Frederick Russell Burnham

Frederick Russell Burnham
Nickname(s)	The King of Scouts; He-who-sees-in-the-dark
Born	(1861-05-11)May 11, 1861 Tivoli, Minnesota (Sioux Indian territory; near Mankato, Minnesota)
Died	September 1, 1947(1947-09-01) (aged 86) Santa Barbara, California
Buried	Three Rivers, California 36.42180°N 118.90470°W / 36.42180; -118.90470
Allegiance	Scout for the British Army in Southern Africa; U.S. citizen.
Years of service	1893–1897 1900–1901
Rank	Major
Commands	Chief of Scouts under Lord Roberts
Battles / wars	Pleasant Valley War Indian Wars – Apache Wars – Geronimo campaign First Matabele War – Shangani Patrol Second Matabele War Second Boer War
Awards	Distinguished Service Order Boy Scouts Silver Buffalo Award
Spouse(s)	Blanche Blick Ilo Willetts
Relations	Rev. Edwin Burnham, (father) Howard Burnham, (brother) Charles Edward Russell, (first cousin) Russell Adam Burnham, (great-grandson)
Other work	Messenger, Indian tracker, gold miner, wealthy oil man, American spy. Father of the international Scouting movement, Honorary President of the Boy Scouts of America.

Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world traveling adventurer known for his service to the British Army in colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell, becoming one of the inspirations for the founding of the international Scouting Movement.

Burnham had little formal education, attending high school but never graduating. He began his career at 14 in the American Southwest as a scout and he served as a civilian tracker for the U.S. Army in the Apache Wars. Sensing the Old West was getting too tame, as an adult Burnham went to Africa where his background proved useful. He soon became an officer in the British Army, serving in several battles there. During this time, Burnham became friends with Baden-Powell, and passed on to him both his outdoor skills and his spirit for what would later become known as Scouting.

Burnham eventually moved on to become involved in espionage, oil, conservation, writing and business. His descendants are still active in the Scout Movement.

Early life

Frederick Burnham in Arizona Territory during 1881.

Burnham was born to a missionary family on an Indian reservation in Tivoli, Minnesota. His father Rev. Edwin Otway Burnham was from Kentucky whilst his mother had immigrated to America from England. During the Dakota War of 1862, New Ulm, Minnesota was attacked by Taoyateduta (Little Crow) and his Sioux warriors. Burnham's mother, Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham, hid him outside in the corn field in a basket of green corn husks and fled for her life. Once the Sioux had been driven away the mother returned to find the house burned down. Her young son was safe, fast asleep in the basket and protected only by the corn husks.

The young Burnham attended schools in Iowa and there he met Blanche Blick, who would later become his wife. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1870. Two years later his father died. Reverend Burnham had long been a pioneer and missionary along the border of the Ho Chunk (Winnebago) Indian reservation in Minnesota. While his mother and his then 3 year old younger brother Howard returned to Iowa, the 12-year old Burnham stayed in California to make his own way.

For the next three years, Burnham worked as a mounted messenger for the Western Union Telegraph Company in California and Arizona Territory. On one occasion his horse was stolen from him by Tiburcio Vásquez, a famous Californio bandit. At 14, he began his life as a scout and Indian tracker in the Apache Wars. He traveled in northern Mexico and the American Southwest, including Texas and Oklahoma Territory, earning a living as a buffalo hunter, cowboy, and prospector, and he continued working as a scout. The young Burnham eventually went on to attend high school in California but never graduated. Active as a Freemason, Burnham was a member of Excelsior Lodge No. 195. He rose to become a Thirty-second Degree Mason of the Scottish Rite.

In 1882, Burnham returned to Arizona and was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Pinal County, but he soon went back to herding cattle and prospecting. He joined the losing side of the Tonto Basin Feud before mass killing started, and only narrowly escaped death in Arizona. He returned to Prescott, Iowa, to visit his childhood sweetheart, Blanche, and the two were married on February 6, 1884. That same year, he and Blanche settled down to tend to an orange grove in Pasadena, California, but within a year he was back prospecting and scouting.

In the 1880s the American press had been popularizing the notion that the West had been won and there was nothing left to conquer in the United States. This idea changed Burnham's life. As a soldier of fortune, he began to look elsewhere for the next undeveloped frontier. When he heard of the work of Cecil Rhodes and his pioneers in building the Cape to Cairo Railway in Africa, Burnham sold what little he owned and, in 1893, set sail to Durban, South Africa with his wife and young son.

Military career

Burnham in Africa (middle) holding his Remington Model 1875 No. 3 Army in .44WCF rifle

First Matabele War

Further information: First Matabele War

Burnham's was first major test in Africa came in 1893. The First Matabele War was fought between 1893 and 1894 in the country today called Zimbabwe. It pitted the [[British South Africa Company]] against Ndebele King Lobengula. Burnham, his wife, and their six-year-old son had only just arrived in South Africa and were treking 1,000 miles (1609 km) North with an American buckboard and six burros on their way to Matabeleland (now part of Zimbabwe) when news of the war broke. Upon their arrival in Matabeleland, Burnham immediately signed up as a scout with the British South Africa company and joined the fighting. Leander Starr Jameson, Chief Magistrate of Mashonaland (now part of Zimbabwe), had hoped to defeat the Ndebele quickly by capturing Lobengula at his royal city of Bulawayo. Jameson sent Burnham and a small group of scouts ahead to report on the situation in Bulawayo. While on the outskirts of town they watched as the Ndebele burned down and destroyed everything in sight. By the time the Company's troops had arrived in force, Lobengula and his warriors had fled and there was little left of old Bulawayo. The Company then moved into the remains of Bulawayo, established a base, and sent out patrols to find Lobengula. The most famous of these patrols was the Shangani Patrol led by Maj. Allan Wilson and the man he chose as his Chief of Scouts, Fred Burnham.

