Part 14

Now that thoughtless pig had actually lighted a fuse that threatened to lead to a very serious explosion. As it happened San Juan lay near the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and commanded both shores. The people at Victoria could see the American soldiers setting out in their boats from Port Townsend, and landing on the green island. So long as it had been the home of a few farmers San Juan had caused little concern, but now that troops were camping upon it it presented quite a different look. Victoria was all excitement. The governor, Sir James Douglas, heard the news first, and then Admiral Prevost, who was in command of some English war-ships anchored in the little bay near the city. The admiral was very angry and threatened to blow the Yankees off the island. He gave orders to move his fleet to one of the harbors of San Juan, and his cannon were ready to fire shot over the peaceful fields, where sheep and pigs had divided possession. Sir James Douglas, the governor, however, was a more peaceful man. He persuaded the admiral not to be in a hurry, but suggested that it would be wise to have a company of British regulars camp somewhere on San Juan. This would serve as a warning to the United States troops. Accordingly Captain Delacombe was sent over, and pitched his tents on the northern end of the island that belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company.

As a result of the pig having trespassed in Mr. Hubbs' vegetable patch, the flag of the United States flew above the tents on the southern part of San Juan, and the British flag over the tents on the northern end. Mr. Hubbs was left in peace, and Mr. Griffiths went on raising pigs; but the people in Victoria shook their fists across the strait at the people in Port Townsend, and in each of those cities there was a great deal of talk about war. The talk was mostly done by men who had nothing to do with the army. The soldiers on the little island soon became the best of friends, and spent their time in field sports and giving dinner-parties to each other.

No part of the boundary line of the United States has given more trouble than that in the northwest. The Hudson's Bay Company had once claimed practically all of what was known as Oregon Territory for England, but after Marcus Whitman brought his pioneers westward the Hudson's Bay Company gradually withdrew, and left the southern part of that land to the United States. For forty years the two countries had disputed about the line of division, and the political party that was led by Stephen A. Douglas had taken as its watchword, "Fifty-four, forty,--or fight!" which meant that unless the United States should get all the land up to the southern line of Alaska, they would go to war with England. Fortunately President Polk was not so grasping, and the boundary was finally settled in 1846 on latitude forty-nine degrees. That was a clear enough boundary for most of the northwest country, but when one came close to the Pacific the coast grew ragged, and was dotted with little islands. Vancouver was by the treaty to belong to England, and the agreement said that the boundary at this corner should be "the middle of the channel." Now it happened that San Juan and its small neighbors lay midway between the two shores, and the treaty failed to say which channel was meant, the one on the American or the one on the British side of San Juan.

As a matter of fact this question of the channel was very important for the British. It would lead them to the coast of Canada, or the United States to Alaska. The one to the west, called the Canal de Haro, was much straighter than the other, and deep enough for the largest war-ships. Naturally the United States wanted the boundary to run through this channel, and the British equally naturally wanted the boundary to run through the opposite channel, called Rosario Strait, because midway between lay the little island, which would make a splendid fortress, and might prevent the passage of ships in case of war between the two nations. So long as the islands were simply pasture lands the question of ownership was only a matter for debate, but when the pig was killed, and the troops of both countries camped on San Juan the question became a much more vital one.

News of what had happened on San Juan was sent to Washington and to London; and General Winfield Scott hurried by way of Panama to Mr. Hubbs' farm. He found that all the United States troops on that part of the coast that could be spared had been crowded on to the southern part of the island. This seemed unnecessary, and General Scott agreed with Sir James Douglas that only one company of United States and one of British soldiers should stay in camp there. The little island thus became the scene of what was known as "a joint military occupation." In the meantime there were many lengthy meetings at Washington and London, and the two countries decided that they would leave the difficult question of the boundary line to arbitration. So the statesmen at Washington drew up papers to prove that the right line lay in the middle of the Canal de Haro, and statesmen at London drew up other papers to show that the correct line was through the middle of Rosario Strait, which would give them San Juan and allow their ships to sail in perfect safety between the islands and the Vancouver shore. The statesmen and lawyers took their time about this, while the soldiers amused themselves fishing for cod and salmon, and the farmers cared for their sheep and pigs as peacefully as in the days before Hubbs had shot Griffiths' pig.

