Beschreibung:

Partly printed tax receipt for W.H. Bayliss for his 1857 taxes in Doniphan County, Kansas, completed in manuscript on July 20, 1858. 7.5 x 3.5 in. Doniphan: Crusader of Freedom, n.d. [1858]. Printed at the Crusader of Freedom offices, Doniphan, Kansas, the newspaper started by James Redpath (1833-1891). Originally from Scotland, the journalist first worked for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune where he published a series of articles compiling "Facts of Slavery." In 1855, he moved to the Kansas-Missouri border and reported on the slavery disputes for the Free Soil newspaper The Missouri Democrat. He then started his own paper, the Crusader of Freedom, with the first printed words being: "I enroll myself a Crusader of Freedom until slavery ceases to exist." He met John Brown immediately after the Pottawatomie Creek incident and his interview with the fervent abolitionist was Brown's debut in the press with Redpath labeling him a "warrior-saint." The journalist became Brown's most vocal supporter in the press, and his report of the Battle of Osawatomie helped take Brown to national prominence. This receipt was printed near the end of Redpath's time in Kansas, as he moved to Boston in July 1858 at Brown's suggestion in order to more directly support his plan for a Southern insurrection of the enslaved. After Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Redpath would write in his defense and publish The Public Life of Capt. John Brown in 1860, with portions of the proceeds going to Brown's family. Condition: Small stains.