Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)

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to assist us in establishing and perpetuating a “Republican Government” which shall

secure to all: civil and religiou s liberty; which shall detect and punish crime; which shall

encourage industry, virtue and literature; which shall leave unshackled by Fetters, Com-

merce, Agriculture, and Mechanism.

He furt her declares that he relies upon the rectitude of our intentions; the favor of

Heaven and the bravery of those who are bound to and associated with him, by the prin-

ciple of self preservation; by the love of truth; and by the hatred of tyranny for his hopes

of success.

He further declares that he believes that a Government to be prosperous and happy-

fying in its tendency must originate with its people who are friendly to its existence. That

its Citizens are its Guardians, its ofﬁcers are its Servants, and its Glory their reward.

Source: Fred Blackburn Rogers, William Brown Ide, Bear Flagger (San Francisco: John

Howell Books, 1962), appendix A.

346 Bear Flag Revolt (1846)

Bleeding Kansas (1854–1858)

“Bleeding Kansas” is a phrase contemporaries used to describe the partis an war-

fare in the Kansas Territory that occurred between antislavery Free State and pro-

slavery elements. Both sides sought to inﬂuence Kansas’s impending entry into the

Union as a slave or free state through the use of terror and intimidation of their

opponents. Both sides justiﬁed their actions as self-defense, and each viewed the

other as illegitimate. The violence was concentrated in the eastern half of the

territory and was conducted by settlers in Kansas as well as proslavery “border

rufﬁans” from the neighboring slave state of Missouri. The violence in “Bleeding

Kansas” polarized the nation and served as a portent for the American Civil War.

The violence in the Kansas Territory had its origins in passage of the Kansas-

Nebraska Act of 1854. With the enactment of this legislation, the U.S. Congress, in

effect, nulliﬁed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had banned slavery in the

territories acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and served as the basis for sectional

peace on the slavery question for more than 30 years. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill,

Congress replaced the ban on slavery with the concept of “popular sovereignty.”

This provision was supported by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, chair-

man of the Senate Committee on Territories and the dominant ﬁgure in Congress

and the Democratic Party in the 1850s. Popular sovereignty h eld that the inhabi-

tants of a territory could decide on the question of slavery before its admission

as a state. Originally, Douglas and other advocates of popular sovereignty assumed

that Kansas was too far north for the use of slaves and that, consequently, slave

owners would not settle there. They did not realize that the farmland along the

Missouri River in the eastern part of the territory was as conducive to the use of

slaves as the “black belt” of western Missouri, where most of the state’s slav eholders

and their charges lived.

Adding fuel to the combustible Kansas question was its location. As the north-

ernmost of the slave states, Missouri was already bordered by the free states of

Iowa to the north and Illinois to the east. There was no question that Nebraska to

the northwest would enter the Union as a free state. If Kansas also entered the

Union as a free state, Missouri would be enclosed on three sides, heightening the

prospect s of slave ﬂight (or even insurr ecti on) as wel l as aboli tion ist activity. It

was small wonder that proslavery Missourians viewed a free Kansas as a threat.

347

The settlement of Kansas, the formation of a territorial government, and

Kansas’s status as slave or free thus became highly politicized and emotional

issues with an inherent potential for violence. The ﬁrst emigrants into the new

territory were settlers from the nearby slave states, particularly Missouri. Proslavery

in outlook, they established settlements at Atchison and Leavenworth. Antislavery

settlers also moved into Kansas and congregated near the towns of Lawrence and

Topeka. The earl iest of these moved from the Upper Midwest. Later e migrants,

encouraged and funded (and often provided with arms) by antislavery organizations

such as the New England Emigrant Aid Company, came from Ne w England and the

Ohio Valley.

The initial elections for the state legislature on March 30, 1855, further polar-

ized both the settler community in Kansas and the country as a whole. The election

campaign was marred by violence on both sides. Although the territorial governor,

Andrew H. Reeder, (whom President Pierce appointed in late 1854 and who was to

be the ﬁrst of seven to hold the position), proclaimed that only residents of the

territory were eligible to vote, he was unable to enforce his own rules. Although

over half the established settlers in Kansas at the time were from Missouri, this

was not a secure enough majority to satisfy proslavery activists such as David

Atchison. Inﬂamed by rumors that 30,000 antislavery northerners were descending

on Kansas to inﬂate the vote totals for the Free Soilers, a ﬂood of “one-day

Kansans” crossed over from Missouri to vote in the elections. With these fraudu-

lent votes and widespread threats against antislavery settlers, many of whom were

forcibly expelled from their land and f orced to leave the territ ory, a proslavery

legislature was elected. Where an early census showed only 2,500 men in the

territory, over 5,000 votes had been cast (Freehling 2007, 75).

