Tag: Battle of Westport

Jarrett and Dica Smith of McLouth. A Soldier in the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry

Liz Leech @jeffcojayhawkers2 Comments

 By Jane Hoskinson

In the 1860s in Platte County, Missouri, as winter closed in, farmers and plantation owners were supervising enslaved laborers who secured their food harvests, prepared hemp and tobacco for commercial sales, and laid in supplies of firewood. Women, free and enslaved, were getting ready for Christmas, seeding raisins, chopping citron, baking cookies, and decanting fruitcakes prepared in the fall.

Screenshot from the Bates County Historical Society and Museum website. A bronze statue of a First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry soldier commemorates the infantry’s victory in the Battle of Island Mound in Missouri.

In the cabins occupied by the landowners’ enslaved people, a rumor spread from farm to farm: “The ice on the Missouri is almost thick enough to bear.” In the winter of 1862, one small family escaped bondage in Platte County and set out for Leavenworth, Kansas. Traveling about 20 miles in secret, they crossed the frozen Missouri River by night. By late summer, the husband in this family joined other Black men in Kansas and fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Jarrett Smith was born in June 1827 in Garrard County, Kentucky. He was enslaved by a man named Pope, who sold him to Aytchmonde L. Perrin when Jarrett was 18. Perrin took Smith to his farm near Camden Point in Platte County, Missouri. Perrin, a native of Lincoln County, Kentucky, may also have been the original enslaver of Dica Ann “Dicey” Walker Smith. She was born enslaved in Lincoln County, Kentucky, July 1, 1830, and brought to Platte County, Missouri, when she was 11 years old. Jarrett Smith and Dica Walker married in slavery. Their son, James Smith, was born around 1848. In 1852, Reverend Forbes, a Black minister, performed a marriage ceremony for them.

The U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule for 1860 listed A.L. Perrin of Green Township, Platte County, Missouri, as the slave owner of six people. Among them were one Mulatto male, 36 years old; one Black female, 30 years old; and one Mulatto male, 15 years old — possibly the Smith family. (Slave Schedules did not include the names of enslaved people.) The other three enslaved people were a 28-year-old woman, a 25-year-old man, and an 11-year-old girl. Perrin provided one cabin for all six people. According to historian Earl Nelson, Platte County lost 23 percent of its enslaved population during the first four years of the Civil War. Most of them made their way to freedom in Kansas.

Jarrett Smith joined Company B of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry on August 18, 1862, mustering in at Fort Scott, Kansas. Dica and James Smith stayed behind, possibly with relatives or friends. The 1865 Kansas State Census listed Dicy Ann Smith (38, Domestic) and James H. Smith (16, Farmer) living in Wyandotte County in the household of Hanson Smith.

The primary recruiter for the First Kansas Colored was Captain William D. Matthews, a free Black businessman and a station master on the Underground Railroad. Officially, Kansas’s first U.S. Senator James H. Lane began the recruiting for the regiment, although he lacked any federal authority to do so. Volunteers were promised ten dollars a month (three dollars less than white soldiers) and a guarantee of freedom. Both the First and Second Kansas Colored Infantry were mustered at Fort Scott. Kansas was the first Union state to begin training Black troops.

The First Kansas Colored fought with distinction at the Battle of Island Mound in Missouri on October 29, 1862. About 225 Black troops drove off 500 Confederate guerillas. Ten Kansas men were killed and 12 wounded. The Lawrence Republican reported that the new regiment behaved nobly and that the skirmish “proved that black men can fight.” Lane publicized the victory to show that Black troops could and would fight with intelligence and courage.

When the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, the First Kansas Colored officially joined the Union army. Because only white officers were allowed, its two Black officers, Captain William Matthews and Lieutenant Patrick Minor, lost their commissions. Matthews later was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the federal artillery and commanded the Independent Kansas Colored Battery. Minor was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Second United States Colored Battery. He fought in the Battle of Westport.

Between 1862 and 1864, the First Kansas Colored Infantry fought at Island Mound, Sherwood, Cabin Creek, Honey Springs, Prairie D’Ane, Poison Spring, Flat Rock Creek and Timber Hills.

