Robert Robinson on the road between Huntsville, Alabama, and Cold Springs hired a colored man for three months, and he called at his store for his pay "All right," said Robison, "step back and we'll look over the books and pay you." After entering the room the door was locked, and Robinson placed a pistol at his head, while his brother beat him with a pine club, which disabled him from labor for three weeks. This was his pay.
Giles Lester was taken to jail, and was in the hands of Bailiff Dantey. A mob of fifteen or twenty men took him out on Friday night, to a piece of woods, and hanged him—not so as to break his neck at once; but they were three hours in beating him to death. A white man living near by said he never heard such cries and groans of agony in all his life as during those three hours. These atrocities were committed within two years past.
During the Mississippi riot that fiercely raged during 1875-6, the object of which was to secure a solid Democratic vote at the presidential election, innocent men, without the shadow of provocation, were hauled out of their houses and shot, or hanged; and no legal notice was taken of the murderers, for they were men of property and standing. General J.R. Chalmers was a leader in one band of these rioters, and is now honored with a seat in Congress. The mob took Henry Alcorn out of his house to the woods and shot him, leaving the murdered man to be buried by his friends, who mourned over his sad fate. But there is no redress where this corrupt public sentiment takes the place of law. This band of rioters called up Charlie Green to cook for them all night at one of their places of rendezvous. At early morn, Charlie being tired, fell asleep sitting on a dry-goods box. One of the party said he wanted to try his gun before starting, and discharged its contents into Green's body, taking his life instantly!
One or two instances of Southern malignity and outrage were reported to me by one of these refugees. A woman residing near some of those whom I interviewed during my stay in Kansas, in 1879-80, was called out by the "Bourbons" or "Regulators" who were in pursuit of her husband, and questioned as to his whereabouts. Suspecting that their object was to take his life she refused to tell. Upon this a rope was placed around her neck and tied to a horse's tail, and she was thus dragged to the nearest wood and hanged to the limb of a tree until she was dead. Her husband made his escape as, best he could with his mother-less babe.
There was a plantation in Mississippi rented to six colored men, three of them with families. At Christmas they called for a settlement. Morgan, the proprietor, brought them into his debt, and swore "every nigger had eaten his head off." He took seven hundred bushels of wheat that they had raised, and fourteen fat hogs, the corn, and even the team and wagon they brought on the place. They concluded to resort to the civil authorities, hoping to recover a portion of the avails of the season's hard work. But Morgan gained the suit. At this the colored men told him just what they thought of this wholesale robbery. Within a week after the six men were taken out of their beds in the dead of night, by a company of masked "Regulators," who stripped the bedsteads of their cords, with which they were hanged and then lashed to boards and sent floating down the Mississippi River. A white cloth was fastened over their bosoms, upon which was written: "Any one taking up these bodies to bury may expect the same fate." They were taken out of the river one hundred miles below. Two of the widows sent for the bodies of their husbands, and a number whom I conversed with attended the funeral and read the notice on the linen, which had not been removed from their persons. Surely we have a right, and it is our duty to ventilate these facts, though we may be deemed sensational. We can not be charged with political wire-pulling, as they are beyond our reach. But I ask, in the words of Elizabeth H. Chandler, who has long since gone to her rest and reward—
"Shall we behold unheeding
Life's holiest feelings crushed?
When woman's heart is bleeding,
Shall woman's voice be hushed?"
Is it a wonder the freedmen flee by hundreds and thousands? They are still coming into Kansas. There are many sick and dying among them. Let every man, woman, and child arise and work for the refugees, who are suffering for food, fuel, and clothing. There is great necessity for immediate and vigorous effort, in taking the place of the Good Samaritan in caring for the robbed and bruised stranger, who find many priests and Levites passing by. During the Winter all money and supplies for Kansas refugees should be directed to Elizabeth L. Comstock, North Topeka, Kansas.
Our work is by every possible means aiding these poor people to help themselves, which they are doing wherever work can be found. But Winter season overtaking them on the way to Kansas, and no work to be obtained, the philanthropy of our North will not withhold her liberal hand. It is a debt which we owe to this people. Comparatively few call for assistance who have been in the State a year, and most of these are aged grandparents, the sick, and widows with large families of small children.
Of those who came early in the Spring of 1879, many have raised from one hundred to four hundred bushels of corn each year, but they divide with their friends and relatives who follow them. Some raised a few acres of cotton in their first year, and they are jubilant over their future outlook. They say, "Kansas prairies will blossom as the rose, and whiten her thousands of acres with their favorite staple." One old man whose head was almost as white as the few acres of cotton he produced, said, "We'll 'stonish the nation wid thousands of snow-white acres of cotton in dis yere free Kansas, raised wid black hands." I find they are writing back to their relatives and friends in the far off South, that they can raise cotton as successfully in Kansas as in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. In this prospect the door of hope is opening before them, as if by the Almighty hand, which they accept as having led them to the "land of freedom," as they often express themselves.
They are coming in larger numbers again, notwithstanding every possible effort of planters to keep them back, and false reports from their enemies in this State that the exodus had ended, but we who are in communication with other portions of the State know to the contrary, and all who come report more to follow. These poor people who, between March, 1879, and March, 1881, have made their escape from an oppression that seems almost incredible, and have come to Kansas to live, now number more than fifty thousand, and still they come. Like a great panorama, the scenes I witnessed in this State sixteen years ago, amid clashing arms, come back to me. Suffering and dying then seemed the order of each day. True, there is a great deal of suffering and ignorance among these field hands still, but there is a marked improvement, both as to the intelligence of these masses and their personal comfort. Are they not as intelligent as were the children of Israel when they left Egypt? They made a golden calf to worship after Moses had left them a few days. All ignorant people are prone to depend upon leaders instead of relying on themselves.