New England Emigrant Aid Company

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The New England Emigrant Aid Company was a company that operated the settlement of the Kansas Territory and later the US state of Kansas . The company was funded by shares, bought land in Kansas and sold it to emigrants from Europe . The company also provided transportation to Kansas and initial accommodation in hotels .

Emergence

The company was founded in 1854 under the name Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company and renamed the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855 . Founders were the politician Eli Thayer (member of the US House of Representatives 1857–61), Alexander H. Bullock (judge, governor of Massachusetts 1866–69) and the author Edward Everett Hale . The company was financed through the sale of $ 20 shares , originally intended to raise $ 5 million. The capital never exceeded $ 140,000. At the launch of the company's opening of the Kansas Territory to settlers by the was Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Abolitionists in Massachusetts now wanted to make sure that abolitionists made up the majority of residents in Kansas and decided to the settlement of abolitionist set emigrants from To promote Europe, which was true for many Germans. Other organizations also settled Germans in Kansas, e.g. B. the German Resettlement Association , which founded the city of Eudora in eastern Kansas.

activities

The first group of settlers comprised 170 settlers and reached Kansas City in July 1854, from where they traveled further west. A short time later, some of these settlers founded the city of Lawrence at the confluence of the Wakarusa River and the Kansas River . In 1855, 900 settlers came to Kansas through the New England Emigrant Aid Company . By the end of the company's main activities in 1857, there were approximately 2,000 settlers, less than 10 percent of the total population of the Kansas Territory at that time.

The New England Emigrant Aid Company formally existed until 1897 when it transferred its assets to the University of Kansas . The society still had 400 members at that time and had also settled about 1,000 immigrants in Florida . The society was influential through the settlement of anti-slavers and the establishment of the cities of Lawrence, Manhattan , Topeka and Osawatomie . The total number of settlers remained small and the company was not financially successful.

Tracks in Kansas

In addition to the established cities, the New England Emigrant Aid Company left other traces. Lawrence still houses the Society-built Free State Hotel (now the Eldridge Hotel ), and the town itself got its name from the Society's secretary, Amos Adams Lawrence . Lawrence is also home to Mount Oread (the hill that houses the core of the University of Kansas campus ). This hill is named after the Massachusetts Oread Institute College , founded by the well-known patron Amos Lawrence , father of Amos Adams Lawrence. Agents of the New England Emigrant Aid Company also held important positions in Kansas, e. B. the first governor ( Charles L. Robinson ), a US Senator ( Samuel C. Pomeroy ) and a member of the US House of Representatives ( Martin F. Conway ).

See also

literature

Web links

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  1. ↑ see Samuel Johnson, "The Emigrant Aid Company in Kansas"
  2. ↑ Website on the genesis of Eudora ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / history.lawrence.com
  3. ↑ see article by Louise Barry
  4. ^ Article in the New York Times, February 18, 1897