Clip about the Smiths from The McLouth Times, June 28, 1901.

In June 1863, Colonel James M. Williams of the First Kansas Colored led a Union supply train of 300 wagons down the Texas Road from Baxter Springs, Kansas, to Fort Blunt (also known as Fort Gibson) in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). At a ford on Cabin Creek, Confederate Colonel Stand Watie prepared an ambush on July 1, 1863. The Union forces fired on the Confederates but could not cross the flooded creek on the first day of fighting. By the second day, the flood level had fallen. Williams stationed the First Kansas Colored on the right of the Texas Road, with the white Second Colorado Infantry on the left. While Union artillery shelled the Confederate forces, Williams ordered three companies of the First Kansas Colored into firing position.

Lieutenant Luther Dickerson of the First Kansas Colored fought with the men of Company B as they exchanged fire with the Confederates. Dickerson was standing beside a Black soldier who, “while in the act of loading his gun, was struck by a bullet which passed between the gun and his hand tearing the flesh from the inside of his fingers.” The soldier asked Dickerson to load his musket for him so that he could continue fighting. Dickerson obliged but was wounded in the arm as he drew the ramrod. Both men kept fighting. In his 1886 pension application, Dickerson identified the soldier as Private Smith. Company B had two Private Smiths — Jarrett and his friend Isaac Smith. Jarrett Smith’s pension documents include several mentions of a hand wound he received at Cabin Creek.

Jarrett Smith applied for a pension in 1881, stating that he was wounded at Cabin Creek in 1863, “the fingers ends on my right hand being shot off.” His application was denied, although he later received a pension for rheumatism and heart disease.

The attack drove the Confederate troops back. Colonel Williams ordered the First Kansas Colored to cross the creek, wading through waist-deep water. He sent the Ninth Kansas Cavalry ahead in pursuit. The Union victory assured the arrival of the wagon train with supplies and reinforcements for Fort Blunt and paved the way for future Union successes.

The first battle of Cabin Creek marked the first time that a Black unit fought alongside white troops. Historian Ian Michael Spurgeon described Williams’s command: “In all, the Union force at Cabin Creek included white, black, and Indian units from two states and two territories.” For the men of the First Kansas Colored, it also marked their first payday since the regiment was formed a year previously. 

While the regiment was stationed at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in fall 1863, Jarrett Smith was kicked in the left side by Private Julius Jones of Company B, as they prepared for guard mounting. The accident broke one of his ribs. He was treated by the regimental surgeon, but no record of his treatment survived.

On December 18, 1864, the First Kansas Colored Infantry was reorganized as the 79th United States Colored Troops (USCT), and the Second Kansas Colored Infantry was reorganized as the 83rd USCT. Jarrett Smith was honorably discharged on October 1, 1865. When he returned to Dica Smith in Kansas, it was to mourn the death of their son, James, who died in 1864 while Jarrett was in the army.

Jarrett and Dica Smith settled on the farm of Dr. William Hosford near Round Grove in Jefferson County. Dr. Hosford, reputed earlier to have helped the enslaved leave bondage via the Underground Railroad, treated Jarrett for rheumatism and a broken rib. Jarrett worked on Hosford’s farm. Because “slave marriages” were not officially recognized, Jarrett and Dica Smith formalized their union in 1867 at Oskaloosa, Kansas. Justice of the Peace Ball performed the ceremony. The couple moved to Oskaloosa in 1867 and to Boyle Station in 1869. They moved to Springdale in Leavenworth County in 1871 and to McLouth in 1884.

The only Black residents of McLouth, the Smiths earned the town’s respect. In 1895, Dica Smith opened an ice cream shop in the Smith’s home on Union Street. H.C. Stewart, editor of the McLouth Tribune, wrote, “The editor and family took dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Smith Monday. But to say ‘dinner’ does not do the matter justice, for it was a sumptuous feast, to which was added choice ice cream. When it comes to getting up a first-class meal, Aunt Dicy Smith is second to none.”