Shangani Patrol

Further information: Shangani Patrol

After he found that Bulawayo had been abandoned, Jameson dispatched a column of soldiers to locate and capture Lobengula. The column, led by Maj. Patrick Forbes, camped on the south bank of the Shangani River about 25 miles (40 km) north-east of the village of Lupane on the evening of December 3, 1893. The next day, late in the afternoon, a dozen men under the command of Maj. Wilson were sent across the river to patrol the area. The Wilson Patrol came across a group of Matabele women and children who claimed to know Lobengula's whereabouts. Burnham, who served as the lead scout of the Wilson patrol, sensed a trap and advised Wilson to withdraw, but Wilson ordered his patrol to advance.

Soon afterwards, the patrol found the king and Wilson sent a message back to the laager requesting reinforcements. Forbes, however, was unwilling to set off across the river in the dark, so he sent only 20 more men, under the command of Henry Borrow, to reinforce Wilson's patrol. Forbes intended to send the main body of troops and artillery across the river the following morning; however, the main column was ambushed by Matabele warriors and delayed. Wilson's patrol too came under attack, but the Shangani River had swollen and there was now no possibility of retreat. In desperation, Wilson sent Burnham and two other scouts, Pearl "Pete" Ingram (a Montana cowboy) and William Gooding (an Australian), to cross the Shangani River, find Forbes, and bring reinforcements. In spite of a shower of bullets and spears, the three made it to Forbes, but the battle raging there was just as intense as the one they had left, and there was no hope of anyone reaching Wilson in time. As Burnham loaded his rifle to beat back the Matabele warriors, he quietly said to Forbes, "I think I may say that we are the sole survivors of that party." Wilson, Borrow, and their men were indeed surrounded by hundreds of Matabele warriors; escape was impossible, and all were killed.

Colonial-era histories called this the Shangani Patrol, and hailed Wilson and Borrow as national heroes. For his service in the war, Burnham was presented the British South Africa Company Medal, a gold watch, and a share of a 300 acre (120 ha) tract of land in Matabeleland. It was here that Burnham uncovered many artifacts in the huge granite ruins of the ancient civilization of Great Zimbabwe.

Northern Rhodesia Exploration

In 1895, Burnham went on to oversee and lead the Northern Territories (BSA) Exploration Co. expedition which first established for the British South Africa Company that major copper deposits existed in North-Eastern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Along the Kafue River in then North-Eastern Rhodesia, Burnham saw many similarities to copper deposits he had worked in the United States, and he encountered native peoples wearing copper bracelets. His expeditions in Rhodesia were so important that the Royal Geographical Society elected him a Fellow. Later, the British South Africa Company built the mining towns of the Copperbelt and a railroad to transport the ore through Mozambique.

Second Matabele War

Drawing by Frank Dadd. R.I.: "Burnham & Armstrong after the assassination of Mlimo. Matabele warriors in hot pursuit."

Further information: Second Matabele War

In March 1896, the Matabele again revolted against the authority of the British South Africa Company in what was then called the Second Matabele War but is now celebrated in Zimbabwe as the First War of Independence. Mlimo, the Matabele spiritual leader, is credited with fomenting much of the anger that led to this confrontation. Matabeleland defenses were in disarray due to the ill-fated Jameson Raid, and in the first few months of the war alone hundreds of white settlers were killed. With few troops to support them, the settlers quickly built a laager in the centre of Bulawayo on their own and mounted patrols under such figures as Burnham, Baden-Powell, and Selous. The Matabele retreated into their stronghold of the Matobo Hills near Bulawayo, a region that became the scene of the fiercest fighting against the white settler patrols. It was also during this war that two scouts of very different backgrounds, Burnham and Baden-Powell, would first meet and discuss ideas for training youth that would eventually become the plan for the program and the code of honor for the boy scouts.

Assassination of Mlimo

The turning point in the war came when Burnham and Bonar Armstrong, the native commissioner for the British, found their way through Matobo Hills to the sacred cave where Mlimo had been hiding. Not far from the cave was a village of about 100 huts filled with many warriors. The two men tethered their horses to a thicket and crawled on their bellies, screening their slow, cautious movements by means of branches held before them. Once inside the cave, they waited until Mlimo entered. Mlimo was said to be about 60 years old, with very dark skin, sharp-featured; American news reports of the time described him as having a cruel, crafty look. Burnham and Armstrong waited until Mlimo entered the cave and started his dance of immunity, at which point Burnham shot Mlimo just below the heart.

Burnham is the finest scout who ever scouted in Africa. He was my Chief of Scouts in '96 in Matabeleland and he was the eyes and ears of my force.

—Gen. Carrington, British Army commander during the Second Matabele War.

The two men then leapt over the dead Mlimo and ran down a trail toward their horses. Hundreds of warriors, encamped nearby, picked up their arms and searched for the attackers. To distract the Matabele, Burnham set fire to the village. The two men got on their horses and rode back to Bulawayo. Shortly after learning of the assassination of Mlimo, Cecil Rhodes boldly walked unarmed into the Ndebele stronghold in Matobo Hills and persuaded the impi to lay down their arms, thus ending the Second Matabele War.

Klondike Gold Rush

With the Matabele war over, Burnham decided it was time to leave Africa and move on to other adventures. The family returned to California where Burnham left his wife and young son Bruce with his mother. Soon after, he and his eldest son Roderick, then 12 years old, traveled to Alaska and the Yukon to prospect in the Klondike Gold Rush. Upon hearing of the Spanish-American War, Burnham rushed home to volunteer his services, but before he could get to the fighting the war was already over. Burnham then returned to the Klondike. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt regretted this as much as Burnham and paid him a great tribute in his book.

