“Murder Most Foul and Unnatural”
Headline from Weekly Tribune, Liberty, Missouri, October 31, 1851 - page 2, column 3. The newspaper articles from the Weekly Tribune of Liberty, MO, illustrate the inflammatory rhetoric published about the incident. This reflects the extreme bias which existed at that time toward these German immigrants who found themselves surrounded by radical pro-slavery elements in their newly-adopted country. Judge Almond, Dr. Bayless, Hall Wilkerson, and defense lawyer John Doniphan, among other names associated with the trial proceedings, were members of the Platte County Self-Defensive Association - a radical pro-slavery activist group operating in that region. This…