USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume I > Part 46
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The Emigrant Aid Company has been incorporated to protect emi- grants, as far as may be, from such inconveniences. Its duty is to organize emigration to the West and bring it into a system. This duty, which should have been attempted long ago, is particularly essential now, in the critical position of the Western Territories.
The Legislature has granted a charter, with a capital sufficient for these purposes. This capital is not to exceed $5,000.000. In no single year are assessments to a larger amount than 10 per cent to be called for. The corporators believe that if the company be organized at once, as soon as the subscription of the stock amounts to $1,000,000, the annual income to be derived from that amount, and the subsequent subscriptions may be
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so appropriated as to render most essential service to the emigrant, to plant a free State in Kansas, to the lasting advantage of the country, and to return a very handsome profit to stockholders upon their invest- ment.
(1) The emigrant suffers whenever he goes atone into his new home. He suffers from the fraud of others; from his own ignorance of the system of travel, and of the country where he settles; and, again, from his want of support from neighbors, which results in the impossibility of any combined assistance, or of any division of labor.
The Emigrant Aid Company will relieve him from all such embar- rassments, by sending out emigrants in companies, and establishing them in considerable numbers. They will locate these where they please on arrival in their new home, and receive from government their titles. The company propose to carry them to their homes more cheaply than they could otherwise go; to enable them to establish themselves with the least inconvenience, and to provide the most important prime necessities of a new colony : It will provide shelter and food at the lowest prices, after the arrival of emigrants, while they make the arrangements necessary for their new homes. It will render all the assistance which the informa- tion of its agents can give. And, by establishing emigrants in large numbers in the Territories, it will give them the power of using at once those social influenees which radiate from the church, the school and the press in the organization and development of a community.
For these purposes, it is recommended, first, that the Directors con- tract immediately with some one of the competing lines of travel, for the conveyance of 20,000 persons from Massachusetts to that place in the West, which the Directors shall seleet for their first settlement.
It is believed that passage may be obtained, in so large a contract, at half the price paid by individuals. We recommend that emigrants receive the full advantage of this diminution in price, and that they be forwarded in companies of 200, as they apply at these reduced rates of travel.
(2) It is recommended that, at such points as the Directors select for places of settlement, they shall at onee construct a boarding house, or receiving house, in which 300 persons may receive temporary accom- modation on their arrival; and that the number of such houses be en- larged as necessity may dictate. The new comers, or their families, may thus be provided for in the necessary interval which elapses while they are making their selection of a location.
(3) It is recommended that the Directors procure and send forward steam saw-mills, grist-mills, and such other machines as shall be of constant service in a new settlement, which cannot, however, be pur- chased or carried out conveniently by individual settlers. These ma- chines may be leased or run by the company's agents. At the same time, it is desirable that a printing press be sent out, and a weekly news- paper established. This would be the organ of the company's agents : would extend information regarding its settlement, and be, from the very first, an index of that love of freedom and of good morals which it is hoped may characterize the State now to be formed.
(4) It is recommended that the company's agents locate and take up for the company's benefit, the sections in which the boarding-house and mills are located, and no others. And further, that whenever the territory shall be organized as a free State, the directors shall dispose of all its interests there ; replace by the sales the money laid out ; declare a dividend to the stock-holders, and
(5) That they then select a new field, and make similar arrangements for the settlement and organization of another free State of this Union.
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II. With the advantages attained by such a system of effort, the territory selected as the scene of operations would, it is believed, at onee fill up with free inhabitants. There is reason to suppose that several thousand men of New England origin propose to emigrate under the auspices of some such arrangement this very summer. Of the whole emigration from Europe, amounting to some 400,000 persons, there can be no difficulty in inducing 30,000 or 40,000 to take the same direction. Applications from German agents have already been made to members of this company. We have also intimations, in correspondence from the free states of the West, of a widespread desire there, among those who know what it is to settle a new country, to pass on, if such an organiza- tion can be made, into that now thrown open. An emigration company of those intending to go has been formed in Woreester County, and others in other States.
In view of the establishment by such agencies of a new free State in that magnificent region, it is unnecessary to dwell in detail on the advan -- tages which this enterprise holds out to the country at large.
It determined in the right way the institutions of the unsettled terri- tories in less time than the discussion of them has required in Congress. It opens to those who are in want in the Eastern States a home and a competence without the suffering hitherto ineident to emigration. For the company is the pioneer, and provides, before the settler arrives, the convenienees which he first requires. Such a removal of an overerowded population is one of the greatest advantages to Eastern eities. Again, the enterprise opens commercial advantages to the commercial States, just in proportion to the population which it creates, of free men who furnish a market to our manufactures and imports. Whether the new line of States shall be Free States or Slave States is a question deeply interesting to those who are to provide the manufactures for their eon- sumption. Especially will it prove an advantage to Massachusetts if she create the new State by her foresight, supply the first necessities to its inhabitants, and open in the outset communications between their homes and her ports and factories.