Second Boer War

Burnham after his investiture with the cross of the Distinguished Service Order by King Edward VII. The black armband was worn in mourning for the recent death of Queen Victoria. London, 1901.

Further information: Second Boer War

The Second Boer War was fought between the British and two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State over long-simmering strife between them and which side would control the very lucrative Witwatersrand gold mines. Field Marshal Roberts was appointed to take overall command of British forces in response to a string of defeats in the early weeks of the war, including the Siege of Mafeking in which Baden-Powell, his small regiment of men, and the townspeople had been besieged by thousands of Boer troops since the start of the war. Roberts asked Gen. Carrington, the former commander of the British forces in Matabeleland during the Second Matabele War, who he should appoint as his Chief of Scouts. Carrington, who three years earlier selected Baden-Powell for his Chief of Staff and gave the order to capture or shoot the Mlimo, replied: "Fred Burnham. Burnham is the finest scout who ever scouted in Africa ... I am told he went to the Yukon in Canada in '97". Only days after he arrived in South Africa on the RMS Dunottar Castle to relieve Gen. Redvers Buller, Roberts contacted Burnham. In January 1900, while prospecting near Skagway, Alaska, Burnham received the following telegram: Lord Roberts appoints you on his personal staff as Chief of Scouts. If you accept, come at once the quickest way possible. Although [[Cape Town, South Africa]] is at the opposite end of the globe from the Klondike, he left within the hour. In a step that was unusual for a foreigner, Burnham was given a command post by Lord Roberts and the rank of British Army captain. Burnham would arrive at the front just before the Battle of Paardeberg. During the war, Burnham spent much time behind the Boer lines gathering information and blowing up railway bridges and tracks. He was twice captured and twice escaped, but he was also disabled for a time by his near-fatal wounds.

Burnham was first captured during the fighting at Sanna's Post in the Orange Free State. He gave himself up in order to obtain information on the enemy, which he did, and then he escaped from his guards and succeed in reaching British occupied Bloemfontein safely after two days and nights on the run. The second time he was captured was while trying to warn a British column approaching Thaba' Nchu. He came upon a group of Boers hiding on the banks of the river, toward which the British were even then advancing. Cut off from his own side, Burnham chose to signal the approaching soldiers even though it would expose him to capture. With a red kerchief, Burnham signaled the soldiers to turn back, but the column paid no attention and plodded steadily on into the ambush, while Burnham was at once taken prisoner. In the fight that followed, Burnham pretended to receive a wound in the knee. Limping heavily and groaning with pain, he was placed in a wagon with the officers who really were wounded, and who, in consequence, were not closely guarded. Later that evening, Burnham slipped over the driver's seat, dropped between the two wheels of the wagon, lowered himself and fell between the legs of the oxen on his back in the road. In an instant the wagon had passed over him safely, and while the dust still hung above the trail he rolled rapidly over into the ditch at the side of the road and lay motionless. It was four days before he was able to re-enter the British lines, during which time he had been lying in the open veldt. He had subsisted on one biscuit and two handfuls of "mealies" (i.e., maize).

I take this opportunity of thanking you for the valuable services you have rendered since you joined my headquarters at Paardeberg last February. I doubt if any other man in the force could have successfully carried out the thrilling enterprises in demanding as they did the training of a lifetime, combined with exceptional courage, caution, and powers of endurance.

— Lord Roberts, Commander of all British troops fighting in the Second Boer War (1900).

On June 2, 1900, during the British March on Pretoria, Burnham was wounded, almost fatally. He was on a mission to cut-off the flow of Boer gold and supplies to and from the sea and to halt the transportation of British prisoners of war out of the Pretoria. He had been scouting alone far to the east behind enemy lines trying to identify the best choke point along the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway line. He came upon an underpass of a railway bridge, an ideal location to disrupt the trains, but was immediately surrounded by a party of Boers. Burnham instantly fled and he had all but gotten away when his horse was shot and fell, knocking him senseless and pinning him under its dead body. It was night and he was already far away when his horse was shot, so the Boer troopers apparently did not check to see if Burnham had been injured or killed. When he awoke hours later, Burnham was alone and in a dazed state having sustained serious injuries. In spite of his acute agony, Burnham proceeded to creep back to the railway, placed his charges, and blew up the line in two places. He then crept on his hands and knees to an empty animal enclosure to avoid capture and stayed there for two days and nights insensible. The next day, Burnham heard fighting in the distance so he crawled in that direction. By this time he was indifferent as to the source of the gunshots and by chance it was a British patrol that found him. Once in Pretoria the surgeons discovered that Burnham had torn apart his stomach muscles and burst a blood-vessel. His very survival was due only to the fact that he had been without food or water for three days.

Returning from the Boer War on the RMS Dunottar Castle, July 1900.Standing L-R: Sir Byron Leighton, Claud Grenfel, Major Burnham, Captain Gordon Forbes, Abe Bailey (his son John would marry Diana Churchill in 1932), next two unidentified, Lord John Weston Brooke. Seated L-R: Major Bobby White, Lord Downe, General Sir Henry Edward Colville (a year later Churchill as MP would demand an enquiry over his dismissal from South Africa), Major Harry White, Major Joe Laycock, Winston Churchill, Sir Charles Bentinck. Sitting L-R: unidentified, Col. Maurice Gifford.

