Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/202

194 property, and, as I am informed, killed one white man (the master), who fought against the liberation.

"Now for comparison. Eleven persons are forcibly restored to their natural and inalienable rights, with but one man killed, and all 'hell is stirred from beneath.' It is currently reported that the governor of Missouri has made a requisition upon the governor of Kansas for the delivery of all such as were concerned in the last named 'dreadful outrage.' The marshal of Kansas is said to be collecting a posse of Missouri (not Kansas) men at West Point, in Missouri, a little town about ten miles distant, to 'enforce the laws.' All pro-slavery, conservative, free state, and dough-face men and administration tools are filled with holy horror."

One of the slaves, Samuel Harper, afterward told of this wonderful katabasis of a thousand miles in the teeth of the elements and in defiance of the law:

"It was mighty slow traveling. You see there were several different parties amongst our band, and our masters had people looking all over for us. We would ride all night, and then maybe, we would have to stay several days in one house to keep from getting caught. In a month we had only got to a place near Topeka, which was about forty miles from where we started. There was twelve of us at the one house of a man named Doyle, besides the captain and his men, when there came along a gang of slave-hunters. One of Captain Brown's men, Stevens, he went down to them and