Was ‘Bleeding Kansas’ Actually That Violent?

From 1854 to 1860, America’s newspaper headlines screamed bloody homicide. Sensationalist headlines learn: “Bleeding Kansas!” “Sack of Lawrence!” “Pottawatomie Bloodbath!” “Battle of Osawatomie!” “Marais De Cygnes Bloodbath!” “A lot Blood Spilt!” “Homicide and Chilly-Blooded Assassination!” Purportedly they had been relaying information of an extremely bloody and lethal conflict of anti- and pro-slavery forces fought alongside the Kansas-Missouri border.

No single occasion within the nation’s drift towards Southern secession and the armed battle that will inevitably observe paved the street to warfare greater than the hyped-up strife that passed off for six years from 1854-1860 in jap Kansas and western Missouri alongside the border between the state and the brand new territory.

A Media Fable?

Dramatic headlines would deepen the nation’s quickly growing North-South rift, dividing those that fervently opposed additional extension of what they realized was the nation’s “authentic sin”—the curse of slavery—and those that stubbornly supported sustaining African Individuals in chattel bondage as each constitutionally authorized and important to clinging to their wealth, livelihood and lifestyle. No rational particular person right this moment can argue towards the truth that slavery was an evil that needed to be eradicated from the USA, nor can anybody deny that pro-slavery forces had been combating on the flawed facet of historical past. The responsibility of historians is to research, decide the historic information and precisely report these information—particularly, historians should not perpetuate myths.

The overblown headlines, created and promoted by partisan newspaper reporting on each side, misrepresented what was truly taking place west of the Mississippi River alongside Kansas territory’s jap border. Newspapers championing each side of the deeply-entwined “slavery-states’ rights” challenge stuffed their papers with fabricated “atrocities” and overly-sanguine accounts of “pitched battles” wherein casualties had been truly both miniscule in quantity or typically utterly nonexistent.

This apparently horrific partisan battle pushed the nation into its bloodiest warfare greater than any pre-Civil Struggle battle, however was merely a fabrication created by the burgeoning nationwide newspaper business and capitalized upon by the bold new Republican political occasion to assist it rally a nationwide voters to win the White Home within the 1860 U.S. presidential election.

The historic irony of so-called “Bleeding Kansas” is that over 10 instances extra Individuals had been murdered within the streets of San Francisco, California, in a single yr—1855—than had been ever killed for his or her political views in the course of the 1854-1860 Border Struggle. Merely put, “Bleeding Kansas” is an easily-disprovable albeit long-enduring delusion.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was a patched-together compromise hammered out by Illinois Democrat Senator Stephen A. Douglas and then-President Franklin Pierce, a “northern Democrat” against Abolitionism however prepared to compromise to dampen northern and southern firebrands. The act ostensibly promoted development of a transcontinental railroad and the accompanying financial advantage of opening tens of millions of acres of land to new settlement.

Nonetheless, it included the “well-liked sovereignty” idea (launched within the 1850 Compromise however as but untested), allowing Kansas and Nebraska territory settlers to determine by well-liked vote whether or not they would enter the Union as “free” or “slave” states. Effectively-meaning—however not well-considered—“well-liked sovereignty” primarily made out of date earlier Congressional makes an attempt (1820 Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850) to alleviate rising North-South sectional tensions concerning slavery’s unfold.

In hindsight, the 1854 act inevitably created the political circumstances in Kansas territory that, predictably, devolved into violence as pro- and anti-slavery factions clashed to affect the “well-liked sovereignty” vote’s end result concerning statehood. Though initially assumed that Nebraska would develop into a “free state” and Kansas would enter as a “slave” state, as soon as the Kansas-Nebraska Act handed all bets had been off. “Common sovereignty” made Kansas territory a free-for-all for anti- and pro-slavery factions. Henceforth, whichever facet of the slavery query needed to prevail in Kansas must struggle for it.

