In the 1850s, A Mormon Renegade Started a Massive Pirate Colony in Michigan

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect’s leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king.

From this stronghold he controlled a fourth of the state of Michigan, establishing a pirate colony where he practiced plural marriage and perpetrated thefts, corruption, and frauds of all kinds. Eventually, having run afoul of powerful enemies, including the American president, Strang was assassinated, an event that was frontpage news across the country.

Today’s guest is Miles Harvey, author of “The King of Confidence.” Centering his narrative on this charlatan’s turbulent twelve years in power, Strang’s story gets into a crucial period of antebellum history and an account of one of the country’s boldest con men and the boisterous era that allowed him to thrive.

Transcript

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0:00.0	History is just a bunch of names and dates and facts.
0:15.6	It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explained how and why
0:19.3	we got here.
0:21.1	Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,
0:26.1	and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.
0:29.8	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
0:40.9	In 1843, James Strang, who was a young lawyer and a very good public speaker, and also
0:46.8	an avowed atheist, disappeared from his rural hometown in New York.
0:50.3	A few months later, he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a religious
0:54.6	movement known as Mormonism.
0:56.3	But after the murder of their leader Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter that
1:00.7	purportedly was from Joseph Smith that named him the successor, and he managed to persuade
1:05.2	hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared
1:09.5	that he was a divine king.
1:11.5	From this stronghold, he controlled an area a fourth of the size of Michigan,
1:15.5	and he established a pirate colony where he practiced plunder, plural marriage, theft, corruption,
1:20.6	and all sorts of fraud.
1:22.0	A lot of people came to him and joined his community, but he gained powerful enemies too,
1:26.9	including the president, Millard Fillmore.
1:29.1	Strang was eventually assassinated, but he was a media sensation in the period before the Civil War.
1:34.1	This episode, I'm speaking to Miles Harvey, author of the new book The King of Confidence
1:38.8	about James Strang and his movement, and he gets into what makes a con man work,
	...

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