Jarrett Smith worked as a day laborer, carrying bricks for the walls of the McLouth school building and driving a float in the 1897 McLouth city picnic parade. The McLouth Times reported, “Comstock & Stout were not to be undone. They had a load of lumber and builders’ supplies tastefully arranged and driven by John McGuire and Jarrett Smith and on the lower sideboards were conspicuously written ‘Ice cream at *Eph’s,’ complimentary to Uncle Smith.”

Advertisement about Dica Smith’s ice cream. McLouth Tribune, July 19, 1895.

*“Uncle Eph” was a character in minstrel shows and “plantation sketches” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Jarrett Smith received a pension for his army service, beginning at $4 a month in 1889. He petitioned for an increase several times, eventually receiving $30 a month. He was active in Republican politics and served as Sentinel for the McLouth post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Dica Smith was a member of the G.A.R. Ladies Relief Corps and the Baptist Ladies Aid Society.

Jarrett Smith was a member of the “committee of arrangements” for the reunion of the First and Second Kansas Colored Infantry on Jan. 13, 1900, the anniversary of the regiments’ official muster into the U.S. army in 1863.

In June 1900, Dica Smith fell and broke a rib. She did not fully recover from the injury. In August 1903, the Oskaloosa Independent reported that her brother had come from Wabaunsee County to help care for her. Dica Smith died Sept. 6, 1903.

After his wife’s death, Jarrett Smith “became lonely and moved to Oskaloosa.” On Sept. 1, 1905, the McLouth city jail was struck by lightning. The building burned down, along with Jarrett Smith’s nearby house. He sold his property the next year.

In February 1907, Jarrett Smith’s nephew, Jarrett Gardner, visited him in Oskaloosa. Gardner was the son of Smith’s sister, whom he had not seen since childhood. Gardner was serving in the U.S. Ninth Cavalry. When his unit was sent to the Philippines, Gardner instructed the army to send $10 of his monthly pay to his uncle in Kansas. The Oskaloosa Independent reported, “Smith wears a broad flat gold chain sent him by his nephew which was made in the Philippines out of $5 gold pieces, and contains, it is said, $80 worth of gold. It is made of innumerable tiny gold rings and is an ingenious piece of work.”

Jarrett Gardner also served in the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantry. He was discharged in 1909 and moved to Oskaloosa, planning to help with the care of his uncle. He worked as hostler for Dr. Marlin McCreight and married Amanda Jackson of Oskaloosa in 1911.

Jarrett Smith regularly took part in Old Settlers’ Reunions and Decoration Day ceremonies. He was active in fund-raising for the First Baptist Church in Oskaloosa. The Jefferson County Tribune recalled his determination to learn to read and write: “each summer he spent hours sitting in the court yard greedily devouring the contents of a small primer.”

In June 1916, the McLouth Times reported, “Jarrett Smith (colored) of Oskaloosa made his annual pilgrimage to McLouth Tuesday to place flowers on his wife’s grave. Mr. Smith is 89 years old.”

Jarrett Smith died Dec. 28, 1916, at the home of James Tompkins in Oskaloosa. Two funeral services were held, one in Oskaloosa and one in McLouth. Pallbearers were members of the Grand Army of the Republic posts of Oskaloosa and McLouth. He left an estate valued at $702. James Tompkins and Jarrett Gardner were paid for personal care services. C.H. Peebler was paid for funeral expenses. The Jefferson County Tribune called him “an honest, upright and honorable man.”

Jarrett and Dica A. Smith are buried in the McLouth Cemetery.

