he was elected speaker. as they say, the rest is history. [applause] prof. lester: our last speaker is zachary ken's love. he expects to receive his ma degree in history next month. is a docent, lecturer, exhibit fabricator and museum at the president james k. polk home and museum in columbia, tennessee. he has also served as a summer intern with the president martin van buren project. he has published two articles in slaves and entrenched, the complex life of elias polk. : martin van buren, james k. polk and the dissolution of the two-party 2019." and he has an essay forthcoming from the university of tennessee :ress titled "elias polk slavery, freedom, and the complexity of the southern race relations." the picture. research and writing to "first lady: the world of first lady sarah polk." ellison's 1962 novel "invisible man," it opens on an unnamed narrator, declaring he is a visible man area i'm a man of substance, flex and bone, fiber and liquids and i might even be said to possess a minute. i am an visible, simply because people refuse to see me. when they approach me, they see the surroundings. everything and everything except me. for all intents and purposes, elias polk is indivisible man. that struck me as on. he was a man enslaved by james polk. polk is as if elias some hidden figure that no one had ever talked about. almost every single biography of james polk features elias at some point. to truly understand who elias was, and his impact, not just any the state but nationally, we have to understand to facets of american history. we have to understand the impact of the myth of the lost cause and the impact of the dunning school on reconstruction. prior to emancipation, elias polk, there's not much known. what is written in primary sources regarding him only comes in passing from friends of james himself, there's nothing at all about elias polk in his diary. he does show up at several points in the correspondence. say we have to understand the lost cause is because, what people have written about elias polk, prior to emancipation, is for the most part, a fabrication. book ing around 1949, a says it isuthor fiction, it is based upon the life of james polk. the publication did not catch that. they repeated fiction as fact. it was made worse by another book that uses the same source. we see it repeated quite often. one of the most prevalent stories of elias polk prior to the civil war comes right after james polk was elected president in 1845. says james polk and elias were out in pennsylvania, and the wyoming valley, while touring the area, they stopped for the night the local hotel. the next morning, elias polk is horses. a group of men say, don't you know you are in a free state? you can leave if you want. sayingolk is written as him a no way, i won't go back on the president like that. according to the smith, james polk use it, offers him his freedom, and elias still turns it down. that never happened. james polk, what he is doing as president, reading his diary, we understand he is not in this part of pennsylvania at this time. when he does go to pennsylvania and his presidency, elias polk is not there. elias polk was a slave that james polk would rent out from time to time. see is elias polk is in columbia while he is in the white house. there is no proper way the story could have happened. it is one of the most repeated stories when we deal with the figure of elias polk. we do know what he is doing during the pre-emancipation years. he is basically working as james polk's valet. he was born as a slave to james's father, samuel, around 1806. they moved to the indianapolis area between springhill and columbia that same year. elias is raised on that farm. there he begins to understand the practice and power of deference. when the polk family first moved there, they are not the wealthiest people by any means. risesuickly, single polk through the social hierarchy. he becomes a wealthy individual. he is one of the first in the area to own a cotton gin. this.polk is watching he is starting to pick things up. it becomes more clear what elias polk is doing after emancipation than anything else. in 1865. war anza elias pulled is living in polk place in nashville with sarah. james polk died 11 years earlier. he quickly begins a political career. he becomes a prominent southern black conservative who aligns himself with the democratic party in the post the pants of patient period. -- post emancipation period. he is going to basically, he's going to tell them what they want to hear so they will give him something. is going to use that idea of deference that he learned as a slave person. he is 60 years old at this point. he is around 60. what option does he have? he is 60 years old. he is african-american. he is illiterate. what is he going to do? the republican party could argue all day that he could argue for a labor contract and get paid for his work. if you cannot do the labor, what are his options? politicalo take on a route. he is going to deliver addresses. in one, he says my heart beats alone when i contemplate the dangers of the country. they were enslaving white people and driving them from the ballot box. to push a is going very strong narrative forward that these extant ferrets wanted to hear. they give them -- give him things for. in 1870, he is a batch appointed as a pointer to the state senate. he is basically a janitor. they are paying him well. in 1872, the governor of tennessee specifically asks. there are extra funds left over, there try to figure out what to do with the money. they decide they're going to give everyone a raise. the -- they, the governor gives him $40. that is quite a bit in 1872. there is a reason for this. john calvin brown is not a likable guy in our history. he was one of the original founding members of the ku klux klan. why does he do this for elias pulled? -- polk? it is the kinship ties. everyone in the south is related. somehow, everyone is related. ton calvin brown is married elizabeth childers brown, the niece of sarah paulson. they knew each other. elias left the