After some time the two nations decided to ask the Emperor of Germany to decide the question of the boundary line. The Emperor appointed three learned men to determine the question for him. They listened to the arguments of both sides, and after much study made their report to the Emperor, who gave his decision on October 23, 1872, and handed a copy of it to Mr. Bancroft for the United States, and to Lord Odo Russell for England. His decision was that the claim of the United States was correct, and that the middle of the Canal de Haro should be the boundary of that northwestern corner. This gave San Juan to the United States, much to the disappointment of the people of Vancouver Island, who knew that a fort on that little strip of land could control all navigation through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. One month after the decision was given the British troops cut down their flagstaff on the northern end and left San Juan.

San Juan lies opposite the city of Victoria, which has grown to be one of the largest ports of British Columbia. Instead of lessening in importance the island has grown in value, because that part of the country has filled up rapidly, and both sides of the line are more and more prosperous. The question of who should own San Juan would have been decided some day, but it was that prowling pig that brought matters to a head, and for a few weeks at least threatened to draw two countries into war. On such slight happenings (although in this case it was a very serious matter for the pig) often hang the fates of nations if we trace history back to the spark that fired the fuse.

XI

JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY

In the days when Kansas was the battle-ground between those men who upheld negro slavery, and those who attacked it, a man named John Brown went from the east to that territory. Several of his sons had already gone into Kansas, and had sent him glowing accounts of it. Many New England families were moving west by 1855, and building homes for themselves on the splendid rolling prairies across the Mississippi. John Brown, however, went with another purpose. The years had built up in him such a hatred for negro slavery that it filled his whole thoughts. Kansas was the field where slave-owners and abolitionists, or those who opposed slavery, were to fight for the balance of power. Therefore he went to Kansas and made his home in the lowlands along the eastern border, near a region that the Indians had named the Swamp of the Swan.

There were a great many men in Kansas at that time who had no real convictions in regard to slavery, and to whom the question was one of politics, and not of religion, as it was to John Brown. Those were days of warfare on the border, and men from the south and the north were constantly clashing, fighting for the upper hand in the government, and taking every possible advantage of each other. Five of John Brown's sons had already settled in Kansas when he came there with a sick son and a son-in-law. Early in October, 1855, they reached the home of the pioneers. They found the houses very primitive, small log shanties, the walls plastered with mud. The father joined his boys in getting in their hay, and set traps in the woods to secure game for food. But trouble was brewing in the town of Lawrence, which was the leading city of Kansas. Word come to the Swamp of the Swan that men who favored slavery were marching on the town, intending to drive out the free-state Northerners there. This was a direct call to John Brown to take the field. His family set to work preparing corn bread and meat, blankets and cooking utensils, running bullets, and loading guns. Then five of the men set out for Lawrence, which was reached at the end of a twenty-four hours' march.

The town of Lawrence, a collection of many rude log houses, was filled with crowds of excited men and women. John Brown, looking like a patriarch with his long hair and beard, arrived at sundown, accompanied by his stalwart sons armed with guns and pistols. He was at once put in charge of a company, and set to work fortifying the town with earthworks, and preparing for a battle. In a day or two, however, an agreement was reached between the free-state and the slave-state parties, and immediate danger of warfare disappeared. Satisfied with this outcome, Brown and his sons took to the road again, and marched back to their home. There they stayed during the next winter. In the cold of the long ice-bound months, the passions of men lay dormant. But with the coming of spring the old feud smouldered afresh.

Bands of armed men from the South arrived in Kansas, and one from Georgia came to camp near the Brown settlement on the Swamp of the Swan. On a May morning John Brown and four of his sons walked over to the new camp to learn the Georgians' plans. He had some surveying instruments with him, and the newcomers took him for a government surveyor and therefore a slave man, for almost every official that was sent into Kansas held the Southern views. Pretending to be a surveyor, the father directed his sons to busy themselves in making a section line through the camp. The men from Georgia looked on, talking freely. Presently one of them said: "We've come here to stay. We won't make no war on them as minds their own business; but all the Abolitionists, such as them Browns over there, we're going to whip, drive out, or kill,--any way to get shut of them!" The strangers went on to name other settlers they meant to drive out, not suspecting who their listeners were, and John Brown wrote every word down in his surveyor's book. A few days later the Georgians moved their camp nearer to the Brown settlement, and began to steal horses and cattle belonging to the free-state men. Brown took his list, and went to see the men whose names were on it. They held a meeting, and decided that it was time to teach the "border ruffians," as such men as the Georgians were called, a lesson. News of the meeting spread rapidly, and soon it was generally known that the free-state men about Osawatomie, which was the name of the town near which the Browns lived, were prepared to take the war-path.