Burnham's injuries were so serious that he was ordered to England by Lord Roberts. Two days before leaving for London, he was promoted to the rank of major, having received letters of commendation or congratulations from Baden-Powell, Rhodes, and Field Marshal Roberts. On his arrival in England, Burnham was commanded to dine with Queen Victoria and to spend the night at Osborne House. A few months later, after the Queen's death, King Edward VII personally presented Burnham with the Queen's South Africa Medal with four bars for the battles at Driefontein (Mar 10, 1900), Johannesburg (May 31, 1900), Paardeberg (February 17–26, 1900), and Cape Colony (October 11, 1899 – May 31, 1902), in addition to the cross of the Distinguished Service Order,| the second highest decoration in the British Army, for his heroism during the "victorious" March to Pretoria (June 2–5, 1900). Burnham received the highest awards of any American who served in the Second Boer War. Following his investiture, the British press hailed Burnham as: "The King of Army Scouts".

Burnham's most accomplished soldiers during the Second Boer War were Lovat Scouts, a Scottish Highland regiment, whom he described as "half wolf and half jackrabbit." These scouts were well practiced in the arts of marksmanship, field craft, and tactics. After the war, this regiment went on to become the British army's first sniper unit.

"Father of Scouting"

Burnham (standing) & Baden-Powell (right) at a Boy Scout event, ca. 1910

Frederick Russell Burnham: Explorer, discoverer, cowboy, and Scout. Native American, he served as chief of scouts in the Boer War, an intimate friend of Lord Baden-Powell. It was on some of his exploits demanding great courage, alertness, skill in surmounting the perils of the out-of-doors, that the founder of Scouting based some of the activities of the Boy Scout program. As an honorary Scout of the Boy Scouts of America, he has served as an inspiration to the youth of the Nation and is the embodiment of the qualities of the ideal Scout.

— 27th Annual Report of the Boy Scouts of America (1936).

Burnham was already a celebrated scout when he first befriended Baden-Powell during the Second Matabele War, but the backgrounds of these two scouts was as strange a contrast as it is possible to imagine. From his youth on the open plains, Burnham's earliest playmates were Sioux Indian boys and their ambitions pointed to excelling in the lore and arts of the trail and together they dreamed of some day becoming great scouts. When Burnham was a teenager he supported himself by hunting game and making long rides for Western Union through the California deserts, his early mentors were wise old scouts of the American West, and by nineteen he was a seasoned scout chasing and being chased by Apache. The British scout he would later befriend and serve with in Matabeleland, Baden-Powell, was born in urban London and had graduated from Charterhouse, one of its most famous preparatory schools. At nineteen, Baden-Powell passed an exam that gave him an immediate commission in the Army, only it would take several years before he was engaged in any active service. Even so, from a young age Baden-Powell developed the ambition to become a scout and when these two men met in 1896, Baden-Powell was an Army intelligence officer and a brilliant outdoorsman who had previously organized a small scouting section in his regiment, had written his book Reconnaissance and Scouting, and had served in India, Afghanistan, Natal, and Ashanti, and Burnham was Gen. Carrington's Chief of Scouts.

During the siege of Bulawayo, these two men rode many times into the Matobo Hills on patrol, and it was in these African hills that Burnham first introduced Baden-Powell to the ways and methods of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and taught him woodcraft (better known today as scoutcraft). Baden-Powell had written at length about reconnaissance and tracking, but from Burnham he learned many new dimensions such as how to travel in wild country without either a compass or map, how to discover nearby dangers by observing animals, and the many techniques for finding potable water. So impressed was Baden-Powell by Burnham's Scouting spirit that he fondly told people he "sucked him dry" of all he could possibly tell. It was also here that Baden-Powell began to wear his signature Stetson campaign hat and neckerchief, like those worn by Burnham, for the first time. Both men recognized that wars were changing markedly and the British Army needed to adapt; so during their joint scouting missions, Baden-Powell and Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training program in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self-reliance. In Africa, no scout embodied these traits more than Burnham. In his first scouting handbook, Aids to Scouting, Baden-Powell published many of the lessons he learned from Burnham about scouting and this book was later used by boys' groups as a guide to outdoor fun. At the urging of several youth leaders, Baden-Powell decided to adapt his scouting handbook specifically to training boys. While Baden-Powell went on to refine the concept of Scouting, publish Scouting for Boys, and become the founder of the international Scouting movement, Burnham has been called the movement's father. James E. West, Chief Scout Executive for the Boy Scouts of America, summarized Burnham's relevance to Scouting thusly: There is an especial significance for those of us in Scouting in this man's list, for he was engaged for this work by Lord Baden Powell, who was then connected with the British Army in Africa, and who had unbounded admiration for the scouting methods of Frederick Burnham. So these two pioneers, each of whom was to have such immeasurable influence in restoring the old traditions of American youth, met in Africa, years before the Scouting movement was ever thought of.

Burnham is the sufficient and heroic figure, model and living example, who inspired and gave Baden-Powell the plan for the program and the code of honor of Scouting for Boys.

— E.B. DeGroot, BSA Executive (1944).

Park service trail connecting Mt. Burnham to Mt. Baden-Powell

Burnham later became close friends with others involved in the Scouting movement in the United States, such as Theodore Roosevelt, the Chief Scout Citizen, and Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Scout Forester. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) made Burnham an Honorary Scout in 1927, and for his noteworthy and extraordinary service to the Scouting movement, Burnham was bestowed the highest commendation given by the Boy Scouts of America, the Silver Buffalo Award, in 1936. Throughout his life he remained active in Scouting at both the regional and the national level in the United States and he corresponded regularly with Baden-Powell on Scouting topics.

The low-key Burnham and Baden-Powell remained close friends for their long lives. The seal on the Burnham — Baden-Powell letters at Yale and Stanford expired in 2000 and the true depth of their friendship and love of Scouting has again been revealed. In 1931, Burnham read the speech dedicating Mount Baden-Powell in California, to his old Scouting friend. Their friendship, and equal status in the world of Scouting and conservation, is honored with the dedication of the adjoining peak, Mount Burnham, in his honor.