state senate to work for them in the late 1870's. when he is appointed to the same ,osition in the u.s. congress he is doing the same job for the house of representatives. it is to go to congress and say, i was appointed to congress. all of these democrats in washington get to pull them out and say, we are not so bad in the south. we are not as racist as you thought we were. we have a black eye. in reality -- black guy. -- broughtbought out out by the democrats to push the narrative they want. they're the ones who are paying. he would loose his position at the capitol building in 1881 when the republican party retook the house of representatives. he returns to tennessee and moves into polk place for a while. by the time he comes back in 1880, there's a split. f the parties said but it to raise taxes. half the party said we need to lower taxes. but what do we do with sarah polk? she owns a significant amount of war bonds. it's significant. it is a segregated condition. someone happens to notice him in the hall. in alet him speak and speech, he chastises the group, look what you are doing. you have to come together and pay the money you owe her. apparently it was a rousing speech. after he delivered the address, the party came together, the two candidates dropped out. they nominated a guy and what happens is not what always happens in the general election. the party is still split and the republicans take the state of tennessee. but he can't find work if there is a recovery -- republican government. betweena push and pull the republicans and democrats. debate theyans should get him because they are the party of emancipation, the party of all these new rights. the democrats feel we have always gotten, there is a push and pull and he is criticized quite a lot for that. presidentasked what polk would think of an african-american stumping for democracy. violent and imore will read you one that is lengthy but it is only part of it. it was delivered by t morris chester, a prominent african-american, not just nationally, but globally, the first african american to receive a law degree in the united kingdom. he is in bowling green kentucky and says i have understood in tenacious that claims this of slavery more than any other and there is a black man canvassing the state in the interest of the white man's party. may the wretch who mentioned his receive the brand of a traitor so all good men and women scorned him whenever he appears. may the church expel him as being unworthy to associate with the christian people. he goes on to compare him to a lonesome tote and a hissing viper. likedis not generally because of how he is going to try to manipulate the system to his own benefit. it wasn't all deference to the democratic party. in the 1870's, he served as vice president of the orange county mechanical association, which promoted vocational training and built schools throughout the state of tennessee. in 1873, he was on the fair committee. what is going to do there is help plan that years exposition. it was so big that two years later, frederick douglass was the keynote speaker. it is a bipartisan issue at toes but he always seems come back to the democratic party, the idea of difference. six, elias -- 1886, elias polk will be making one more trip. he is in his late 70's, early 80's, depending what year we cut his birth, but his wife is 41 years younger than he is. they make a trip to washington, d.c. and visit the local site, the white house, where he met grover cleveland. he had shook hands with every single president from john quincy adams to grover cleveland and he ends up dying before any other president but here's he will be reappointed to his position he was before the united states capital. the very night, he died. most likely, tuberculosis is the cause. he's broken. he had so much debt, that when he died, his wife had to mortgage the house and there was not enough money left to ship back to nashville. she's going to take out ads in newspapers, saying he differed to you, democrats. you're going to pay up. slavery ruined my body. you are going to help pay me. his body was brought back to nashville in 1887. the corpse was two months old. he was very in national city cemetery, where he's been. untily there unnoticed 2017, when i participated in a project with of the cemetery to give it elias and his wife and another polk person a headstone. at that little event, dr. herbert lester, who was a minister at clark memorial chapter, said something that stuck with me. he said the reason we're here today is because these people, their lives matter. they were more than property. more than property is what stuck with me more than anything else. frederick douglass said, in his address in 1873, we are no longer property, but persons. just as dr. lester said, 144 years later. douglas understood deference and how it was to involve america that advocated white supremacy and wanted african-americans as objects and not people. this whole thing i'm doing here is to try to reclaim the last polk -- elias polk's humanity. as an enslaved person, he deferred to james polk's associates to gain property enemies to survive in the south. freedom came with new servitude, for that was his choice to make. thank you. [applause] >> i want to start by thanking the presenters for keeping to this time allotted for each of them. it will leave us with time to be able to ask questions as we go on. i'm going to offer some comments on the papers. they are not extensive comments. they are just kind of the way i saw the papers as i read them and the kind of thing that pulls them together and maybe some questions you might want to ask, as well. the session title is not an accurate, but it does not suggest the deep research or potential for discussion and future research these papers have provided. the first and last papers raise interesting questions about what it means to be a polk, and who qualifies. family and the use of family names is both limited and expensive. as our first presenter demonstrated, uncovering the family tree of the 11th president of the united