Despite the apparen t fraud, Presiden t Pierce recognize d the new pr oslavery

legislature as legitimate. The ﬁrst Kansas territorial legislature convened on July 2,

1855, in Pawnee and later moved east to Shawnee Mission. It enacted a

constitution that approved slavery a nd barred opponents of slavery from holding

state ofﬁce. Antislavery elements, led by Charles Robinson, vowed to set up an

alternative anti slavery governm ent. They convened their own constitutional con-

vention at Topeka in October 1855 and drafted the Topeka Constitution, which

banned slavery in the territory. Elections sanctioned by the Topeka delegates were

held on January 15, 1856, with free-state men participating. They elected an anti-

slavery legislature and also voted Robinson as governor.

Kansas thus had two governments—the proslavery government recognized by

the Pierce administration seated at Shawnee Mission, and one created by Free

Staters in opposition with its capital at Topeka. Each considered the other fraudu-

lent. In this atmosphere, violence was inevitable. The apparent fraud in the

March 1855 elections gave ammunition to antislavery militants, such as John

348 Bleeding Kansas (1854–1858)

Brown and James H. Lane, who advocated violence against proslavery forces.

Both sides had organized local militias for self-defense. The largest proslavery

militia was the Platte County Self-Defense Association, organized by Atchison,

which had Free State areas during the election campaign. Among the largest

Free Soil militias was the Pottawatomie Riﬂes, organized by John Brown Jr. with

the encoura gement of th e elder Brown. Local militias had already clashe d in the

“Wakarusa War” in November 1855, and emotions remained high on both sides.

These tensions exploded into violence during a four-day period from May 21 to

May 25, 1856, ignited by the sacking of Lawrence, one of the centers of antislav-

ery s entiment, by a proslavery sheriff’s posse on May 21 and the massacre in

retaliation of several prominent proslavery activist s by an antislavery band led

by John Brown and his sons. The posse, led by Franklin County sheriff Samuel

Jones, had been sent by the Shawnee Mission government to arrest several anti-

slavery activists sheltering in Lawrence. The raid resulted in the destruction of a

newspaper ofﬁce and the burning of several private homes along with the local

church.

Brown learned of the attack on Lawrence while camped nearby with a company

of Pottawatomie Riﬂes. For him and several of his followers, the raid was the last

straw. Not only were they enraged by continuing reports of w idespread violence

by “border rufﬁans” against Free State settlers, they were a lso angered by what

Brown viewed as the cowardly response by antislavery leaders such as Robinson,

who urged Free Soilers to exercise restraint. He regarded them as little more than

traitors to the antislavery cause.

John Brown viewed the Lawrence incident as an opportunity to put h is advo-

cacy of violence against pro slavery supporters into action. On May 24, he, along

with four of his sons and seven other members of their company, undertook a

retaliatory expedition. Even though no onehadbeenkilledinLawrence,they

kill ed ﬁve prom inent slavery supporter s over the next two days in the vicinity of

Pottawatomie Creek.

The Pottawatomie Massacre, as it came to be known, sent shockwaves through

Kansas, Mi ssouri, and the re st of the c ountry. Far from deterring furth er attacks

from border rufﬁans and proslavery Kansans, it precipitated a savage guerilla

war along the Missouri-Kansas border that intensiﬁed in 1856. The violence of

the spring and early summer had ignited the tinderbox of hostility between the

two communities and had intensiﬁed the cycle of attack and retribution that threat-

ened to engulf the entire regi on. Both pro- and antislaver y militias a ttacked sus-

pected opponents. These raids often resulted in the burning of farms, looting,

and frequent killings. Frequently, the raiders used their depredations for indis-

criminate looting and thievery regardless o f the politics of their victims. In early

June, a proslavery band attacked Osawatomie, widely considered to be John

Bleeding Kansas (1854–1858) 349

Brown’s home base, and burned it to the ground. Other attacks by bands of slavery

advocates occurred at Sugar Mound and other Free Soil towns.

Amid escalating violence, the Topeka legislature convened on Jul y 4, 1856, to

submit a Free State constitution to the U.S. Congress. Under orders from President

Pierce, who considered th e existence of the Topeka government to be treasonous

and a threat to his a uthority, federal troops broke it up. Despite this action,

Congress considered the Topeka Constitution as the basis for admission to the

Union. The House passed it later in July, but it failed in the Senate.

The failure of the Topeka Constitution and the breakup of the Topeka

government proved to b e only temporary victo ries for the proslavery faction in

Kansas. The summer of 1856 marked the height of the political dominance of

the proslavery forces in the territory. Despite continuing violence, thousands of

Free Soil emigrants poured into Kansas from New England and the Ohio Valley.

The political balance in the Kansas Territory shi fted toward the antislavery fac-

tion. The prosl avery Lec ompton Constitution was voted down b y a resoun ding

majority of Free Soil voters in January 1858.

