The Concord Surveyor and the Kansas Surveyor
The Concord Surveyor and the Kansas Surveyor
In agreeing to survey for the Native Americans, surveyor John Brown no doubt realized that ridding Kansas of illegal settlers was good for both Ottawas and abolitionists. Earlier that spring, Major Jefferson Buford of Eufaula, Alabama, had arrived in the Territory with four hundred resolute proslavery conscripts recruited from several Southern states. Buford and other bands of militants, assuming that the “official” proslavery territorial government would take no action against them, established their camps on Indian lands and federally owned tracts surrounding the Free State settlements of Topeka, Lawrence, and Osawatomie. Along with them, a large number of claim-jumping Missourians had crossed into the Territory not only in order to vote proslavery, but to suppress their neighbors' votes and seal off the Kansas border, denying entry especially to newcomers from Northern states. They were in effect occupiers, seizing operational bases on already-owned land to carry on a war of intimidation.
Keywords: Concord surveyor, John Brown, illegal settlers, proslavery, Kansas, landowning
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