In return for these advantages, which the company's rapid and simple effort affords to the emigrant and to the country, its stockholders receive that satisfaction, ranked by Lord Bacon among the very highest "of becoming founders of States," and, more than this, States which are prosperous and free. They seeure satisfaction by an investment which promises large returns at no distant day.
Under the plan proposed, it will be but two or three years before the company can dispose of its property in the territory first oeeupied and reimburse. At that time, in a State of 70,000 inhabitants, it will possess several reservations of 640 aeres each, on which its boarding-houses and mills stand, and the churches and schoolhonses which is has rendered necessary. From these eenters will the settlements of the State have radiated. In other words, these points will then be the large commercial positions of the new States. If there were only one such, its value, after the region should be so far peopled, would make a very large dividend to the company which sold it, besides restoring its original capital, with which to enable it to attempt the same adventure elsewhere.
It is to be remembered that all accounts agree that the region of Kansas is the most desirable part of America now open to the emigrant. It is accessible in five days continuous travel from Boston. Its erops are very bountiful, its soil being well adapted to the staples of Virginia and Kentucky, and especially to the growth of hemp. In its eastern section the woodland and prairie land intermix in proportions very well adapted for the purposes of the settler. Its mineral resources, especially
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its eoal, in the central and western parts, are inexhaustible. A steamboat is already plying on the Kansas River, and the Territory has uninter- rupted steamboat communication with New Orleans and all the tribu- taries of the Mississippi River. All the overland emigration to California and Oregon by any of the easier reutes passes of necessity through its limits. Whatever roads are built westward must begin in this territory. For it is here that the emigrant leaves the Missouri River. Of late years, the demand for provisions and breadstuff's made by emigrants proceeding to California has given to the inhabitants of the neighboring parts of Missouri a market at as good rates as they could have found in the Union.
It is impossible that such a region should not fill up rapidly. The Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company proposes to give confidenee to settlers by giving system to emigration. By dispelling the fears that Kansas will be a slave State, the company will remove the only bar which now hinders its occupation by free settlers. It is to be hoped that similar companies will be formed in other free States. The enterprise is of that character that, for those who first enter it, the more competi- tion the better.
It is recommended that the first settlement made by the Directors shall receive the name of the eity in this commonwealth which shall have subseribed most liberally to the stoek of the company in proportion to its last deeennial valuation; and that the second settlement be named from the eity next in order in so subscribing.
It is recommended that a meeting of the stockholders be ealled on the first Wednesday in June to organize the company for one year, and that the corporators at this time make a temporary organization, with power to obtain subseriptions to the stock, and make any necessary preliminary arrangements.
ELI THAVER, for the Committee.
When it came to the sale of the stock of the company, it was found that any stoekholder would be liable for all the debts it might contraet. Under such a eontingeney the stoek was not in demand. It was bur- dened with too many possibilities of loss to investors. To correct this fundamental weakness, Mr. Thayer surrendered his Massachusetts ehar- ter. The company was continued as a private enterprise, with a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars, under the name of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, and under the management of Mr. Thayer.
Other emigration companies were organized. One was the Emigrant Aid Company of New York and Connecticut, formed July 18, 1854, and later chartered by the Connecticut Legislature. Eli Thayer was its president. The Union Emigration Society was formed in Washington City, May 29, 1854. These, with the original society, comprised the three large societies formed to promote sectional emigration into Kansas. Many smaller ones were soon to be found in different parts of the North. They were uniform in purpose.3
3 The histories of Kansas have generally placed the organization of the loeal societies in Western Missouri before mention of the New England Emigrant Aid Society. So far as their employment in Kansas was intended, they were organized after the New England society had been incorporated.
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A summarization of the main purposes of the Emigrant Aid Com- pany emphasizes these-
1. It would colonize Kansas with foreigners to the number of forty thousand annually.
2. It would send twenty thousand of the inhabitants of Massachu- setts to Kansas every year. These were to be persons who hated slavery and would use every effort to destroy it.
3. It would procure other emigrants to Kansas, and these were also to be workers against making Kansas a slave state.
4. It promised the stockholders who might put up the five millions of capital of the company, the satisfaction of becoming founders of States-and of having "an investment which promises large returns at no distant day."
5. It was recommended that the director immediately make con- tracts with competing lines of travel for the transportation of twenty thousand persons from Massachusetts "to that place in the West which the director shall select for the first settlement."
6. Steam saw mills, grist mills, and other machinery were to be shipped into Kansas for the use of these twenty thousand people from Massachusetts, and others whom the company might send there.