The old bitter feelings flamed up again in May of 1856. On the twenty-first of the month, a band of slavery men swept down on the town of Lawrence, and while the free-state citizens looked on, sacked and burned the place. John Brown and his sons hurried there, but when they reached Lawrence the houses were in ashes. He denounced the free-state men as cowards, for to his ardent nature it seemed an outrage that men should let themselves be treated so by ruffians. When a discreet citizen said that they must act with caution John Brown burst out at him: "Caution, caution, sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution--it is nothing but the word for cowardice!" There was nothing for him to do, however, and he was about to turn toward home when a boy came dashing up. He reported that the ruffians in the Swamp of the Swan had warned all the women in the Brown settlement that they must leave Kansas by Saturday or Sunday, or they would be driven out. The women had been frightened, and taking their children, had fled in an ox-cart to the house of a relative at a distance. The boy added that two houses and a store near the settlement had been burned.

Those were dark days on the border, days that hardened men's natures. Such a man as John Brown felt that it was his duty to stamp out the pest of slavery at any cost. He turned to his sons and to some German friends whose homes had been burned. "I will attend to those fellows," said he. "Something must be done to show these barbarians that we too have rights!" A neighbor offered to carry the little band of men in his wagon. They looked to their guns and cutlasses. Peace-loving people in Lawrence grew uneasy. Judging from Brown's expression, they feared that he was going to sow further trouble.

Eight men drove back to the Browns' settlement, and found that the messenger's story was correct. They called a meeting of those who were to be driven out of Kansas, according to the ruffians' threats. At the meeting they decided to rid the country of the outlaws, who had only come west to plunder, and some of whom had been employed in chasing runaway slaves who had escaped from their masters. Their plans made, Brown's band rode to a little saloon on the Pottawatomie Creek where the raiders made their headquarters. Within an hour's walk were the men's cabins. Members of Brown's band stopped at the door of each cabin that night, and asked for the men they wanted. If the inmates hesitated to open the door it was broken open. Two of the men on their list could not be found, but five were led out into the woods and killed. It was a horrible deed, barbarous even in those days of bloodshed. But Brown's men felt that they were forced to do it.

John Brown thought that this one desperate act might set Kansas free; but it only marked the beginning of a long and bloody drama. As soon as the facts were known he and his sons became outlaws with prices on their heads. Even his neighbors at Osawatomie were horrified at his act. Two of his sons who had not been with him were arrested, and the little settlement became a center of suspicion. The father withdrew to the woods, and there about thirty-five men gathered about him. They lived the life of outlaws, and neither slave-state nor free-state officers dared to try to capture them. By chance a reporter of the New York _Tribune_ came on their camp. He wrote: "I shall not soon forget the scene that here opened to my view. Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, all ready saddled for a ride for life, or a hunt after Southern invaders. A dozen rifles and sabres were stacked against the trees. In an open space, amid the shady and lofty woods, there was a great blazing fire with a pot on it; a woman, bareheaded, with an honest sunburnt face, was picking blackberries from the bushes; three or four armed men were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass; and two fine-looking youths were standing, leaning on their arms, on guard near by.... Old Brown himself stood near the fire, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, and a large piece of pork in his hand. He was cooking a pig. He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about me."

This band, living in forest and swamp, was always ready to strike a blow for the free-state cause. The slavery men were getting the upper hand, and Northern families who had settled in Kansas began to look to John Brown for protection. The "border ruffians" grew worse and worse, attacking small defenseless settlements, burning homes and carrying off cattle. Sometimes it was only the fear of retaliation from Brown's company that kept the raiders from still greater crimes. Occasionally they met; once they fought a battle at Black Jack, and twenty-four of the enemy finally surrendered to nine of Brown's men. One of the leader's sons was badly wounded, and the father had to nurse him in the woods.

