Transcript Bleeding Kansas Kansas Territory The Saga of (Ch. 4, 66-95)

Kansas Territory
The Saga of
Bleeding Kansas
(Ch. 4, 66-95)
John Steuart Curry painted the mural “Tragic Prelude” in the
State Capital in Topeka, depicting John Brown and the
anti-slavery movement in the Kansas Territory
John Brown- Iconic Figure
University of Kansas
Kansas State University
Bleeding Kansas
“God sees it. I have only a short time to
live – only one death to die, and I will
die fighting for this cause. There will
be no more peace in this land until
slavery is done for. I will give them
something else to do than to extend
slave territory. I will carry the war into
Africa.”
~ John Brown to his son, while
seeing Osawatomie burn, August
30, 1856
John Brown (1800-1859)
 Abolitionist willing to use
violence to end slavery
 After leaving Kansas Terr., he
led raid on the federal arsenal
in Harper’s Ferry in Virginia
 Convicted and hanged for
murder, treason and slave
insurrection against the state
of Virginia.
 Became a martyr for the
abolitionist cause
Missouri Compromise of 1820
 Allowed two new states to enter Union
Maine become a free state; Missouri a
slave state
Banned slavery in most of the lands of the Louisiana
Purchase, including the land that would be Kansas
Missouri Compromise of 1820
Compromise of 1850
 California entered Union as free state; but the
Fugitive Slave Act would be adopted.
 Fugitive Slave Act – all citizens were required to
assist in the recovery of slaves and fugitive slaves were
denied the right of jury trial.
Compromise of 1850
Stephen Douglas
 US Senator from Illinois
known as the “Little Giant”
 Helped pass Compromise of
1850 and Kansas-Nebraska Act
of 1854
 He was an expansionist and
promoted popular sovereignty
 Popular sovereignty - people who lived in the
territories were given the right to decide on the issue of
slavery
 Expansionist - the US should expand boundaries to
include much of the continent
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
 One of the most important documents in US history;
consequences led to the Civil War (1861-1865)
 Repealed the Missouri Compromise ban on
slavery
 Opened up the Kansas and Nebraska territories
for settlement.
 Those opposed to slavery opposed K-N Act.
 Proslavery or Antislavery
 Abolitionists - people who thought slavery immoral
and should be abolished without delay
 Free-Staters – people who did not want slavery to
expand into the territories
 Proslavery settlers founded Atchison
Name Calling!
 Border ruffians – Missourians who crossed over the
border to influence outcome of the slavery issue in the
Kansas Territory
 Bushwhackers - Missourians who jumped the border
to make raids on antislavery settlements
 Jayhawkers - Kansans who raided Missouri
The Kansas Emigrant Song
by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Whittier wrote poetry to campaign
against slavery
 Wrote The Kansas Emigrant Song to
persuade antislavery people to settle in
Kansas Terr.
The Kansas Emigrant Song
We cross the prairie as of old,
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free.
We go to the rear of a wall of men
On Freedom’s Southern line.
And plant beside the cotton tree,
The rugged Northern pine!
The Kansas Emigrant Song
Unbearing, like the ark of old,
The Bible in our van
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.
No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That freed the Kansas run,
Save where our Pilgrim [banner]
Shall flout the setting sun!
Kansas Emigrant Song
 What imagery and symbols does Whittier use?
 What are the references to North and South?
 What does the word “van” mean in this context?
Assignment: Write a verse trying to persuade people to
come to Kansas
Bleeding Kansas
 National attention focused on the violence over
slavery, giving rise to the name Bleeding
Kansas
 About 50 people lost their lives during the territorial
period
Bleeding Kansas
The Wakarusa War and the Siege of Lawrence
 Lawrence was under siege for a week
 Attack on Lawrence made national news
Bleeding Kansas
If any man or woman stand in
your way, blow them to [h#**]
with a cold chunk of lead!”
~ Sen. Atchison , urging on
proslavery forces as they
pillaged Lawrence
Bleeding Kansas
The Pottawatomie Massacre
(May 24-25, 1856)
 Reacting to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces
and the caning of Senator Sumner, Brown and other
abolitionists killed five pro-slavery activists in
Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County by hacking them
to death.
