USA > Missouri > Jackson County > Kansas City > Kansas City, Missouri : its history and its people 1808-1908 > Part 11
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"We moved on at a brisk and joyous pace until we reached Ocate creek, a tributary of the Colorado, a distance of a hundred and thirty miles from Santa Fe, where we encountered a very sudden bereavement in the death of Mr. Langham, one of our most respected proprietors. This gentleman was known to be in weak health, but no fears were entertained for his safety. We were all actively engaged in assisting the more heavily laden wagons over the miry stream, when he was seized with a fit of apoplexy and expired instantly. As we had not the means of giving the deceased a decent burial, we were compelled to consign him to the earth in a shroud of blankets. A grave was accordingly dug on an elevated spot near the north bank of the creek, and on the morning of the 13th, ere the sun had risen in the east, the mortal remains of this most worthy man and valued friend were deposited in their last abode,-without a tomb-stone to consecrate the spot, or an epi- taph to commemorate his virtues. The deceased was from St. Louis, though he had passed the last eleven years of his life in Santa Fe, during the whole of which period he had seen neither his home nor his relatives.
"The melancholy rites being concluded, we resumed our line of march. We now continued for several days without the occurrence of any important accident or adventure. On the 19th we camped in the Cimarron valley, about twelve miles below the Willow Bar. The very sight of this desolate region,
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DR. JOSIAH GREGG
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frequented as it is by the most savage tribes of Indians, was sufficient to strike dismay into the hearts of our party; but as we had not as yet encountered any of them, we felt comparatively at ease. Our mules and horses were 'staked' as usual around the wagons, and every man, except the watch, betook himself to his blanket, in anticipation of a good night's rest. The hour of midnight had passed away, and nothing had been heard except the tramping of the men on guard, and the peculiar grating of the mules' teeth, nibbling the short grass of the valley. Ere long, however, one of our sentinels got a glimpse of some object moving stealthily along, and as he was straining his eyes to ascertain what sort of apparition it could be, a loud Indian yell sud- denly revealed the mystery. This was quickly followed by a discharge of fire- arms, and the shrill note of the 'Pawnee whistle,' which at once made known the character of our visitors. As usual, the utmost confusion pre- vailed in our camp; some who had been snatched from the land of dreams, ran their heads against the wagons-others called out for their guns while they had them in their hands. During the height of the bustle and uproar, a Mexican servant was observed leaning with his back against a wagon, and his fusil elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, eoeking and pulling the trigger without ceasing, and exclaiming at every snap, 'Carajo, no sirve! (Curse it, it's good for nothing) .'
"The firing still continued-the yells grew fiercer and more frequent; and everything betokened the approach of a terrible conflict. Meanwhile a number of persons were engaged in securing the mules and horses which were staked around the encampment; and in a few minutes they were all shut up in the corral-a hundred head or more in a pen formed by seven wagons. The enemy failing in their principal object-to frighten off our stoek-soon be- gan to retreat; and in a few minutes nothing more was to be heard of them. All that we could diseover the next morning was, that none of our party had sustained any injury, and that we had not lost a single animal.
"The Pawnees have been among the most formidable and treacherous enemies of the Santa Fe traders. But the former have also suffered a little in return from the caravans. In 1832, a company of traders was approached by a single Pawnee chief, who commenced a parley with them, when he was shot down by a Pueblo Indian of New Mexico, who happened to be with the caravan. Though this eruel act met with the decided reprobation of the traders generally, yet they were of course held responsible for it by the In- dians. * X-
"We forded the Arkansas without difficulty, and pursued our journey to the Missouri border with comparative ease; being only now and then dis- turbed at night by the hideous howling of wolves, a pack of which had con- stituted themselves into a kind of 'guard of honor,' and followed in our wake
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for several hundred miles-in fact to the very border of the settlements. They were at first attracted no doubt by the remains of buffalo which were killed by us upon the high plains, and afterwards enticed on by an occasional fagged animal, which we were compelled to leave behind, as well as by the bones and scraps of food, which they picked up about our camps. Not a few of them paid the penalty of their lives for their temerity."
