Civil Bend, Iowa was a village established in 1850 located in the western part of Benton Township in Fremont County, near the present-day town of Percival on the Missouri River in the U.S. State of Iowa. [1] It was a noted station on the Underground Railroad, and a stop along the Lane Trail. [2]
The first settler in the area was a ferryman named John Boulware. Another was a man surnamed Hickson. Hickson sold whiskey to the natives and settlers and the wild times that ensued were the origin of the place's name, Devil's Bend. The bend upriver from this was settled by abolitionist graduates of Oberlin College and the contrast between their lifestyle and that of Hickson's customers led to their settlement being called Civil Bend. [3] They came, determined to establish a safe haven for freedom seekers from the neighboring slave-friendly states of Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, Kansas to the southwest, and the rest of the southern United States. Lester Platt and his wife Elvira were among the first settlers, arriving in 1847, and Lester began helping trafficked Black people escape their enslavers. [4] Ira Blanchard and George Gaston also settled nearby and shared Platt's sentiment and commitments about freedom seekers. Formerly enslaved people, such as Henry and Maria Garner and their family also settled in Civil Bend. [5] By 1850, the settlement had a Congregational Church when John Todd arrived to serve as minister. [6] [7] Sitting in the Missouri River bottoms, the village's proximity to the river became an issue because of repeated flooding. [8] [9]
In the mid-1850s white settlers established a new town on the tablelands to the east of Civil Bend called Tabor. A good number remained in Civil Bend and it became an Abolitionist haven and the western terminus of the Underground Railroad that ran east across Iowa until the end of the United States Civil War in 1865. [10] [11] [12] By 1857, it was indirectly referred to as such in a Michigan newspaper. [13] Another account mentioned 75 slave-catchers hunting the 35 armed men protecting and escorting freedom seekers fleeing their enslaver, Stephen F. Nuckolls, as they moved from Civil Bend to Tabor. [14] By January 1859 it was open knowledge that Civil Bend was part of the Underground Railroad. [15] At the end of that year, Nuckolls sued residents of Civil Bend for stealing the two freedom seekers from him. [16] The following year, one of the men whose home he illegally ransacked in a vain search for the seekers was awarded $8000 (the equivalent of nearly $300,000 in 2024) in punitive damages from Nuckolls. [17] A few months after this, in October, two free Black residents of Civil Bend and their free relative were kidnapped and carried off to the South. The relative, from Council Bluffs, escaped to tell the story, but he had no idea what happened to them. [18]
The African Americans who lived in the town stayed there though, along with a few white people. [8]
With the coming of the Civil War men from Civil Bend formed a company, first under Colonel Craynor, [19] then under Captain William H. Folmsbee. [20] The community continued to grow after the war and collection was taken for a Methodist Episcopal church in 1868. [21]
Today, the site of Civil Bend is owned by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and is open to the public for outdoor activities. [24]
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 was a territorial organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. Douglas introduced the bill intending to open up new lands to develop and facilitate the construction of a transcontinental railroad. However, the Kansas–Nebraska Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, stoking national tensions over slavery and contributing to a series of armed conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas".
The 1856 United States presidential election was the 18th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1856. In a three-way election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and Know Nothing nominee Millard Fillmore. The main issue was the expansion of slavery as facilitated by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. Buchanan defeated President Franklin Pierce at the 1856 Democratic National Convention for the nomination. Pierce had become widely unpopular in the North because of his support for the pro-slavery faction in the ongoing civil war in territorial Kansas, and Buchanan, a former Secretary of State, had avoided the divisive debates over the Kansas–Nebraska Act by being in Europe as the Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Nuckolls County is a county located in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 4,095. Its county seat is Nelson.
Hamburg is a city in Fremont County, Iowa, United States, that is the most southwestern city in Iowa, hugging the borders of Missouri to the south and Nebraska to the west. It is situated between the Nishnabotna and Missouri rivers. The population was 890 at the time of the 2020 census. It derives its name from the German city of Hamburg.
Missouri Valley is a city in Harrison County, Iowa, United States. The population was 2,678 at the time of the 2020 census.
North Bend is a city in Dodge County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 1,177 at the 2010 census.
Oak is a village in Nuckolls County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 66 at the 2010 census.
Nebraska City is a city in Nebraska and the county seat of Otoe County, Nebraska, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 7,222.
Tabor is a city in Fremont County and extends northward into Mills County in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 928 at the time of the 2020 census.
Josiah Bushnell Grinnell was a U.S. Congressman from Iowa's 4th congressional district, an ordained Congregational minister, radical abolitionist, founder of Grinnell, Iowa and benefactor of Grinnell College.
The pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping into slavery in the United States occurred in both free and slave states, and both fugitive slaves and free negroes were transported to slave markets and sold, often multiple times. There were also rewards for the return of fugitives. Three types of kidnapping methods were employed: physical abduction, inveiglement of free blacks, and apprehension of fugitives. The enslavement, or re-enslavement, of free blacks occurred for 85 years, from 1780 to 1865.
The history of slavery in Nebraska is generally seen as short and limited. The issue was contentious for the legislature between the creation of the Nebraska Territory in 1854 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.
Stephen Friel Nuckolls was a Delegate from the Territory of Wyoming and co-founder of Nebraska City, Nebraska. Nuckolls County, Nebraska is named after him.
The 5th Iowa Cavalry Regiment was a cavalry unit from Iowa that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Alfred D. Jones was a late 19th-century lawyer, surveyor and politician in the Midwestern United States. In 1846 he platted Fort Des Moines, Iowa, and in 1854 he platted Omaha, Nebraska. He became the first settler in Omaha, as well as the first postmaster, a member of the first Omaha City Council and the first Omaha School Board, and was among the first legislators of the Nebraska Territory.
The Sioux City and Pacific Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. states of Iowa and Nebraska. Built as a connection from Sioux City, Iowa to the Union Pacific Railroad at Fremont, Nebraska, it became part of the Chicago and North Western Railway system in the 1880s, and is now a main line of the Union Pacific (UP). The east–west portion from Fremont to Missouri Valley, Iowa, is the Blair Subdivision, carrying mainly westbound UP trains, and the line from California Junction, Iowa north to Sioux City is the Sioux City Subdivision.
John Henry Kagi, also spelled John Henri Kagi, was an American attorney, abolitionist, and second in command to John Brown in Brown's failed raid on Harper's Ferry. He bore the title of "Secretary of War" in Brown's "provisional government." At age 24, Kagi was killed during the raid. He had previously been active in fighting on the abolitionist side in 1856 in "Bleeding Kansas". He was an excellent debater and speaker.
The Jordan House is an historic building located in West Des Moines, Iowa, United States. It was built by abolitionist James C. Jordan and was a station on the Underground Railroad in Iowa. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.
McKissick Island is a former island in the Missouri River that is part of Nemaha County, Nebraska, United States. It is now fully east of the river, which is Nebraska's normal eastern border, and it can only be reached by land from mainland Nebraska by first going through Iowa and Missouri.
Slavery occurred in Iowa prior to 1846, but the extent and significance of slavery in pre-state Iowa is poorly understood. Little is known about slavery in Iowa prior to the Louisiana Purchase. The area that is now the American state of Iowa was part of New France when first settled by Europeans. As such, it was governed by its slavery laws. French settlers first brought African slaves into Upper Louisiana from Saint-Domingue around 1720 under the legal terms of the Code Noir, which defined the conditions of slavery in the French empire and restricted the activities of free Black persons.