Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State, 1939 -- pg. 501 (
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Just inside a cemetery gate (R),
64.5m., is the MARAIS DES CYGNES MASSACRE MONUMENT, a tall slender granite shaft. On May 19, 1858, Capt. Charles Hamelton with 50 Missourians appeared unexpectedly in the vicinity of Trading Post and began seizing Free State men, some of whom were planting corn. Eleven captives were taken into a ravine near the Missouri Line north of Trading Post, lined up against a bluff, and shot. At the first volley all went down-- five killed, five wounded, and one untouched.
News of this massacre inflamed the abolitionists of Massachusetts and was the subject of JOhn Greenleaf Whittier's "Le Marais Du Cygne".
Two years later the Free State men, who had grown stronger in Linn County, took vengeance on the proslavery advocates. On November 12, 1860, Russell Hinds was siezed and hanged by an organized mob under the command of C. R. Jennison. James Marshall reported that Hinds had been tried by a jury of twelve men and hanged for man stealing under the Mosaic law in Exodus XX!, 16: "And he that stealth a man and sellth him... shall surely be put to death." Hinds had returned a fugitive slave to his master and received a reward.
Information on the obelisk:
1.) the names of the victims
2.) exerpts of the John Greenleaf Whittier Poem
"Le Marais du Cygne"
From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,
The victims were torn,--
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands,
The Marsh of the Swan.
On the lintels of Kansas
That blood shall not dry;
Henceforth the Bad Angel
Shall harmless go by;
Henceforth to the sunset,
Unchecked on her way,
Shall Liberty follow
The march of the day.
3.) The dedication date of 1888 and the Kansas State Motto:
Ad Astra Per Aspera - To the stars through difficulties
4.) Historical Reference of the Marker:
On the 19th day of May 1858, the men whose names appear on this monument were taken from their daily avocations by a band of armed border ruffians and marched to a deep ravine four miles east of this place and there shot and left for dead.
Their only offence was was they were FreeState men.