Frederick Russell Burnham

Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is renowned for his service to the British South Africa Company and the British Army in colonial Africa, as well as for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. Burnham played a pivotal role in inspiring the founding of the international Scouting Movement.

Early Life and Education

Burnham was born on a Dakota Sioux Indian reservation in Minnesota, in the small village of Tivoli near the city of Mankato. There, he learned the ways of American Indians as a boy. By the age of 14, he was supporting himself in California, while also learning scouting techniques from some of the last cowboys and frontiersmen of the American Southwest. Burnham received little formal education, never finishing high school.

Adventures in the American West

After moving to the Arizona Territory in the early 1880s, Burnham became entangled in the Pleasant Valley War, a feud between families of ranchers and sheepherders. He escaped the conflict and later worked as a civilian tracker for the United States Army during the Apache Wars. Seeking new adventures, Burnham relocated his family to southern Africa in 1893, drawn by Cecil Rhodes’s ambitious Cape to Cairo Railway project, which he viewed as the next frontier.

Service in Colonial Africa

Burnham distinguished himself in several battles in Rhodesia and South Africa, eventually rising to the rank of Chief of Scouts. Despite his U.S. citizenship, his military title was British, and his rank of major was formally conferred upon him by King Edward VII. In recognition of his heroism during the Second Boer War, the King invested him into the Companions of the Distinguished Service Order, an honor that remains the highest military distinction earned by any American in that conflict.

Burnham’s relationship with Baden-Powell began during the Second Matabele War in Rhodesia, where he taught the future founder of Scouting outdoor skills and tactics. These lessons would later form the foundation of the Scouting Movement.

Return to the United States and Later Career

After returning to the United States, Burnham became involved in national defense efforts, business, oil exploration, and conservation. He also played a significant role in the development of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).

During World War I, Burnham was selected as an officer and recruited volunteers for a U.S. Army division modeled after the Rough Riders, a unit Theodore Roosevelt had intended to lead into France. However, the unit was disbanded for political reasons and never saw action.

Following the war, Burnham and his business partner John Hays Hammond established the Burnham Exploration Company, which became wealthy through oil discoveries in California. He later joined several wilderness conservation organizations, including the California State Parks Commission. In the 1930s, Burnham worked with the BSA to save the big horn sheep from extinction, an effort that led to the creation of the Kofa and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuges in Arizona.

Burnham earned the BSA’s highest honor, the Silver Buffalo Award, in 1936. He remained actively engaged with the organization at both regional and national levels until his death in 1947.

Legacy

To commemorate the friendship between Burnham and Baden-Powell, the mountain adjacent to Mount Baden-Powell in California was formally renamed Mount Burnham in 1951.

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