Pro-Slavery Emigration to Kansas (1855)

BY COLONEL JOHN SCOTT

I WAS present at the election of March 30, 1855, in Burr Oak precinct in the 14th district, in this Territory. I saw many Missourians there. There had been a good deal of talk about the settlement of Kansas, and the interference of eastern people in the settlement of that Territory, since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. It was but a short time after the passage of that act that we learned through the papers about the forming of a society in the east for the purpose of promoting the settlement of Kansas Territory, with the view of making it a free State. Missouri, being a slave State, and believing that an effort of that kind, if successful, would injure her citizens in the enjoyment of their slave property, were indignant, and became determined to use all means in their power to counteract the efforts of eastern people upon that subject.

They were excited upon that subject, and have been so ever since. This rumor and excitement extended all over the State, and more particularly in the borders. The general rumor was that this eastern society was for no other purpose than making Kansas a free State. One great reason why we believed that was the only object of the society was, that we heard of and saw no efforts to settle Nebraska or the other Territories with free State men. The people of the south have always thought they have always been interfered with by the north, and the people of Missouri considered this the most open and bold movement the northern and eastern societies ever made. I am perfectly satisfied, and I have heard hundreds of Missourians lament that such a course had been pursued by the north, and gave it as their opinion that there would have been no excitement upon the subject of slavery, except for the extraordinary movement made by the north and east for the purpose of making Kansas a free State. Most of the slaves of the State of Missouri are in the western border counties, or the hemp growing portion of Missouri. The people of Missouri were a good deal excited just before the March election, because it had been so long postponed, and it was generally supposed that it was postponed in order to allow time for eastern emigrants to arrive here, that they might control the elections. Everybody that I heard speak of it expressed that belief, both in and out of the Territory. The same rumors were in the Territory as in Missouri. Immediately preceding that election, and even before the opening of navigation, we had rumors that hundreds of eastern people were in St. Louis, waiting for the navigation of the river to be opened, that they might get up to the Territory in time for the election, and the truth of these rumors was established by the accounts steamboat officers afterwards brought up of the emigrants they had landed at different places in and near the Territory, who had no families and very little property, except little oil cloth carpet sacks. For some two or three weeks before the election the rumor was prevalent that a good many eastern people were being sent here to be at the elections, and then were going back. There was a general expression of opinion that the people of Missouri should turn out and come to the Territory, and prevent this illegal voting by force, if necessary. We regarded this as invasion of the northern people of a Territory which was contiguous to Missouri, for the purpose of controlling the institutions of the Territory, and the defeat of the objects of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.

I do not recollect as I ever heard any Missourians advocate the policy of Missourians going over to that election and voting, in the absence of this eastern emigration about the time of the election, except, perhaps, General Stringfellow, who advocated the doctrine that the Missourians had the right to go there any time to vote, and, perhaps, urged them to come for that purpose. It was determined by the Missourians that if the eastern emigrants were allowed to vote, we would vote also, or we would destroy the poll books and break up the elections; and the determination is, that eastern people shall not be allowed to interfere and control the domestic institutions of Kansas, if the Union is dissolved in preventing it, though we are willing that all honest, well-meaning set-tiers shall come and be admitted to all the equality of the other citizens.

I went to the Burr Oak precinct with a company of other Missourians, with no arms myself, and I saw one gun in the party, and a few pistols and side arms. The determination of the people of Missouri was to interfere with no one except this boat load of eastern emigrants which was expected at that precinct, and if they arrived we determined, if strong enough, to march them back, to the tune of the Rogue’s March, to the river, and make them get on the boat they got off. If we were not strong enough and they were allowed to vote, we were determined to vote too. . . . I (lid not see the slightest effort made on the 30th of March to interfere with the voters of the district, and there was no disturbance in regard to the election. . . .

I do not think the Missourians would ever have got excited about Kansas, but for the rumors concerning eastern emigrants. The [most] extraordinary efforts made by the eastern people, except these emigrant aid societies, that I have heard of, is the newspaper reports of men, rifles, and means being sent out here, as they say, to defend themselves, but, as we think, to control the elections here. If the Missouri compromise had not been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska act, I think Kansas Territory would have been made a slave State, as most of the prominent men of Missouri considered that compromise repealed since 1850, and I have no doubt that the feeling in regard to Kansas then would have been the same as now. The avowed object of making a free State by persons living remote from the Territory, and having no interest in it, and the raising of money and means for that purpose, is the obnoxious feature of these emigrant aid societies, though there is nothing illegal in that; but it is an extraordinary interference in a remote region of the country. I think it is a new thing for free States to get up societies to make free States out of Territories.

The first extraordinary effort that the Missourians made to meet the action of these emigrant aid societies, was in the fall of 1854, or the early part of the winter, to form societies in Kansas and Missouri, in which each member pledged himself to use all honorable and legal means to make Kansas a slave State. I cannot speak of but three counties, but I have heard that, in three counties there, societies existed. In our county I knew one society existed; it was a secret society. I do not know that these societies are now in operation; I attended one up to the 30th March, 1855, and then stopped attending them, and do not know about them since.

I think, perhaps, through the influence of the members of these societies persons were induced to come over here to the election, but I do not think any who did come were members of this society. The objects attempted to be affected by this society, was to hunt up and induce pro-slavery men to come to this Territory and become actual settlers. I never heard of any fund; I deemed the society worthy, under the circumstances of the existing of the aid societies in the east. . . . I consider it an unworthy object for persons who derive no pecuniary benefit from it, to undertake to make Kansas a free State, and thus injure Missouri.

But since the 30th of March, 1855, I think that society has been superseded by another society, which has a fund for the purpose, of sending pro-slavery emigration to this Territory, and is regularly organized for that purpose. The fund is used in aiding emigrants, by loaning them money to get into the Territory, in providing claims, and entering the land. It is a self-defensive organization, intended to have a bearing upon the political institutions of the Territory, as far as slavery is concerned.

So far as I know anything of the society, the means of the society is not to build up mills and hotels, but to aid individual settlers in their claims, and to do with the funds of the society for them what they indi-vidualy would do with their own money for themselves. I think these conversations have been formed pretty extensively over Missouri, mid I think persons have been selected in Missouri to go to other southern States and build up similar societies there, but to what extent that has been done I do not know. . . .

I do not think I would have suggested to any one in Missouri the forming of societies in Missouri but for these eastern societies, and they were formed but as a means of self-defence and to counteract the effect of those eastern societies, and I think it is the general expression, and I know it is the ardent hope of every man in Missouri that I have heard express himself, that if the north would cease operating by these societies, Missouri would also cease to use those she has established.

All that Missourians asked was that the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act should be carried out, and the actual settlers of the Territory allowed to manage their own domestic institutions for themselves.

, 34 Cong., 1 sess. (Washington, 1856), II, No. 200, pp. 894–897 passim.