Bleeding Kansas

Bleeding Kansas
Part of the prelude to the American Civil War
Union states   Union territories not permitting slavery   Border Union states, permitting slavery   Bleeding Kansas, entered Union   Confederate states   Union territories permitting slavery
Date 1854–1861 Location Kansas and Missouri Result Free State victory
Belligerents
John Brown Antonio Benincasa † others	William Quantrill others
Casualties and losses
unknown, 100 or fewer (30–40 killed)	unknown, 80 or fewer (20–30 killed)

Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 called for the "popular sovereignty" -- that is, the decision about slavery was be made by the settlers (rather than outsiders). It would be decided by votes--or more exactly which side had more votes counted by officials. At the heart of the conflict was the question of whether Kansas would allow or outla slavery, and thus enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. Proslavery forces said every settler had the right to bring his own property, including slaves, into the territory. Antislavery "free soil" forces said the rich slaveowners would buy up all the good farmland and work them with black slaves, leaving little or no opportunity for white men. As such, Bleeding Kansas was a proxy war between antislavery forces in the North and proslavery forces from the South over the issue of slavery in the United States. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune; the events it encompasses directly presaged the American Civil War, as well as the future relationship between Kansas and Missouri.

Origins

By the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Congress kept a tenuous balance of political power between North and South. In May of 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act created from unorganized Indian lands the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This permitted residency by U.S. citizens, who were to determine their state's slavery status and seek admission to the Union. Emigrants supporting both sides of the question arrived in Kansas to establish residency and gain the right to vote. However, Kansas Territory officials were appointed by the pro slavery administration of President Pierce, and thousands of non-resident pro slavery Missourians entered Kansas with the goal of winning elections. They captured Territorial elections, sometimes by fraud and intimidation. In response, Northern abolitionists elements flooded Kansas with free state men. Antislavery Kansas residents wrote the first Kansas constitution and elected the Free State legislature in Topeka; this stood in opposition to the pro slavery government in Lecompton. The two Territorial governments increased as well as symbolized the strife of Bleeding Kansas.

Meeting of North and South

Among the first emigrants to Kansas Territory were citizens of slave states, notably neighboring Missouri, who came to secure the expansion of slavery. Pro-slavery forces settled towns including Leavenworth and Atchison. At the same time, citizens of the North, many aided by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, moved to Kansas to make it a free state and settled towns including Lawrence, Topeka and Manhattan.

It was rumored in the south that thousands of northerners were arriving in Kansas. In November 1854, thousands of armed pro-slavery men known as "Border Ruffians", mostly from Missouri and believing the rumors, poured into the Kansas Territory and swayed a delegate election to Congress. This was discovered when fewer than half the ballots were cast by qualified Kansas voters. In one location by example, about 20 of the roughly 600 voters were residents of the Kansas Territory. Kansas had approximately 1,500 qualified voters while over 6,000 votes were cast. Most significantly, these voters, often called Border Ruffians, repeated their influx on March 30, 1855 for election of the first Territorial legislature and again won the vote in favor of slavery. To help countermand the voting fraud, by the summer of 1855 around 1,200 New England Yankees had emigrated to Kansas Territory. The abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher armed many of them with Sharps rifles, which, it is alleged, became known as "Beecher's Bibles" for their shipment in wooden crates so labeled.

1855 Free-State poster.

The fraudulently elected pro slavery territorial legislature nevertheless convened in Pawnee on July 2, 1855, but after one week adjourned to the Shawnee Mission on the Missouri border, where it passed laws favorable to slavery. In August 1855, antislavery residents met to formally reject the pro slavery laws. This led to the election of Free State delegates, the writing of the Topeka Constitution. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1856, President Franklin Pierce declared the Free-State Topeka government insurrectionist in its stand against pro slavery Territorial officials.

Open violence

In October 1855, John Brown came to Kansas Territory to fight slavery. On November 21, 1855 the so-called "Wakarusa War" began when a Free-Stater named Charles Dow was shot by a pro-slavery settler. In this, the free state Thomas Barber was shot and killed near Lawrence on December 6. On May 21, 1856, Missourians invaded Lawrence and burned the Free State Hotel, destroyed two newspaper offices, and ransacked homes and stores.

