{{Short description|American judge, governor of California}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox officeholder | image = Peter Hardeman Burnett - circa 1860.jpg | caption = Burnett, {{circa}} 1860s | name = Peter Hardeman Burnett | order1 = 1st Governor of California | term_start1 = December 20, 1849 | term_end1 = January 9, 1851 | lieutenant1 = John McDougal | predecessor1 = Bennet C. Riley {{small|(as military governor)}} | successor1 = John McDougal | office2 = Associate Justice of the<br />California Supreme Court | term_start2 = January 13, 1857 | term_end2 = October 12, 1857 | appointer2 = Governor J. Neely Johnson | predecessor2 = Solomon Heydenfeldt | successor2 = Stephen J. Field | office3 = 5th Supreme Judge of the<br />Provisional Government of Oregon | term_start3 = September 6, 1845 | term_end3 = December 29, 1846 | predecessor3 = James Nesmith | successor3 = Jesse Quinn Thornton | birth_date = {{Birth date|1807|11|15}} | birth_place = Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1895|5|17|1807|11|15}} | death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S. | spouse = {{marriage|Harriet Rogers|1828|1879|end=d}} | children = 6 | relatives = Caius T. Ryland (son-in-law)<ref>{{harvnb|Bancroft|1890|p=334}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Letitia Building|date=2014-06-28|publisher=Goldman School of Public Policy|url= https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/page/South_Bay_Event_Double_Sided_Flyer.pdf|accessdate=2024-02-23}}</ref> | party = Democratic | signature = Peter Burnett Signature.svg | resting_place = Santa Clara Mission Cemetery<ref>{{cite web|title=Index to Politicians: Burnett|url=https://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/burnett.html#455.82.57|access-date=2022-10-21|website=The Political Graveyard}}</ref> }}
'''Peter Hardeman Burnett''' (November 15, 1807{{snds}}May 17, 1895) was an American politician, the first elected governor of California from December 20, 1849, to January 9, 1851. Burnett was elected Governor almost one year before California's admission to the Union as the 31st state on September 9, 1850.{{efn|California was never a US territory; it was occupied territory under military authority. A new representative government began when California ratified its constitution in 1849, and Burnett took office following the election in November as the 33rd governor in the continuous sequence since Portolá.}}
Raised in a slave-owning family in Missouri, Burnett moved westward after his business career left him heavily in debt.<ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)" /> Initially residing in Oregon Country, he became Supreme Judge of the Provisional Government of Oregon. While in Oregon politics, he pushed for the total exclusion of African Americans from the territory. He authored the "Burnett's lash law" that authorized the flogging of any free blacks who refused to leave Oregon;<ref name="SJMN20110520" /> the law was deemed "unduly harsh" and went unenforced before voters rescinded it in 1845.<ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)" /><ref name="Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon" />
In 1848, Burnett moved to California during the height of the California gold rush. He re-established his political career and was elected governor in 1849. Though Burnett himself had previously been a slave-owner in Tennessee, Burnett opposed calls to make California a slave state, instead pushing for the total exclusion of African Americans in California.<ref name=":0" /> Burnett signed into law the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which enabled the enslavement of Native Californians and contributed to their genocide. He declared in an 1851 speech, "[t]hat a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert."<ref name="history">{{cite news|last=Blakemore|first=Erin|title=California's Little-Known Genocide|url=https://www.history.com/news/californias-little-known-genocide|access-date=2019-10-03|website=HISTORY|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171119061259/https://www.history.com/news/californias-little-known-genocide |archive-date=November 19, 2017 }}{{Better reference needed|date=September 2025}}</ref> Efforts by federal negotiators to preserve some Native land rights were fought by the administration of Burnett, who favored the elimination of California's indigenous peoples.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Furthermore, Burnett is noted for being an early proponent of the exclusion of Chinese immigrant laborers from California, and following his governorship would advocate for the federal Chinese Exclusion Act.<ref name="calgoldrush" /><ref>{{cite web|last=Nokes|first=R. Gregory|date=2018-04-19|title=The Golden State's Unpopular Pro-Slavery Governor|url=https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2018/04/19/golden-states-unpopular-pro-slavery-governor/ideas/essay/|access-date=2021-06-26|website=Zócalo Public Square|language=en-US}}</ref>
He was appointed to serve on the Supreme Court of California in 1857. In this capacity, Burnett unsuccessfully ordered the extradition of Archy Lee, a formerly enslaved man living in Sacramento, back to Mississippi.<ref>{{cite web|date=2018-06-28|title=Archy Lee - Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California |url=https://www.aclunc.org/sites/goldchains/explore/archy-lee.html|access-date=2021-06-24|website=ACLU of Northern CA|language=EN}}</ref>
