Week 4 Lab: The Kingdom on Beaver Island

James Strang's claim, his letter of appointment, and the only self-declared king ever crowned on American soil

15 March 2027

Before the lab#

Read the summary of James Strang’s claim and coronation. Note the specific documentary problem historians have found with the letter he produced.

In the lab#

Strang produced a letter, postmarked before Smith’s death, naming him successor — and it doesn’t hold up under the handwriting and postal-date scrutiny historians have since applied to it. We use his claim, and his eventual 1850 coronation as king on Beaver Island, as the sharpest example in the course of a charismatic claim resting on a forged document rather than a witnessed moment.

Afterwards#

Nothing due. Strang’s group folds after his 1856 assassination — hold that fact for week 9’s comparative lab.