By the beginning of the new year (1849) the population of California had
run up to twenty-five thousand. The winter months, or, as we should say
of this region, the rainy season, everywhere brought great suffering to
the badly-housed and ill-fed emigrants, many of whom reached the mines
in a state of destitution. There were many things even gold could not
buy or wealth command. Men who had both were glad to get acorns to live
on. Many died this first winter. With the coming of spring the depleted
ranks were more than filled by new arrivals, and when January came round
again the pioneers of 1849 were a hundred thousand.
FOOTNOTES
[1] TWO THOUSAND AMERICANS. "In settling an island the
first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church; by
a Frenchman, a fort; by a Dutchman, a warehouse; and by an
Englishman, an alehouse." To this it should be added that
an American would start a newspaper. The detained Americans
having found at Panama an unused printing-office started a
paper called the "Star," of which John A. Lewis of Boston was
editor.
[2] WHEN THEY DID REACH IT. The schooner Phœnix was a
hundred and fifteen days making the passage; the Two Friends,
five and a half months going from Panama to San Francisco.
[3] SAN FRANCISCO: named for St. Francis of Assisi, founder
of the Franciscan order, which founded the California
missions. See legend of his preaching to the birds. The
Mission of San Francisco was situated two miles from the
landing-place on the bay, where the present city of the name
was begun. At this landing a custom-house was established, and
the place called Yerba Buena (see Note 4). The missionaries
chose the little Dolores Valley because it was the sunniest
and warmest part of the peninsula.
[4] YERBA BUENA; first name of San Francisco (see Note 3);
meaning good herb: now continued in the island. A vine with
a small white flower, common to California.
CALIFORNIA A FREE STATE.
The United States did not set up a Territorial government in California
at once, but put military governors over it, who continued the old laws
of Mexico in force. What these were, only the native people could know.
They had not yet been translated into English. Many, indeed, derided
the idea of being governed by laws made for Spaniards. Instead, then,
of being clothed with power to enact laws suited to the new and strange
conditions growing out of the gold discovery, with society unformed, or
breaking to pieces about them, the people of California found themselves
living almost without law, except such as imperative need compelled them
to make and enforce for themselves. This state of things could have but
one result among a people hastily thrown together from all parts of the
earth, most of whom were law-abiding, but many the outcasts of society.
It led to confusion, lawlessness, and crime. In the annals of the State
it is usually called the interregnum, from the Latin word signifying a
suspension of the regular functions of government.
Therefore, as the actual laws remained either mostly unknown, or were
held in little esteem, the people conformed to them only so far as to
give the officers or courts they chose among themselves Spanish names.
They everywhere took the law into their own hands, establishing such
local laws, or usages having the force of laws, as their situation would
seem to give warrant for.
Thus, the miners determined for themselves how much room each man
should have to dig in; and they established in their camps rude codes
of justice by which the worst crimes usually met with prompt punishment.
If, for instance, a man committed murder, he would be tried on the spot
by a miners' court, hastily summoned for the purpose. Trials of this
sort were generally conducted in an orderly manner, and seldom failed
of doing justice, but they were always felt to be a departure from the
usages of civilized people, and in so far a going-back toward barbarism.
[Illustration: HYDRAULIC MINING.]
Much disorder brings with it much order. Informed of all the evils to
which this state of affairs gave rise, Governor Riley, in 1849, called
the people to meet in convention for the forming of a State government.
The delegates accordingly assembled in September at Monterey. They
framed a constitution, on the plan of the free States, prohibiting
slavery; for as labor was to be the corner-stone of the State, the men
of 1849 would not degrade free labor by competition with slave-labor. In
November the constitution was ratified by the people; and in December
the officers elected under it met at San José to fully organize the
State government.
[Illustration: CHICKEN-VENDER.]
The petition of California to be a free State was strongly resisted by
the Southern men in Congress, who had hoped it would come in as a slave
State. Once again it brought up the whole subject of slavery extension.