==Early life and career== Burnett was born on November 15, 1807, in Nashville, Tennessee.<ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)">{{cite web|last=Nokes|first=Greg|title=Peter Burnett (1807-1895)|url=https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/burnett_peter/#.Xwt-u1OYX6a|website=The Oregon Encyclopedia}}</ref><ref name=Launius>{{cite web|last=Launius|first=Roger D.|authorlink=Roger D. Launius|title=Peter Hardeman Burnett (1807–1895)|date=1999|website=State Historical Society of Missouri|url=https://missouriencyclopedia.org/people/burnett-peter-hardeman|accessdate=2025-03-11}} Originally published in {{cite encyclopedia|editor1-last=Christensen|editor1-first=Lawrence O.|editor2-last=Foley|editor2-first=William E.|editor3-last=Kremer|editor3-first=Gary R.|title=Dictionary of Missouri Biography|date=1999|publisher=University of Missouri Press|location=Columbia}}</ref> He was the eldest son of George and Dorothy Hardeman Burnet.{{efn|Peter Burnet added a second "t" to his surname in his teens.<ref name=Nokes2>{{harvnb|Nokes|2018b|p=2}}</ref>}}<ref name=Launius/><ref name=Nokes2/> His sisters were Constantia, Elizabeth Ann, and Mary, while his brothers were Glen Owen, George William, James White, and Thomas Smith.<ref name=Nokes2/> Three other sisters died before the age of 5.{{sfn|Nokes|2018b|p=223, footnote #6}}
Burnett's paternal great-grandfather, James Burnet, was an Irish immigrant and farmer who died in Virginia. Peter's father, George Burnet, was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia in 1770, and worked as a farmer and carpenter who built several early buildings in Nashville.<ref name=Nokes2/> His mother, Dorothy Hardeman, was the daughter of Thomas Hardeman, who accumulated 5,000 acres in Nashville and was elected to the 1796 Tennessee constitutional convention along with his friend and neighbor Andrew Jackson, the future president. Hardeman also owned several slaves.{{sfn|Nokes|2018b|p=3}} Burnett later enslaved two people himself.<ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)"/> He later insisted that he opposed slavery and did not mention his slaves in his autobiography, however, his ownership of two slaves was corroborated by the 1840 census. Their ultimate fate is uncertain, but he likely took one or both with him to Oregon, with one drowning en route.{{sfn|Nokes|2018b|p=4}}
He was raised in rural Missouri. In 1828, he married Harriet Rogers.<ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)"/> Besides elementary school, Burnett never received a formal education but educated himself in law and government. After owning a general store, he turned to his law career.{{Citation needed|date=November 2025}}
==Political career in Oregon== In 1843, having failed as a merchant and heavily in debt,<ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)"/> Burnett became part of the departure of Easterners moving westward, moving his family from Barry, Missouri to Oregon Country (now modern-day Oregon) to take up farming to solve growing debts in Missouri, an agricultural endeavor that failed. While in Oregon Country, Burnett began his forays into politics, getting elected to the provisional legislature between 1844 and 1848. In 1844, he completed the construction of Germantown Road between the Tualatin Valley and what became Portland.<ref>Baron, Connie and Michelle Trappen. Paths linking past and present. ''The Oregonian'', March 6, 2008.</ref> It was during his time in Oregon that Burnett, a traditional Southern Protestant, began to question the practices of his faith, his religious views drifting more to Catholicism. By 1846, Burnett and his family completely transitioned from Protestant to Catholic.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03083a.htm|title=Peter Hardeman Burnett|publisher=The Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. III|author=Edward P. Spillane|year=1908|access-date=2007-05-09}}</ref>
While in the Legislature, and later as Provisional Supreme Judge, Burnett signed Oregon's first exclusion laws. Under an 1844 law passed by the provisional government—just after the same government abolished slavery—slave owners could continue to enslave people for up to three years, after which all African Americans, free or enslaved, had to leave Oregon Country or face flogging.<ref name="SJMN20110520" />
==Move to California== Upon news of the discovery of gold in California in 1848, Burnett and his family moved south to participate in the rush. He arrived at Long's Bar on the Yuba River on November 5 of that year.{{sfn|Franklin|1962|p=319}} After modest success in getting gold, Burnett envisioned a career in law in San Francisco, a rapidly growing boomtown thanks largely to the gold rush. On the way to the Bay Area, Burnett met John Augustus Sutter Jr., son of German-born Swiss pioneer John Sutter. Selling his father's deeded lands in the near vicinity of Sutter's Fort, the younger Sutter offered Burnett a job selling land plots for the new town of Sacramento. Over the next year, Burnett made nearly US$50,000 in land sales in Sacramento,<ref name=calgoldrush>{{cite web|url=http://www.calgoldrush.com/profiles/pro_burnett.html|title=Gold Rush Profile: Peter Burnett|publisher=The Sacramento Bee|access-date=2007-05-09|archive-date=2016-03-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304095838/http://www.calgoldrush.com/profiles/pro_burnett.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> a city ideally suited due to its closeness to the Sierra Nevada and the neighboring Sacramento River's navigability for large ships.