Burnham's descendants followed in his footsteps and are active in Scouting and in the military. His son Roderick enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in World War I France. His grandson, Frederick Russell Burnham II, was a leader in the BSA and a Vietnam War veteran. His great-grandson, Russell Adam Burnham is an Eagle Scout and was United States Army's Soldier of the Year in 2003.

Later in life

Fred and Rod Burnham ca. 1930

Post war

After recovering from his wounds, Burnham served as the London office manager for the Wa Syndicate. In 1901, while still employed by the Wa Syndicate, he left London to lead an expedition through Ghana and Upper Volta to look for minerals and ways to improve river navigation in the region. In 1902–1904, Burnham was employed by the East Africa Syndicate and was sent to the East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya). He led a vast mineral prospecting expedition which traveled extensively in the area around Lake Rudolph (now Lake Turkana) and he discovered a massive soda lake.

Mexico

The Esperanza Stone. Found by Major Frederick Russell Burnham in Mexico (1910)

Burnham returned to North America and for the next few years became associated with the Yaqui River irrigation project in Mexico. While investigating the Yaqui valley for mineral and agricultural resources, Burnham reasoned that a dam could provide year-round water to rich alluvial soil in the valley; turning the region into one of the garden spots of the world and generate much needed electricity. He purchased water rights and some 300 acres (1.2 km²) of land in this region and contacted an old friend from Africa, John Hays Hammond, who conducted his own studies and then purchased an additional 900,000 acres (3,600 km²) of this land—an area the size of Rhode Island. Burnham together with Charles Frederick Holder, in 1908, made important archeological discoveries of Mayan civilization in this region, including the Esperanza Stone. He became a close business associate of Hammond and led a team of 500 men in guarding mining properties owned by Hammond, J. P. Morgan, and the Guggenheims in the Mexican state of Sonora. Just as the irrigation and mining projects were nearing completion in 1912, a long series of Mexican revolutions began. The final blow to these efforts came in 1917 when Mexico passed laws prohibiting the sale of land to foreigners. Burnham and Hammond carried their properties until 1930 and then sold them to the Mexican government.

Espionage

To my friendly enemy, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the greatest scout of the world, whose eyes were that of an Empire. I once craved the honour of killing him, but failing that, I extend my heartiest admiration.

— Fritz Joubert Duquesne, 1933, One warrior to another.

During World War I, Burnham was living in California and was active in counterespionage for Britain. Much of it involved a famous Boer spy, Capt. Fritz Joubert Duquesne, who became a German spy in both World Wars and claimed to have killed Field Marshal Kitchener while en route to meet with the Russians. During the Second Boer War, Burnham and Duquesne were each under orders to assassinate the other, but it was not until 1910 that the two men first met while both were in Washington, D.C., separately lobbying Congress to pass a bill in favor of the importation of African game animals into the United States (H.R. 23621). Duquesne was twice arrested by the FBI and in 1942 he, along with the 32 other Nazi agents who made up the Duquesne Spy Ring, was sent to prison for espionage in the largest spy ring conviction in U.S. history.

I know Burnham. He is a scout and a hunter of courage and ability, a man totally without fear, a sure shot, and a fighter. He is the ideal scout, and when enlisted in the military service of any country he is bound to be of the greatest benefit.

— President Theodore Roosevelt, 1901.

During this period, Burnham was one of the eighteen officers selected by former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt to raise a volunteer infantry division for service in France in 1917 shortly after the United States entered the war. A plan to raise volunteer soldiers from the Western U.S. came out of a meeting of the New York based Rocky Mountain Club and Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment from the Southwest. Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise up to four divisions similar to the Rough Riders of 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment and to the British Army 25th (Frontiersmen) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers; however, as Commander-in-chief, President Woodrow Wilson refused to make use of Roosevelt's volunteers and the unit disbanded.

Oil wealth

Although Burnham had lived all over the world, he never had a great deal of wealth to show for his efforts. It was not until he returned to California, the place of his youth, that he struck it rich. In 1923, Burnham struck oil at Dominguez Hill, California. In the first 10 years of operation, the Burnham Exploration Company paid out $10.2 million in dividends.

Conservation

Celebrating his 80th birthday with Boy Scouts, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, 1941.

An avid conservationist and hunter, Burnham supported the early conservation programs of his friends Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. He and his associate John Hayes Hammond led novel game expeditions to Africa with the goal of finding large animals such as Giant Eland, hippopotamus, zebra, and various bird species that might be bred in the United States and become game for future American sportsmen. Burnham, Hammond, and Duquesne appeared several times before the House Committee on Agriculture to ask for help in importing large African animals. In 1914, he helped establish the Wild Life Protective League of American, Department of Southern California, and served as its first Secretary.

In his later years, Burnham filled various public offices and also served as a member of the Boone and Crockett Club of New York, and as a founding member of the American Committee for International Wildlife Protection (now a committee of the World Conservation Union). He was one of the original members of the first California State Parks Commission serving from 1927 to 1934,, a founding member of the Save-the-Redwoods League, president of the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles from 1938 until 1940, and he served as both the Honorary President of the Arizona Boy Scouts and as a regional executive for the BSA throughout the 1940s until his death in 1947.

In 1936, Burnham enlisted the Arizona Boy Scouts in a campaign to save the Desert Bighorn Sheep from probable extinction. Several other prominent Arizonans and environmental groups joined the movement and a "save the bighorns" poster contest was started in schools throughout the state. Burnham provided prizes and appeared in store windows from one end of Arizona to the other. The contest-winning bighorn emblem was made into neckerchief slides for the 10,000 Boy Scouts, and talks and dramatizations were given at school assemblies and on radio. On January 18, 1939, over 1.5 million acres (6,100 km2) were set aside in Arizona to establish the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and Burnham gave the dedication speech.

