THE JEWISH AGRICULTURAL COLONY AT COTOPAXI,COLORADO: REBALANCING THE RECORD by Miles Saltiel

Editor’s Note: In the last issue of the RMJHN, we revisited the story of the Jewish agricultural colony at Cotopaxi of 1882-1884. This challenged the conventional view which attributed its failure to the machina-tions of Emanuel Saltiel, who procured the land on which the colonists farmed and made it available to them through HEAS (the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society). In the second part of his article, Miles Saltiel, a relative of Emanuel Saltiel, turns to the colony’s legacy of bitterness which he seeks to explain in light of newly studied documents. Mr Saltiel was born in 1949 in Norfolk, England. The summer he graduated from Oxford, he drove across the United States to and happened on the story of his Colorado namesake. After a career in technology and investment banking, he retired from the capital markets in 2002. Since 1993 he has played a part in reuniting his far-flung family, the Shealtiels, whose emblematic role in the Diaspora was marked in the film which brought him back to Cotopaxi in 1997.

Following is the Appendix to the second issue of the RMJHN.

THE JEWISH AGRICULTURAL COLONY Appendix 1 Extract from the Weekly Journal “Voskhoda”, no 43, published on 23rd October ,1882 Dateline: Saint Petersburg, 22nd October 1882. Translated by Hugh Vinter.

Page 1165 (For enumeration see note 79). “…they are working very diligently and are willingly saving the known sum for the payment of the sums paid for them.”

“The colonists have also not forgotten about their spiritual food. In September a public school was opened with the cooperation of the Denver governor and courses will be set up for adults. A house of prayer has been equipped in which services are con-ducted on Friday evenings, Saturdays and festivals.” “For the first time,” said Mr Schwarz, “since man first saw the “Roky Mountain” (sic, in Latin text in original) covered in snow, golden rays of sun have fallen on the marvellous holy let-ters of Jewish prayer books and the first, thousand year old flowers are filling a Jewish chapel with their scent in the copper-bearing mountains of “Fremont County” (sic, in Latin text in original). In these mountains high under the skies there are shouts of ‘God, who led us out of Egypt, out of the land of slaves.’ ”

Elieser Maschbir (sic in Latin text in original)

New York 16th October “What’s new in America?” This question really interests our brothers in Russia. “As in the past”, we reply. The same Castle Garden, the same Greenpoint, the same Ward’s Island. As be-fore the émigrés continue to loll on the square of Castle Garden, just as in the past they eat “gushcha” (which here is called soup) in the committee kitchen on “Greenwich Street 27” (sic, in Latin text in original), just as before they continue to be distracted by scandals, which only shame our name and force every intelligent Russian Jew to blush.

Yesterday there was a terrible scandal on Ward’s Island in a new building. I call this scandal terrible because there has not been anything like this in the course of this year, the history of which is in general rich in scandals of such a sort. Almost all the peri-odic journals of New York are filled with this scandal and it has lowered the worthiness of Russian Jews in the eyes of American society. The superintendent of the committee shelter on Ward’s Island, Mr Blank, a man not much loved by immigrants, ex-cluded one immigrant by the name of Rabat. The Jews an-nounced that they would not accept this and said that if Blank wants to carry out his decision and expel Rabat then he, Blank, would be without his head (sic). Blank called the police and wanted to eject Rabat by force, but…here started a “war” con-ducted according to all the rules of the art. Jews beat the police and they took to their heels. In quarter of an hour a whole group of police appeared under the leadership of the Captain of the is-land. When these policemen seized Rabat then the fighting re-newed even worse from both sides. Jews beat Blank round the head as well as his assistant, Shottek. From their side the police injured many Jews. The fight carried on till late at night and ended with the complete victory of the Jews. No more police appeared on the island and the Captain had to telegraph New York about the sending of reinforcements to calm down the Russians. Luckily at this time two members of the committee ar-rived who ordered the police to leave and suggested to Blank and Shottek that they leave their posts immediately. Little by lit-tle the aroused immigrants began to calm down and at last by the evening the excitement subsided. What will happen next?—it’s uncertain. I spoke with many members of the committee and they all expressed great weariness at dealing with committee af-fairs.

Page 1166. To accuse the mass of people with all these scandals would be an unforgivable mistake. The mass of people is unhappy, is suf-fering and does not know how to escape from this critical posi-tion. Some dark personalities are using the unhappiness of the masses. One such person earlier was a certain Kelman. This man was always hoping that the committee would want to separate from him and would send him to Russia. When he saw that the committee was not even noticing him, that the masses were turning away and no longer wished to listen to his false assur-ances, being convinced that scandals lead nowhere and only worsen their position, then he gathered some dollars from pau-per immigrants and sadly went off to Russia. The agitator in the last scandal was the editor of one New York based Jewish newspaper, Mr Brun, a well known cheat and scandalmonger, whom they will not let into polite society here. The “Russian-Jewish” question seemed a good way for this man to correct his faltering business. He often appeared amongst the masses, urg-ing them to make scandals and to chose him as their agent and then “in one month he would collect the donations and look af-ter all the Jewish immigrants”. Of course one part of the Russian Jews turned away from this man knowing that for him it is just, as they say in America, “bisdnes machen” (sic, in Latin text in original) but the masses remain the masses…

Soon there will appear the first Russian-Jewish newspaper “Der Russische Israelit” (sic, in Latin text in original). This will be a popular organ for Russian Jews in America. The newspaper will be daily in a popular format. From Oregon, the first Odessa group writes that they have all found work and several members of have gone off in search of suitable plots of land. From Dakota, the Kremenchug party writes that that construc-tion of houses is moving forward, the next group is hoping to come by spring – there are only 6 at the moment.

From Cotopaxi, they write that the colonists are fully provided for the winter; the governor is thinking of establishing a special school for the children of the colonists at government expense. From Louisiana, they inform us that the 12 remaining families are completely happy with their lot. They have had a good har-vest, have got used to the climate and lack for nothing. They criticise their erstwhile comrades for the haste with which they left the colony.

The committee has agreed to the conditions of the European committee. They are as follows: the New York committee, the “Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society” (sic, in Latin text in original) undertakes not to send any immigrant back to Europe for which the European committee is giving New York $50,000. At first many members of the New York committee did not agree to these conditions, but now this question has been resolved at a meeting in a supportive manner. Today in the evening there will be a meeting of the members of the committee. It will discuss the question – how to provide lodgings for the immigrants for the winter. I will not hesitate to inform you of the resolution of this question. S.S.

Fragment at bottom of page 1166 untranslated.