Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/559

 The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 549 1854, by proposing to apply squatter sovereignty to tlie Kansas- Xebraska country, a territory already consecrated to freedom by the ^Missouri Compromise of 1820. In May his bill became a law. The abrogation of the Missouri Compromise was complete ; Slavery had scored another great triumph; the opposition was paralyzed. But Eli Thayer of Worcester, Massachusetts, came forward as the man of the hour. He would checkmate the pro-slavery pro- gramme by colonizing this new territory with free-state men. To accomplish this end he at once chartered the Massachusetts Emi- grant Aid Company, later rechartered as the New England Emi- grant Aid Company, with an authorized capital stock of one million dollars. He secured the assistance and co-operation of many of the ablest men of New England and New York, among the most active being Amos A. Lawrence, Edward Everett Hale, Dr. Samuel Cabot, J. M. S. Williams, Horace Greeley, C. J. Higginson, George L. Stearns, Dr. S. G. Howe, and John Carter Brown. While the company afforded no direct pecuniary aid to the emigrant, it widely advertised the advantages of the new territory ; it organized the emigrants into companies, securing for them mu- tual aid and protection ; travel rates to those going under the auspices of the company were reduced one-half; it established, in advance of emigration, town-sites, such as Lawrence, Topeka, Osa- watomie, Manhattan, Hampden, and Wabaunsee, and at these points erected sawmills, grist-mills, school-houses, and churches. These company towns at once became the great free-state centres in the territory. Opposition to the Douglas measure was universal through- out the North, and the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa furnished a larger proportion of free-state settlers than any other section ; yet it was this New England company that supplied the plan 'and the organization and gave the direction and inspiration to the whole free-state movement : and when the prairies of Kansas were swept by fire and sword, it was to the Boston society that the afflicted pioneers first turned for protection, comfort, and ma- terial relief. Dr. Charles Robinson, S. C. Pomeroy, and Charles H. Brans- comb were employed to serve the Emigrant Aid Company in Kan- sas. Pomeroy was the head representative and the purchasing agent for the company. Robinson, however, soon developed as the real leader in general affairs. He was well fitted for such grave responsibility, for he had been through the California trou- bles, and was by nature shrewd, cool, determined, and an able judge of men and of the future. While other leaders had important and often more picturesque parts, it was the mind of Robinson