34 The Pre-emption Law of 1841 was widely used for the settlement of Kansas. It provided that a squatter (head of household, who could be a married man, a single man, or a widow, all over twenty-one) could claim 160 acres of government land, on which he/she squatted, for no less than $1.25 an acre, as long as he/she was an American citizen, or intended to become a citizen, and had squatted on the land for at least fourteen months.
35 Ibid., 69–73.
36 Colonel James Blood described the selection of what became Lawrence in an article appearing in the Lawrence Journal (January 12, 1891). He wrote that Branscomb wanted the settlement to be on the Wyandot Reservation, but that he (Blood) had pointed out the complications in settling on Indian land, and instead recommended the site on the Kansas River, since it was south and west of the Delaware Reservation, and thus not encumbered and could be settled and claimed under the Preemption Law of 1841.
37 John Doy published his biography privately in 1860, titled The Narrative of John Doy of Lawrence, Kansas (1860), 5, which is available at: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/ABJ5091.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext. Just so that readers would not think he embellished any part of the story, the subtitle read: “A Plain, Unvarnished Tale.”
38 Ibid., 6.
39 Ibid., 7
40 B. R. Knapp, article published in the Boston News (August 9, 1854). Article was reproduced in A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (Chicago: Andreas’s Western Historical Publishing Company, 1883), 312.
41 Doy, Narrative of John Doy, 8.
42 Andreas, History of Kansas, 313.
43 Lawrence MSS, Diary, 27 August, 3, 24 September 1854.
44 Andreas, History of Kansas, 313.
45 Lawrence MSS, Diary, 9, 29 October 1854.
46 http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_transcript&document_id=102336SCREEN=immigration&submit=&search=&startsearchat=&searchfor=&printerfriendly=&county_id=&topic_id=129&document_id=102336&selected_keyword=
47 Manhattan native Kevin G. W. Olson has written a delightful and comprehensive history of Manhattan, Kansas, describing the early settlement, the establishment of Kansas State University, and everything else in the town’s early history. The dust jacket says that Olson has gone from growing up in the “Little Apple” (Manhattan, Kansas) to working in the “Big Apple” (New York). Kevin G. W. Olson, Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854–1894 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012).
48 Samuel Johnson discusses many of these organizations in his Battle Cry of Freedom, 65–71; Russell Hickman, “The Vegetarian and Octagon Settlement Companies,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 2 (November 1933), 377–85; “Vegetarians for Kansas,” Herald of Freedom, April 28, 1855
49 www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&SCREEN_FROM=immigration&document_id=102650&FROM_PAGE=&topic_id=135
50 The entire census is reproduced at: search.ku.edu/search?q=1855%2Bcensus&btnG=Search&site=TKO&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=0&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=TKO. For some districts, the individual census sheets are different than the totals at the end. For example, when counting the number of enslaved people in District 16, the total is thirty-eight, but the summary at the end lists thirty-three. For the totals here, I used the numbers on the sheet (i.e., thirty-eight for District 16).
51 The 1855 Kansas Territorial census also is available on the Kansas Genealogy website at: skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/troubles.html.
52 Andreas, in his History of Kansas, wrote that Knapp sent his report to the Boston News on this date in August. The Boston News might have existed in 1854, but I could not find a reference to this source. Andreas’s histories are generally very reliable, so the reference is almost certainly correct. Andreas, History of Kansas, 313.
53 Ibid.
54 Doy, Narrative of John Doy, 10.
55 Joseph Savage, “Recollections of 1854,” Western Home Journal 4 (14 July1870). These recollections are available online at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=transcripts/savage_joseph
56 Andreas, History of Kansas, 314.
57 The “new” Plymouth Church will be discussed in greater detail later in this volume in Chapter 17.
58 “A Valuable Letter,” Herald of Freedom, October 21, 1854. The complete run of the Herald of Freedom is available online at: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82006863/1855–01–06/ed-1/seq-2/
59 Herald of Freedom, January 13, 1855.
60 Charles Robinson to Amos Adams Lawrence, December 18, 1854. Typescript of the letter can be found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=view_image&file_name=k302423&document_id=102491&FROM_PAGE=
61 Richard Cordley, History of Lawrence: From the First Settlement to the Close of the Rebellion (Lawrence, Kansas: E. F. Caldwell, 1895), 24–26.