With the i nﬂux of thousands of northern settlers and the return of exiled Free

Soilers driven out earlier by border rufﬁans, the proslavery community, now in

the minority, faced growing harassment and intimidation from these returnees

looking to settle scores and take back land they felt had be en usurped a nd bands

led by Brown, Lane, James Montgomery, Charles Jennison, and other Free Soil

partisan bands who came to be known collectively as “Jayhawkers.”

The guerilla war in the Kansas Territory reached its height on May 19, 1858,

when a band of 20 to 30 proslavery raiders, many of whom were southerners or

Missourians who had b een driven from their claims, crossed into Kansas. seized

11 Free-Soil settlers from their homesteads, herded them into a ravine near the

town of Trading Post, and ﬁred on them, killing ﬁve. They then rode off, leaving

all 11 for dead. Miraculously, four were wounded and survived and two were not

hit at all (Neely 2007, 68–69).

In retaliation f or these attacks, gangs of Free Soil raiders, the most active

among them the militia headed by James Montgomery, attacked proslavery farms

in the Bourbon County area near Fort Scott. On June 7, 1858, Montgomery

attacked the town of Fort Scott despite the presence of federal troops in the nearby

fort. They inﬂicted few casualties and did little damage, but still demonstrated that

not even the U.S. Army would deter the partisan warfare.

By the summer of 1858, the situation in eastern Kansas was growing desperate.

Patrolling U.S. troops reported widespread damage from raiders fr om both sides

that threatened to disrupt agricultural production. Dozens of farms were burning

or abandoned. Fortunately, cooler heads in both Kansas and Missouri, fearing open

warfare between the Kansas Territory and its neighbor, stepped in to assert control.

350 Bleeding Kansas (1854–1858)

In June 1858, a week after Montgomery’s raid on Fort Scott, Kansas governor

James Denver (the seventh appointee in four years), traveled to Fort Scott, brought

the warring factions together, and negotiated an uneasy truce guaranteeing

amnesty for all sides in exchange for an end to the violence. Governor Charl es

Stewart of Missouri also cracked down on proslavery extremists along the western

border to prevent further attacks against Kansas settlers.

By 1858, however, the damage had been done. Four years of political violence

in “Bleeding Kansas” polarized the entire country as well as the Kansas-

Missouri border. The extent to which the Kansas crisis had inﬂamed opinion

throughout the country was apparent in May 1856 when South Carolina congress-

man Preston Brooks attacked Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner on the ﬂoor

of the Senate and nearly beat him to death w ith a cane. Brooks was enraged by

Sumner’s two-day oration on “the crime against Kansas” in which he had used

lurid prose to describe how the “slave power” had used force to try to make Kansas

a slave state.

The violence in Kansas galvanized the new Republican Party and gave it a

strengthened sense of identity in the North and Northwest. It contributed to

Lincoln’s and the Republican victory in the presidential elections of 1860. On

the other hand, the violence perpetrated by Brown, Lane, Montgomery, and other

“Jayhawkers” fed fears of abolitionist violence throughout the South. These fears

fed the growing secessionist sentiment in the southern and border states and made

compromise more difﬁcult. The seeds for the sectional rupture and the ensuing

American Civil War were sown in “Bleeding Kansas” in the guerilla war that

had occurred in the middle and late 1850s. Kansas was ﬁnally admitted as a Free

State in January 1861, but Free Soilers could take l ittle solace for the southern

states that had earlier opposed Kansas’s admission had seceded. Nor did the

uneasy truce along the Kansas-Missouri border survive the onset of the national

conﬂict. The outbreak of the Civil War re ignited the border violence and led to

even more ferocious partisan violence in western Missouri and eastern Kansas.

Ironically, both sides framed the justiﬁcation for violence in terms of

democratic values and individual liberty. In additio n, antislavery a nd proslavery

settlers had a great deal in common. Free Soilers were not necessarily aboliti on-

ists, or even in sympathy with the slaves or in favor of black equality. (The Topeka

Constitution banned free blacks from settling in Kansas). Most small farmers from

New England and the Midwest feared competition from large slave-based planta-

tions and from slave labor. They were content to allow slavery to exist in the states

where it was already established, but did not want it in their territory. Most

Missourians who settled in Kansas or who rode with the “border rufﬁans” did

not own slaves, but feared slave uprisings and the possibility of slave ﬂight as

threats to their way of life if Miss ouri permitted another free state on its borders.

Bleeding Kansas (1854–1858) 351

Neither side saw room for compromise. In this sense, “Bleeding Kansas” reﬂected

the state of the nation in the 1850s.

—Walter F. Bell

See also all entries under Harpers Ferry Raid (1859).