How do people get duped by a huckster? Whether they are peddling religion or just the latest kitchen gizmo, Americans seem to have always been in love with the eloquent speaker with more style than substance. A particular nexus of this type of personality is the years just before the civil war, when Herman Melville coined the term “the confidence man” in his novel of the same name and Miles Harvey explores one such character in his non-fiction book The King of Confidence – A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch.
James Strang was born with a drive for fame and fortune. His diaries are a fever dream of his ambitions – becoming a lawyer, leading a religion, marrying the queen of England. To that end, after bouncing from one shady scheme to another he hit on what ended up being his life’s work. He got in on the ground floor of the Mormon religion. Strang ended up battling with Brigham Young for the leadership of the church and starting his own religious “kingdom” on a small island off the coast of northern Michigan. King Strang built his community out of a combination of people that yearned for some greater meaning in their life and unsavory characters that used Beaver Island as a base for criminal activities directed by Strang himself.
That’s the background but it’s just Harvey’s jumping off point to explore the greater state of the U.S. in the 1840’s and 50’s; as well as what makes a con man tick. Is it the lust for power? Money? Fame? And how do we square the occasional contradiction when a rogue turns out to be on the right side of history on a subject? Harvey gives us the opportunity to think about all of that and more in his book. If he leans into speculation on the thoughts of his main characters a bit too much, it’s far overshadowed by his scrupulous research and some “truth is stranger than fiction” moments.
Harvey clearly enjoyed diving into the life of this would-be religious prophet and that joy is infectious. If you are looking to understand the con men of today, you should start with this window into the con men of yesterday.
See the Author 