Aryan Nations was a White-nationalist community founded on the Christian Identity movement which was based on the belief that people of Northern European ancestry are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites. The most prominent early figure in the movement was California minister Wesley A. Swift (1913-1970), who added the belief that people of color are subhuman and that Jews are descendants of Satan with inordinate power who want to destroy the White race.
\nRichard Girnt Butler (1918-2004) was an aeronautical engineer who was inspired by the caste system while working in India during WWII and hoped to import the idea to the United States. Later, while living in California, he began to attend Swift’s sermons and became active in the church, eventually taking over as leader upon Swift’s death in 1970. In 1973, he moved his congregation to a twenty-acre property near the town of Hayden Lake, Idaho, hoping that it would be the nucleus of a future “Aryan homeland” in the northwestern states.
\nSome parishioners moved with Butler from California to Idaho, and he used various recruiting methods to enlarge the congregation, including offering land to local struggling farmers and conducting prison outreach. He constructed a bunkhouse where formerly incarcerated men could live in exchange for printing and distributing his literature, and a watchtower with armed guards after an unknown person bombed his church.
\nOnly four people lived permanently on the grounds, but there were normally other residents staying there for periods of time ranging from months to years, and people living outside of the compound attended regular Sunday services, Bible studies, and holiday celebrations. Members were expected to abstain from alcohol, drugs, swearing, and extra-marital sex. There were numerous collective projects such as home-schooling residents’ children, operating the printing press, and administering the prison ministry.
\nOver the next few decades, the Aryan Nations compound served as a gathering place for the White-supremacist movement, as exemplified by the annual Aryan Youth Festival and the Aryan World Congress, attended by hundreds of members of various White-supremacist groups, such as the KKK, neo-Nazis, and skinheads throughout the 1980s. Butler referred to it as the “international headquarters of the White race.”
\nIn the early 1980s the organization received public attention because of a series of bank robberies and a murder committed by a splinter group. The organization also faced increased resistance from locals in Cœur d’Alene; Kootenai County established a task force for human rights and residents would often protest the group’s activities.
\nAryan Nations was deteriorating by the late 1990s, however it met with a sudden, dramatic dénouement. On July 1, 1998, two security guards assaulted Victoria Keenan, a local Native American woman, and her son on the road outside the compound. In a 2000 verdict, a district court found the organization negligent in the management of the guards and required it to pay $6.3 million to the victims. Butler declared bankruptcy and the compound was awarded to the Keenans. After leadership disputes following Butler’s death in 2004, Aryan Nations splintered into various factions.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"The coordinates are for the entrance to the former Aryan Nations compound. The property has since been sold and belongs to other people; it is private and trespassing is not allowed.","lede":"Aryan Nations was a community founded in 1973 by White nationalist, Richard Butler, to serve as the nucleus of an Aryan (White) homeland in northern Idaho. It closed in 2000 due to a court judgment after members assaulted two local Native American people.","website":"","related_resources":["Balch, Robert W. “The Rise and Fall of Aryan Nations: A Resource Mobilization Perspective.” Journal of Political & Military Sociology 34, no. 1 (2006): 81–113.
","Chryssides, George D. “Church of Jesus Christ Christian, Aryan Nations.” In Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements. Second Edition. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2012.
","Martin, Gus. “Aryan Nations.” In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2011.
","Miller, Timothy. Communes in America, 1975-2000. First edition. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2019.
","Murphy, Kim. “Last Stand of an Aging Aryan.” Los Angeles Times, Jan 10, 1999.
","Schlatter, Evelyn A. Aryan Cowboys: White Supremacists and the Search for a New Frontier, 1970-2000. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.
","Wakin, Daniel J. “Richard G. Butler, 86, Dies; Founder of the Aryan Nations.” New York Times, Sep 09, 2004.
","“Task force celebrates sale of former Aryan Nations property.” Bonner County Daily Bee, Mar 20, 2020.
","“White Supremacist Richard Butler Dies.” The Washington Post, Sep 09, 2004.
"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/ccbe800e83299d88222551b757292630.jpg":{"id":3073,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"The Founder","description":"Wesley Swift (1913-1970) was the founder of the American Christian Identity movement. He is pictured here with his wife, Genevieve, in 1932. | LA Times. Wesley A. Swift and his wife. Photograph. 1932. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Wesley_Swift_and_his_wife%2C_1932.jpg","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/ccbe800e83299d88222551b757292630.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/102540f53e622a17e199479fcd2a54c0.jpg":{"id":3074,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"White-Nationalist Parade","description":"Richard Butler (center of picture, in light-colored hat and suit) walks in a White-nationalist parade in Houston, Texas, in 1990. | 20 Dixie flags & Aryan Nations & Richard Butler & Nazi flag. Photograph. 1990. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/91255378@N00/19399396123","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/102540f53e622a17e199479fcd2a54c0.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/8139bd5d06810575cdd50a102d6c03c6.jpg":{"id":3075,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Richard Butler","description":"Richard Butler (sitting on bed of pickup truck in the center of the photo) appears in an Aryan Nations parade in Cœur d’Alene, Idaho in 2004. | Aryan Nations March 2004, Coeur d' Alene, ID. Photograph. 2004. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr. https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/17103883-a2b7-4526-a7a8-9dd268e9367c","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/8139bd5d06810575cdd50a102d6c03c6.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/8ad7fba9b8c76b5b9310f42406b843cb.jpg":{"id":3076,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Protests","description":"Locals protest an Aryan Nations parade in Cœur d’Alene, Idaho in 2004. | Aryan Nations March 2004, Coeur d' Alene, ID. Photograph. 2004. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr. https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/9c8fb209-0966-4a1d-a5bd-4e4d472e6eb5","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/8ad7fba9b8c76b5b9310f42406b843cb.jpg"}}}