In 1848, Burnett was among those who founded the city of Oregon City in Butte County, California.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=21391|date=2002-06-24|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020624205909/http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=21391|archive-date=2002-06-24|title=Butte - Landmarks: County Listing|website=Government of California}}</ref>
==Governorship of California== [[File:Peter Burnett by William F Cogswell, 1879.jpg|thumb|left|180px|Portrait of Burnett by William F. Cogswell (1879).]]
In 1849, Burnett announced his intentions to return to politics. 1849 saw the first California Constitutional Convention in Monterey, where territorial politicians drafted documents suitable to admit California as a state in the United States. During the 1849 referendum to adopt the California Constitution, Burnett, now with name recognition in Sacramento and San Francisco and a resume that included the Oregon Provisional Legislature, decided to run for the new territory's first civilian governor, replacing the string of military governors and bureaucracy from the US military. Burnett easily won the election over four other candidates, including John Sutter, and was sworn in as California's first elected civilian governor on December 20, 1849, in San Jose in front of what would soon (after statehood in 1850) become the California State Legislature.{{Citation needed|date=November 2025}}
===Burnett administration=== In the first days of the Burnett administration, the governor and the California Legislature set out to create the organs of a state government, creating state cabinet posts, archives, executive posts and departments, subdividing the state into 27 counties and appointing John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin as California's senators to the federal US Senate. Despite home proclamations and bureaucratic reorganizations that recognized California now as a US state, the US Congress and President Zachary Taylor had not signed authorization of statehood for California. Part of this miscommunication was due to California's relative remoteness to the rest of the US during the time and to over-enthusiastic attitudes by politicians and the public alike to get California into the Union as quickly as possible. Following long contentious debates in the US Senate, California was admitted as a (non-slave) state on September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850. Californians did not learn of their official statehood until one month later, when on October 18, the steamer ''Oregon'' entered San Francisco Bay with a banner strapped to her rigging reading "California Is a State".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=299 |title=California Becomes A State|publisher=State of California|author=LearnCalifornia.org|access-date=2007-05-09|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927143448/http://www.learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=299|archive-date=2007-09-27}}</ref>
During those advancements into statehood, Burnett's popularity among the legislature, the press, and the public plummeted. Relations between the legislature and Burnett began to sour in early 1850, when bills pressing for the incorporation of Sacramento and Los Angeles as city municipalities, with Los Angeles being a special incorporation due to its earlier ''pueblo'' status during the previous Spanish and Mexican rule, passed the State Assembly and Senate. Burnett vetoed both bills, citing special incorporation bills as unconstitutional and that reviews for municipal incorporation were best left to county courts. The legislature failed to override Burnett's veto of the Los Angeles bill but succeeded in overriding the Sacramento bill, making it California's first incorporated city.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObjectMain.jsp;jsessionid=84ae0c5f82407501f96b396e481cad4feac4cb2a77ea?fileid=0000020402:000000988998&reqid=349|title=Creatures of State...Children of Trade: The Legal Origins of California Cities|journal=Final Report and Recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature |publisher=California Constitution Revision Commission|author=Peter M. Detwiler|year=1996|format=.HTML|access-date=2007-05-09}}{{dead link|date=May 2020|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>
For California's legal system, Burnett recommended to the first session of the state legislature that California should implement a hybrid legal system mixing significant elements of both civil law and common law. He advocated for enacting California versions of the Louisiana Civil Code and the Louisiana Code of Practice (Louisiana's name for what Americans would call a code of civil procedure) and adopting American common law for crimes, evidence, and commercial law. This touched off an uproar among the American lawyers who had flocked to California, with the majority pushing for common law and a minority (led by John W. Dwinelle) advocating the adoption of civil law. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Elisha Oscar Crosby, published a report in February 1850 recommending the adoption of the common law through the enactment of a reception statute; Burnett signed the resulting bill into law on April 13, 1850.<ref name="McMurray">{{cite journal|last=McMurray|first=Orrin K.|title=The Beginnings of the Community Property System in California and the Adoption of the Common Law|journal=California Law Review|date=July 1915|volume=3|issue=5|pages=359–380|doi=10.2307/3474579|jstor=3474579|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3474579.pdf|access-date=9 September 2020}}</ref>
