Pardee Butler Banner

Imagine you are adrift on a crudely-made log raft on the Missouri River. The men who placed you there expect you to die. The current is swift, and the river is filled with driftwood. You do not know how to swim. Why have you been cast adrift? Because you spoke out against slavery.

This was the experience of Rev. Pardee Butler, who moved from Illinois to Kansas Territory in 1855. Although he settled in one of the more prominent proslavery areas in the territory, he believed Kansas should be a free state.

After building a log cabin on a claim along Stranger Creek near Farmington, Butler traveled to Atchison. He intended to board a steamboat to Illinois to bring his family to Kansas. On August 17, 1855, while waiting to board the boat, Butler expressed his antislavery views. Later in the evening, he was confronted by a group of men who tried to get him to sign a statement declaring support for slavery.

When Butler refused, he was dragged to the Missouri River where the group threatened to either drown or hang him. Instead of actually committing the act of murder themselves, the mob decided to set him adrift on the river, thinking he would not survive the ride. They also told Butler that Missourians would try to shoot him from their side of the river bank.

A few logs were lashed together, and an "R" for "rogue" was painted on Butler's forehead. A banner was attached to a branch on one of the logs, declaring "Greeley to the Rescue" (a reference to Horace Greeley, the anti-slavery editor of the New York Tribune). The banner also declared Butler to be an agent for the Underground Railroad.

After he was set adrift, Butler used a penknife to cut off the branch and use it as an oar. He managed to dock on the Kansas side of the river a few miles below Atchison and, eventually, made his way to Illinois as planned. Upon his return to Kansas Territory, though, Butler was attacked again for his beliefs. This time he received 39 lashes by whip. The Atchison mob wanted to tar and feather him but, lacking feathers, used cotton instead.

Butler survived his ordeals and died peacefully on his Farmington farm on October 19, 1888, at the age of 72. The banner, kept by the family as a memento, was donated by his son, Charles Pardee Butler, to the Kansas Historical Society in 1927. It is on display in the main gallery of the Society's Kansas Museum of History.

There is a postscript to Butler's story. One member of the mob that had set Butler adrift was running for office in Nemaha County in 1861 (the year the Civil War began). His opponent seized the advantage by using five copies of the original banner in political rallies, and the proslavery man lost the election. One copy of the banner was given to the Society in 1881.

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