top
The Cotopaxi Colony: setting the record straight for Emanuel Saltiel 
Miles Saltiel, 30 August 2006
Even so, I first sought to rebalance the record in an article for the Cotopaxi library which I sent them in 2003. Please click here for the Colorado Central Magazine of February 2005, which for the first time reflected a more evenhanded view; and here for my letter to the editor, which was printed in their May 2005 edition.

After I heard about Schwarz’s report I contacted the University of Denver who asked me to set the story straight (this consolidates the two-part article as published in 2005 and 2006.) Please click here to listen to me talking to Dan Meyer of Colorado Public Radio, on 24 December 2005 about the article; and here to listen to Professor Jeanne Abrams of the University of Denver. 

Emanuel Saltiel was born in Bath England, and emigrated to America, where he campaigned first for the Confederacy and then for the U.S. Cavalry in the Rocky Mountains, before becoming a Colorado mine-owner. Emanuel Saltiel has been scapegoated for the collapse of the Cotopaxi colony of Russian-Jewish immigrants in 1882-1884. Recently examined documents establish his innocence and after 125 years, a two-part correction was published in the University of Denver's Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Notes in December 2005 and July 2006. I came across the story thirty-six years ago and am delighted—at long last—to have played a part in setting the record straight.

Emanuel conducted much of his career in the Rockies. Please click here for a map. I first came across his story thirty-five years ago. Please click here for my personal account of my ups and downs with his story; and here for the Pueblo Star Journal: where I first read it when I was driving across the States in 1970.
The public demonisation of Emanuel stems from a thesis by Flora Jane Satt, written in 1950 for her MA at the University of Colorado (this contains my annotations.) It is contradicted by the Report on the Cotopaxi Colony by its General Manager, Julius Schwartz, which I didn’t see till 2005.