Characterized as an aloof politician with little support from the Legislature by the San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles press, Burnett grew frustrated as his agenda ground to a halt, and his governance style was increasingly criticized. He became a regular fixture of ridicule in the state's newspapers and on the floor of the Legislature. With little over a year in office, Burnett, the state's first governor, became the first to resign, announcing his resignation in January 1851. Burnett cited personal matters for his departure.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}} Lieutenant Governor John McDougal replaced Burnett as the Governor of California on January 9.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bandini|first=Helen Elliott|title=History of California|date=1908|publisher=American Book Company|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LugXAAAAIAAJ|page=292|isbn=978-1-4219-2750-3}}</ref>
===Burnett's policies=== thumb|Burnett photographed when he served as president of Pacific Bank. thumb|''Recollections and opinions of an old pioneer'' (1880), authored by Burnett.
As Governor, Burnett pushed for the exclusion of African Americans from California, raising the ire of pro-slavery supporters who wanted to import the Southern slave system to the West Coast, but his proposals were defeated in the Legislature. From Burnett's First Annual Message to the Legislature, December 21, 1849:<ref name=":0">"First Annual Message of the Governor of the State of California" (San Francisco), ''Daily Alta California'', 26 December 1849</ref>
{{Blockquote|For some years past I have given this subject [African-American settlement in California] my most serious and candid attention; and I most cheerfully lay before you the result of my own reflections. There is, in my opinion, but one of two consistent courses to take in reference to this class of population; either to admit them to the full and free enjoyment of all the privileges guaranteed by the Constitution to others, or exclude them from the State. If we permit them to settle in our State, under existing circumstances, we consign them, by our own institutions, and the usages of our own society, to a subordinate and degraded position, which is in itself but a species of slavery. They would be placed in a situation where they would have no efficient motives for moral or intellectual improvement, but must remain in our midst, sensible of their degradation, unhappy themselves, enemies to the institutions and the society whose usages have placed them there, and for ever fit teachers in all the schools of ignorance, vice, and idleness.
We have certainly the right to prevent any class of population from settling in our State, that we may deem injurious to our own society. Had they been born here, and had acquired rights in consequence, I should not recommend any measures to expel. They are not now here, except a few in comparison with the numbers that would be here; and the object is to keep them out.}}
Similarly, Burnett also pushed for heavy taxation on foreign immigrants. The 1850 Foreign Miners Tax Act, signed into law by Burnett, required every miner of non-American origin to pay US$20 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=20|start_year=1850}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}). Burnett also argued heavily for increased taxation and the expansion of capital punishment to include larceny.<ref name=calgoldrush /> Burnett also attempted to remove Native Americans, as well as foreign miners. In 1851, federal commissioners negotiated treaties with Native American tribes in California, which the governor then blocked for being too generous in reserving land for the tribes. Instead, the greed for gold wealth led to a second option, with Burnett declaring<ref name="history"/> "[t]hat a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert."<ref name=":1">Hine, Robert V. and Mack Faragher, John, ''The American West: A New Interpretative History'', (Yale University Press: 2000), pp. 249</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite book|last=Johnston-Dodds|first=Kimberly|url=https://courts.ca.gov/sites/default/files/courts/default/2024-08/ib.pdf|title=Early California Laws and Policies Related to California Indians|publisher=California State Libraries|year=2002|isbn=1-58703-163-9|pages=21|access-date=15 January 2026}}.</ref>
==Post-governorship== [[File:USA-Santa Clara-Santa Clara Mission Cemetery-Grave of Peter Hardeman Burnett.jpg|thumb|Burnett's grave in Santa Clara Mission Cemetery]]