Eventually the struggle gave rise to another compromise by which
California came in as a free State (1850), the slave-trade was abolished
in the District of Columbia, and the Fugitive Slave Law passed, mainly
by the efforts of Henry Clay. The execution of the last-named law roused
the indignation of the North as nothing had ever yet done. Resistance
to slavery extension was now become the dominant question there in
politics, in literature, and in the pulpit. The doctrine that the people
of a territory alone should have the right to decide whether they would
have slavery or not had been urged with much force by Senator Douglas in
the case of California; and thus popular sovereignty, as it was called,
now first brought together the moderate partisans of slavery, those
indifferent to its extension, and those who believed such a settlement
as Mr. Douglas proposed would lift the question out of party agitation,
and so put a stop to the threats of secession, which was the bugbear of
all who loved the Union.
ARIZONA.
A dispute having arisen with Mexico about the boundary the war had
established, President Pierce settled it by buying the territory in
question (1853) for ten millions of dollars. General James Gadsden
negotiated its transfer, and for him it was called the Gadsden Purchase.
The United States thus acquired the strip of country lying between the
Gila River and the present southern boundary of Arizona. Prior to its
purchase it had formed part of the Mexican State of Sonora. Mr. Gadsden
exerted himself to secure with it the port of Guaymas on the Gulf of
California, but was not sustained by Congress in his effort to do so.
At the period of its cession to us Arizona was practically unknown
except to hunters and trappers or to the few who had read the accounts
of the early Spanish explorers. Mr. Gadsden was ridiculed for making
the purchase, and Congress censured for squandering the people's money
upon an arid waste destitute of sufficient wood and water to sustain
a population of civilized beings. The failure of the Spaniards to
found any considerable settlements was dwelt upon. Stories of mines of
fabulous wealth that Arizona held locked up in her mountains had indeed
come down from a remote time, and were more or less current abroad, but
few believed in them, or could see any compensating advantage to accrue
to us for the millions Congress had spent. Government, however, caused
the territory immediately to be surveyed with the view of settling the
question whether we had or had not been cheated in making the purchase.
[Illustration: MISSION SAN XAVIER DEL BAC, NEAR TUCSON.]
II.
THE CONTEST FOR FREE SOIL.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
At the period now reached by our story the political sense of the
people, in all things touching the national life, was represented by
the Whig and Democratic parties. There was yet another body formed to
prevent the coming in of any more slave States, and therefore called the
Free-Soil party. This last party had only come into being since the war
with Mexico, and was not yet strong enough to successfully cope with the
older ones for control in national affairs; but it was growing stronger
every day.
Neither of the two great parties was divided by geographical lines. Both
called themselves national parties, but since the extension of slavery
was become the vital question of the hour, the Whig party was losing
ground to the Free-Soil party, which indeed mostly grew up from the
defection of those Whigs who determined henceforth to stand with the
opponents of slavery until that question should be settled forever. So
while the Whig party was strongest in the free States, it was beginning
to go to pieces because it no longer represented the growing feeling
against slavery in those States, though it was still led by able
statesmen like Daniel Webster, whom the country had always looked to in
the past for safe counsel and guidance through all the perils of party
strife.
The Democratic party, on the contrary, being most numerous in the
slaveholding States, was more firmly united than ever by the agitation
about slavery, which their great leader, Calhoun, had told them could
only be maintained by being extended, and could only be extended by
becoming aggressive.
[Illustration: STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.]
Here, then, we have the political situation after the admission of
California, in a nutshell. In the South the Democratic party stood
solid and defiant in support of slavery extension; in the North it
favored popular sovereignty, as defined by Mr. Douglas. The Free-Soil
party declared its purpose to oppose the making of any more slave
States, and under the lead of Sumner of Massachusetts, Chase of Ohio,
and Seward of New York, prepared to make head against its formidable
opponents. The Whigs were now looked upon as the party of vacillation,
weakness, and compromise. Though in nominal opposition to the Democrats,
its leadership was no longer trusted, because it was felt to have
surrendered the one principle[1] on which the coming struggle
inevitably would turn.