Personal life

At 5 ft 4 in (1.62 m), Burnham was slight, but he was also muscular and bronzed, with a finely formed square jaw. He had a boyish appearance which he used to his advantage on numerous occasions. His most noticeable feature was his steady, grey-blue eyes. Contemporary reports had it that Burnham's gaze appeared to never leave those of the person he was looking at, and yet somehow could simultaneously monitor all the details of the physical surroundings. It was also said that Burnham's eyes possessed a far-away look such as those acquired by people whose occupation has caused them to watch continually at sea or on great plains.

Burnham would not smoke and seldom drank alcohol, fearing these habits would injure the acuteness of his sense of smell. He found ways to train himself in mental patience, took power naps instead of indulging in periods of long sleep, and drank very little liquid. He trained himself to accept these abstinences in order to endure the most appalling fatigues, hunger, thirst, and wounds, so that when scouting or traveling where there was no water, he might still be able to exist. On more than one occasion he survived in environments where others would have died, or were in fact dying, of exhaustion. To him scouting was as exact a study as is the piano, and it was said that he could read the face of nature as easily as most could read their morning newspaper. He was quiet-mannered and courteous, according to contemporaries. Their reports describe a man who was neither shy nor self-conscious, who was extremely modest, and who seldom spoke of his many adventures.

Burnham died when he was 86 on September 1, 1947 of heart failure at his home in Santa Barbara, California. At a private ceremony he was buried at Three Rivers, California, near his old cattle ranch, La Cuesta. His memorial stone was designed by his only surviving child, Roderick. Also buried at Three Rivers cemetery are his first wife, Blanche Blick Burnham, several members of the Blick family who had also pioneered in 19th century Rhodesia with Burnham for a time, his son Roderick, his granddaughter Martha Burnham Burleigh, and the Montana cowboy "Pete" Ingram who survived the Shangani Patrol massacre along with Burnham.

Family

Blanche Blick Burnham in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, 1896

Burnham's wife of 55 years, Blanche Blick Burnham (February 25, 1862 – December 22, 1939) of Nevada, Iowa, accompanied him in very primitive conditions through many travels in both the Southwest United States and Southern Africa. Together they had three children, all of whom spent their early youth in Africa. In the early years, she watched over the children and the pack animals, always careful to keep a rifle within arms length. In the dark of night, she used her rifle many times against lions and hyena and, during the Siege of Bulawayo, against Ndebele warriors. Several members of the Blick family joined the Burnhams in Rhodesia, moved with them to England, and returned to the United States with the Burnhams to live near Three Rivers, California. When Burnham Exploration Company struck it rich in 1923, the Burnhams moved to a mansion in a new housing development then known as Hollywoodland (a name later shortened to "Hollywood") and took many trips around the world in high style. In 1939, Blanche suffered a stroke. She died a month later and was buried in the Three Rivers Cemetery.

Rod Burnham, 1921

Burnham's first son, Roderick (August 22, 1886 – July 2, 1976), was born in Pasadena, California, but accompanied the family to Africa and learned the Northern Ndebele language. He went to boarding school in France in 1895, and then to a military school in England the following year. In 1898, he went to Skagway, Alaska with his father, and returned to Pasadena the next year. In 1904, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, joined the football team, but left Berkeley after a dispute with his coach. In 1905–08, he went to the University of Arizona, joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, played the position of running back, and became the captain of the football team. He attended the Michigan School of Mines (now Michigan Technological University) in 1910, became a geologist, and worked for Union Oil as Manager of Lands and Foreign Exploration helping to develop the first wells in Mexico and Venezuela. He took time off from his job to serve in the U.S. Army in World War I and fought in France. He and his father became minority owners of the Burnham Exploration Company, incorporated in 1919 by Harris Hays Hammond (the son of John Hays Hammond, Sr). In 1930, he and Paramount Pictures founder W. W. Hodkinson started the Central American Aviation Corporation, the first airline in Guatemala.

Dedication

To the Memory of the Child: Nada Burnham, who "bound all to her" and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwayo on 19 May 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death.

— H. Rider Haggard, from his book: The Wizard (1896)

Nada (May 1894 – May 19, 1896), Burnham's daughter who was the first white child born in Bulawayo, died of fever and starvation during the Siege of Bulawayo. She was buried three days later in the Pioneer Cemetery, plot No. 144, in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Nada is the Zulu word for lily and she was named after the heroine in Sir H. Rider Haggard's Zulu tale, Nada the Lily (1892). Three of Haggard's books are dedicated to Burnham's daughter, Nada: The Wizard (1896), Elissa: The Doom of Zimbabwe (1899), and Black Heart and White Heart: A Zulu Idyll (1900).

Burnham's youngest son, Bruce B. Burnham (1897–1902), was staying with his parents in London when he accidentally drowned in the River Thames.. His brother was in California the night Bruce died and yet Roderick knew from a dream exactly how it happened. The night of the drowning Roderick awoke screaming and rushed to tell his grandmother about his nightmare. The next morning, a cable arrived with the news of Bruce's death.

