Tax Reciept from Leavenworth County in 1879 for taxes paid by J. F. Miller signed at bottom by J. Lewis Waller Esq

[Leavenworth County, Kansas], 1879. Very Good. Partly printed on one side. Approx. 22 x 35 cm. Later verical folds. Verso blank. Online information supports our belief that the signatory, J. Lewis Waller Esq., is John Lewsi Waller, an African American who was born enslaved in Missouri who moved to Iowa after the end of the Civil War where he graduated from high school in Toledo, worked as a barber and was active in politics and civil tights. He was admitted to the bar in Iowa in 1877 after being permitted to study in the law library of N. M. Hubbard, a prominent attorney in Cedar Rapids. Waller became one of "Pap" Singleton's Exodusters the following year and relocated to Kansas. This tax receipt siggests that he was working in Levenworth County for at least part of 1879. Waller was involved in the 1880s in founding two African American newsapers ("Western Recorder" and "The American Citizen"). He was the only Black Elector in the 1888 Presidential Elections and was apponted as U. S. Consul to Madagascar in 1891. Waller was supportive of Madagascar's Royal family and received a large land grant (150,00 acres?) from the Royal Family. Waller was replaced as U. S. Consul after Cleveland won the 1892 Presidential election. His land grant was declared invalid and confiscated by the French Government after they took control over Madagascar in 1895. Waller was imprisoned by the French for ten months until U. S. Government pressure secured his release. Waller was subsequently an officer in the 23rd Kansas Volunteers, an all-African American-Regiment, that was sent to Cuba for the the occupation in the year after the Spanish surrender in 1898. Black soldiers were thought to have immunity to tropical diseases. The regiment ingested lots of quinine, etc. and lost only ten men to diease while in San Luis Province for several months, The regiment returned to the U. S. in 1899.