62 Reports of the number of emigrants in the third group vary from 160 to 200. Reports of the number that returned to the East vary as well, from one-third to two-thirds. Louise Barry, “The Emigrant Aid Company Parties of 1854,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 12 (May 1943): 146–150.
63 Ibid., 115–155.
64 Lawrence, Life of Amos Lawrence, 85.
65 The letters above and the diary entry are included in Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence, 85–86.
66 Found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_transcript&document_id=100408SCREEN=keyword&submit=&search=&startsearchat=15&searchfor=&printerfriendly=&county_id=&topic_id=&document_id=100408&selected_keyword=Lawrence,%20Amos%20Adams,%201814–1886.
67 Amos A. Lawrence to Charles H. Branscomb, September 26, 1855. Found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&document_id=100416&SCREEN_FROM=keyword&selected_keyword=Lawrence,%20Amos%20Adams,%201814–1886&startsearchat=15.
68 Lawrence’s public persona was that of an antislavery advocate, not a “stark mad abolitionist,” as he wrote his uncle in a private correspondence. His protestations aside, most Emigrant Aid Company settlers in Kansas probably fell within the abolitionist camp. They advocated an immediate end to slavery, and they believed the best means to accomplish that goal was to not allow slavery to gain a foothold in Kansas. Cited in Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence, 86–88.
69 Louise Barry, “The New England Emigrant Aid Company Parties of 1855,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 12 (August 1943): 227–68.
70 Herald of Freedom, March 10, 24, and April 28,1855; O. S. Fowler, A Home for All, or Gravel Wall and Octagon Made of Building New, Cheap, Convenient, Superior, and Adapted to Rich and Poor (New York: Fowler and Wells: 1854).
71 Cordley, History of Lawrence, 30–32.
72 Nichole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 56–59. In 1856, Congress investigated the elections in Kansas as well as the Wakarusa War (which will be discussed later in this study in Chapter 5), and other events in Kansas Territory (1855–1856). The investigation and subsequent report was called the Howard Report. It can be found at: quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/AFK4445.0001.001/290?rgn=full+text;view=image. The section dealing with the 1855 Territorial Election in Lawrence can be found on pages 148–151.
73 A copy of Robinson’s letter can be found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_transcript&document_id=102359SCREEN=keyword&submit=&search=&startsearchat=10&searchfor=&printerfriendly=&county_id=&topic_id=&document_id=102359&selected_keyword=Robinson,%20Charles,%201818–1894.
74 Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas, 60–61.
75 Sara T. L. Robinson, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life: Including a Full View of its Settlement, Political History, Social Life, Climate, Soil, Productions, Scenery, etc. (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Company, 1856), 65. This book can be found at: books.google.com/books?id=CHgFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f
=false.
76 Johnson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 103.
77 Cited in Robinson, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life, 80–83.
78 Cordley, History of Lawrence, 38–39.
79 Robinson, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life, 70.
80 Lawrence MSS, Diary, 10 July 1855.
81 Lawrence confirmed the donation in his diary (Ibid, 23 July 1855)
82 Abbott’s entire reminiscence can be found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&document_id=102421&SCREEN_FROM=keyword&selected_keyword=Abbott,%20James%20Burnett&startsearchat=40. The Herald of Freedom announced that the shipment of five boxes, marked “books,” arrived safely on the Emma Harmon steamboat. To the surprise and pleasure of everyone, they discovered that the parts for one hundred Sharps rifles were in the boxes. Herald of Freedom, July 21, 1855.