The Democratic party succeeded in electing Franklin Pierce[2] to the
Presidency, for the term running from 1853 to 1857.
His administration is chiefly memorable for the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, by which two new Territories were formed of the
Louisiana Purchase, and thrown open to settlement. In framing this
Act its authors left it to the people to choose for themselves whether
they would have slavery or not, as Douglas urged they should; and in
order that they might do so, the compromise of 1820 was set aside.
This measure was largely the work of Mr. Douglas, who, arguing that the
people are sovereigns, viewed a reference of the slavery question back
to them, as the only true way of settling the agitation about it. It had
a certain fair-play look that won many to its support in the North. In
this form Congress passed the Act, May 30, 1854.
To repeal the Missouri Compromise, was held by many at the North and
some at the South,[3] to be a violation of the pledge so sacredly made
to the whole people, not to admit slavery north of 36° 30´. We shall
see what it led to.
Let us look first at the new Territories as the organic Act found them.
From the Missouri on the east, they reached to the Rocky Mountains on
the west. They contained the most fertile lands of the public domain.
The great thoroughfares to Oregon, California, and New Mexico, traversed
them in their whole length, so making it clear, even at this early day,
that the great movement of the people from east to west must be along
the lines of these thoroughfares, strewing its pathway with populous
cities and towns as it went.
Already we have led the explorers through this magnificent land. Through
them much knowledge had been gained of its natural features, its fine
climate, and of the unequalled fecundity of its soil. The West was
its neighbor and knew most about it. The East knew it only through the
accounts of Pike, Long, and Fremont, from the reports of emigrants, or
in the stories of travel written by Irving, Latrobe and others, all of
which gave it a kind of romantic interest with their readers.
Upon the virgin soil of Kansas the fragments of many of the one-time
powerful red nations of the East had been colonized. Here, at last,
we meet again the Wyandots of Lake Huron,[4] the Delawares of
Pennsylvania, the Sacs and Foxes, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Shawnees,
Kickapoos, Piankeshaws and other warlike peoples whose race as nations
had been run. To this point they had at length been rolled back by the
ever-advancing tide of white emigration. They probably far outnumbered
the original owners of the soil,—the Missouris, Kansas, Otoes, Pawnees,
Osages,—and all maintained their tribal organization unimpaired within
the limits Government had set for them. Here these wrecks of once
powerful peoples peacefully lived on the bounty of the nation which had
told them Kansas was to be their permanent home.
Among most of these tribes missions and schools had been planted by
various religious denominations. One of the richest and seemingly
most prosperous ones was that founded by the Methodists[5] among the
Shawnees, who were half-civilized, and also held a few slaves.
To protect its emigrants who were constantly passing over the great
routes toward the Pacific, Government had established the military posts
of Fort Leavenworth[6] on the Missouri, Fort Riley at the junction of
the two chief branches of the Kansas, and Fort Kearney on the Platte.
Fort Scott was also founded in the south, on the road leading to the
Indian Territory.
Set against these new Territories were two States,—one slave and the
other free. It was thought that Kansas would mostly take her settlers
from Missouri, and so easily be a slave State, while Nebraska in a like
manner would become a free State through the influence of Iowa, its
neighbor. Moreover the soil and climate of Kansas were thought favorable
to the employment of slave labor, while Nebraska was considered to lie
north of the line beyond which such labor could be made profitable.
Hence it was to Kansas that the efforts of those favoring slavery
were turned; and as the best part of it was occupied by Indians, their
removal or restricting within smaller tracts was provided for, so making
way for the coming settlement.
FOOTNOTES
[1] SURRENDERED THE PRINCIPLE. The two great Whig leaders,
Webster and Clay, advocated the compromise measures of 1850.
Clay was a Southern man, though no slavery propagandist, like
Calhoun; but Webster, a Northern man, disappointed many of his
constituents, and lost his old influence over them from that
time onward.
[2] FRANKLIN PIERCE was a native of New Hampshire, a lawyer
by profession, who had served in the Mexican War. He was not
in the front rank of Democratic statesmen, but was selected
as a compromise candidate, after thirty-five ballots had been
divided between Cass, Douglas, and Buchanan.