7. A newspaper was to be established at the first point selected for settlement, which was to be the organ of the company-not a newspaper representing the sentiments and interests of the community.4
8. The first settlement was to be named in honor of the city which gave the most money to the enterprise. This provision failed to develop satisfactorily, when it was changed to a shrewd plan to indnce vain and corpulent old gentlemen with heavy money-bags to come forward and compete for fame.
9. Land was to be procured, and when it had increased in value, it was to be sold for an advanced price. The proceeds were to be then invested in other tracts of new land around which settlements were to be erected. When that land increased in value it was to be sold, and so on. The report estimated that there would be seventy thousand inhabitants in Kansas in two or three years. Upon this increase in population the hope of increase in the value of land was based. These transactions were "to return a very handsome profit to stockholders upon their investment." 5
4 In accordance with this declaration of one of the purposes of the company, G. W. Brown, of Conneautville, Pennsylvania, was hired by Mr. Thayer to take his paper to Kansas, there to be published in the interest of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Mr. Brown denied this for many years in very blustering and violent language, but the fact is well established, and was later admitted by Mr. Thayer, who, however. adds the saving clause that Mr. Brown paid the money back. It is somewhat strange that Mr. Brown would have been so bitter in his denials if he had repaid the money.
5 Many people were misled as to the intentions of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Benevolence had no place in its designs. It was a money-making enterprise. It connected the anti-slavery sentiment
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When Kansas had been thus settled and developed, other states both new and old, were to be put through the same course. Writing of this plan thirty years later, Mr. Thayer said :
That we should put a eordon of Free States from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, and stop the forming of Slave States. After that we should colonize the northern border Slave States and exterminate Slavery. That our work was not to make women and children ery in anti-slavery conventions, by sentimental appeals, BUT TO GO AND PUT AN END TO SI.AVERY.6
of the North with its purpose because that was the uppermost question of the day. It was supposed that many people would contribute to the purchase of its stoek for sentimental reasons, and such proved to be the ease. In treating this phase of the New England Emigrant Aid Com- pany, Mr. Holloway, in his History of Kansas, said at page 119:
"The existence of this Aid Society doubtless facilitated emigration, by seattering information respecting the Territory over the land, by ealling the attention of the people to the importance of settling Kansas in order to prevent the extension of slavery, and by the assurance which they gave that mills, sehoolhouses and churches would be ereeted to accommodate the new country. Beyond this the work which they did towards peopling Kansas was insignifieant. The only advantages which the New England Emigrant Aid Company furnished those who came under its immediate auspiees, were the reduction of the fare about $5.00 and affording them the pleasure of a large company. The consequence was most people preferred to come independent of it. Not a eent was ever given by the company towards paying a single emigrant's fare ; not a guarantee ever given that any person would be supported free after arriving in the Territory."
Mr. Holloway, (page 115), expressed doubt as to the justice of form- ing these sectional societies, but like most writers, approved them on the ground that good finally resulted. He admitted, (page 125), that "The direet effects of these societies were as a drop in the ocean in the settling of Kansas with freemen." The claim that the New England Emigrant Aid Company ealled attention to Kansas has always been made by those connected with it. The exact reverse is true. Mr. Thayer connected his company with Kansas for the reason that Kansas was already the spot-light of America, because of the interest aronsed by the debates in Congress on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the discussion of the bill and the debates in the newspapers. and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Thayer was a shrewd business man, and he saw that his plan was already advertised.
Mr. Holloway said, in addition to the above, that the total number of persons the New England Emigrant Aid Company sent to Kansas. was "as many as two thousand." As a factor in settling Kansas, the company was a failure. It was not until thirty years later that Mr. Thayer and his associates fell upon the plan to get glory, as they had gotten money, ont of the speenlative connections with Kansas. They then formulated the claim that the company had made Kansas a free state. The only danger Kansas ever was in of becoming a slave State resulted from the organization of seetional emigration to settle the Territory.
6 This reference is to the hatred borne by Mr. Thayer to William Lloyd Garrison. Mr. Thayer and his friends never tired of abusing Mr. Garrison and areusing him of having above everything else. a desire to destroy the Union. The Abolitionists were denounced by Mr. Thayer
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If evidence were required, beyond the report brought in by Mr. Thayer, as already set out, to stamp the whole plan as absurd, this latter language of Mr. Thayer would answer that purpose. As an example of how one of the expectations of Mr. Thayer was realized, it is only necessary to say that instead of there being one hundred thousand people from Massachusetts in Kansas, as there would have been had his twenty thousand per annum materialized, there were in Kansas, in 1860, only twelve hundred and eighty-two people from Massachusetts.