Affairs grew worse during the summer. The vilest scum of the slave states poured into Kansas, and the scenes on the border grew more and more disgraceful. There were pitched battles, and at last the governor of the territory, thoroughly scared, surrendered his power into the hands of the slave-holders, and fled for his life. The slave-state men thought that the time had come to strike a blow that should settle the question in Kansas permanently. They prepared to gather an army in Missouri, intending to cross into Kansas, and so terrify settlers from the North that they would make no further resistance. Conditions looked desperate to John Brown, and he left the territory for a short time to see what he could do to get help for his cause.

A large band of emigrants from the North were on the march toward Kansas, and Brown rode to meet them. The emigrants had heard of him, and welcomed him to their midst. He encouraged them and urged them to fight for freedom, and went on his way hoping to rouse more free-state men to enter Kansas.

The East was now thoroughly awake to the lawless situation on the border, and a new governor, Geary by name, was sent out from Washington. Meetings were held in the large cities, and money, arms, and men began to pour into Kansas. Several hundred men from Missouri attacked Osawatomie, which was defended by Abolitionists, and a battle followed. John Brown was there, and when his party won the day he gained the nickname of "Osawatomie Brown," by which he was generally called thereafter.

Fired by this success, the leaders of the free-state army planned to capture Lawrence. The new governor feared that such an act would mean the beginning of a general civil war, and did his best to prevent it. He succeeded in this. The free-state men were divided into two parties, those whose aim was to have Kansas admitted to the Union as a free state, and those who, like John Brown, were bent on abolishing slavery throughout the United States. Governor Geary assured the former men that Kansas would be free soil, and he tried to induce Brown to leave that part of the country for a time in the interest of peace. Brown was willing to do as Governor Geary wished, thinking that Kansas was safe for the present. He wanted to turn his attention to other parts of the country, where he thought he was more needed. In September, 1856, he started east with his sons. He was now a well-known figure, hated by all slave-owners, a hero to Abolitionists, and distrusted by that large number of men whose object was to secure peace at any cost.

There were many people in the North at that time who were helping runaway slaves to escape from their masters, and in certain parts of the country there were stations of what was called the "Underground Railroad." Negroes fleeing from the tyranny of Southern owners were helped along from one station to another, until they were finally safe across the Canadian border. The law of the country said that negro slaves were like any other form of property, and that it was the duty of citizens to return runaways to their masters. There were also scattered through the border states a number of men whose business it was to catch fugitive slaves and take them back south. These men were usually of a brutal type, and the poor refugee who fell into their clutches was made to suffer for his attempt at escape. Story after story of the sufferings of slaves came to John Brown's ears, and he felt that it was his duty to throw himself into the work of the Underground Railroad, and help as many slaves as possible to cross into Canada.

This work was not enough for him, however; he wanted to strike some blow at the slave-owners themselves. The Alleghany Mountain range was one of the main roads for fugitives, for there men could hide in the thick forests of the mountainside, and could make some show of defense when the slave-catchers and bloodhounds came in pursuit. John Brown knew this country well. He traveled through the North, talking with other men who felt as he did, and trying to work out a plan which should force the country to decide this question of negro slavery. At last he decided to make a raid into Southern territory, and free slaves for himself.

In the heart of the Alleghanies, and almost midway between Maine and Florida, is a great natural gateway in the mountains. Here the Potomac and the Shenandoah Rivers meet, and seem to force their way through the natural barrier. This pass is Harper's Ferry, and in 1859 it was the seat of a United States arsenal. To the south was a country filled with slaves, who looked to Harper's Ferry as the highroad to freedom. Not far from the arsenal rose the Blue Ridge Mountains, the heights of which commanded the pass. It was John Brown's plan to lead men from the Maryland side of the Potomac River to attack the arsenal, and when it was captured to carry arms and ammunition across the Shenandoah to Loudoun Heights in the Blue Ridge, and hide there. From here his band could make raids to the south, freeing slaves, and shielding them from their masters, while using the mountains for a shelter.

There were many other men in the United States bent on destroying slavery, but few so impulsive as John Brown. His plan was rash in the extreme, and even its success would have profited only a few slaves. But Brown was a born crusader. The men who followed him were all impulsive, and many of them were already trained in the rude ways of frontier life. They knew what he had done in Kansas, and were ready to fight on his side anywhere else. They had a real reverence for John Brown. The tall man with the long, almost white hair, keen eyes, and flowing beard was no ordinary leader. He had the power to convince men that his cause was just, and to hold them in his service afterward.