Sources

American Battlefield Trust, “Cabin Creek,” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/cabin-creek

American History Central, “1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment,” https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/1st-kansas-colored-volunteer-infantry-regiment/

Ancestry.com

Epps, Kristen, Slavery on the Periphery: The Kansas-Missouri Border in the Antebellum and Civil War Eras, University of Georgia Press, 2016

Jefferson County Tribune, Sept. 18, 1903; Jan. 5, 1917

Kansapedia, https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/first-kansas-colored-infantry/12052

Kansas City Star, Dec. 24, 1960

Leavenworth Times, Jan. 14, 1900

McLouth Times, Sept. 11, 1903; July 19, 1907; June 2, 1916

McLouth Tribune, May 24, 1895; July 19, 1895

Monnett, Howard N., Action Before Westport, 1864, University Press of Colorado, 1995

National Archives and Records Administration, Veterans’ Service Records for Jarrett Smith

National Park Service, “First to Serve—1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment,” https://www.nps.gov/articles/1stkansas.htm

Nelson, Earl J., “Missouri Slavery, 1861-1865,” Missouri Historical Review 28, no. 4 (July 1934)

Oskaloosa Independent, June 29, 1900; Aug. 7, 1903; Sept. 18, 1903; Sept. 8, 1905; Oct. 15, 1909; Dec. 29, 1916

Oskaloosa Times, Oct. 4, 1906; Oct. 7, 1909

Spurgeon, Ian Michael, Soldiers in the Army of Freedom: The 1st Kansas Colored, the Civil War’s First African American Combat Unit, University of Oklahoma Press, 2014

Thomas Bayne and Marcus Freeman: Slavery in Jefferson County, Kansas Territory

Liz Leech @jeffcojayhawkers2 Comments

By Jane Hoskinson*

In the U.S. census of 1840, George Bayne of Shelby County, Kentucky, reported holding 22 black persons in slavery. When he died in 1845, he divided his estate among his children. Those who lived north of the Mason-Dixon line received land and money. Those who lived in slave-holding states received human “property.” In 1850, George’s son Alexander Bayne reported holding six people in slavery in Jefferson County, Kentucky.

Two years later, Alexander moved his family to Missouri. According to Alexander’s granddaughter Nora Bayne, “In 1852 they started west in search of cheaper land, Thomas [Alexander’s son] and a negro boy driving through by wagon and the family coming by boat. Their destination was Westport Landing.”

Alexander managed the Gillis House hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, for two years and bought a farm near Westport. Alexander and his third wife, Elizabeth Hite Bayne, had a total of six children, three from their marriage, two from Elizabeth’s previous marriage to Alexander’s brother Griffin Bayne, and Thomas, Alexander’s son by his first wife, Elizabeth’s niece Susan Hite Bayne.

Thomas Bayne was born May 16, 1836, in Shelby County, Kentucky. His mother, Susan, died not long after his birth. In September 1836, Henrietta, a woman enslaved by the Bayne family, gave birth to her son, Marcus Freeman. George Bayne “gave” Henrietta’s infant to his young grandson Thomas.

The enslaved Henrietta raised the boys together, “just as if we had been two little puppies,” according to Marcus. Thomas would often save food and coffee from his own meals to share with Marcus. “He thought a great deal of me,” Marcus said, “and once when his stepbrother licked me, he nearly cut him to pieces with a Barlow knife.” When the family moved to Missouri, Marcus worked at the Gillis House, learning to cook.

Nora Bayne wrote that her father, Thomas, had a “boyhood dream, of owning a section of land amidst large timber, with fields of corn and blue-grass, and raising pedigreed horses, cattle and hogs. . . In the fall of 1853 they learned that the Kaw Half-Breed Indian Land situated north of the Kaw River 50 miles west would be open for settlement the following spring. [This was inaccurate; the Kanza protested white settlement in 1857 and were upheld.] In February 1854, Thomas Bayne and a young man by the name of Arch Bradley bought a team, covered wagon and outfit for six months’ trip and started in search of the Kaw land.”

The boys built a cabin in virgin timber that reminded them of Kentucky. They hunted for game and explored the area, meeting some of the Kanza people who lived and camped there. Nora Bayne’s impression was that their interactions were peaceful, but she also said that a group of “Indians came to burn the cabin.”

Exploring downriver in the winter, the boys were caught in a blizzard with only two matches, one of them broken, but still succeeded in starting a fire. They discovered the abandoned settlement of Daniel Morgan Boone, who had been appointed “Government Farmer” for the Kanza people in 1827. Arch Bradley returned home after a few months.