Howard Burnham, brother

His brother Howard Burnham (1870–1918), born shortly before the family moved to Los Angeles, lost one leg at the age of 14 and suffered from tuberculosis. As a teen he lived with Fred in California and learned from his brother the art of Scoutcraft, how to shoot, and how to ride the range, all in spite of his wooden leg. Howard went to Africa and became a mining engineer in the gold mines of Johannesburg, South Africa and later wrote a text book on Modern Mine Valuation. He traveled the world and for a time teamed up with Fred on Yaqui River irrigation project in Mexico. During World War I, Howard worked as a spy for the French government, operating behind enemy lines in southwest Germany. Throughout the war he used his wooden leg to conceal tools he needed for spying. From his death bed, Howard returned to France via Switzerland and shared his vital data and secrets with the French government: the Germans were not opening a new front in the Alps and there was no need to move allied troops away from the Western Front. Howard was buried at Cannes, France, leaving behind his wife and four children. He had been named after his second cousin, LT Howard Mather Burnham who was killed in action in the American Civil War.

His first cousin Charles Edward Russell (1860–1941) was a journalist and politician and also a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The author of a number of books of biography and social commentary Russell won a Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for his biography: The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas.

In 1943, at 83 years of age, Burnham married his young typist, Ilo K. Willetts Burnham (1914–1958). The couple sold their mansion and moved to Santa Barbara in 1946.

Burnham was a descendant of Thomas Burnham (1617–1688) of Hartford, Connecticut, the first American ancestor of a large number of Burnhams. The descendants of Thomas Burnham have been noted in every American war, including the French and Indian War.

Film and stage accounts

• In 1899, Frank E. Fillis brought his circus and stage show Savage South Africa along with Zulu performers to the Empress Theatre at Earls Courte, London, England, as part of the Greater Britain Exhibition. Twice-daily the actors dramatically played out famous battles from both Matabele wars. One of the shows, Wilson's Heroic Stand at the Shangani River re-enacted the battle of the Shangani Patrol. Frank Fillis himself played the part of Major Alan Wilson, Peter Lobengula played the Matabele King Lobengula, and Burnham was played by the American 'Texas Jack' Jr., the adopted son of Texas Jack Omohundro and a man best remembered for running a Wild West show in South Africa where he gave Will Rogers his start as an entertainer. In September of that year, the re-enactment was filmed and sold to movie houses around the world as Major Wilson's Last Stand.
• Burnham was portrayed by Will Hutchins in Shangani Patrol (1970), a feature film by David Millin. Filmed on location in Bulawayo, Rhodesia by RPM Film Studios.
• Ernest Hemingway acquired the rights to produce a film version of Scouting on Two Continents in late 1958. CBS immediately contracted Hemingway to produce the film for television, with Gary Cooper expressing considerable interest in playing the part of Burnham. Hemingway was already behind schedule in his other commitments and never started on the film when he committed suicide in July 1961.
• On My Honor, an epic film conceived and begun by Cecil B. DeMille, was to document the founding of the Scouting movement but was left unfinished because of the legendary producer's untimely death in January 1959. In the screenplay started by Jesse Lasky, Jr., the film would have focused on Baden-Powell and the Scouting pioneers who were a major influence on Baden-Powell, including Burnham. Even after DeMille's death, associate producer Henry Wilcoxon continued to invest substantial work on the film until 1962, and Sydney Box was hired to assist with the script. Starting in 2001, producers Jerry Molen and Robert Starling began work to finish DeMille's project, including an updated screenplay by Starling based on the earlier work of Lasky and Box.

Tributes

Burnham in real life is more interesting than any of my heroes of romance!

— Sir H. Rider Haggard

• H. Rider Haggard, inventor of the lost world literary genre, was heavily influenced by the larger than life adventures of his friend Burnham as he penned his fictional hero Allan Quatermain. There are many similarities between these two African explorers: both sought and discovered ancient treasures and civilizations, both battled large wild animals and native peoples, both were renowned for their ability to track, even at night, and both had similar nicknames: Quatermain, "Watcher-by-Night"; Burnham, "He-who-sees-in-the-dark".
• In 1933, the newly discovered Serbelodon burnhami (now Amebelodon burnhami), an extinct gomphothere (Shovel-Tusker elephant) from North America, was officially named after Burnham.
• Union Oil was the official sponsor of the Major Burnham Bowling Trophy, an annual bowling event supported by the BSA and held in California.
• To commemorate 100 years of Scouting, the BSA issued 100 bronze coins in 2007 featuring Burnham and Baden-Powell. One side shows the bust of Burnham and is inscribed: "Major Frederick Russell Burnham", "Father of Scouting". Other side shows the bust of Baden-Powell and is inscribed: "Col. Robert Baden-Powell", "Founder of Scouting". The coins were distributed by the White Eagle District.

See also

• Major Wilson's Last Stand at IMDb
• Shangani Patrol at IMDb

Notes

• This article incorporates public domain material from a 1906 biography of Major Burnham: Davis, Richard Harding (1906). Real Soldiers of Fortune . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-87364-239-2.

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• "On My Honor". LDSfilm. August 18, 2004. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
• "Personal". Illustrated London News. No. 3273. London. January 11, 1902. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
• "Plane Line Saves Weeks: American Air Service in Guatemala Carries Odd Passenger List over Hard Country". New York Times. January 17, 1932. ISSN 0362-4331.
• "Rider Haggard's Tribute". Atlanta Constitution. November 21, 1896. ISSN 0093-1179.
• Press Reference Library: Notables of the West. New York: International News Service. 1915. OCLC 5532411.
• "Scientific Notes and News". Science. 71 (1847). May 23, 1930. doi:10.1126/science.71.1847.533. ISSN 0036-8075.
• "Film". Southern Africa. 6. Southern Africa Committee. 1973. ISSN 0038-3775.
• "Silver Buffalo Award Winners 1939–1930". Boy Scouts of America. 2012. Retrieved June 23, 2013.
• "Southern California by Towns and Counties: Fred Burnham now a Major in British Army; Recovering from His Injuries". Los Angeles Times. August 4, 1900. ISSN 0458-3035.
• "Railway And Other Companies: Northern Territories (B.S.A.) Exploring Company Limited". The Times (35824). 1899. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• "Roosevelt's Army Has Not Lost Hope; Colonel's Aids from All over the Country Meet and Leave the Future in His Hands" (PDF). New York Times. May 20, 1917. ISSN 0362-4331.
• "Scouting History". 1st Lacock Scout Group. 2013. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
• "A Young South African". The Los Angeles Times. June 6, 1896. ISSN 0458-3035.