 Brown emerged as national figure
 This brutal act plunged the Kansas Territory further into
civil war
Bleeding Kansas
and John Brown
“He [John Brown] said if a man stood between him and
what he considered right, he would take his life as
coolly as he would eat his breakfast. His actions show
what he is. Always restless, he seems never to sleep.
With an eye like a snake, he looks like a demon.”
~ Affidavit quote of Mahala Doyle, widow of
James P. Doyle
Timeline
 1820 – Missouri Compromise bans slavery in what
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would be the Kansas Terr.
1850 – Compromise of 1850 allows California to enter
Union as a free state . The Fugitive Slave Act is passed.
1854 – Kansas- Nebraska Act creates two new
territories and allows settlers to choose whether
slavery will be allowed there
1855 – Bogus Legislature meets. The Wakarusa War
erupts. The Topeka Constitutional Convention is held
1856 – Attack on Lawrence and Pottawatomie
Massacre
1857 – Dred Scott Decision. Supreme Court rules
slaves are not citizens of the US. Lecompton
Constitutional Convention is held.
Slavery in Kansas
 Underground Railroad - a series of secret safe
houses that assisted escaping slaves
 Ann Clark – a slave from Lecompton who escaped on
the Underground Railroad.
•Proslavery forces captured 11 men and shot them. Five
died, five were wounded and one escaped by pretending to
be dead
•Last major violent act in Kansas Territory
Pony Express
 Ran between St. Joseph, MO,
and Sacramento, CA, for about
2,000 miles; 11 stations in
Kansas Territory
 Each rider rode about 33 miles
 Lasted 18 months, from April
1860 until October 1861. (Closed
days after transcontinental
telegraph connected Omaha to
Sacramento)
Pony Express
Hollenberg Station (near Hanover)
James Lane (1814-1866)
 Antislavery supporter who
organized 400 settlers from
northern states to come to
Kansas Terr.
 Lane’s Army of the North
 One of the first U.S. senators
from Kansas
James Lane
Before moving to Kansas Territory, Lane voted
for the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a U.S.
representative from Indiana
Lane called slave owners “wolves, snakes,
devils”
David Rice Atchison (1807-1886)
US senator from Missouri who
encouraged proslavery forces
to come to the Kansas Terr. and
vote illegally
Namesake of Atchison, Kansas, a
town originally settled by
slaveholding pioneers
He said, “The prosperity of the
whole South depends on the
Kansas struggle.”
Charles Robinson (1818-1894)
 Antislavery advocate; led
settlers to Kansas from
Massachusetts with the New
England Emigrant Aid
Company
 Elected governor at Topeka
and Wyandotte conventions
 First Governor of the state
of Kansas
Charles Robinson
 “It is for us to choose for ourselves, and for those who
shall come after us, what institutions shall bless or
curse our beautiful Kansas. Shall we have freedom for
all her people, and consequent prosperity, or slavery
for a part, with the blight and mildew inseparable from
it?”
~ Charles Robinson
Samuel Jones (1820-1880)
Proslavery sheriff of Douglas
County attacked Lawrence and
burned down newspaper offices
and other buildings
Referring to the destruction of
Lawrence, Jones was quoted as
saying, “This is the happiest day
of my life, I assure you.”
Clarina Nichols (1810-1885)
 Abolitionist who fought for the
rights of women
 Came to Kansas Terr. with the New
England Emigrant Aid Society
 Guest of the Wyandotte
Constitutional Convention
 Helped women get right to vote in
local school board elections
Andrew Reeder (1807-1864)
 President Franklin Pierce
appointed him first governor of
Kansas Territory
 Believed in popular
sovereignty
 Sided with the free-staters,
which angered proslavery
forces
 Enemies charged him with
treason and forced to escape in
disguise
Topeka Constitution (1855)
 First Constitution
 Written by Free-Staters and prohibited slavery
 Approved by large majority; (Proslavery forces refused
to vote)
 Failed to pass in the U.S Senate by two votes
Lecompton Constitution (1857)
 Second Constitution
 Written by proslavery people; (Free-Staters refused to
vote)
 President James Buchanan submitted Lecompton
Const. to U.S. Congress and recommended Kansas be
admitted as a slave state
 U.S. Congress voted against
Leavenworth Constitution (1858)
 Third constitution
 Written by Free-State forces opposed to slavery
 All men (white, black, Indian) would have the right to
vote but not women
 Passed in Kansas Terr., but U.S. Congress voted against
Wyandotte Constitution (1859)
 Fourth and final Constitution
 Wyandotte Const. made Kansas a free state
 Restricted voting rights and militia service to white
men (but women gained property rights)
 Kansas did not (could not) join Union until southern
states began seceding prior to the Civil War.