83 New York Times, February 8, 1856.
84 Wilson, Charles Robinson, 27.
85 Quoted in Ibid, 28.
86 The term “Garrisonian” referred to the followers of William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the Liberator newspaper, and a radical abolitionist, who condemned the government for not ending slavery, and the United States Constitution for protecting slavery. Ibid., 28–30; Robinson, Kansas Conflict, 171–72.
87 Ibid., 173–74.
88 Wilson, Charles Robinson, 31–33.
89 Josiah Miller, editor of the Lawrence Free State newspaper, to his parents, October 15, 1855. A copy can be found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&document_id=101642&SCREEN_FROM=keyword&selected_keyword=Shannon,%20Wilson,%201802–1877&startsearchat=0.
90 Dale E. Watts, “How Bloody was Bleeding Kansas? Political Killings in Kansas Territory, 1854–1861,” Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 18 (Summer 1995): 116.
91 Most American history textbooks still use the Hoagland Commission data of two hundred as the number of deaths from “Bleeding Kansas.” The Hoagland Claims Commission was appointed by Congress in 1859. It met in Kansas, and its duty was to determine if any Kansas residents were entitled to compensation as a result of the events in “Bleeding Kansas.” It is not entirely clear how the commission arrived at the number of two hundred killed during the territorial period in Kansas.
92 Cited in Watts, “How Bloody was Bleeding Kansas,” 117.
93 Ibid., 116–29.
94 Isaac Goodnow, “Narrative, the Murder of Charles Dow,” Isaac Goodnow Collection, Kansas State Historical Society, 1856.
95 Robinson, Kansas Conflict, 184–86.
96 Ibid., 187
97 Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas, pp. 81–83.
98 Robinson, Kansas Conflict, pp. 188–94.
99 Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender, and Violence in Pre-Civil War Kansas (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), 77.
100 Ibid, pp. 199–203; Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas, pp. 84–87.
101 Ibid, pp. 87–88.
102 Robinson, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life, pp. 164–65.
103 Robinson, Kansas Conflict, p. 212.
104 Robinson, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life, pp. 164–65.
105 Robinson, Kansas Conflict, 219–20.
106 “Lawrence A Year Ago,” Herald of Freedom, July 28, 1855. Articles about new businesses, churches, schools, and the athenaeum appeared in the Herald as they were established during 1855.
107 Herald of Freedom, January 12, 1856.
108 For those who are not familiar with what an athenaeum is, it was a term for libraries or literary societies, or both, commonly used in the early 1800s. Herald of Freedom, July 28, 1855.
109 Robinson, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life, 66.
110 Ibid., pp. 177–79, 191–94.
111 Joseph Savage, “Recollections of 1854,” 22.
112 James C. Malin, “Housing Experiments in the Lawrence Community, 1855,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 21 (Summer 1954): 95–121.
113 In a balloon-framed structure, vertical lumber would run the length of the structure from the foundation to the roof rafters, with each floor attached to the framing lumber.
114 Ibid; Johnson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 169–70.
115 Text of the Kansas-Nebraska Act can be found at: memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=010/llsl010.db&recNum=300.
116 Johnson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 115–16.
117 The expression “Fabian policy” was common at that time. It referred to the Roman Consul and general, Fabius Maximus (third century BC), whose nickname was the “delayer,” because in the Second Punic Wars, he hit at the enemy’s supply lines and vulnerable points rather than attempting a full-scale attack, and thus saved his army to fight another day. Amos Lawrence to Charles Robinson, January 31, 1856, found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_transcript&document_id=101083SCREEN=keyword&submit=&search=&startsearchat=20&searchfor=&printerfriendly=&county_id=&topic_id=&document_id=101083&selected_keyword=Lawrence,%20Amos%20Adams,%201814–1886.
118 Johnson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 124–25 and 163–66.
119 Ibid., p. 163.
120 M. W. Delahay to Genl. C. Robinson, Col. J. H. Lane & others, February 16, 1856. Found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&document_id=100646&SCREEN_FROM=keyword&selected_keyword=Pierce,%20Franklin,%201804–1869&startsearchat=5.
