Bleeding Kansas
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Bleeding Kansas, sometimes referred to in history as Bloody Kansas or the Border War, was a series of violent events, involving Free-Staters (anti-slavery) and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri between roughly 1854 and 1858. These incidents were attempts to influence whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune.
The events in Bleeding Kansas directly presaged the American Civil War.
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[edit] Origins
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territory and provided the cause of the ensuing guerrilla warfare. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which nullified the Missouri Compromise, included the principle now known as "popular sovereignty", an idea advocated by U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories. Popular sovereignty was an attempt to offer concessions to the Southern states through making possible the expansion of slavery into both western and northern territories. Popular sovereignty, also known in Kansas Territory as squatter sovereignty, was first developed by U.S. Senator Lewis Cass.[citation needed]
The act established that the question of the expansion of slavery in the new states of Kansas and Nebraska would be decided by the inhabitants of the states. Initially, it was assumed that few slaveowners would attempt to settle in Kansas and make it a slave state, because it was thought to be too far north for profitable exploitation of slaves. However, the eastern portion of Kansas along the Missouri River was as suitable for slave-based agriculture as the nearby "black belt" of Missouri in which most of Missouri's slaves were held.
The settlement and formation of the state government in Kansas became highly politicized beyond the borders of the territory. There were a number of reasons for this. Missouri, a slave state, was uniquely exposed to free states, with Illinois and Iowa bordering it on the east and north. Most parts of Missouri held very few slaves, and slaveowners were a very small proportion of the state's population. If Kansas entered the Union as a free state, Missouri would have free soil on three sides. Since manumission, abolition activity, and escape were all more common in the border south, the existence of nearby free soil was a threat to Missouri slaveowners.
Also, in the Senate, each state is apportioned two senate seats. A rough balance had existed between free and slave states, but each addition of a state threatened to tip the balance, disrupting the status quo (see Missouri Compromise and Slave Power).
[edit] Meeting of North and South
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The first organized immigration to Kansas Territory was by citizens of southern states, most notably neighboring Missouri, who came to the territory to secure the expansion of slavery. Pro-slavery settlements were established by these immigrants at Leavenworth and Atchison.
At the same time, several anti-slavery organizations in the North, most notably the New England Emigrant Aid Company, were organizing to fund several thousand settlers to move to Kansas and vote to make it a free state. These organizations helped to establish Free-State settlements further into the territory, in Topeka, Manhattan, and Lawrence. Abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher collected funds to arm like-minded settlers with Sharps rifles, leading to the precision rifles becoming known as "Beecher's Bibles." By the summer of 1855, approximately 1,200 New Englanders had made the journey to the new territory, armed and ready to fight.[citation needed]
Rumors had spread through the South that 30,000 Northerners were descending on Kansas, and in November 1854, thousands of armed Southerners known as "Border Ruffians," mostly from Missouri, poured over the line in an attempt to steal the election to Congress of a single territorial delegate. Less than half the ballots were cast by registered voters, and at one location, only 20 of over 600 voters were legal residents. The proslavery forces won the election. While Kansas had approximately 2,900 registered voters at the time, not all of whom actually voted, over 6,000 votes were cast. More significantly, the Border Ruffians repeated their actions on March 30, 1855 when the first territorial legislature was elected, swaying the vote again in favor of slavery. The proslavery territorial legislature convened in Pawnee on July 2, 1855, but after one week it adjourned to the Shawnee Mission on the Missouri border, where it began passing laws to institutionalize slavery in Kansas Territory. This was the trigger for the commencement of open violence.
[edit] Open violence
In August 1855, a group of Free-Staters met and resolved to reject the proslavery laws passed by the territorial legislature. This meeting led to the drafting of the Topeka Constitution and the formation of a shadow government. However, another branch of the movement took a more martial point of view. In October 1855, John Brown came to Kansas Territory to fight slavery. By November 1855, the (relatively bloodless) "Wakarusa War" between the two sides had begun. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1856, President Franklin Pierce declared the Free-State Topeka government to be a "revolution" against the rightful leaders.[1]
On May 21, 1856, a group of Border Ruffians entered the Free-State stronghold of Lawrence, where they burned the Free State Hotel, destroyed two printing presses, and ransacked homes and stores. The day after, Congressman Preston Brooks from South Carolina physically attacked Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate chambers, in retaliation for a speech Sumner made that criticized Southerners for proslavery violence in Kansas. Sumner was beaten severely and did not return to his Senate desk for three years. These acts in turn inspired John Brown to lead a group of men in Kansas Territory on an attack at a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek. The group, which included four of Brown's sons, dragged five men suspected to be from the raid from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords.
