Enslaved people risked everything to escape Missouri for Kansas — even walking across a frozen...

Slavery in Missouri is rarely discussed, but unique geography in its western region helped create a treacherous set of circumstances for the enslaved.
The banks of the Missouri River have changed the 1850s and 60s, when slavery in the U.S. was in its final throes — especially in St. Joseph, where a double-decker highway now separates most of the city from the river. Back then, before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers channelized the river, the Mighty Mo was wider and shallower.

For enslaved people in this booming part of western Missouri, the muddy river was all that separated them from Kansas, and freedom. Escape attempts happened regularly.

“Usually it was by log rafts, and they would try to go across that way,” said Kami Jones, who leads large group tours at St. Joseph Museums, which include the city’s Black Archives Museum. “But a lot of times, they would wait until it was cold enough that the river was almost frozen, or there was chunks of ice in it, and then cross through the ice.”