121 Quoted in Robinson, Kansas Conflict, pp. 225–26.
122 Howard Committee Report, p. 67, 109.
123 Samuel Johnson noted that the assailant wasn’t known for twenty-five years after the attack. He quoted from Leveret W. Spring in his Kansas: Prelude to the Civil War (1907) that the culprit was J. F. Filer. Johnson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 156n.
124 Ibid., pp. 157–58.
125 Cordley, History of Lawrence, iii, 42.
126 The US Constitution defines treason in Article III, Section 3: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The author of the indictment was careful to precisely define treason on constitutional grounds.
127 The indictment and report or arrests are found at: http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/228352/text.
128 Etcheson, “Laboring for the Freedom of This Territory,” 82–83.
129 Oertel, Bleeding Borders, 132; Sarah Robinson, Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life, 8.
130 Oertel, Bleeding Borders, 61, 64. Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel provides detailed information about women in Kansas in her book. Nicole Etcheson also does a wonderful job with the same subject in her article “Laboring for the Freedom of This Territory.”
131 Robinson, Kansas Crusade, pp. 261–62.
132 The text of the indictment can be found at: www.kansasmemory.org/item/228352/text, and Johnson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 158.
133 Transcript of Learnard’s letter is found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&SCREEN_FROM=border&document_id=100232&FROM_PAGE=&topic_id=69.
134 Full speech, along with interruptions for hoots, yells, waving hats, etc., and Atchison’s profanity is found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&SCREEN_FROM=border&document_id=103035&FROM_PAGE=&topic_id=69. There is some dispute as to whether Atchison actually made this speech or another one at the same time as to how women should be treated. The version quoted here is from Joseph Pomeroy Root, subsequently elected the state’s first lieutenant governor, who was a prisoner at the time, who heard and claimed that what he reported was very close to what Atchison said.
135 The full text of Sumner’s speech can be found at: eweb.furman.edu/~benson/docs/sumnerksh2.htm.
136 Lawrence, Life of Amos Lawrence, p. 122.
137 Shortly after the Wakarusa War, Brown wrote to his wife, describing the “war,” its aftermath, and conditions in Kansas at the time. Th
e letter can be found at: www1.assumption.edu/ahc/kansas/JohnBrownWakarusa.html.
138 Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, and Matthew 5:38–48.
139 Few Americans have had more biographies written about them than John Brown. They have tended to fall into two interpretations. Some have viewed Brown as a crusader, willing to give his life for the noble cause of ending slavery. Many recent biographies fall into this category. In this interpretation, Brown was a major catalyst for bringing on the Civil War and thus ending the institution of slavery. Others see Brown more as a madman, crazed with his passion to end slavery, who probably did more to damage the antislavery cause than help it. Of the recent biographers, David S. Reynolds’ John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (New York: Vintage 2006) is one of the more comprehensive biographies on Brown. His interpretation tends more toward Brown as a crusading idealist, in the vein of earlier writers like W. E. B. Du Bois. I borrowed from his description of the killings along Pottawatomie Creek in pp. 138–78
140 Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas, 114–118.
141 Cordley, History of Lawrence, 108–09.
142 John Doy, Narrative of John Doy, 13–16.
143 Ibid., 17; Thomas Bickerton testified as part of the Journal of Investigations in Kansas on December 5, 1856, describing his life’s story up to that point and his involvement in the Border Wars. His entire testimony can be found at: www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=show_document&document_id=101584&SCREEN_FROM=keyword&selected_keyword=Abbott%20howitzer&startsearchat=0.
144 Cordley, History of Lawrence, 115–18.
145 Doy, Narrative of John Doy, 17. A description of the battle of Fort Titus was reported in the New York Times, August 17, 1856. This article and a further description of the battle can be found at: www.lecomptonkansas.com/page/the-battle-of-fort-titus. A number of artifacts from the battle are on exhibit at the Territorial Capitol/Lane Museum in Lecompton, at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, and Watkins Community Museum in Lawrence.
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