One year after leaving the governorship, Burnett could finally repay the heavy debts he had incurred in Missouri nearly two decades before. He entered several careers, serving briefly as a justice in the California Supreme Court between 1857 and 1858,<ref name="albert">{{cite journal|last=Friedenberg|first=Albert M.|title=Solomon Heydenfeldt: A Jewish Jurist Of Alabama and California|journal=Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society|date=1902|volume=10|issue=10|pages=129–140, 136|jstor=43059669|quote=Finally, January 6, 1857, Heydenfeldt resigned his office (his term on the Supreme Court bench would have expired on January 1, 1858)....P.H. Burnett was appointed to fill the vacancy: in the fall of 1857, Stephen J. Field was elected his successor.}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bancroft|1890|p=220}}</ref> the Sacramento City Council, as well as becoming a San Jose-based lawyer, a noted proponent of Catholicism during the Victorian period, and then the president of the Pacific Bank of San Francisco. Although never venturing into politics much after the 1860s, Burnett actively supported the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In 1880, he published an autobiography, ''Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer''. He died May 17, 1895, at 87, in San Francisco and is buried in the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery in Santa Clara, California.{{Citation needed|date=November 2025}}
==Legacy== Burnett's legacy is racist and exclusionary. While regarded as one of the fathers of modern California in the state's early days, his racist attitudes toward African Americans, Chinese Americans, and Native Americans have tarnished his name today. Burnett's period in the Oregon Provisional Legislature helped facilitate the exclusion of black people from the state until 1926. In 1844, one of his Oregon proposals was to force free black people to leave the state and to institute floggings of any who continued to remain.<ref name=SJMN20110520 /> Referred to as "Burnett's lash law", it was deemed "unduly harsh", and it was never enforced, with voters rescinding it in 1845.<ref name="Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon">{{cite web|last=Nokes|first=Greg|date=July 6, 2020|title=Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon|website=oregonencyclopedia.org|url=https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/#.XwtkMVOYX6a|access-date=May 16, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Peter Burnett (1807-1895)"/> Also, his open hostility to foreign laborers influenced some federal and state California legislators to push future xenophobic legislation, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, 30 years after he departed from the governorship. Burnett was also an open advocate of exterminating local California Indian tribes. This policy continued with successive state governmental administrations for several decades, which offered US$10 to US$25 for evidence of dead Natives.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.viejas.com/vbki/html/ts_tribegovt.htm |title=History of Sovereignty in U.S.|publisher=Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians|author=Anthony R. Pico|access-date=2007-05-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930141918/http://www.viejas.com/vbki/html/ts_tribegovt.htm<!-- Bot retrieved archive -->|archive-date=2007-09-30}}</ref> From Burnett's Second Annual Message to the Legislature, January 7, 1851:<ref>"[http://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/s_01-Burnett2.html The Governor's Message] (Transmitted January 7, 1851)", ''Sacramento Transcript'', 10 January 1851, 2.</ref>
{{Blockquote|That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected.}}
San Francisco's Burnett Avenue near Twin Peaks is named after him. The Burnett Child Development Center, a predominantly black San Francisco neighborhood preschool, had been named for Burnett. However, when his racist positions were rediscovered, the school was renamed in 2011 as Leola M. Havard Early Education School, in honor of San Francisco's first African American principal.<ref name="SJMN20110520">{{cite news|last=Hindery|first=Robin|title=San Francisco school swaps out name of racist California governor|url=http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_18104528|access-date=May 20, 2011|newspaper=San Jose Mercury News|date=May 20, 2011|agency=Associated Press}}</ref> Similarly, Peter H. Burnett Elementary School in Long Beach was renamed in 2014 due to Burnett's views. It is now named after Bobbi Smith, the first African American member of the Long Beach Unified School District's board.<ref>{{cite web|title=L.B. school dropping racist governor's name|date=3 September 2014|url=http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-633701-beach-burnett.html|access-date=2015-08-03}}</ref> In 2019, Peter Burnett Middle School in San Jose was renamed Muwekma Ohlone Middle School in honor of the original inhabitants of that area.