The Santa Fe trail had no greater hero than Felix Xavier Aubrey. For a wager of $1,000, the wiry Frenchman rode horseback from Santa Fe to In- dependence, the distance of 775 miles, in five days and nineteen hours. Before starting on this celebrated journey, he had swift horses stationed along the route for relays. Aubrey left the old town of Santa Fe in a swift gallop and he kept up the pace, stopping only to change horses, until he was taken in a faint from his foam-covered horse in the Independence public square. Friends carried the daring rider to a hotel and he remained in a stupor for two days. The feat cost the lives of several of Aubrey's best horses.
Aubrey was the first trader to take a loaded wagon from Missouri to New Mexico in the winter time. It is said that he drove a herd of sheep to Cali- fornia and made a financial success out of the venture. A third route to Santa Fe was discovered by Aubrey in 1850. Previously there were only two routes; one by way of the Cimarron river, and the other by way of the mountains that at a later date was followed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad. Aubrey's route crossed the Arkansas river below the mouth of the Big Sandy river. The greatest distance without water on that course was thirty miles, while the greatest distance without water on the Cimarron road was sixty miles. But for various reasons the Aubrey route was not generally used.
Aubrey was killed in a drunken brawl in Santa Fe. William R. Ber- nard, a merchant of early Westport, gave this account of the Frenchman's death in an article contributed to the Kansas State Historical society :
Previous to Aubrey's trip to California, Major Richard H. Weightman, who afterwards distinguished himself as a commander in the Confederate army, had been conducting a small newspaper in Santa Fe and through its columns had cast some doubt upon the discovery of a new pass through the mountains claimed by Aubrey. Some time thereafter Aubrey returned to Santa Fe, and meeting Major Weightman the two adjourned to a neighboring saloon. Both men called for brandy. Aubrey raised his glass to his lips and then putting it down inquired :
"What has become of your paper?"
"Dead," replied Major Weightman.
"What killed it?" asked the other.
"Lack of support," the major said.
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"The lie it told on me killed it," retorted Aubrey.
Without replying Major Weightman threw a glass of brandy in the Frenchman's face and while he was blinded by its effects, stabbed him to death. Major Weightman afterwards said that Aubrey was angry and was drawing his pistol and that he stabbed him in self-defense.
The Road to Santa Fe, as it appears now, was a long line of historic places. After a lapse of forty years, it is realized that the old highway had a most interesting part in the settlement of the West, and that its heroes are worth remembering. Now it may be seen that the Santa Fe trail was as important in the development of the West as the "Wilderness road" was in the opening of the west.
It was in a spirit of appreciation that the suggestion came that the course of the old trail, as much of it as possible, be preserved to future generations by a series of monuments or "markers." The Kansas City council appro- priated $20,000, November 6, 1905, to pay for markers to define the line of the Santa Fe road through the city.
In Kansas a legislative appropriation of $20,000 was made for markers to outline the Santa Fe trail through the state. The amount was not suffi- cient and it was supplemented by contributions from the school children. Each school child in the state was asked to contribute one penny to the fund, and 369,166 responded. The markers, purchased and prepared by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kansas, have been set in place. Four or five markers were erected in each county where the later highways crossed the old trail. In the towns through which the roads passed, bronze markers were placed on the sidewalks and buildings. This is the inscription on the granite monuments:
The Santa Fe Trail, 1822-1872.
Marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the State of Kansas, 1906.
CHAPTER VIIL.
CIVIL WAR PERIOD.
In presenting a history or a historical period, it is necessary to set down step by step the several facts that the events may unfold by degrees and thus present a picture of the whole situation. The history of the Civil war condi- tions in Kansas City and its effects cannot be understood without a clear con- ception of the causes and events of the Civil war.
