The Kansas herald of freedom., 1859-09-17

The Fsrils Of Frsedom-
Allen Pinks, native of Pittsburg, Pa,
and free-born, after making several trips
on the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri. Yazoo.
and other nyers, came from st. Louis to
Leaysnworth q year ago last August. In
September, he shipped on the IIi7ig1t,
and went to st. Joseph, and from there
back to Weston. While in town, max
ing some purchases, the steamer went off
and left him. In crossing the river to
Kansas, he was kidnapped by an old man
named Washburn. together with white
man who was crossing with him. They
were tied together, bu. the white man
was released, and Pinks committed to
Jail, without an opportunity to establish
his freedom. He was confined from the
14th of September till the 18th of March,
when he escaped, went to st. Louis, and
shipped on board of steamer Minnehaha,
for St. Joseph. At Weston, the old jailor
and a motley crew boarded the boat, and
took him back to his old quarters, in the
jail. A cannon was planted at the land
ing, as if to intimidate the captain of the
boat, who tried to prevent the arrest, but
failed. He was locked up in the iron box
once occupied by Dr. Doy, where he re-
mained till the 18th of August. That
evening the door was opened by the keep
er, when Allen knocked him down, and
by swimming the Platte, Missouri and
Kansas rivers, and travelling fifty miles
on foot, without food, except a watermel-
on, for three and half days, reached
here on the morning of the 18th of Aug
ust.
His free papers had been taken from
him in Missouri, and the jailor at Platte
City intended to keep him until Septem-
Der, when he would have been sold for
his Jail fees. He is nearly white, very in
telligent, and would have commanded a
high price in the Southern market.
A gentleman of this city wrote at once
to Pittsburg for necessary papers to es-
tablish the fact that he was we'll known
to be free man in that city. This re-
quest was promptly responded to, and the
papers at once forwarded to US. Requisite
afidavits were sworn to by Mr.. William
NJ. Arthur, who knew Pinks and his fam
lily well, and by DR.. Thos. J. Gallagher,
who was the attending physician at the
birth of Allen Pinks, and had been the
family physician of the Pinks family.
We had the pleasure, on Tuesday last,
of presenting to Mr.. .PINKs his free papers
which his friends at Pittsburg had pre-
pared for him. His eye sparkled with
pleasure as he received them. We could
not but feel that our claim to being free
country was a mere mockery, when a
man, bearing the imprints of humanity in
every lineament, was compelled to carry
upon his person written evidence of his
being free. With no titles of nobility
among US, yet this poor man, with great
er amount of intelligence than half
the Shareholders of the South are in pos
session of, is pursued, arrested, imprison-
ed, detained for months, and only escapes
being sold into perpetual slavery by ex-
ercising those God given rights which the
jailor who had him in custody did not
possess.
Mr.. Pinks showed that he had been up
the Missouri river several times, down to
New Orleans, and has travelled much in
the slave States. For the planter he ex-
pressed respect; but he could not find
terms of invective sufficiently bitter to
express his hatred of those wretches,
everywhere held in supreme contempt,
whose profession it is to hunt up a free
negro, rob him of what property they find
upon his person, and sell him into slavery
to pay his Jail fees.