<ref>{{cite web|title=Burnett Middle School to be renamed Ohlone Middle School|date=13 June 2019|url=https://sanjosespotlight.com/burnett-middle-school-to-be-renamed-ohlone-middle-school/|access-date=2021-11-06}}</ref> In July 2020, Peter Burnett Elementary School in Hawthorne was renamed 138th Street Elementary School.<ref>{{cite web|last=Sheridan|first=Jake|title=Citing racist past, Hawthorne elementary school drops Peter Burnett name |url=https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-22/citing-racist-past-hawthorne-elementary-school-drops-peter-burnett-name|website=Los Angeles Times|date=22 July 2020|access-date=19 October 2022}}</ref> In June 2023, Peter Burnett Elementary School in Sacramento was renamed Suy:u (''SOO-yoo'') Elementary School.<ref>{{cite web|date=2016-10-04|title=Sac City Unified Board of Education Votes to Rename Three Schools|url=https://www.scusd.edu/press-release/sac-city-unified-board-education-votes-rename-three-schools|access-date=2024-01-17|website=Sacramento City Unified School District|language=en}}</ref>
By the 21st century, Burnett was considered an obscure figure in California history. Journalist Ailsa Chang described him as a "footnote" in the state's history.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chang|first=Ailsa|authorlink=Ailsa Chang|title=Peter Hardeman Burnett: California's 1st Governor And A Noted Racist|date=2020-07-15|website=NPR|url=https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891563719/peter-hardeman-burnett-californias-1st-governor-and-a-noted-racist|accessdate=2025-03-11}}</ref> According to Burnett's biographer R. Gregory Nokes, little in-depth material has been written about Burnett, and he notes that Burnett is the only source available for much of his early and later life.{{sfn|Nokes|2018b|p=x}}
==Notes== {{Notelist}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
===Bibliography=== * {{cite book|last=Bancroft|first=Hubert Howe|authorlink=Hubert Howe Bancroft|title=History of California, Volume VII, 1860-1890|date=1890|publisher=American Book Company|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ecNAAAAIAAJ}} * {{cite journal|last=Franklin|first=William E.|title=A Forgotten Chapter in California History: Peter H. Burnett and John A. Sutter's Fortune|date=1962|journal=California Historical Society Quarterly|volume=41|issue=4|pages=319–324|jstor=43773363}} * {{cite book|last=Nokes|first=R. Gregory|title=The Troubled Life of Peter Burnett: Oregon Pioneer and First Governor of California|date=2018b|publisher=Oregon State University Press|location=Corvallis|isbn=978-0-87071-932-5}}
==External links== * [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03083a.htm Peter Hardeman Burnett] at the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080613222319/http://www.californiagovernors.ca.gov/h/biography/governor_1.html Peter Burnett biography] at the California State Library * [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf467nb0v8/ Guide to the Peter H. Burnett Papers] at The Bancroft Library * [https://books.google.com/books?id=mxS4VvoCkDcC&q=the+path+which+led+a+protestant+lawyer+to+the+catholic+church He wrote this book in 1860 and can be read for free at Google Books] The path which led a Protestant lawyer to the Catholic Church * [http://www.cschs.org/history/california-supreme-court-justices/peter-h-burnett/ Peter H. Burnett]. California Supreme Court Historical Society. Retrieved July 18, 2017. * [http://www.courts.ca.gov/12523.htm Past & Present Justices]. California State Courts. Retrieved July 19, 2017. * [https://www.loc.gov/item/01006673/ ''Recollections and opinions of an old pioneer''] (1880), by Peter Hardeman Burnett. Digitized at Library of Congress. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
{{s-start}} {{s-off}} {{succession box | title=Governor of California | before=Military Governor of California<br />Bennett C. Riley | after=John McDougall | years=1849–1851 }} {{succession box | title= Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court | before=Solomon Heydenfeldt | after=Stephen J. Field | years=January 13, 1857–October 12, 1857 }} {{s-end}}
{{Governors of California}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burnett, Peter Hardeman}} Category:1807 births Category:1895 deaths Category:19th-century California state court judges Category:19th-century California politicians Category:19th-century Roman Catholics Category:State governors of the United States who owned slaves Category:Burials at Mission Santa Clara de Asís Category:Catholics from Tennessee Category:Catholic politicians from California Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Baptist denominations Category:Democratic Party governors of California Category:Justices of the Oregon Supreme Court Category:Justices of the Supreme Court of California Category:Members of the Provisional Government of Oregon Category:Oregon pioneers Category:People of the California Gold Rush Category:Perpetrators of the California genocide Category:Politicians from Nashville, Tennessee Category:Sacramento City Council members Category:U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law Category:Writers from Nashville, Tennessee