Thomas described the Boone village: “Just east of my prairie farm was an old well, near the bank of the river, when I moved here in 1854. The remains of quite a village can still be seen in the vicinity. When I broke the prairie I found the charred remains of a rail fence that had enclosed over 100 acres of land. This old village is seven miles above Lawrence on the north side of the river.”

In spring 1855, Thomas sent for Marcus Freeman, his sister Charity and their cousin Fielding Edwards, to work on his farm.

Marcus recalled, “I stayed for a few months, and then with his permission went back to Kansas City and married and rented my time for $200.00 a year for seven years until I was emancipated. Mr. Bayne gave me a pass which allowed me to go between Missouri and his farm in Kansas.”

The Baynes shared the labor of their enslaved people. The 1859 Kansas census recorded Alexander Bayne owning two people, William Bayne owning one, and Thomas Bayne owning none, as Marcus Freeman’s labor was “rented.” Marcus said that his sister, Charity, “had belonged to Will Bayne, Thomas’s stepbrother, and he left her on his brother’s farm when he went to California.” William Bayne, Thomas’s stepbrother and cousin, traveled to California in 1853 but returned to settle east of Thomas in 1859.

Alexander and Elizabeth Bayne and their three younger children moved to Kansas in 1856, taking a claim west of Thomas’s farm. In 1857, Henry Hatton moved to Kansas from Indiana with his wife, Minerva, and daughters, Susan and Sarah. Thomas Bayne married Susan Hatton in February 1858. William Bayne married Sarah Hatton in October 1860.

Thomas Bayne assisted in surveying the county and setting township lines. Thomas, William and Alexander Bayne held a variety of early local offices in Jefferson County. In 1856, Alexander and William were officers on the proslavery board of Kentucky Township. In 1858, Alexander chaired the Kentucky Township board of supervisors; Thomas was treasurer and later assessor.

Another early Kansas Territory settler was James Scaggs,[i] a slaveholder who claimed land on the Kanza reserve in Jefferson County in 1854. According to John Speer, editor of the Lawrence Tribune, “He was a leading man of his class, enthusiastic in his idea of planting slavery in Kansas.”

In the Kansas Territory 1859 census, James Scaggs reported holding 13 people enslaved; Thomas Bayne recalled the total as 27.

Scaggs was regarded as a “rough” man. He rented out skilled enslaved people, such as blacksmith Robert Skaggs, who worked independently in Lecompton. Marcus Freeman’s sister, Charity, married Robert Skaggs. By 1859, it had become clear that slavery would soon be banned in Kansas. Scaggs removed to Texas with all his “property.” Charity went with her husband, with the permission of the Bayne family. Free-state men had threatened to liberate the enslaved people, so Scaggs armed them, trusting them to guard his $10,000 in specie on the journey.

In January 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state. In April 1861, the American Civil War began. Marcus Freeman recalled, “I was working in the printing office for Van Horn and A. Beal on the Kansas City Journal at the time of the firing on Sumpter, and worked the press when they were getting out the extras for the occasion. I remember the excitement well.” In March 1863, Marcus married Mary Ann Jones at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence, Kansas, where he was working as a cook. According to the Topeka Plaindealer newspaper, Marcus was working at the Eldridge at the time of Quantrill’s raid in August 1863.

In October 1864, Thomas and William Bayne enlisted in Company N, 4th Regiment, Kansas State Militia. From the Kansas State Historical Society, Militia rolls, Oct. 9-26, 1864, Kansas Memory, vol. 2, p. 79: “T.R. Bayne went out as Orderly, was elected Capt. on the 16th Oct., 1864, took command on the next day, commanded the Co. up to the state line, when he deserted and led his company home, except the former Capt. who left the Co. and crossed the line. Capt. Bayne lost his Muster Roll and all the papers belonging to the company. All the other members of the Co. deserted Friday and Friday night, the 22nd of Oct., 1864. . . Most of the Co. refuses to assign the Pay Rolls and Muster Rolls. Each man in the Company drawed one single blanket, the price of which I do not know.”

