On the evening of September 18, 1854, a large group gathered at Major M.P. Rively’s store on Salt Creek, near Leavenworth, Kansas. Four months earlier, Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska. The Act also stated that going forward the citizens of each territory, rather than Congress, could determine for themselves if slavery would be allowed.
The citizens of Kansas Territory wanted to be a state, and the question of whether that state would allow slavery divided the territory much as it divided the country. The men at Rively’s store were debating the issue and tensions ran high on both sides. One of the men there that night was Isaac Cody. Some of the men in the crowd that night knew that Isaac’s brother was a Missouri slave-owner, and begged Isaac to speak in their favor. After much cajoling and after hearing several other men speak in favor of allowing slavery in the state of Kansas, Isaac was finally convinced to share a few words.
Isaac rose to his feet and stepped up on the box to address his neighbors. He spoke for a few minutes about his understanding of the issue, telling the men that he had been a pioneer during the statehood movement in Iowa, and had helped to organize that state. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I tell you now, and I say it boldly, that I propose to exert all of my power in making Kansas the same kind of state as Iowa, and I shall always oppose the further extension of slavery.”
Isaac planned to continue, but a man in the crowd stood up and yelled "Get off that box, you black Abolitionist, or I'll pull you off!" Isaac recognized the man as one of his brother’s employees, a fiercely pro-slavery man from Missouri. Isaac defiantly remains on the box, and continues to speak. “These are my sentiments, gentlemen, and let me tell you…”
Isaac doesn’t finish his speech, or even his sentence. The other man jumped on the box, brandishing a large bowie knife, and stabbed Isaac twice, sending him to the floor before making a hasty escape.
Isaac was rushed to his home, where he was attended by a doctor while his wife, daughters, and son William watched and waited, wondering if their patriarch would make it through the night.
Isaac Cody didn’t die that night. It took a year and a half for his wounds to take him down, and he spent those months desperately hiding from the increasingly hostile conflicts that erupted in what became known as Bleeding Kansas. Isaac’s death in 1857 would send his then 11-year-old son William Cody on the path that would turn him into the world famous Wild West legend Buffalo Bill.
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