[3] SOME IN THE SOUTH. Benton of Missouri and Houston of
Texas opposed the repeal.
[4] WYANDOTS OF LAKE HURON. Look back to "Westward by the
Great Waterways." For the other tribes, see index.
[5] METHODIST MISSION. This was a mission of the Methodist
Church South. Other missions of this denomination were planted
among the Omahas, Kickapoos, Kansas, and Delawares. The
Baptists and Quakers also had missions among the Shawnees,
the Baptists to the Delawares, and the Catholics (St. Mary's)
among the Kansas.
[6] FORT LEAVENWORTH, founded by Colonel Henry Leavenworth,
1827, for whom it is named. It was the great frontier
dépôt of supply for the other military posts on the Santa
Fé and Oregon routes, which were converted into military
roads by Government. Forts Riley, Kearney, and Scott, were
similarly named for General Bennet Riley (military governor
of California), General Stephen W. Kearney (conqueror of New
Mexico), and General Winfield Scott (conqueror of Old Mexico).
KANSAS THE BATTLE-GROUND.
When Congress decreed that freedom and slavery should compete for
control in Kansas, the decision reminds us of the judgement given by
the wise king of history, who, having to decide which of two mothers a
child belonged to, ordered one of his guards to cut it in two with his
sword, and give the half to each claimant.
In this contest Congress and the President stood with the South. The
law-making power had first removed every restriction to making Kansas a
slave State, and now the executive branch was to appoint governors[1]
over the people who should go there to live, and give orders to the
military commanders to aid them when called upon to do so.
There was another very potent means working to the same end, which
in the hands of lawless men proved a serious obstacle to the peaceful
going-in of settlers from the free States. The great avenue of travel
into the disputed territory was the Missouri River, whose banks were
already lined with a population holding many slaves, and therefore
easily aroused to active enmity by the fear that the planting of a free
State next their border would cause their negroes to run away, and so
deprive them of their property. Moreover, as we have already said, the
Missourians had confidently looked upon Kansas as theirs whenever it
should be opened to settlement, and could not bear the thought of having
it snatched from them by a people whose politics they detested, and
whose presence they feared.
Under these conditions the movement of settlers into Kansas began at
the North and South. It was no peaceful march of peaceful citizens
under the protecting hand of the nation, but was turned by sectional
rivalry into a political crusade. Public meetings were held all over the
North and South to encourage the going of the adventurous young men of
both sections, as in time of war. Sectional passions were aroused and
inflamed. Large sums were raised in the churches to arm these emigrants
for the conflict which it was clear must take place sooner or later.
So the war of the sections that so long had threatened the national
peace was begun at last. Congress had left the question to the people
to settle, less in the spirit of statesmanship than as a way out of
the difficulty; and the people, seeing that its peaceful settlement was
impossible, were getting ready to fight it out, not with the ballot as
Douglas believed they would, but as men who are convinced that force,
and force only, can decide the justice of their cause.
[Illustration: A SQUATTER'S IMPROVEMENTS.]
Missourians began the settlement of Kansas. June, 1854, Leavenworth[2]
was laid out two miles below the fort of that name. Another town
was also begun twenty-five miles farther up the Missouri, and named
for Senator Atchison[3] of Missouri. These two, with St. Joseph on
the north and Kansas City on the south, not only controlled all the
river-front of Kansas, but the roads leading into it as well, as St.
Joseph and Kansas City were the established starting-points for crossing
the plains, from which the great overland routes diverged. Missouri
settlers also shortly began a third town, in the Kansas Valley, to which
they gave the name of Lecompton,[4] and soon made it the capital of
the Territory.
Thus the North entered the conflict to obtain control of Kansas under
every disadvantage which remoteness, prior occupation, or unyielding
determination to exclude all who did not favor slavery, could bring into
it.
[Illustration: STREET, KANSAS CITY, 1857.]
