Sara Robinson, Kansan

18thVirginia

Major
Joined
Sep 8, 2012
Since JPK Huson 1863 has been mentioning Kansas and its women, I thought it might be good to take a more in-depth look at Sarah Robinson, abolitionist Kansan and a woman who never liked John Brown. Also, I find Sarah Robinson interesting because she and her husband gave some land where their home had been located on Mount Oread in Lawrence, to an institution that I'm rather proud of having attended.

Sara Tappan Doolittle Lawrence Robinson was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts in 1827. Unusual for the day, her father offered her the same classical education which her brothers received. She was tutored in Latin and became fluent enough to read both German and French through her education at the Belchertown Classical School and the New Salem Academy. Her early education would serve Sarah Robinson well as she became the historian of the period we know as Bleeding Kansas.

She met her future husband when he treated her at age 16 and after his wife died, he started a medical practice in her town. Before traveling to California in 1851, Charles Robinson would become acquainted with Sarah once again. When he returned, he opened a medical practice in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and after their marriage in 1851, bought a newspaper, The Fitchburg News, which Sarah helped to run.

Both Sarah and Charles Robinson were anti-slavery abolitionists who believed in the need to overcome pro-slavery advocates in Kansas and hold that territory for free soil settlers. In 1854, the Robinsons committed to move to Kansas. Charles would go there in 1854 and help found Lawrence and Sarah would follow in 1855.

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Sarah Lawrence Robinson
 
Sarah Robinson documented the history of early Kansas in a book, Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life by Sara Robinson. It can be found online here: http://www.kancoll.org/books/robinson/r_chap01.htm

It's obvious early in her narrative which side she's on during the early conflicts in Kansas:

"This country, than which the sun shines upon no fairer, with its mountains, prairies and valleys, lying midway between the north and south, east and west, in the very heart of the United States, was never to be cursed with the blackest of all villanies, the bitterest of all evils -- human slavery. The clanking of chains was never to create a discord in that harmony, where the wild bird sent forth its gushing lay for freedom, where the whispering breezes through the leafy wood caught up the music, echoing it amid the quivering leaves, and where all nature sang a continual song for freedom. But what has been the sequel? How has this act, entered into as a solemn compact before God and man, been regarded? The slave oligarchists looked with covetous eyes upon this fair region. They had gained, heretofore, whatever they had desired by craft, bribery, or threats; and the North, imbecile in many of its legislators, had acquiesced. They had gained new territory, for slavery extension, by the compromise of 1850, when New England's greatest senator sounded his own death-knell, and, in the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, had rendered the entire country slave-hunting ground. Had they not good reason, then, to hope by legislation to get Kansas too?" Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life by Sara Robinson., ch. 1.
 
Although some historians have indicated that Sarah Robinson was not excited by the prospects of life in Kansas and homesick for the East, her descriptions of the beauty of the Kansas landscape would indicate a different attitude by this eloquent woman.

The face of this country is beautiful beyond all comparison. The prairies, though broad and expansive, stretching away miles in many places, seem never lonely or wearisome, being gently undulating, or more abruptly rolling; and, at the ascent of each new roll of land, the traveller finds himself in the midst of new loveliness. There are also high bluffs, usually at some little distance from the rivers, running through the entire length of the country, while ravines run from them to the rivers. These are, at some points, quite deep and difficult to cross, and, to a traveller unacquainted with the country, somewhat vexatious, especially where the prairie grass is as high as a person's head while seated in a carriage. There is little trouble, however, if travellers keep back from the water-courses, and near the high lands. These ravines are in many instances pictures of beauty, with tall, graceful trees, cotton-wood, black walnut, hickory, oak, elm and linwood, standing near while springs of pure cold water gush from the rock. The bluffs are a formation unknown in form and appearance, in any other portion of the West. At a little distance, a person could scarcely realize that art had not added her finishing touches to a work, which nature had made singularly beautiful.
 
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View of Mt. Oread by Alexander Gardner in 1867

Sarah Robinson described Lawrence:

The town reaches to the river, whose further shore is skirted with a line of beautiful timber, while beyond all rises the Delaware lands, which in the distance have all the appearance of cultivated fields and orchards, and form a back-ground to the picture of singular loveliness. To the eastward the prairie stretches away eight or ten miles, and we can scarcely help believing that the ocean lies beyond the low range of hills meeting the horizon. The line of travel from the east, or from Kansas city, passes into the territory by this way. Blue Mound rises in the south-east, and, with the shadows resting over it, looks green and velvety. A line of timber between us and Blue Mound marks the course of the Wakarusa, while beyond the eye rests upon a country diversified in surface, sloping hills, finely rolling prairies, and timbered creeks. A half mile to the south of us, Mount Oread, upon which our house stands, becomes yet more elevated, and over the top of it passes the great California road. West of us also is a high hill, a half mile in the distance, with a beautiful valley lying between, while to the north-west there is the most delightful mingling together of hill, valley, prairie, woodland and river . As far as the eye rests, we see the humble dwellings of the pioneer, with other improvements.

 
Robinson mentions the plight of women pioneers in Kansas:

Let the loud moan of lone men, murdered by these hordes of the administration, and the bitter wail of desolate homes, borne on every gale, tell to the world the blackness of the demon Slavery, and the unmitigated villany of those who have aided, abetted, and connived at all these atrocities -- those who have brought disgrace upon our country's name, and clothed their own in darkness so dense, that no after acts of a lifetime can erase the stains of blood and guilt. While the ghost-like forms of their murdered victims flit around their nightly pillows, and the cry, "O, God! I am murdered!" comes to them on every morning breeze, and the low plaint of the insane widow, as she starts and listens at every footstep, saying, "Is it my husband?" as he comes never more, "O, my soul, come not thou into their secrets!"
Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life by Sara Robinson., ch. 24.

 
She also criticizes the pro-slavery governor of Kansas, Andrew H. Reeder:

This brave champion for slavery has dared to tell lone women on the Kansas prairies he would "cut their d--d hearts out!"


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Gov. Reeder
 
Mrs. Robinson's history gives a good portrayal of the every day violence and conflict occurring in Kansas. But, in describing the numerous events, she always mentions the ladies who settled early Kansas. She has interesting commentary on those who left Kansas to return to the East:

Some free-state families were leaving, but they were mostly those who had but recently come into the territory, and had not established themselves, and become part of the great question of slavery and freedom. Timid men turned back when their feet had hardly pressed the rich soil of Kansas; but the old settlers, undaunted by past disasters and present confusion, stood firmly upon their rights. Having put their "hands to the plough, they would not look back." In some regions, where husbands and brothers were in arms to protect some other settlement, or to drive out marauders, delicately reared and intelligent New England women were busy in the fields. Their horses and oxen stolen they were at work earnestly to get in the crops. Two beautiful and accomplished girls, thus at work, said to a friend of mine, "Those who would think less of us for working in the field, may say what they please; we do not value their opinions."


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Sarah Robinson
 
Glad you're enjoying the thread. I've read considerable amounts of writings by Civil War era women, but Sarah Robinson's is in a different category. Some historians say that her work was second in importance to Uncle Tom's Cabin in its influence.
 
Gee whiz.
Some historians say that her work was second in importance to Uncle Tom's Cabin in its influence

Yes, but where now in importance? It's an amazing. amazing narrative- wish it had come my way earlier. As a kind of bumbling amateur, I frequently poke around archives, LoC, all kinds of places one is likely to find old narratives and never found it. That's a huge statement, oh my goodness!! I don't know. If her work was second in importance to Uncle Tom's Cabin seems to me it still should hold that place, you know? Makes you wonder where on earth this entire story became lost!
 
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View of Mt. Oread by Alexander Gardner in 1867

Sarah Robinson described Lawrence:

The town reaches to the river, whose further shore is skirted with a line of beautiful timber, while beyond all rises the Delaware lands, which in the distance have all the appearance of cultivated fields and orchards, and form a back-ground to the picture of singular loveliness. To the eastward the prairie stretches away eight or ten miles, and we can scarcely help believing that the ocean lies beyond the low range of hills meeting the horizon. The line of travel from the east, or from Kansas city, passes into the territory by this way. Blue Mound rises in the south-east, and, with the shadows resting over it, looks green and velvety. A line of timber between us and Blue Mound marks the course of the Wakarusa, while beyond the eye rests upon a country diversified in surface, sloping hills, finely rolling prairies, and timbered creeks. A half mile to the south of us, Mount Oread, upon which our house stands, becomes yet more elevated, and over the top of it passes the great California road. West of us also is a high hill, a half mile in the distance, with a beautiful valley lying between, while to the north-west there is the most delightful mingling together of hill, valley, prairie, woodland and river . As far as the eye rests, we see the humble dwellings of the pioneer, with other improvements.
So thats her house on the left hill in back? Neat!
 
Gee whiz.
Yes, but where now in importance? It's an amazing. amazing narrative- wish it had come my way earlier. As a kind of bumbling amateur, I frequently poke around archives, LoC, all kinds of places one is likely to find old narratives and never found it. That's a huge statement, oh my goodness!! I don't know. If her work was second in importance to Uncle Tom's Cabin seems to me it still should hold that place, you know? Makes you wonder where on earth this entire story became lost!

I was particularly taken with this excerpt from Sarah's narrative. "Delicate and pale as the light gossamer robes..." Oh, wow.

There were several pro-slavery families on board, very pleasant people. There was a lovely girl going to her home, in Missouri, from a boarding-school in Illinois. There was a young lady from Kentucky, of intelligence and refinement, pro-slavery, yet with her I had many pleasant talks. A Missourian returning to Missouri with a Texan bride, delicate and pale as the light gossamer robes in which she floated, was very affable and intelligent. The young Shawnee girl, with her white husband, on her bridal tour, was educated, and pleasant, and from all, with the exception named, I received the common courtesies of life. This Wyandot lady also stated, with great satisfaction of manner, that "Gov. Robinson would be hung;"and was not a little displeased that her listeners doubted the statement.
 
So thats her house on the left hill in back? Neat!

The Robinson's house on Mt. Oread was actually burned during the assault on Lawrence in 1856, when the pro-slavery forces captured most of the free-state leaders on Mt. Oread and then set off for the town of Lawrence. The Robinsons had no children and left much of their $200,000 estate to the University of Kansas. Charles Robinson was part of the group that founded the University and much of the land on which the campus rests was built on land donated by the Robinsons.

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View of the early North College building on the University of Kansas campus in 1867.
 
JPK, one thing I find wonderful is that Sarah R. writes about the traumatic political events of the day with fervor and incredible descriptions, but also includes passages about the women and what they were doing at the time. The Eldridge House Hotel was burned and rebuilt several times in the various attacks on Lawrence. It still stands--in my time on campus years ago, it was the only place in town to get a really elegant meal. It was located on a corner on the main street in the downtown.


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Eldridge House Hotel in Lawrence in 1867.

On the second of May, the ladies of the Literary Charitable Association gave a social entertainment at the hotel. There were the old settlers of Lawrence, who had pitched their tents on Mt. Oread eighteen months before, mingling with the newly-arrived citizens, the commissioners and their suite. The evening passed merrily, and, to add to the pleasure of many, the prisoners at Lecompton arrived. Through the intervention of the soldiers, their guard, word had been sent to Lawrence, that the lives of the prisoners were in danger, and some of our prominent citizens went up in the morning to effect their release by giving bail. The soldiers were convinced, from the continual threats against them, that there were intentions of foul play, and, against the wishes of the ruffians, they accompanied the prisoners half way to Lawrence. The returned men seemed to have the same feeling one would be likely to experience in escaping from a lion's den, and were glad to receive again the kindly sympathies of their friends. Refreshments of cakes, fruits, and ice-cream, were brought in at a late hour, and some lovers of the dance were there.
 
Sarah also describes the women of Topeka:

The ladies of Topeka, with their wealth of social feeling, soon called to see us. The sewing-circle and temperance society also held their meeting while we were there. The ladies, coming from almost all states in the Union, seemed to be bound together in strong bonds of friendship, and the partiality they feel for Topeka above other settlements is not only felt but loudly expressed. It is doubtless true that the residents of other settlements are as strongly impressed with the advantages of their own. It is a singular fact, and one often remarked in this country, that, if we were to judge by the observations of others, or our own feelings when in different localities, each place is "the most beautiful of all." Almost every person seems to think their own claim the best, and it can only be accounted for by the acknowledgment of the fact that an exceeding loveliness is spread over the whole face of the country, and actual possession of such beauty doubles its value to the possessor.


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Topeka in the 1860s

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Anti-slavery women of Kansas in Topeka

 
I realize it is arduous for you 18th, but would you please stop causing this thread to come to and end? It's like when a good movie has the reel burn a hole in the middle and I paid my ticket for the afternoon matinee!

As usual ( and I mean this ) you draw the convoluted picture, darn it. Neither chaos nor peace but a society which could not have been less raucous to begin with- in fact enchanting American, newly minted with all the budding plants we were so capable of producing in those days. The violence comes across like some disease which sporadically afflicts them, sweeps through like a swift plague- and then they rebuild.
 
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