New England Emigrant Aid Company

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Trade sign used at the Boston headquarters of the New England Emigrant Aid Company[1]

The New England Emigrant Aid Company

slave state) when it eventually joined the United States.[6][page needed
]

The company is noted less for its direct impact than for the psychological impact it had on

proslavery and abolitionist groups. Thayer's prediction that the company would eventually be able to send 20,000 immigrants a year never came to fruition, but it spurred border ruffians from nearby Missouri, where slavery was legal, to move to Kansas to ensure its admission to the Union as a slave state. That, in turn, further galvanized Free-Staters and other enemies of the Slave Power
.

Thayer's intention was to capitalize on anti-slavery sentiment in the Northern United States and to send settlers to Kansas to purchase land and build houses, shops, and mills. They could then sell the land at a significant profit and send the proceeds back to Thayer and his investors. At the behest of several investors, who found the notion of profiting from the anti-slavery cause distasteful, the company's model was shifted to that of a benevolent society, and it was renamed the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855. While the company achieved neither a profit nor a significant impact on the population of Kansas, it played an important role in the events that would later be termed Bleeding Kansas.

Creation

The company was formed in the midst of the

Massachusetts Legislature for up to $5,000,000 in capital.[8][9]

Under its charter, the Emigrant Aid Company was "to supply information, cheapen transportation, and set up saw mills and flour mills" in the new territory. The idea of the company was to win Kansas for the free-state movement while at the same time turning a tidy profit for investors.[10]

Many of the sponsors of the company did not believe in social or political equality for Blacks. In addition to banning slavery in the territory, they also expected, if victorious, to ban black citizenship and property ownership.[10] Kansas's first constitution, the never-adopted Constitutions of Kansas#Topeka Constitution, banned free as well as enslaved Blacks from the Territory.

Officially, the company was a profit-making venture, and how the settlers voted was of no consequence to the company. For example, the company secretary, Thomas Webb released a pamphlet in 1855 stating that although the settlers sent to the territories would not be required to vote for one side or the other, they were expected to support the free-state movement.

benevolent society and changed its name to the New England Emigrant Aid Company.[11]

Reaction

The success of the endeavor prompted other aid assistance companies to form back East, in New York and Ohio, with new companies such as the Worcester County Emigrant Aid Society.[12][13]

Impact

The company was directly responsible for creating the

US Representative
.

The exact number of people who left for Kansas is unknown. James Rawley puts the numbers somewhere around 2000, about a third of whom returned home,[15] but the Kansas Historical Society puts the number at around 900 for those who left for Kansas in 1855 alone.[14]

The company's mission was ultimately successful, and Kansas entered the United States as a free state in 1861, as soon as the Southern legislators blocking it had walked out of Congress, to participate in the Confederate government.

Notes

  1. ^ Sometimes referred to as the New England Emigrant Aid Society,[2] or abbreviated as the NEEAC.[3]

References

  1. ^ New England Emigrant Aid Company papers, 1854-1909
  2. ^ Goodrich (1998) p. 10
  3. ^ E.g. Etcheson (2004).
  4. ^ Purpose and plans of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. July 28, 1854. Retrieved Feb 22, 2022.
  5. ^ New England Emigrant Aid Company, n5 Winter Street, Boston. Boston Directory. 1855
  6. ^ Thayer, Eli (1887). The New England Emigrant Aid Company, and its influence, through the Kansas contest, upon national history. Worcester, Massachusetts: F. P. Rice.
  7. ^ New England Emigrant Aid Company (2009). Minutes, New England Emigrant Aid Company Annual Meetings. KSHS: Territorial Kansas Online. p. 1. Retrieved August 3, 2009.
  8. ^ a b "New England Emigrant Aid Company". Kansas Historical Society. 2009. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  9. ^ Thayer (1889), pp. 15-25.
  10. ^ .
  11. ^ Davis (1984), pp. 40–41.
  12. . New England Emigrant Aid Company.
  13. ^ Johnson, Oliver (1887). The Abolitionists Vindicated in a Review of Eli Thayers' Paper on the New England Emigrant Aid Society. F.P. Rice. p. 28.
  14. ^ a b Barry, Louie (August 1943). "The New England Emigrant Aid Company Parties of 1855". Kansas Historical Quarterly. Kansas State Historical Society: 227–268. Archived from the original on 2009-04-19.
  15. ^ Rawley (1979), p. 85.

Sources

External links