Civil Unrest
The Border Wars and Compromise
Visit the Museum to see displays, photos and files that chronicle the turmoil before the Civil War
1805 map of Louisana from National Archives
Weston, Missouri’s early settlement in 1837—its steamboat and overland commerce as a force in westward expansion, plus its location on the river bordering the free state Kansas— put it in the bulls-eye of the pre-Civil War Border conflicts. Weston was the second largest Missouri riverport after St. Louis.
As in most parts of the United States during those tumultuous years, loyalties were divided and complex. The museum has exhibits that help us better understand the times and lives of those early residents, both free and enslaved.
Approved on March 6, 1820, this legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. It also outlawed slavery above the 36 degrees 30’ latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. source National Archives
Conference committee report on the Missouri Compromise, March 1, 1820
Missouri’s bid to become the first state west of the Mississippi River set off a bitter debate in a Congress that was divided into pro and anti-slavery factions. In the North, where abolitionist sentiment was growing, many people opposed the extension of the institution of slavery into new territory. They worried that adding Missouri as a slave state would upset the balance that currently existed between slave and free states in the Union. Pro-slavery Southerners argued that new states, like the original 13, should be given the freedom to choose whether to permit slavery or not.
From the Missouri State Archives
This 1854 broadside calls on “The Abolitionists and Freesoilers of Weston and vicinity” to meet at the Weston, Missouri courthouse on September 1, 1854 at 7:00pm, “to adopt such measures as they may deem most proper and expedient, and best calculated to Counteract the Effect produced by some of the doings of some of the men connected with the ‘Platte County Self-Defensive Association.’” The broadside was issued by “Many Citizens” on September 1, 1854 in Weston.
In 1854, after four slaves from Platte County ran away to Leavenworth, the Platte County Self-Defensive Association was organized in an attempt to prevent Free-Stater settlement of Kansas.
Citizens’ Meeting Weston, MO. September 1, 1854
The Civil War was fought in word and deed for years before Fort Sumter, South Carolina was fired on. In Weston, there were at least two distinct factions creating a complex and often dangerous environment.
This broadside- from the Kansas City Public Library online collection, describes the proceedings of a citizens’ meeting held in Weston, Missouri, on September 1, 1854. G.W. Gist is identified as chair of the meeting, with J.B. Evans serving as secretary. The broadside states that ten resolutions were passed at the meeting, with attendees declaring themselves to be “Union men” forced to accept measures contrary to their principles by “certain members of the Platte County Self-Defensive Association.” The broadside is signed by 174 men.
Map shows Ft. Leavenworth and Weston proximity -1909?
From Boston Public Library Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
No known copyright restrictions.
No known restrictions on use.
First hand insight into Weston in 1851-1852
Excerpt from the introduction to the book, Three Years on the Kansas Border—
“The writer of the following pages was a Missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in that section of the State of Missouri called the Platte Purchase, during the years 1851-52.”
Chapter IV - Weston Revisited
Weston, though not the County-seat, is yet the chief town of Platte County, MO. Taking all things into considerations, it is an important place. For many years it remained the only town in the vicinity of Fort Leavenworth. It was consequently the immediate resort of the free and easy soldier, after pay-day at the garrison. I need not describe the condition of his finances, or the fancies of his brain, the day after the Fair! The officers’ families did most of their marketing and trading at this place. The Quarter-Master threw millions into the coffers of the traders at Weston, and the farmers and stock-raisers of its neighborhood. The streets and shops of the town, two or three times in the year, would be crowded with the various tribes of Indians, who would have come to trade after receiving their payments. In addition to all these means of gain, much of the over-land trade to New Mexico, California, Salt Lake and Oregon. The traders of Weston, in a word, did an immense business. I never was in a town of 2,800 inhabitants, in any State, where money, in gold and silver, was so plenty, and where wealth was so general in the possession of the traders.
Beside these circumstances, Weston had a character for men and measures, peculiar even in Missouri. Here was published the “Platte Argus” the organ of David Atchison: here were the Committee Rooms of the famous “Self-Defensives:” here the fate of Empires was decided by an oath: here civil war was prayed for as a blessing: here B.F. Stringfellow smoked his pipe and plotted treason to the Constitution: and here Parson Kerr took his drink, quoted texts in support of Barbarism, read his doggerels burlesquing philanthropy, and printed speeches advising bloodshed.”
The 1860 Missouri census
showed the population of whites, “free colored” and slaves in each Missouri county.
Link to the census lists— The total Missouri state population was 1,182,012, with 1,063,599 whites, 3,572 Free Colored, and 114,931 enslaved people.
Platte County (Weston’s location) lists 14,981 whites, 56 free colored, 3,313 enslaved people