New England was the focus of anti-slavery thought and action, to
which the rest of the North undoubtedly looked for leadership. It was,
therefore, in New England that active steps for throwing free-State
settlers into Kansas first originated. This was effected through an
association known as the New-England Emigrant Aid Company,[5] which
was the parent or forerunner of many similar ones subsequently organized
throughout the free States. The New-England Company acted with much
method. It formed little colonies which were put under competent
leaders, were furnished with farming-tools, and even took out saw-mills
for the making of new settlements. Some colonists took their families
along with them, but most of the first comers were single men whom the
desire to see Kansas a free State, rather than a thoughtless spirit
of adventure, took from the orderly communities of the Far East. To
this work they confidently went forth accompanied by the prayers and
good wishes of their friends and neighbors, though as little used to
the rude encounter with border men and border life as the two kinds of
civilization each presented in itself were removed one from the other.
[Illustration: LAWRENCE, KANSAS.]
These emigrants made a lodgement in the Kansas Valley, where they
founded Lawrence[6] (August, 1854), Topeka, Manhattan, and Wabaunsee.
Later settlements were begun along the Osage waters, of which Osawatomie
was the chief, and most famous in the annals of Kansas.
The directing head of this free-State movement on the spot was Charles
Robinson, than whom no more fitting representative of the spirit of
his mission, or one possessed of the ability to make head against the
multiplied difficulties of time and place, could well have been chosen.
FOOTNOTES
[1] GOVERNORS OF KANSAS. In four years Kansas had five
governors; viz., Reeder, Shannon, Geary, Walker, and Denver.
Reeder refused to enforce the bogus Territorial laws, and was
removed. Shannon tried to put down the free-State movement,
but resigned in despair. Geary fell into line with it, had his
life threatened, and fled the Territory in disguise. Walker
proved too honest to sustain fraudulent voting, and left the
Territory when he found himself deserted by those who sent
him there. Denver found the controversy practically settled
in favor of a free State. Kansas was therefore not inaptly
called the "graveyard" of governors.
[2] LEAVENWORTH is finely enclosed by a high ridge on the
west which forms a natural amphitheatre. Its site is hardly
surpassed by that of any city of the Missouri Valley. Its
vicinity to the fort soon made it the first commercial city of
Kansas, as it was the most populous. Kansas missed the golden
opportunity for having a great city within her own borders.
[3] SENATOR DAVID R. ATCHISON was the head of the
pro-slavery movement on the spot. Atchison was the residence
of Senators Samuel C. Pomeroy and John J. Ingalls, and is now
a thriving city.
[4] LECOMPTON took its name from Samuel D. Lecompte, Supreme
Territorial Judge of Kansas.
[5] NEW-ENGLAND EMIGRANT AID COMPANY was a chartered
organization under the laws of Massachusetts. Its history
is being written by Eli Thayer, one of its earliest
promoters. The men who composed it were representative of the
anti-slavery sentiment at large, rather than as politicians.
All were of unimpeachable character. Their colonies were the
embodiment of the New-England idea, as interpreted by the
motto of Massachusetts, "_Ense petit placidum sub libertate
quietam_:"—
"This hand, the rule of tyrants to oppose,
Seeks with the sword fair freedom's soft repose."
[6] LAWRENCE, named for Amos A. Lawrence of Massachusetts.
THE BATTLE FOUGHT AND WON.
It was the doom of slavery that it should require the destruction of
every thing that stood in its way. This being conceded, a resort to
lawlessness—more especially on the part of a rude population like that
of the Missouri border—was sure to follow the attempt to set up a free
commonwealth in Kansas.
From the moment the organic Act became law, the future of Kansas was
ever and foremost a national question. The Southern leaders had told
the Missourians, if they would not see political power wrested from
the South, they must secure Kansas to slavery at any cost. The North
had met the challenge in the words of Senator Seward, who said, "Come
on, then, gentlemen of the slave States! Since there is no escaping
your challenge, I accept it in behalf of freedom. We will engage in
competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to
the side that is stronger in numbers, as it is in the right."
[Illustration: THE FERRY, LAWRENCE, KANSAS.]