Bleeding Kansas, and the KS-MO Border War

Bleeding Kansas. It was a time before the Civil War. Blood was shed, and fires were burnt, but it wasn’t all violence. There was a lot of legislation behind the Border War as well.

But first, some history. Bleeding Kansas started with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, that split the territory of Nebraska into the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It decided that NE would be a Free State, but let KS decide weather it would be a Free State or a slave state. This made northerners mad due to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which made it so that everything above latitude 36o north was a Free State, and everything below latitude 36o north was a Slave state.

But, who partook in the events of the Border War? Border Ruffians were pro-slavery Missourians that crossed over the border to Kansas to try to get the state to be a slave state. These were the people that voted for slaves in Kansas. The ironic thing is though, is that most Border Ruffians didn’t actually have slaves. On the other side we have the Jayhawkers. They were bands of militant groups that supported anti-slavery. Jayhawkers were Free Staters, and would have the occasional scuffle with the Border Ruffians.

So, when voting began for the first Kansas legislature(which would decide if the state was free or not), Border Ruffians piled into Kansas and tried to sway it to be a slave state. [They did, with the only Free Staters being Martin F. Conway and Samuel D. Houston(from Riley County)]. A replacement election was held afterwards due to voter fraud, and 8 more Free Staters were elected, but there was still an overwhelming 29-10 pro-slave advantage. According to the book "Kansas: a history of the Jayhawk State“, to help against the voter fraud, 1200 New England Yanks migrated to Kansas, and were armed with Sharps rifles from abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, known as “Beecher's Bibles”, as the crates were labeled so. Due to rising tensions, Congress sent a special committee to the Kansas territory. The committee concluded that without the voter fraud, the Kansas Legislature that would have been voted in, would have been a Free State.

Want to learn more? Visit the sites that I used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Ruffian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-Stater_(Kansas)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayhawker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas