Trade sign used at the Boston headquarters of the New England Emigrant Aid Company[1]
The New England Emigrant Aid Company[n 1] (originally the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company[4]) was a transportation company founded in Boston, Massachusetts[5] by activist Eli Thayer in the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed the population of Kansas Territory to choose whether slavery would be legal. The company's ultimate purpose was to transport anti-slavery immigrants into the Kansas Territory. The company believed that if enough anti-slavery immigrants settled en masse in the newly-opened territory, they would be able to shift the balance of political power in the territory, which in turn would lead to Kansas becoming a free state (rather than a slave state) when it eventually joined the United States.[6][page needed]
The company is noted less for its direct impact than for the psychological impact it had on proslavery and abolitionist groups. Thayer's prediction that the company would eventually be able to send 20,000 immigrants a year never came to fruition, but it spurred border ruffians from nearby Missouri, where slavery was legal, to move to Kansas to ensure its admission to the Union as a slave state. That, in turn, further galvanized Free-Staters and other enemies of the Slave Power.[citation needed]
Thayer's intention was to capitalize on anti-slavery sentiment in the Northern United States and to send settlers to Kansas to purchase land and build houses, shops, and mills. They could then sell the land at a significant profit and send the proceeds back to Thayer and his investors. At the behest of several investors, who found the notion of profiting from the anti-slavery cause distasteful, the company's model was shifted to that of a benevolent society, and it was renamed the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855. While the company achieved neither a profit nor a significant impact on the population of Kansas, it played an important role in the events that would later be termed Bleeding Kansas.[citation needed]
^New England Emigrant Aid Company papers, 1854-1909
^Goodrich (1998) p. 10
^E.g. Etcheson (2004).
^Purpose and plans of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. July 28, 1854. Retrieved Feb 22, 2022.
^New England Emigrant Aid Company, n5 Winter Street, Boston. Boston Directory. 1855
^Thayer, Eli (1887). The New England Emigrant Aid Company, and its influence, through the Kansas contest, upon national history. Worcester, Massachusetts: F. P. Rice.
Cite error: There are <ref group=n> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n}} template (see the help page).
and 21 Related for: New England Emigrant Aid Company information
Examples include: The NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick The Hibernian Society for the Relief of Emigrants from Ireland Charitable...
changed to the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany.[citation needed] The motives of Thayer in establishing the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany were questioned...
heckled and harassed by border ruffians. In response, the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany shipped Sharps rifles to the Kansas Territory, in crates said...
settlers from Massachusetts who had been sent there by the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, which was created by Eli Thayer. "WWHP - WWHP Newsletter Vol...
assistance from benevolent societies such as the Boston-based NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, founded shortly before passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act...
tales... In 1854, his family became part of the newly formed NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, an organization whose goal was to help settle the Kansas Territory...
well as other newspapers in the area. He was a leader of the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany. He was a younger brother of activist Susan B. Anthony. He...
(January 19, 1808 — May 14, 1887) American Colonization Society NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompanyNew York Central College The North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)...
University. The street was given its name by members of the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, most of whom were from the state of Massachusetts. In 2014...
Massachusetts, many of whom received financial support from the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany. The town was the de facto headquarters of Free-State Kansas...
the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, organized by Eli Thayer. Emigration from the free states (including Iowa, Ohio, and other Midwestern and New England...
House Hotel can trace its origin back to the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, which was a transportation company in Boston, Massachusetts, created after the...
600, rapidly settled by migrants. They were supported by the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, who were trying to help secure Kansas as a free territory...
School Eli Thayer 1840, founder of the Oread Institute and the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany Webster Thayer 1876, Massachusetts judge, presided over the...
illegally vote in an attempt to sway local elections. The NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany also sought to bring anti-slavery settlers into the territory...
land without extensive development in order to finance the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, which sent abolitionist settlers to Kansas Territory in order...
Futures New Communities NewEngland Anti-Slavery Society NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompanyNew Great Migration New Jack City New jack swing New Jersey Drive...
Lawrence, Kansas (thus its name) through his work with the NewEnglandEmigrantAidCompany, founded the University of Kansas, and also helped found Lawrence...
Global Information