Days later, on June 3, John Brown took future Confederate Colonel Henry C. Pate and 22 other pro-slavery soldiers prisoner at the Battle of Black Jack.
In 1856, the official territorial capital was moved to Lecompton, a town only 12 miles (19 km) from Lawrence. In April 1856, a three-man congressional investigating committee arrived in Lecompton to look into the troubles. The majority report of the committee found the elections to be improperly influenced by Border Ruffians. The President failed to follow its recommendations, however, and continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature as the legitimate government of Kansas. In fact, on July 4, 1856, Pierce sent federal troops to break up an attempted meeting of the shadow government in Topeka.
In August, thousands of proslavery Southerners formed into armies and marched into Kansas. That same month, Brown and several of his followers engaged 400 proslavery soldiers in the "Battle of Osawatomie." The hostilities raged for another two months until Brown departed the Kansas Territory, and a new territorial governor, John W. Geary, took office and managed to prevail upon both sides for peace. This was followed by a fragile peace broken by intermittent violent outbreaks for two more years. The last major outbreak of violence was touched off by the Marais des Cygnes massacre in 1858, where Border Ruffians killed five Free State men.
In all, approximately 56 people died in Bleeding Kansas by the time the violence completely abated in 1859. Following the commencement of the American Civil War in 1861, additional guerrilla violence erupted on the border between Kansas and Missouri.
[edit] Constitutional fight
An adjunct to the guerrilla warfare in Bleeding Kansas was the fight over the constitution that would govern the state of Kansas. Several constitutions were drafted, including the 1855 Topeka Constitution, which created the shadow Free-State government essentially by fiat.
In 1857, a Kansas constitutional convention was convened, which drafted what has become known as the "Lecompton Constitution," a pro-slavery document. The abolitionist forces boycotted the ratification vote because it failed to offer them a means to vote against slavery. The Lecompton Constitution was accepted by President James Buchanan, who urged acceptance and statehood. Congress disagreed and ordered another election. In the second election the pro-slavery forces boycotted the process, allowing the anti-slavery forces to claim victory by defeating the document. In the end, the Lecompton Constitution died because it was not clear whether it represented the will of the majority.
In mid-1859, the Wyandotte Constitution was drafted; this document represented the prevailing abolitionist view. It was approved by the electorate by a 2-to-1 margin, and Kansas entered the Union as a free state pursuant to its terms on January 29, 1861.
[edit] Historic site
In 2006, legislation that enabled a new "Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area" was passed by Congress. Kansas counties designated for inclusion include Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Bourbon, Chautauqua, Cherokee, Clay, Coffey, Crawford, Douglas, Franklin, Geary, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Labette, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami, Montgomery, Neosho, Osage, Pottawatomie, Riley, Shawnee, Wabaunsee, Wilson, Woodson, and Wyandotte.
[edit] References
- Miner, Craig (2002). Kansas: The History of the Sunflower State, 1854-2000 (ISBN 0-7006-1215-7)
- Reynolds, David (2005). John Brown, Abolitionist (ISBN 0-375-41188-7)
- KCPT Kansas City Public Television and Wide Awake Films (2007). "Bad Blood, the Border War that Triggered the Civil War" a documentary DVD (ISBN: 0-9777261-42) www.kcpt.org/badblood/>
[edit] Notes
- ^ James, Richardson. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved on 2008-03-18.
[edit] External links
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| Internal | Revolutionary War · Shays' Rebellion · Whiskey Rebellion · Seminole Wars · Toledo War · Dorr Rebellion · Mormon War · Honey War · Bleeding Kansas · Utah War · Civil War · Brooks-Baxter War · Battle of Blair Mountain · Battle of Athens |
| Related articles | List of conflicts in USA · List of wars involving USA · List of US military history events · Overseas expansion of the United States |
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| Pre-War | Kansas-Nebraska Act · Bleeding Kansas · Sacking of Lawrence · Pottawatomie Massacre · Battle of Black Jack · Battle of Osawatomie · Marais des Cygnes massacre |  |
| September 1861 | Battle of Dry Wood Creek · Sacking of Osceola | |
| August 1863 | Lawrence Massacre · General Order № 11 (1863) | |
| October 1863 | Battle of Baxter Springs | |
| October 1864 | Battle of Marais des Cygnes · Battle of Mine Creek | |
