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Antislavery Activism in Lowell
Document 37: “A Call to Kansas!” Lucy Larcom, 1855
Document 37: “A Call to Kansas!” Lucy Larcom, 1855
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed for setters to decide by vote whether the territories would be admitted as slave or free states. This drew abolitionists and pro-slavery people to the territory to influence the outcome. Violence broke out between the opposing groups, fueled by illegal voting.
Encouraged by her friend John Greenleaf Whittier, in 1855, former mill worker Lucy Larcom entered a poetry competition and won a fifty-dollar gold piece (first prize) from the New England Emigrant Aid Society for her antislavery poem, “A Call to Kansas.” The poem was printed on posters and cotton cloth handkerchiefs and handed out to antislavery supporters at Free Soiler rallies encouraging women, men, and families from Lowell and throughout the Northeast to answer the “call to Kansas.” Thousands responded. They moved to Kansas and voted for Kansas to enter the United States as a Free State.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
Yeomen: Men who own and cultivate land
Free Soiler: A member of the Free Soil Party political party, which was active from 1848 until 1854 when it merged with the Republican Party. The party was focused on one issue: opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.
Triple mail: Strong chainmail armor
Transcript
Transcript
Yeomen strong, hither throng!
Nature’s honest men;
We will make the wilderness
Bud and bloom again.
Bring the sickle, speed the plow,
Turn the ready soil!
Freedom is the noblest pay
For the true man’s toil.
Ho, brothers! come, brothers!
Hasten all with me;
We’ll sing upon the Kansas plains
A song of liberty.
Father, haste! O’er the waste
Lies a pleasant land.
There your fireside’s altar-stones,
Fixed in truth, shall stand.
There your sons, brave and good,
Shall to freemen grow,
Clad in triple mail of right,
Wrong to overthrow.
Ho, brothers! come, brothers!
Hasten all with me;
We’ll sing upon the Kansas plains
A song of liberty!
Brother, come! Here’s a home
In the waiting West;
Bring the seeds of love and peace,
You who sow them best.
Text-Dependent Questions
Text-Dependent Questions
How does Larcom use the imagery of nature and farming to persuade readers of her opinion on the situation?
To whom is the poem addressed? Why?
How does the rhythm of the poem emphasize the poem’s message or tone?
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Read Larcom’s poem in conjunction with “An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas” (Document 4). Why might abolitionists have opted to use a poetry contest as a way of swaying antislavery activists to move to Kansas?
What might people have found inspiring or motivating in Larcom’s poem?
Write a poem, rap, or song to promote an issue that you are enthusiastic about. Think about the choices that Lucy made about the elements of poetry (language, meter, tone, etc.) when writing this poem. How might your choices around the elements of poetry influence your composition?
Citation
Lucy Larcom, “A Call to Kansas,” 1855.https://libguides.uml.edu/ c.php?g=1125577&p=8210378
Lucy Larcom, “A Call to Kansas,” 1855.https://libguides.uml.edu/ c.php?g=1125577&p=8210378
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