|
Essay Directory
2007 - 2008 Essays
Liberty Ladies
College: A Modern Educational Experience
by Alyssa Emery
Liberty Rising:
the 1934 Fire
by Rachel Ibok
Zerelda Mimms James:
Lover of a
Bandit
by Lindsey Melvin
2006 - 2007 Essays
Convention City
by
Lilia Toson
David Rice Atchison:
A Champion of the
People
by
Jesus Lopez
Dr. Seymore Pearley -
Clay County's First
African American Dentist
by Hayley VanderStel
Humphrey “Yankee” Smith
by Jonathan Entzminger
Missouri City in Black and White
or
Rebuilding a Culture
by Devin DeMoure
The Drake Constitution: When Missouri White
Men Could Not Vote
by
Kali Shipley
The Other James Brother
by Madison McGraw
White Oak: A Tender Side
of the Racial
Divide
by
Evelaca Dobbins
Home Page - William Jewell Essays
Home Page - WindingRiver.com
|
 Jonathan
Entzminger is a William Jewell College sophomore journalism major, with
an emphasis in cultural reporting and criticism writing. His major
includes an integrated foreign language component of Spanish and Arabic.
After graduation, Jonathan plans to attend graduate school at New York
University where he will pursue a Journalism degree in Cultural Reporting
and Criticism. Jonathan’s future plans also include attending law school
and using his education for print writing and reporting, with an emphasis
in editorial writing.
Humphrey “Yankee” Smith
John Brown, Frederick
Douglass, and Harriet Tubman all had visions of freedom and the courage to
fight against slavery and inequality. They were proactive, reactive and advocates for equal rights in the American democracy. Moreover, they were
individuals who lived through violent situations during the Abolitionist
Movement in the United States. Brown fought against and died for the end
of slavery in Kansas and Missouri. He was involved in “Bleeding Kansas,” a
series of anti-slavery battles between Kansas and Missouri from 1854-1858.
However, another name that
should be recognized among these advocates for equality is Humphrey
“Yankee” Smith, the founder of Smithville, Missouri, for his anti-slavery
work during this era. Smith was born in 1774, two years before America
sought its freedom from Britain. Prior to his move to Missouri,
Smith fought in the war of 1812, where he received a military land ballot.
He was a laboring man who had great skill with tools as a mill builder.
Smith made shoes, farmed, worked as a blacksmith, and “could do any job
necessary for migrating immigrants living in the west or New York State”
(Smith 17).
Originally a New Jersey
native, Smith came to Missouri in 1816 from New York and “labored to make
Missouri a free state.” While living in Howard County with his family, he
was mobbed by armed slaveholders who bruised and dragged him from his home
at midnight. During the beating, his wife stepped in front of him and as
a result, she also received an equally brutal beating. According to his
son’s autobiography, the men beat Smith so severely that 15 to 20 welts
bruised his body. Several men held his head down so that the other men
could beat him, but luckily he escaped before they had a chance to kill
him. The cudgel used against his wife's head separated one eye from the
socket, causing her to lose sight in that eye (Smith 18). After this
event, Smith and his family fled to Clay County where more people began to
fight against his anti-slavery beliefs. There he gained the name “Yankee”
Smith. According to his son Calvin, “they denounced him as an
abolitionist because he was in favor of human liberty for all” (Smith 18).
According to Clay County historians, people would frequently stop Smith on
the street and ask, “Smith, are you an abolitionist?” He always replied,
“I am” to intimidators and those wishing to test his moral belief in
equality for all human beings (Smith).
In 1822, Smith and his
family moved to an
area known today as Smithville just north of Liberty, Missouri. He established his celebrated mills in 1824. According to Calvin,
his father was a “moderate scholar” familiar with many ancient and modern
histories, in addition to the majority of the bards and the poets. Yankee
Smith was also a member of the Methodist church in his
younger days. However, Smith refused to unite with the church in Missouri
because he believed slavery was a sin, a position which was against the
Methodist doctrine of the time (Smith 17).
In 1826, Smith built a dam
and walked the 1,400 miles back to New York in order to pay the money due
on his wheat and vegetable mill. The Smith family owned and operated the
mill for 30 years, then sold it to Colonel Lewis Wood just
before it was swept away by a flood in 1853 (Smith 12).
Smith’s hatred for slavery
caused him to move his family north to Iowa. Ten years after moving to
Iowa, Smith’s wife, Nancy, died. Four years later, in June of 1857, Smith
died of smallpox at age 83. He contracted the disease from a tainted copy
of the Herald of Freedom newspaper that was published in Lawrence,
Kansas (Smith 23). Clay County historians claim that the postmaster, James
Bransfield, handed Smith the paper in “varioloid,” and Smith subsequently
received a very lethal form of smallpox.
Before he died, Humphrey
Smith made this final plea to his sons: “Never let the nigger thieves know
where I am buried until my state is free; then write my epitaph.” Today,
his epitaph reads: “Here lies Humphrey Smith who was in favor of human
rights, universal liberty, equal and exact justice; no Union with slave
holders; Free states, free people, union of states and one universal
republic” (Smith 18).
Smith lived a life on the
run. He moved west to establish himself and family, while spreading
abolitionist ideas from Howard to Clay County. He received bruises and
welts as he fought for the equality of slaves. He served in a war to
further insure his country’s freedom from the power hungry Great Britain
in 1812, and he helped establish the first mill in Clay County. Through it
all he stood tall as a “Yankee,” and a true American hero.
Works Cited
Smith, Calvin. The Autobiography of Calvin Smith of
Smithville. Philadelphia: Sanford H. Robinson, Jr., 1907.
Woodson, W.H. The History of Clay County. Topeka &
Indianapolis: Historical Publishing Company, 1920.
Home Page - William Jewell Essays
Home Page - WindingRiver.com |