states proved a daunting task. lost records or no records, conflicting memory, and inaccurate reporting combined to obscure the names and origins of even the most closely connected of the president's relatives. the dna project was developed for the purpose of bringing clarity to the search, and to this historical record. as i read this paper, i wondered about james k. polk and his search for his family's past. what was his motivation in undertaking a lengthy correspondence to fill in the blanks of what was arguably his most productive. -- most productive period? had political opponents raise questions he wanted to answer? friends and kinship secured power? did he hope to expand the network, or limit access to the kinship claim? was he simply curious, or did a delineation of kinship hold special meeting? period ofthat at this time, i've come across several diaries where people are suddenly interested in understanding therir family origins. i'm wondering if this was a national interest and what that says about meritocracy and other things as people begin to try to find their lineage. are of them, i would add, looking for ancestors who participated in the american revolution. throughout the symposium, we've had of illusions to the network of political and social power. and the kinship, friendship network was an old trope, but it works in lots of things. this is what we're seeing here. we can ask, in what ways was the family tree a symbol of power? and in what ways did we satisfy curiosity? mr. kincheloe's research raises new questions about the name. elias, a man enslaved from the moment of his birth, assumed the emancipation.mong his decision followed a pattern of requisite thing and securing pages for his own desires. he understood presenting himself as elias polk would open doors that might otherwise be closed to him as a free man. as kincheloe shows us, he was able to leverage modest positions for himself in a period of uncertainty. others also saw advantage to recognize him as elias polk. as can slope hope -- as kinsler pointed out, they used el ias'continued association with the pope as living evidence that slavery was not the brutal system that they claimed it to be. were there other advantages for men and women and power to provide him with patronage positions? we generally consider patronage something specifically in terms of high-level offices in lofty positions, but elias paints a low position that others seem very interested in offering to him. so we need to ask questions about what that patronage meant and what attention has been given to low-level positions in the patronage system. lucas kelly's paper reminds us that manifest destiny is not american thought long before the mid-19th century, and provides us with a family history of colonization and power. as the first presentation showed, the movement west and south allowed the family to require -- acquire wealth and consolidate power. the acquisition of slaves in north carolina facilitated the expansion of wealth in ways that land did not. movement into tennessee and mississippi highlighted the economic reach of the family and enabled the rise of the political power of james k. polk. kelly, ifcourage mr. he's not already done so, to look back at the very migrations of the family to understand the role moving to the various frontiers in both the colonial and early national period, what that played in consolidating the power of the family and shaping familial ideas about nations and manifest destiny. of collins' presentation james k. polk in the bank at first seemed to have less in common with previous papers. however, the issues surrounding the bank war and westward expansion plays well within the discussion here. that polk was so centrally involved and that he would be so dogged in his pursuit of the bank's affairs should not surprise us, given what we now know about his family and the ongoing migration for land. and i will not go into the bank award. many a person who has lost in that and it's raining outside. we don't want to invite anything more. we won't go into details about the bank war. but i think a fruitful avenue to think about today is how that time to that other papers and how to explore polk's resistance to the report amongst his neighbors, demanding that he vote for the bank, and his perception of them. debtorsd them dependent of the bank. and that begs the question of who they are. how do they fit in the westward movement and the consolidation of power? were they, like the polks, families that arrived early and fell on hard times? or were they newcomers who found the opportunities for advancement closed? or perhaps they had a different perception of what settlement and consolidation of power entailed. and what network they were a part of at that moment in time. the migratory path of the po lk family, the role in consolidating political and economic power, the actions of james k. polk in destroying the bank of the u.s. and advocating manifest destiny indeed is not in name. and the recognition in power of the name polk by an emancipated slave are among the -- they invite us to explore the importance of kinship network in advancing economic and political power. do -- i so what we will will call on people. you will raise your hand or moved to the microphone when you have a question, and directed to any of our participants. and we have about 10 minutes to take questions. so, please. wondering, did elias polk have children and is there a legacy continued? >> not that i've seen. in fact, one of which where he said he had no children whatsoever. so i don't believe there are descendents of elias polk himself, much like james polk. would, tell us your name. >> i'm gary, i teach in north carolina. and i'm a connoisseur of the knocks. i have a question about the first polks in the county. your records are clear are about the first one. could you clarify what you know or don't know about that? >> well, to tell you the truth, i have not spent a lot of time really going into the county history and the polks be on their. because -- beyond there. because