The report of Mr. Thayer was published broadcast. It appeared in the New York Tribune, May 20, 1854. Mr. Greeley was enthusiastic in his approval of the plan, as his editorials at that time sufficiently testify. Other papers, both in the North and the South, contained Mr. Thayer's report, and comments thereon. Knowledge of the Emigrant Aid Com- pany, and its intentions, was, in a short time, as extensive as that of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
The effect of the formation of emigration companies and societies in the North, alarmed the South. Slavery had just triumphed in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The question as to whether Kansas should be a free or slave state, had by that bill, been referred to the people who might make the first constitution of the State. That form of dealing with the slave question was known as "Squatter Sovereignty." When it was known that certain Northern states intended to combat this form of that settlement, in Kansas Territory, and try to secure Kansas to freedom by sectional emigration, there was nothing left for the South to do but to meet the conditions with counter organizations, if the contest was to be continued. It came early to be the belief of the South, that the friends of a free state in Kansas did not intend to abide by the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The victory for slavery had been won in the halls of Congress, and the fact that it was not accepted as con- clusive, was a surprise to the slavery leaders. They immediately as- sumed this position: Granted that the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise was wrong, it was equally wrong to attempt to nullify the Repeal by violence, which the organization of sectional emigration societies was held to be. In the South, many of those who had opposed the Repeal, were, by the acts of the North, thrown into the ranks of the pro-slavery element. The passions of the South were aroused by the formation of these political, sectional emigration societies to the same point to which the Northern people had been stirred by the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska bill. No other event so angered the South as the formation
to the end of his life. It was always the plan of Mr. Thayer and his associates to assume a superior air, together with a "holier than thou" attitude, and pretend to superior achievements. Their manner of estab- lishing their claims to superiority consisted in violent abuse and un- measured denunciation of other people. As instances confirming this statement it is only necessary to call attention to the writings of Mr. Thayer, Charles Robinson, G. W. Brown, and later hired writings of their friends.
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of these societies. Every resource was to be drawn upon to effeet a plan to offset the work of the soeieties.7
The feeling ou the western border of Missouri can be adequately deseribed only by calling it a frenzy against all anti-slavery people and movements. They supposed the twenty thousand persons from Massa- ehusetts might arrive in Kansas at any time. They determined to go over into the Territory at onee and stake out their elaims preparatory to permanent settlement, whether the Indian titles had been extinguished or not. There had long been seeret orders in the South for the regula- tion and control of slaves. Their funetions had been principally to execute local police regulations and furnish patrols for plantations. These societies were now reorganized. They were changed in purpose and strengthened for new duties. Perhaps some new orders were insti- tuted. They were given other names, and they held frequent meetings. The new names of some of these societies were: "The Blue Lodge," "The Social Band," "Friend's Society," and "The Sons of the South." There were many others, but these were the principal ones in existenee in Missouri. They were the basis of the organization to counteraet the societies in the interest of free state.8
During the month of May, much of the Indian land, in what is now Leavenworth County, had been staked out as squatter claims. There had been no survey of the lands of Kansas Territory and there were no legal descriptions of pareels of lands on which to lay these claims. They were taken under the pre-emption law, entitling a eitizen of the United States to one hundred and sixty aeres of land for a homestead, but the land had to be purchased from the United States after a home had been established upon it. There was at that time no homestead law, as later known. The squatters staked out their elaims as nearly
7 If the element of sectional promoted emigration could have been left out of the Kansas situation, there would have been little serious trouble in Kansas. There might have been, possibly, a few blustering forays into the Territory by Mr. Atchison and his followers. These would not have had a solid Southern sentiment behind them. They would have accomplished nothing. The issue between freedom and slavery would have been settled peaceably at the polls, and freedom would have triumphed in Kansas without any great struggle.
$ There is no justification for the aetion of the South, especially those of the people of Missouri, about the formation of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Little effort has been made, even in Missouri, to eondone those actions. No sueeessful effort for that purpose ever ean be made. No excuse ean ever be made for the course slavery had pur- sued for the previous thirty years. No valid excuse can be offered for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It was reactionary and in the interest of barbarism. It was another link in the chain by which slavery was destroying itself. The time was near at hand when the moral sense of the people of the Union would have destroyed it because of such aggressive aetions. There was no more exeuse for sectional emigration in Kansas, than there had been for the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise. The result of each was to embitter people and inspire them with hatred against one another. Two wrongs never yet made a right.
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in accordance with these conditions as possible. They marked their claims by putting up a rude cabin, or by bringing timber or logs for such a cabin, or, in some instances, by placing four logs upon the ground as a foundation for the future cabin. By the treaties negotiated with the Indian tribes, it was provided that much of the land should be sold by the Government to settlers. In many instances land of this char- aeter was settled upon by the squatters. On the 10th of June, 1854, the squatters held a meeting in the Salt Creek Valley, west of the City of Leavenworth. At that meeting a Squatter's Claim Association was formed and the following declarations and resolutions were adopted :
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