Works

Baden-Powell's sketch of Chief of Scouts Burnham, Matobo Hills, 1896. Also used on the dust cover of Scouting on Two Continents. (1934 edition).

• Burnham, Frederick (1931). "Scouting Against the Apache". In West, James E (ed.). The Boy Scout's Book of True Adventure: their own story of famous exploits and adventures told by honorary scouts. New York: Putman. OCLC 8484128.
• Burnham, Frederick Russell (1927). "The Remarks of Major Frederick R. Burnham". Historical Society of Southern California. 13 (4): 334–352.
• Burnham, Frederick Russell (1926). Scouting on Two Continents. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page. ISBN 978-1-879356-31-3.
• Burnham, Frederick Russell (1944). Taking Chances. Los Angeles, CA: Haynes. ISBN 978-1-879356-32-0.
• Bradford, Mary E. (1993). An American family on the African frontier: the Burnham family letters, 1893–1896. Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart. ISBN 978-1-879373-66-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Burnham Footage of Southern and Eastern Africa, 35 min. silent b&w video. Footage shot in South Africa, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and eastern Africa during a family trip. Smithsonian Institution archives. call# 85.4.1; AF-85.4.1 (1929)
• Frederick Russell Burnham Papers. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University. A large collection of Burnham's documents: Correspondence, 1864–1947. Subject Files, 1890–1947. Writings, 1893–1946. Personal and Family Papers, 1879–1951. Photographs, ca. 1893–1924.
• Frederick Russell Burnham Papers, 1879–1979, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University. Another large collection of Burnham's documents: Correspondence, speeches and writings, clippings, other printed matter, photographs, and memorabilia, relating to the Matabele Wars of 1893 and 1896 in Rhodesia, the Second Boer War, exploration expeditions in Africa, and gold mining in Alaska during the Klondike gold rush.

Biographies

• Banning, William; Banning, George Hugh (1930). Six Horses. New York: Century. Foreword by Frederick Russell Burnham. OCLC 1744707. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)
• Bradford, Richard H. (1984). Frederick Russell Burnham, the British Empire's American Scout. American Historical Society Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
• Britt, Albert (1923). "Burnham, the Last of the Scouts". The Boys' Own Book of Adventurers. New York: The Macmillan company. OCLC 4585632.
• Brown, Curtis (1901). "Burnham, the Scout". Pearson's Magazine. London, England: 546–553. OCLC 1645313. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Davis, Richard Harding (1906). Real Soldiers of Fortune . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-87364-239-2.
• Ehrenclou, V. L (1925). "Major Burnham — The Scout". Union Oil Bulletin: 1–11, 19. OCLC 12064434. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Burnham, Frederick Russell (1930). "The howl for cheap Mexican labor". In Grant, Madison; Charles Stewart, Davison (eds.). The Alien in Our Midst; Or, "Selling Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage"; the Written Views of a Number of Americans (Present and Former) on Immigration and Its Results. New York: Galton Publishing. pp. 44–48. OCLC 3040493. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |editorlink1= ignored (|editor-link1= suggested) (help)
• Grinnell, George Bird; Rppsevelt, Kermit; Cross, W. Redmond; Gray, Prentiss N., eds. (1933). "Taps for the Great Selous". Hunting Trails on Three Continents; a Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. New York: The Derrydale Press. OCLC 1624738. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editorlink2= ignored (|editor-link2= suggested) (help)
• Haggard, H. Rider (1926). The Days of My Life Volume II. London, New York: Longmans, Green and Co. Chapter XVII is on Major Burnham; Letters in chapter XIII dedicated to Burnham's daughter, Nada. OCLC 476006. Retrieved June 8, 2012. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)
• Hammond, John Hays (1921). "South African Memories: Rhodes — Barnato — Burnham". Scribner's Magazine. LXIX: 257–277. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Homans, James E., ed. (1918). "Burnham, Frederick Russell" . The Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: The Press Association Compilers, Inc. pp. 249–251. OCLC 81277904.
• Lott, J. P. "Jack" (1976). "Major Burnham of the Shangani Patrol". Rhodesiana Magazine. ISSN 0006-436X. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Money, R. R. (1962). "Greatest Scout". Blackwood's Magazine. v291: 42–52. ISSN 0006-436X. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Shippey, Lee (1930). Folks Ushud Know; Interspersed with Songs of Courage. Sierra Madre, Calif: Sierra Madre Press. p. 23; Chapter on Major Burnham. OCLC 2846678. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• van Wyk, Peter (2003). Burnham: King of Scouts. Victoria, B.C., Canada: Trafford Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4122-0028-8. Retrieved March 30, 2007.
• West, James E.; Lamb, Peter O. (1932). He-who-sees-in-the-dark; the Boys' Story of Frederick Burnham, the American Scout. illustrated by Lord Baden-Powell. New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam. OCLC 1710834.
• Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John (1900). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: Gale Research. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-85506-957-2.
• American Council of Learned Societies (1928–58). Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-684-80631-2. OCLC 4171403.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
• "In My Fathers House Are Many Mansions". Sunset Club Yearbook. 1951. EPH.061.9494.11. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Davis, Richard Harding (1906). Real Soldiers of Fortune. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. p. 235.

External links

• Major Burnham on Pine Tree Web Scouting site.
• Frederick Howard Russell Burnham (great grand nephew)