Inevitably, violence erupted alongside the Kansas-Missouri border in 1854, and nationwide newspapers consciously and intentionally propelled what had been in actual fact comparatively minor border clashes into a serious, nationwide political challenge. The time period “Bleeding Kansas” itself initially appeared in 1856 in abolitionist editor Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune to falsely describe the battle as being one in every of “harmless” Free-state settlers unjustly harassed by evil pro-slavery Missouri “Bushwhackers,” thereby intentionally stoking the fires of North-South sectional passions.

Newspapers Weigh In

But, the reality is that regardless of the amplified claims of partisan newspaper editors, neither facet within the Border Struggle held a monopoly on ruthlessness and violence in pursuit of their opposing political causes.

Between 1840 and 1860, printed newspapers—each day, weekly, quarterly and periodically—underwent an explosion of general numbers and the quantity of copies printed yearly. Whereas the U.S. inhabitants then rose 180%, newspaper numbers elevated 250% with complete annual printed copies increasing practically 500%.

Propelling this phenomenon had been ground-breaking (labor-saving and cost-cutting) advances in printing expertise. Actually “industrial scale” printing resulted from the Fourdrinier paper-making machine (U.S. introduction in 1827), which created steady rolled paper in large portions and the steam-powered, continuous-feed, rotary printing press (invented in 1843 by American Richard M. Hoe).

Now not restricted by laboriously printing single sheets, numerous copies of a web page might be produced each day. By the 1850s, illustrations had been prominently featured, enhancing visible attraction, whereas elevated staffing (sometimes, 1-2 within the 1820-30s; 30 within the 1840s; and 100 by the 1850s in bigger papers) made it attainable to fill extra pages with extra tales of nationwide, regional and native curiosity. Advances in railroad transportation sped distribution. Improved communications (telegraph) meant widespread “breaking information.” The ensuing “media blitz” was a newspaper revolution.

That period’s most influential newspaperman, New York Tribune’s Horace Greeley (editor from 1841-72), defined in 1851 how the phenomenon’s nationwide unfold mirrored the nation’s progress: “[T]he common rule…was for every city to have a newspaper, and, within the free states, every county of 20,000 or extra normally had two papers—one for every [political] occasion. A county of fifty,000 normally had 5 journals…and when a city reached 15,000 inhabitants…it normally had a each day paper and at 20,000 it had two.”

Residents right this moment would anticipate media sources to try diligently to current the information as easy information and permit the general public to attract its personal conclusions. Nonetheless, within the mid-Nineteenth century, political partisanship in newspapers was the norm, not the exception. The “Bleeding Kansas” delusion resulted from unashamedly biased newspaper reporting—every paper aggressively politically partisan and firmly dedicated to championing its favored facet in that battle. Editors blatantly selected sides, some aligning with the brand new, anti-slavery Republican Occasion, whereas others backed the then pro-slavery Democratic Occasion. Partisan editors graphically described the “Border Struggle” as a warfare of annihilation waged by pro- and anti-slavery factions to find out Kansas territory’s future statehood standing as a “free” or “slave” state.

Exaggerated Casualties

Readers nationwide grew to become morbidly mesmerized by the “horrible casualties” reported and impatiently stood by to buy “sizzling off the press” papers recounting the most recent atrocities. Proper was irrevocably on the facet the competing newspaper editors supported, whereas the opposing facet was accused of unbelievable acts of violence.

These attention-getting headlines despatched circulation hovering. The atrocities described had been both exaggerated or fabricated to stoke the flames of political hatred and animosity. This “spin,” in up to date parlance, favored a selected trigger or political occasion. A century-and-a-half in the past, political events and their media allies ignored the reality and outrageously manipulated information.

Editors profited by exaggerating the trans-Mississippi border battle. Each side developed derogatory names for one another; anti-slavery newspapers condemned pro-slavery forces—primarily from Missouri—as “Border Ruffians,” “Bushwhackers” and “Pukes,” whereas the Kansas partisans had been often known as “Redlegs” and “Jayhawkers.”

Created in 1854, the brand new Republican Occasion—fashioned of former Whigs, Free Staters and anti-slavery activists—completed a stunning second in 1856 with its first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont. Within the 1860 presidential election, the occasion made most benefit of the headline-gathering Border Struggle to broaden its primarily regional voters into a celebration with widespread nationwide attraction. The brand new political occasion was desperate to capitalize on the Border Struggle to create a nationwide voter base to advertise the occasion’s 1860 presidential ambitions.

