Albert pike biography freemasonry history

Albert Pike , the leading American Masonic scholar of the nineteenth century, was born on December 20, , in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of an alcoholic father and a mother who tried to push him into the ministry. In he was sent to live with his uncle, who discovered that Pike had a photographic memory and was able to recall large volumes at will.

He soon mastered several languages and passed his entrance exams for Harvard. Unable to afford tuition, he taught school at Gloucester. A free spirit, in he moved to New Mexico and joined several exploration expeditions. He finally settled in Fort Smith , Arkansas, in and taught school for a year while he studied law. He opened his practice in He enjoyed some degree of prestige and in the s became politically active.

Albert pike children

He organized the Know-Nothing Party Order of United Americans , a reactionary political movement opposed to foreigners, and came to see the continuance of slavery as better for the country than farmers importing foreign laborers. At the same time he was pro-Indian, and as the representative of several tribes of Native Americans before the government, won some large settlements.

He eventually was named a brigadier general and he organized several regiments from the Arkansas tribes. Unfortunately, some of his soldiers mutilated Union soldiers in a battle in