Description
"The Kansas Narrative of John Doy of Lawrence, Kansas - A Plain, Unvarnished Tale" - - (Researcher's note: Due to the numerous references to Platte County, only selected excerpts have been indexed.)
Chapter IX The Fate of Hays and Smith, p. 50-51 - - On the second day of our imprisonment (in the Platte City jail), Wilson George Hays, Charles Smith - both known to us to be free-born men, as before mentioned - and William Riley, whom we left chained in the attic at Weston with the other colored people, were brought in handcuffed by Jake Hurd and George Robbins, a fellow of the same kidney, who was an ostler at Lecompton, and one of our kidnappers.
As soon as the men were safe in jail, Jake told them they had better choose masters as the others had done, and not get into any more trouble. They answered that they never were slaves, and that they would remain in jail till their friends came and proved that they were freemen.
“Men! Men!” sneered Jake; “you’re nothing but d----- d niggers.”
(Researcher's note: In January 1859 abolitionist John Doy agreed to take a group of 13 African American Kansans north to Iowa on one leg of the Underground Railroad. Dr. Doy and his group were then captured 12 miles north of Lawrence by a group of Missouri slave hunters which included Weston Mayor Benjamin Wood. Doy and his 21 year old son, Charles, were transported back to Weston, Missouri and placed in jail. He was later transferred to the Platte City jail and then to the St. Joseph, Missouri, jail. Along the way they were displayed in the streets and hounded, beaten and nearly hanged. He was charged with a federal offense of "slave stealing” and awaited a sentence of hard labor or death. In jail after a second trial that found him guilty, ten men went from Lawrence to St. Joseph in July 1859 and broke Doy out of jail. He returned to Kansas and later wrote a 137-page narrative describing in detail his experiences in Platte County, Missouri.)Date(s) of Creation
1/1/1860