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Virginia ceded to Congress its elaims to land in the northwestern terri- tory, March 1, 1784, and the same day Thomas Jefferson as chairman of a committee reported to Congress a plan of government for the new acquisition. Congress adopted Jefferson's plan, April 23d, 1784, but it did not become effective and was abrogated by that "immortal prohibition of slavery," the "Ordinance of 1787." From the introduction of Jefferson's ordinance in 1784 until the final Ordinance of 1787, of which it was said, "no act of Amer- ican legislation has called out more eloquent applause," various other ordi- nanees were submitted to Congress. Master minds of the North and the South framed the Ordinance of 1787 on a basis of enlightened statesmanship. It was presented to and rejected by Congress several times in different forms. At its first presentation, in 1784, the clause prohibiting slavery in the North- western territory, inserted by Jefferson, was stricken out by Congress. The ordinance, however, seemed only to gain strength from each rebuff. Men, broad of intellect, strong of will, forgetful of self, a majority from the slave- holding states of the South, labored harmoniously to provide for every emergency. Parcels of land were set apart for schools and churches for the pioneers who braved the hardships of the wilderness. The northwest territory to which the Ordinance of 1787 applied included an area of about 265,878 square miles, from which the following states were formed: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.
George Baneroft, writing of the final peaceful adoption of the ordinance, said: "Before the federal convention had referred its resolutions to a com- mittee of detail, an interlude in Congress was shaping the character and des- tiny of the United States of America. Sublime and humane and eventful in the history of mankind as was the result, it will not take many words to tell how it was brought about. For a time wisdom and peace and justice dwelt. among men, and the great ordinance, which could alone give continuance to the Union, came in serenity and stillness. Every man that had a share in it seemed to be led by an invisble hand to do just what was wanted of him ; all that was wrongfully undertaken fell to the ground to wither by the way- side; whatever was needed for the completion of the mighty work arrived opportunely and just at the right moment moved into its place."
Five of the eight states that voted for the ordinance in peace and har- mony were slave states and three were, free. Of the eighteen votes cast, eleven were slave state delegates, seven free state delegates. Daniel Webster said of this ordinance: "We are aecustomd to praise the lawgivers of antiquity ; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, aneient or modern, has produced effects of more distinet, marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787."
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Statesmen, historians and jurists have vied with one another in celebrat- ing its praises. In one respect it has a proud pre-eminence over all other acts of legislation on the American statute books. It alone is known by the date of its enactment, and not by its subject matter.
The Ordinance of 1787 gave a wonderful impetus to the development of the country west of the Mississippi river, on account of the vast influx of slave-holding immigrants from the slave-prohibited territory. Nine years later, in 1796, the Spanish authorities in St. Louis, harassed by a threatened invasion of English from Canada, offered every inducement to immigrants, in order to further strengthen their defense. The Spaniards especially desired immigrants from the United States, believing their hatred of the English would make them stronger allies.
Immigrants were offered immense tracts of land merely for the cost of surveying and the small legal fees incident to the purchase. All slave holders in the northwest territory were forced by the Ordinance of 1787 to either give up their slaves or leave the territory. Streams of immi- grants, going into the Northwest territory through Kentucky and Ten- nessee from the South and through Ohio and along the Lakes from the Northeast, met in Indiana and Illinois and crossed to the west side of the Mississippi river into the country, part of which finally was included in the state of Missouri.
Following the Ordinance of 1787, with its important influence on the development of the great West, more especially Missouri, came a trans- action of unusual importance, which took place in that chain of remarkable events that culminated in a great national duel. It is said of the clause in the Louisiana Purchase treaty, describing the boundary line, "that the words flow smoothly but it is doubtful if the same number of words in a treaty ever before concealed so many seeds of controversy." Article three of the treaty became the apple of discord when Missouri sought admission to the Union in 1819. In that clause it said. "The people of the Louisiana Purchase shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess." The religion of the people of that territory was unmolested, but the, "property" clause was threshed out on the floor of Congress and the "Missouri compromise," with the 36° 30' restriction, was the result.