Kansas militia units helped to defeat the Confederate and guerilla forces of Gen. Sterling Price at the Battle of Westport on Oct. 23, 1864. Militia enlistees were not required to cross the border into Missouri. Thomas’s company and other units who remained in Kansas were within their rights.

The Baynes may have had a personal reason to avoid the battle. Their young half-brother, James Warner Bayne, called “Warner,” had joined Company B of the Confederate 12th Missouri cavalry regiment under Col. David Shanks. Company B was recruited in Jackson County, Missouri, in 1862-63. The 12th participated in Price’s raid on Missouri and Kansas in 1864. Warner Bayne was taken prisoner and died at Fort Leavenworth in November 1864.

Theodore Frederick Bayne, Thomas’s youngest brother, was shot to death on the Kaw bottom (in or near Rising Sun) on August 20, 1865, by Robert Higgins in a dispute over a young lady. Higgins ran away. Laura Bayne, the youngest sister, married Joseph McCall in 1865. She died in 1868.

Alexander Bayne’s third wife, Elizabeth, died in 1866. A year later he married Angeline McAninch in Johnson County, Missouri. Alexander studied medicine and practiced as a country doctor in Missouri and Kansas in the 1870s. He died at the home of his son Thomas in 1883. In 1880-81, William Bayne served as sheriff of Jefferson County. He died in 1911.

Thomas Bayne served as a Jefferson County commissioner in 1874. He was elected to the Kansas legislature in 1882. When he died in 1896, the Oskaloosa Independent said, “Although a democrat he was respected by men of all parties.” Susan Bayne died a few months later in 1897.

Thomas and Susan Bayne had six daughters; Sallie and Jessie died young. Nora and Bettie remained at home until 1897. Fannie Bayne Wilson died in 1898. Nora and Bettie raised her daughter and son, Inez and Thomas Bayne Wilson (https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/thomas-bayne-wilson/12238 ), until their father, Benjamin Wilson, remarried in 1903. Maude Bayne married John Morin in 1878; they raised two daughters, Zerelda and Mary Maud. The Morin family moved to California in the 1910s, and Nora and Bettie moved with them.

Robert and Charity Skaggs worked for James Scaggs in Texas, six years enslaved and two as free persons, earning enough money to return to Kansas in 1868 or 1869. William and Thomas Bayne helped them get started farming in Kansas, renting land to them. They bought 50 acres near Big Springs in Douglas County and farmed there for 40 years. They are buried in Eastview Cemetery in Big Springs, along with Charity and Marcus’s mother (and Thomas Bayne’s foster mother), Henrietta Freeman.

In 1871, John Speer reported that James Scaggs, having lost his fortune, was living in Montgomery County, Kansas, renting a cabin from a man he had formerly enslaved.

Marcus Freeman was head cook at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence until 1885, when he accepted a position at the Copeland Hotel in Topeka. He was head cook there for nearly 20 years. He owned a barbershop in Topeka, and Mary Ann opened a bakery there in 1894.

They had five children. Only their daughter, Mayme Johns Shane, survived them. Marcus Freeman died in 1905.

According to the Topeka Plaindealer, Marcus Freeman “was one of the best cooks of his day, and was well acquainted with most of the leading men of the state and nation. He was a drawing card for the Copeland as it was often said by drummers and politicians that they longed to get back to Topeka to get some of his cooking.” But in 1901, the Copeland let Marcus Freeman go. “Mark Freeman for many years head shef (sic) at the Copeland Hotel was relieved on Saturday night,” according to the June Topeka Plaindealer in 1901. “His place was filled by a white cook.”