i lived in maryland, i had access to those archives and i specialized in the early colonial history. my colleague, bill polk of kansas city, an excellent genealogist of the family can probably answer that better than i can. having said that, i know that the five sons of william polk, the great-grandfather of the president, didn't all come at the same time into north carolina. in particular, his son, john, who married the daughter whose patriot evan shelby, married eleanor shelby. they stayed longer up in pennsylvania and came down later. but i think, certainly my own ancestor, thomas polk, came done quite early and was there about 1754 or 1755, i think the other brothers that time, too. william polk, we don't know where he settled or where he died. we don't know the exact date of his death. but it was probably around 1758. so that's about all i can offer on that for now. >> can i ask a second to someone else? elias, was he genetically a polk? i didn't catch anything about parentage. >> i personally don't think he is. that has never been anything to confirm or deny anything. so, we know that when samuel polk is married, his father is he guilty of sin a tract of land -- his father, ezekiel, gives him a track land -- tract of land. and when his wife's father, james knox, when he dies, in his named violet are transferred to his daughter's husband. so, samuel polk gets those two women. now, around late 1805, early 1806, we see those two women are the only two women living on the property at that time. men805, 1806, two enslaved come onto the property. 1806, elias polk is born. .e're not 100% sure >> you could say he's a native. >> you could say he was. his birth certificates all say he's from charlotte. he considered himself a north carolina native. but tennesseen, as well. >> thank you. >> other questions? >> question for mr. collins. >> can you please identify? >> excuse me, michael kelly. is it oversimplification to say that biddle's cover-up was worse than the actual scandal and that caused -- >> certainly didn't make the bank look good. if he had fessed up to the government, yeah, essentially the answer is right. much like with watergate being a third rate burglary but the real crime is what happened afterward. if he openly said to the government i prefer doing this with the money rather than -- there was still some griping that could've been done about that decision. i don't think he would've gotten away scott free, but he certainly made matters much, much worse. >> and the little i know about his controversy about the bank is that your opinion that it's shocking to think that the bank, person in charge of the bank, would think that he could disregard the direction of his primary customer just to make a little money. >> yeah, and that was essentially the scandal. -- he never did himself was an interesting guy, very reclusive about optics and the way his behavior came off to other people. and just from optics and public relations perspective, he was constantly doing things like that, that made the bank seem a lot more arbitrary and tyrannical and heavy-handed. which, it legitimately was to a certain extent, but there was this clumsiness to the way he kind of place his hands. made itd his hands, harder and harder to sustain. >> other questions? no? ok, then thank you very much. let's give a round of applause. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> from george washington to george w. bush, every sunday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern, we feature the presidency, politically series -- a weekly series exploring their legacies. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. "thespan's newest book, president's: noted historians rank the best and worst chief executives," provide insight into the lives of the 44 american presidents, true stories gathered by interviews with noted presidential historians. it's part of the life events that shaped our leaders, challenges they faced, and the legacies they left behind. order your copy today. ispan's the presidents available as hardcover or e-book at c-span.org/thepresidents. the complete guide to congress is now available. it has details about the house and senate for the current session of congress. contact and bio information about every senator and representative, and information about committees, state governors, and the cabinet. carrasco -- congressional directory is a handy, spiral-bound guide. order your copy for $18.95. sunday, june 2 at new eastern, in depth is live with senior fellow thomas from the hoover institution on the campus of stanford university. complain,time people george washington, thomas jefferson condoned slavery, slavery was there for centuries before george washington and thomas jefferson were ever born. neither of them thought the office of the presidency had any powers to do anything about it. lincoln was able to do something about it because he did so not simply as president, but as the commander in chief in a war. and what he did apply only to people and rebellion against the united states. there was no basis otherwise. >> he has written many books, including "economic facts and fallacies," race, and disparities. join your conversation with questions. watch in-depth live with thomas sole june 2 from noon to 2:00 p.m. eastern on book tv on c-span to. >> university of california irvine endless professor delivers a talk titled the politics of popular portrayals of andrew johnson's impeachment. professor thomas talks about three examples. the novel the klansmen. the 1942 hollywood film tennessee johnson. and the impeachment story, as told by senator john f. kennedy in his 1957 pulitzer prize-winning book, " profiles and courage." this is part of a two-day symposium. professorhomas is a in the english department at the university of california at irvine. i think he just took a meritless status which means he has more time to write and more time to talk and more time to educate all of us, and i am honored that he has come here again. he's come here a up

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