Previous to the acquisition of the Louisiana territory one of every seven of Missouri's inhabitants was a slave. After 1803 the population of the territory that became Missouri increased rapidly, tripling between 1810 and 1820. The aggregate number of inhabitants in the state of Missouri in 1860, the last national enumeration while slavery existed. was 1.182,012,
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of which 114,931 were slaves. Missouri advanced from twenty-third in population among the states and territories in 1810, to eighth place in 1860.
Up to 1817 the, "balance of power" had been maintained between the slave states and the free states according to the constitution of the United
States. When the Fifteenth Congress assembled in July, 1817, the free states had a large majority in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, however, with a representation based, not on population, but on states, the representatives of the free and slave states were more evenly divided. Early in the first session of the Fifteenth Congress, Mississippi, a slave state, was admitted to the Union, and a year later, in December, 1818, Illinois, a free state, was admitted, thus preserving in the Union the "balance of power." Unfortunately, however, the South with its slave system expanded more rapidly than the North, and to make matters worse, in the second session of the Fifteenth Congress of 1818-19, both Alabama and Missouri asked per- mission to frame constitutions preparatory to becoming states. At that time there were twenty states in the Union, ten free and ten slave.
Georgia had stipulated a slave policy to Alabama when ceding the terri- tory to form that state, and this act was regarded by the northern representa- tives as final; and the Louisiana Purchase treaty, too, had guaranteed to the people of that territory peaceful possession of their property, including slaves. Congress had given the Georgia stipulation validity; the Louisiana Purchase treaty had received the same indorsement. Alabama was received with open arms, December, 1819, while Missouri, at the same time, pleading for the same privilege, under the same conditions governing Alabama, was opposed by the northern representatives who insisted upon the people of Missouri adopting an anti-slavery elause in their constitution. This issue engen- dered a debate, the first in the history of the country where a geographical line divided the contestants, and resulted in that episode in the history of Missouri, filled with hatred, vengeance and bloodshed, a history that finally ended with the war between the states.
A northern Democrat, Representative James Talmage of New York, proposed in February, 1819, as an amendment to the bill for the admission of Missouri: "That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servi- tude shall be prohibited, except for the punishment of erimes whereof the party shall have been fully convicted; and that all children born within the state after the admission thereof shall be free at the age of twenty-five years."
Slavery had existed in Missouri since the first white settlement, and in the treaty of purchase by which Louisiana was acquired from France, it was expressly stipulated that slavery should be protected. The discussion that followed the amendment, proposed in 1819, by James Talmage, was
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hot and speculative. Should the amendment be accepted and go into effect, the next move would, no doubt, be toward the old institution of slavery in the Southern states. This measure was the cause of bitter and lengthy debates in Congress.
There were many issues at that time that tend to the conclusion today that slavery was not the real cause of the debates of 1803 relative to the Louisiana Purchase treaty and the later fight for the "Missouri compromise," but that it was a struggle for political power. The admission of Alabama and Arkansas in 1819 and 1820 without contention as to slavery and that, too, while Missouri's fate was still pending, showed small interest in the abolition of the institution of slavery. With the Tal- mage amendment, a contest began that had dark forebodings for Thomas Jefferson. "The Missouri question," said Jefferson, "is the most portentous that ever threatened the Union. In the gloomiest moments of the Revolu- tionary war I never had any apprehension equal to that I feel from this source."
In his letter of April 22, 1820, to John Holmes, Jefferson said: "This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment; but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and politi- cal, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, never will be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper."
Twice the house, in which the North was predominant, passed the bill with the anti-slavery proviso, but the restriction was each time defeated in the Senate. The Senate at last yoked Maine, which was ready for admis- sion, with Missouri, the South agreeing to let Maine in as a free state if the North would allow Missouri to come in with slavery. This adjustment was proposed by anorthern Democrat of pro-slavery proclivities, Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois, by which Maine was to be admitted as a free state and Missouri to enter with slavery with the 36° 30' north latitude pro- viso, prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana Purchase, territory with the excep- tion of Missouri. This proposition, which the house fought for a time but which at last, in 1820, was accepted, was the "Missouri compromise" proper.
