“Yet we will continue to tar and feather, drown, lynch and hang every
white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil,” said a
flamboyant editorial in the Squatter Sovereign, a pro-slavery paper
published at Atchison, Kansas, a Border Ruffian stronghold.
The Slaveryites lived up to this promise. The Free State men at
this time had not begun to arm, but doggedly and quietly went about
organizing their own government at Topeka. Their actions infuriated
the Southerners. Now began the long list of crimes that made the soil
of Kansas reek with blood.
It would be impossible to give a full record here of all those crimes.
The least that happened was the destruction of newspapers that
protested against Southern injustice, such as the Parkville, Missouri,
Luminary, which was burned down, the machinery thrown in the river, and
the editors threatened with a similar fate if they indulged in further
free speech.
There were hundreds of abolitionists murdered in Kansas; hundreds of
their wives and children were gibed at and threatened and terrified;
hundreds of their cabins were burnt down, and thousands of head of
cattle stolen.
One of the murders was the killing of Samuel Collins, owner of a
saw-mill near Atchison, by Patrick Laughlin, a pro-slavery man. No
effort was made to punish him by the authorities. But something was
done by them in another case. Charles Dow, a young Free State man
from Ohio, was cruelly shot down from behind by Franklin Coleman, a
pro-slavery settler from Virginia.
What the authorities did in this case was to arrest Jacob Branson, with
whom the dead man had lived. A pro-slavery sheriff charged Branson with
having made threats to revenge his friend. Branson was rescued by a
group of his friends with rifles, and taken to Lawrence for protection,
Lawrence being entirely settled by the Free State men.
The Sheriff called on the Governor, and the Governor called on the
militia, and with the aid of Missouri citizens, about twelve hundred
armed men marched on Lawrence, to “put down the rebellion.”
The men of Lawrence sent out a call to all Northerners; and John Brown
and his men were among those who responded. There were five hundred
settlers in Lawrence, and they feverishly fortified the town with
embankments; but the whole affair ended by a compromise; there was no
fighting; only two men were killed in a light skirmish.
The Southerners left, weak with all the whisky they had drunk on the
expedition, according to reliable observers, and angered that they had
not been given the chance to burn Lawrence down.
For Lawrence was a sore spot to the pro-slavery men. It was the
largest Free State town in Kansas, and the center of all the political
activities of that group. It published a newspaper, and its Free State
Hotel was the headquarters of the Northerner’s government.
There were other murders, despite the treaty signed at this time. And
then in February, as Free State men were holding another of their
elections, they were assaulted at Leavenworth, and many of them forced
to flee to Lawrence.
One of the leaders of the Free State men, as he was returning from
Leavenworth after the election, was captured by a company of Border
Ruffian militia. Wounded and defenceless though he was, they literally
hacked the unfortunate foe of slavery into pieces with their hatchets
and knives. Not an effort was made to punish these murderers, though
their names were known by everyone. Some of the slavery journals even
praised the deed, and called for more. Said the Kansas Pioneer of
Kickapoo:
“Sound the bugle of war over the length and breadth of the land, and
leave not an Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treacherous
and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle balls and your
glittering steel to their black and poisonous hearts.”
And in May of that year, after further alarms and disturbances,
Sheriff Jones returned with an army of 750 “swearing, whisky-drinking
ruffians,” armed with rifles, and even two pieces of artillery. This
time the Free State men were unprepared. John Brown was not there, nor
any other real leader. The Free State men still believed in peace, and
legality. And they saw their Free State Hotel go up in flames, their
newspaper plant destroyed, and an orgy of drunken destruction let loose
among their homes.
“Let Yankees tremble, Abolitionists fall,
Our Motto is, Give Southern Rights to All.”
This was the inscription on one of the banners of the invading army.
Lawrence was the first city to receive these rights. Thereafter Free
State men knew what to expect; they began forming companies of riflemen
and guerrilla fighters to protect their communities against Southern
rights.