The following day, on the afternoon of May 22, 1856, South Carolina Democrat Preston Brooks physically attacked Massachusetts Free Soil Senator Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers, hitting him on the head with his thick cane. Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and staggered away until he collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until his cane broke. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Rep. Laurence Keitt, holding a pistol and shouting "Let them be!", as retaliation for insulting language Sumner had used against a relative of Brooks in a speech denouncing Southerners for pro-slavery violence in Kansas. Sumner did not return to his Senate desk for three years as a result of his injuries to the head and neck area.

Preston Brooks attacking Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate in 1856.

These acts in turn inspired Brown to lead a group of men in Kansas Territory on an attack at a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek. During the night of May 24, the group, which included four of Brown's sons, led five pro-slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Of the men initially taken captive during the three cabin raids that night, Brown's men let two of them— Jerome Glanville and James Harris— return home to Harris' cabin after questioning them regarding their involvement in violence against free-state settlers and being satisfied that they had not participated in any (the other man taken from that cabin, William Sherman, did not fare as well and was killed with swords at the edge of a nearby creek).

On June 2, 1856, Brown took future Confederate Colonel Henry Clay Pate and almost two dozen other pro-slavery soldiers prisoner at the Battle of Black Jack.

The pro slavery Territorial government, serving under President Pierce, had been relocated to Lecompton. In April 1856, a Congressional committee arrived there to investigate voting fraud. The committee found the elections improperly elected by non-residents. President Pierce refused recognition of its findings and continued to authorize the pro slavery legislature, which the Free State people called the ":Bogus Legislature."

On the Fourth of July in 1856, proclamations of President Pierce led to nearly 500 U.S. Army troops arriving in Topeka from Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Riley. With their cannons pointed at Constitution Hal, and the long fuses lit, Colonel E.V. Sumner ordered the dispersal of the Free State Legislature.

In August 1856, thousands of pro slavery men formed into armies and marched into Kansas. That same month, Brown and several of his followers engaged 400 pro slavery 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, in which Border Ruffians killed five Free State men. In all, approximately 56 people died in Bleeding Kansas by the time the violence ended in 1859. Following the commencement of the American Civil War in 1861, additional guerrilla violence erupted on the border between Kansas and Missouri.

Constitutional fight

A major confrontation of the Bleeding Kansas era was in the writing of constitutions that would govern the state of Kansas. The first of four such documents was the 1855 Topeka Constitution, written by antislavery forces unified under the Free State Party. This was the basis for the Free State Territorial government that resisted the illegitimate, but federally authorized government elected by non-resident, and thus unqualified Missourians.

In 1857, the second constitutional convention drafted the "Lecompton Constitution", a pro-slavery document. The Lecompton Constitution was promoted by President James Buchanan. Congress instead ordered another election, which was boycotted by pro-slavery forces. Anti-slavery forces defeated the document. Between these two votes, a third document, the Leavenworth Constitution, was written and passed by Free State delegates.

The Wyandotte Constitution drafted in 1859 represented the Free State view of the future of Kansas. It was approved by a 2-1 margin of the electorate. With southern states still in control of the Senate, Kansas awaited admission to the Union until January 29, 1861.

Heritage Area

In 2006, federal legislation defined a new "Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area" (FFNHA) and was approved by Congress. A task of the heritage area is to interpret Bleeding Kansas stories, which are also called stories of the Missouri/Kansas border war. A theme of the heritage area is the enduring struggle for freedom. FFNHA includes 41 counties, 29 of which are in eastern Kansas and 12 in western Missouri.

See also

• Pottawatomie Massacre

References

• Etcheson, Nicole. Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (2006)
• Goodrich, Thomas. War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861 (2004)
• Malin, James C. John Brown and the legend of fifty-six (1942)
• 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)
• Schachner, Nathan. The Sun Shines West (1943)

Fiction

• Paretsky, Sara. Bleeding Kansas (2008)

Films

• KCPT Kansas City Public Television and Wide Awake Films (2007).

Bad Blood, the Border War that Triggered the Civil War a documentary DVD (ISBN 0-9777261-4-2)

External links

• 1856 Congressional Report on the Troubles in Kansas
• Documentary On Bleeding Kansas
• Kansas State Historical Society: A Look Back at Kansas Territory, 1854–1861
• Access documents, photographs, and other primary sources on Kansas Memory, the Kansas State Historical Society's digital portal
• NEEAC. History of the New-England Emigrant Aid Company. Boston: John Wilson & Son, 1862.
• PBS article on Bleeding Kansas.
• Territorial Kansas Online: A Virtual Repository for Kansas Territorial History.
• U-S-History.com.
• Online Exhibit - Willing to Die for Freedom, Kansas Historical Society