In 1895, Zu Adams of the Kansas State Historical Society, interviewed Marcus Freeman for a collection of narratives about slavery in Kansas. Marcus was reluctant to give her permission to publish his memoir unless she first consulted Thomas Bayne. “Mr. Bayne,” he said, “has always been a good friend of mine, and I don’t want to hurt him. . . He was offered at one time $1,800 for me. A man named Davis wanted me for his father’s farm in the south. Mr. Bayne was kind to his slaves. He would buy cloth for himself and me off of the same piece of goods. . . When the colored refugees came over into Kansas during the war, many of them came up the river as far as Lawrence. They were destitute. Mr. Bayne assisted them in many ways. He invited [them] to come out to his woodland and carry in all the wood they needed for fuel, free of cost.”

When Zu Adams wrote to Thomas Bayne, he responded with a few additions to Marcus’s account, and offered his reaction to her project, “I am not ashamed of having owned Slaves. Of course we knew that we had a great responsibility on our hands but was willing to meet it – we was not like northern people covered solely by prophet. . . but it is of no use to write on this Subject – the northern people don’t now understand what Slavery was and never will.”

This paternalistic attitude was common among Kansas slaveholders, according to Marc Allan Charboneau: “Because they had convinced themselves that slaves had accepted their enslavement willingly, slaveholders placed blame for disloyalty on abolitionists and other free-soilers in the territory. Paternalism relied on a hopeful belief that by treating slaves decently, they would reciprocate with loyalty and docility. Slaveholders had difficulty admitting that perhaps the slaves were not as contented with their condition as they seemed. . . As for the slaves, they rejected any paternalistic attempts of control by the masters and instead chose to take advantage of a unique opportunity for freedom offered by Kansas.”

When Thomas Bayne ran for the Kansas senate in 1892, Marcus Freeman told a reporter, “Tom Bayne is a good neighbor, but he is on the wrong side, and always was, and these times when these fellows are bidding for the colored vote, I feel like drawing history on them. They can’t stand history. I’m a free man, . . . but it is no thanks to Tom Bayne. No self-respecting colored man can vote for him.”

~

* Written and researched by Jane Hoskinson, editor of the Jefferson County Genealogical Society publication, Yesteryears, with research assistance from Liz Leech.  Jane was an editor for University Relations at the University of Kansas for 35 years, but got her start in journalism at age 11 working for her father, John P. Hoskinson, at the Oskaloosa Independent.

Sources:

  • Bald Eagle, Lecompton Historical Society, Vol. 16, No. 2, Summer 1990
  • Bayne, Nora, letter to A.E. Van Petten, Sept. 11, 1926, Kansas Historical Society (printed in Yesteryears, October 1992)
  • Charboneau, Marc Allan, “Slave Territory, Free State: Slaveholders and Slaves in Early Kansas,” M.A. Thesis, Emporia State University, Dec. 18, 1999
  • Cory, C.E., “Slavery in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Collections, Vol. 7, pp. 229-242
  • Cutler, William G., History of the State of Kansas, published by A.T. Andreas, 1883
  • The Kansas Blackman, Topeka, Kansas, Aug. 31, 1894
  • Kansas Historical Society, https://www.kshs.org/, https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansapedia/19539, https://www.kansasmemory.org/
  • The Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital, Topeka, Kansas, Nov. 10, 1892
  • Leech, Elizabeth A., “Jefferson County Jayhawkers and Forgotten Freestaters,” https://jeffersonjayhawkers.com/
  • The Oskaloosa Independent, Aug. 15, 1860; Aug. 26, 1865; Aug. 7, 1880; Nov. 27, 1896
  • Patrick, A.G., “Old Settler’s Corner,” Oskaloosa Times, Apr. 18, 1902
  • Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson, Jefferson and Pottawatomie Counties, Kansas, 1890
  • Territorial Kansas (reminiscences of Marcus Freeman, John Armstrong and John Speer; letters from Thomas Bayne and John E. Stewart), https://territorialkansasonline.ku.edu/index.php
  • The Topeka Daily Capital, Aug. 23, 1879; Dec. 15, 1888
  • The Topeka Plaindealer, Dec. 14, 1900; Apr. 7, 1905

[i] “Scaggs” is the spelling in the earliest Jefferson County documents. “Skaggs” or “Skeggs” is the spelling that appears on the memorial of Robert and Charity Skaggs and in many later documents.