 The Wyandotte Const. passed Oct. 4, 1859, and Kansas
became the 34th state on Jan. 29, 1861
From Territory to Statehood
To become the state of Kansas,
 The people of the Kansas Territory had to write a
constitution
 The U.S. Congress had to accept the constitution.
 Constitutional conventions took place in Topeka,
Lecompton, Leavenworth and finally Wyandotte
Bleeding Kansas and Election Fraud
“About one thousand Missourians arrived in Lawrence to
vote, and vote. Mrs. Robinson says: ‘they were armed
with guns, pistols, rifles and bowie-knifes. They
brought two cannon loaded with musket balls.”
~ From the Annals of Kansas, Daniel W.
Wilder, 1875
Bleeding Kansas
“We will before six months rolls
around have the Devil to play
in Kansas…We are organizing to
meet their organization. We will
be compelled to shoot, burn an
hang, but the thing will soon be
over.”
~ Senator Atchison to U.S.
Secretary of War Jefferson
Davis, Sept. 24, 1854
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
Thoughts on John Brown
“ Old John Brown has just been
executed for treason against the
state. We cannot object, even
though he agreed with us in
thinking slavery wrong. That
cannot excuse violence, bloodshed,
and treason. It could avail him
nothing that he might think
himself right.”
~ Abraham Lincoln, speaking
in Leavenworth , Kansas Territory,
Dec. 3, 1859
Sen. Charles Sumner:
The “Crime Against Kansas”
 In 1856 Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts spoke about the
“Crime against Kansas” - opening up the slavery issue in the
Kansas Territory
 He called Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois a “noise-some,
squat, and nameless animal… not a proper model for an
American senator.” Sumner also verbally attacked Sen. Andrew
Butler of South Carolina for being proslavery.
 Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina (the nephew of Butler)
entered the Senate days later and hit Sumner with a cane so
severely, he beat unconscious Sumner, who did not recover for
nearly three years.
Caning of Sen. Sumner
Slavery and
The Dred Scott Case
 A slave named Dred Scott sued the US
Government for his freedom
 Supreme Court ruled in 1857 that Scott and
others of African ancestry (free or slave)
were not US citizens
 Court ruled it unconstitutional for the US
Gov. to prohibit slavery in the territories,
incl. the Kansas Terr.
 The decision alarmed mostly antislavery
people
Slavery and
the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad – Network of safe houses that
helped slaves escape
Success of Underground Railroad depended on secrecy
Ann Clark – slave from Lecompton, Kansas, who
escaped on the Underground Railroad
Why Emigrate to Kansas?
Isaac and Ellen Goodnow
Motivated to fight against slavery,
the Goodnows and their company
of 200 settlers came to Kansas
Territory
Isaac founded the college that
became Kansas State University
Built in what became Manhattan,
their house is a State Historic Site
Why Emigrate to Kansas?
 Most people came to Kansas for cheap land and
economic opportunities (not for pro or anti-slavery
causes)
 Preemption Act - a person could claim up to 160
acres; obligated to pay $1.25 per acre after public land
survey
 Thousands came to Kansas seeking fortunes in gold
 Others came to Kansas to push their proslavery and
antislavery beliefs
Why Emigrate to Kansas?
 Thousands came to
Kansas Territory to seek
fortune in gold
 Western boundary
extended to the Rocky
Mountains
 “Pike’s Peak or Bust”
Why Emigrate to Kansas?
New England Emigrant Aid Company
 Antislavery group; received financial and moral
support from New England abolitionists
 Under guidance from the NEEAC, Charles Robinson
led settlers from Massachusetts to Kansas Territory
 Clarina Nichols came to Kansas Territory with the
NEEAC
“Beecher Bibles”
 Henry Ward Beecher –
abolitionist preacher
from Connecticut
 Antislavery forces used
rifles sometimes called
“Beecher Bibles” because
the rifles were shipped to
Kansas in boxes labeled
“bibles”
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