This question disposed of, another* arose. Missouri's constitution con- tained a clause that prohibited the entrance of free negroes into the state. This provision precipitated further debate in Congress. The question was settled by a compromise offered by Henry Clay, under which Missouri agreed not to exclude any one recognized as a citizen by any other state. At that time negroes were recognized by several northern states.
The close of the Mexican war of 1845-46 brought new territory to the United States. By the terms of the treaties the United States acquired
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Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona. Should these acquisitions be slave or free territories? The Wilmot proviso of 1846, stipulating that in all territory acquired from Mexico slavery should be prohibited, was re- jected. However, when California asked to be admitted as a state, in 1849, its constitution prohibited slavery. Much discord ensued and in the midst of the excitement Henry Clay, who was in the Senate, tried conciliation by introducing the "Compromise of 1850," which included resolutions on all pending issues. Congress admitted California without restriction, establish- ing territorial governments without stipulations regarding slavery. Con- gress at the same time declared it inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but prohibited the introduction of slaves into the District for mercenary purposes or for transportation. These resolutions on open questions of such vital interest were debated in the Senate from the time Clay availed himself of his position to present them in January, 1850, through the winter and spring and throughout a long, hot summer until Congress adjourned in September of the same year.
Henry Clay's resolutions were not adopted by Congress as presented, but bills, based on their principles, worked their way through the long ses- sion. The measures of compromise finally were signed by President Millard Fillmore, who knew that a failure of the compromise measures of 1850 surely would bring disunion.
It was deereed by conventions of the Whig and the Democratic parties that the compromise measures of 1850 were a final settlement in "principle and substance" of the question of slavery. Daniel Webster, who had con- tributed sueh brilliant oratory to their success, congratulated himself and the country, as he drew near death in 1852, that there was no part of the territory of the United States in which the subject of slavery had not been determined and disposed of by positive law. President Franklin Pieree, in his first message in 1853, was impelled to speak of those measures as having "given renewed vigor to our institutions, and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind throughout the confederacy."
The Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1854, for the organization of the terri- tories of Kansas and Nebraska, abrogated the Missouri Compromise of 1820. No one chapter of the political history of the United States is more directly connected with the Civil war than the Missouri question. It was the pre- lude to the tremendous struggle. The Kansas-Nebraska bill first was offered, without the "squatter sovereignty" provision, by Senator August C. Dodge of Iowa, and Representative Richard Richardson of Illinois, in the Senate and in the House on February 2 and February 3, 1853. The measure re- mained with the committee on territories until January 23, 1854, when Senator Stephen A. Douglas reported it to the Senate. It then contained
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the proviso relegating chattel slavery to a local vote, which was regarded by William H. Seward as a gauntlet flung to the free states.
After a memorable, debate of one month, the bill passed and went to the House. Within two days there occurred a remarkable episode-the one unbroken legislative "day" of nearly one thousand four hundred hours of time. The minority resisted so strenuously that the deadlock at last was broken only by the refusal of Gerritt Smith of New York to longer bear the physical strain required to hold the House together. Watches had been organized by the minority and relieved one another regularly until the break came. The Kansas-Nebraska act then became a law, passing May 22, 1854, and being at once signed by President Franklin Pierce.
The repeal of the Missouri compromise, which for more than thirty years had been regarded as permanent and which, whether right or wrong, had become invested with authority, was the basis of the conflict in Mis- souri. The dissatisfaction caused by this transaction did not subside, but increased. Pro-slavery feeling in the South grew more intense, the institu- tion of slavery having become the very corner stone of its social structure. In the North abolitionists became more active and came in increasing num- bers under the spell of the great anti-slavery advocates. When Douglas embodied the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty" in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the great war of words that was the prelude to the clash of arms began.
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