New England Emigrant Aid Company facts for kids
The New England Emigrant Aid Company was a special group started in Boston, Massachusetts. It was first called the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. This company was founded by an activist named Eli Thayer. Its main goal was to help people who were against slavery move to the Kansas Territory.
Why was this important? At the time, a new law called the Kansas–Nebraska Act let people in Kansas decide if slavery would be allowed there. The company believed that if many people who opposed slavery moved to Kansas, they could vote to make it a "free state" (where slavery was not allowed). This would happen when Kansas eventually joined the United States.
Even though the company didn't send as many people as planned, it had a big impact. It made people on both sides of the slavery debate react strongly. People who supported slavery, especially "border ruffians" from nearby Missouri, moved to Kansas to try and make it a slave state. This, in turn, made people who wanted Kansas to be free even more determined.
Eli Thayer first wanted the company to make money by buying and selling land. But some investors felt it was wrong to profit from the fight against slavery. So, in 1855, the company changed its name to the New England Emigrant Aid Company and became a group focused on helping people, not making money. Even though it didn't make a profit or change the population of Kansas a lot, it played an important part in the events known as Bleeding Kansas.
How the Company Started
The company was formed during a time of big disagreements in the United States, just before the American Civil War. People in the Northern states worried that a new idea called "popular sovereignty" was a way for Southern states to gain more power. Popular sovereignty meant that people in each new state could decide if slavery was allowed there.
When the Kansas–Nebraska Act suggested this idea for the new Kansas Territory, Eli Thayer had an idea. He was a Congressman from Massachusetts. In the winter of 1853–1854, he thought of starting an Emigrant Aid Company. His main partners were Alexander H. Bullock and Edward Everett Hale.
They started Thayer's plan on March 5, 1854. Thayer announced the company at a meeting in Worcester on March 11. Soon after, the Massachusetts Legislature approved the company's plan. They allowed it to raise up to $5,000,000.
The company's official purpose was to "supply information, cheapen transportation, and set up saw mills and flour mills" in the new territory. The goal was to help the "free-state" movement win in Kansas. At first, they also hoped to make a good profit for their investors.
It's important to know that many people who supported the company did not believe in equal rights for Black people. Besides banning slavery, they also wanted to ban Black people from becoming citizens or owning property in Kansas. For example, Kansas's first constitution, which was never used, would have banned both enslaved and free Black people from the Territory.
Officially, the company was supposed to be a business. How settlers voted was not supposed to matter to the company. But the company secretary, Thomas Webb, wrote in 1855 that settlers were expected to support the free-state movement. Some people who were against slavery questioned the idea of making money from this cause. Many of Thayer's possible investors worried that people would say they were only helping for money. Even though Thayer disagreed, the company changed its focus in 1855. It became a group that helped people without trying to make a profit. This is when it changed its name to the New England Emigrant Aid Company.
Other Companies Formed
Because the New England Emigrant Aid Company was successful, other similar groups started in the East. New companies like the Worcester County Emigrant Aid Society formed in places like New York and Ohio.
Impact on Kansas
The New England Emigrant Aid Company directly helped create the Kansas towns of Lawrence and Manhattan. It also played a big part in starting Topeka and Osawatomie. The town of Lawrence was named after the company's secretary, Amos Adams Lawrence.
Many important people who moved to Kansas were helped by the company. These included politicians like Daniel Read Anthony, Charles L. Robinson, Samuel C. Pomeroy, and Martin F. Conway. Martin F. Conway later became Kansas's first US Representative.
The exact number of people who moved to Kansas with the company's help is not fully known. Some estimates say around 2,000 people, with about a third of them returning home. However, the Kansas Historical Society believes about 900 people moved to Kansas in 1855 alone.
In the end, the company's main goal was achieved. Kansas joined the United States as a free state in 1861. This happened after Southern politicians left Congress to form the Confederate government.
