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Bleeding Kansas

Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.

The conflict was characterized by years of electoral fraud, raids, assaults, and murders carried out in the Kansas Territory and neighboring Missouri by proslavery "border ruffians" and retaliatory raids carried out by antislavery "free-staters". According to Kansapedia of the Kansas Historical Society, 56 political killings were documented during the period,[3] and the total may be as high as 200.[4] It has been called a Tragic Prelude, or an overture, to the American Civil War, which immediately followed it.


The conflict centered on the question of whether Kansas, upon gaining statehood, would join the Union as a slave state or a free state. The question was of national importance because Kansas's two new senators would affect the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, which was bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for popular sovereignty: the decision about slavery would be made by popular vote of the territory's settlers rather than by legislators in Washington, D.C. Existing sectional tensions surrounding slavery quickly found focus in Kansas.[5][6]


Missouri, a slave state since 1821, was populated by many settlers with Southern sympathies and proslavery views, some of whom tried to influence the Kansas decision by entering Kansas and claiming to be residents. The conflict was fought politically, and between civilians, where it eventually degenerated into brutal gang violence and paramilitary guerrilla warfare.


Kansas had a state-level civil war that would soon be replicated on a national basis. It had two different capitals (proslavery Lecompton and antislavery Lawrence, then Topeka), two different constitutions (the proslavery Lecompton Constitution and the antislavery Topeka Constitution), and two different legislatures (the so-called "bogus legislature" in Lecompton and the antislavery body in Lawrence). Both sides sought and received help from outside, the proslavery side from the federal government: Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan openly helped the proslavery partisans.[1] Both claimed to reflect the will of the people of Kansas. The proslavers used violence and threats of violence, and the free-soilers responded in kind. After much commotion, including a congressional investigation, it became clear that a majority of Kansans wanted Kansas to be a free state, but this required congressional approval, which Southerners in Congress blocked.


Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state the same day that enough Southern senators had departed, during the secession crisis that led to the Civil War, to allow it to pass (effective January 29, 1861). Partisan violence continued along the Kansas–Missouri border for most of the war, although Union control of Kansas was never seriously threatened. Bleeding Kansas demonstrated that armed conflict over slavery was unavoidable. Its severity made national headlines, which suggested to the American people that the sectional disputes were unlikely to be resolved without bloodshed, and it, therefore, acted as a preface to the American Civil War.[7] The episode is commemorated with numerous memorials and historic sites.

Legacy[edit]

Heritage area[edit]

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 Kansas–Missouri 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.[36]

In popular culture[edit]

The "Bleeding Kansas" period has been dramatically rendered in many works of American popular culture, including literature, theater, film, and television.

Constitutions of Kansas

Origins of the American Civil War

, University of Kansas and Kansas State Historical Society, 2018

Territorial Kansas Online 1854–1861. A virtual repository for Territorial Kansas History

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

Map of North America during Bleeding Kansas at omniatlas.com