When the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed in 1854, 15 states (and three territories west of the Mississippi) nonetheless permitted slavery, whereas the abominable observe was unlawful in 17 states and 5 territories.

With the handwriting on the wall concerning slavery’s final survival, Southern states’ slave energy block was determined that Kansas develop into a slave state. Correspondingly, Northern anti-slavery forces, led by dedicated Abolitionists and anti-slavery activists, had been equally decided that Kansas develop into free.

A Rush On Kansas

Frantically, residents of Kansas territory’s neighboring slave state, Missouri, fearful {that a} “free state” Kansas on its western border, mixed with the established free states of Illinois on its jap border and Iowa on its northern border, would encompass the border slave state on three sides—turning into a runaway slave magnet—rushed “settlers” throughout Missouri’s western border into contiguous jap Kansas to “vote-pack” Kansas into the Union as a slave state. Though the statewide inhabitants of Missouri was then break up between pro- and anti-slavery adherents, the pro-slavery faction firmly held state energy in Missouri’s capital, Jefferson Metropolis.

Adamantly against slavery, the Boston-based Abolitionist, New England Emigrant Help Firm—generously financed by rich northeastern businessmen resembling Eli Thayer, Alexander H. Bullock and Edward Everett Hale—rapidly organized an anti-slavery settler motion. The Emigrant Help Firm funded the settlement of jap Kansas, quickly packing it with closely recruited, anti-slavery settlers, and well-armed them with quite a few Sharps .52-cal breech-loading rifles.

Each side due to this fact—not simply pro-slavery Missourians as is commonly claimed right this moment—raced to populate Kansas territory with their ideological followers. Each side unconscionably “packed” Kansas with adherents who obediently “stuffed” poll bins with votes to regulate the election. Anti- and pro-slavery adherents had been equally responsible of vote tampering, voter intimidation, ballot-box stuffing and election malfeasance.

The stage was thus set for a bitter struggle for Kansas’ statehood standing: two well-armed opposing factions holding unwavering political positions confronted off in what, in response to the period’s terminology, was dubbed a “Struggle to the Knife, and the Knife to the Hilt!” But the reality of the 1854-1860 “Bleeding Kansas” Border Struggle is way totally different than what we settle for right this moment as “standard knowledge.”

How Bloody was the Wrestle?

Standard knowledge solely holds up till somebody truly does the mathematics. That somebody is historian Dale Watts in his ground-breaking article “How Bloody Was Bleeding Kansas?” printed within the Summer season 1995 editionof Kansas Historical past: A Journal of the Central Plains. Watts’ exhaustively-researched article found “Bleeding Kansas” produced solely a small fraction of the politically-motivated deaths of anti- and pro-slavery forces each side broadly claimed.

Utilizing historic paperwork and meticulously inspecting 1854-1860 demise information, Watts decided which deaths had been “political killings” (i.e., murders by a pro- or anti-slavery partisan due to the sufferer’s opposing political stance) or as a consequence of apolitical motivations (e.g., land disputes, private animosity, or frequent criminality, theft or homicides). Up to date accounts practically at all times overestimated the battle’s deaths.

For instance, the Hoogland Claims Fee 1859 report outlandishly claimed “the variety of lives sacrificed in Kansas throughout [1854-1855] in all probability exceeded reasonably than fell wanting 200.” Nonetheless, Watts’s analysis verified the casualty report usually confirmed by Robert W. Richmond’s 1974 conclusion that “roughly fifty individuals died violently [for political reasons] throughout [Kansas’] territorial interval [1854-1860].”

Watts’s unbiased analysis revealed that of 157 documented violent deaths from 1854-1860 in Kansas territory, solely 56 had been attributed to the Kansas-Missouri political battle. For historic comparability, Watts famous that within the up to date “gold rush-era” California alone, a complete of 583 individuals died violently in 1855, and at the very least 1,200 individuals had been murdered in San Francisco between 1850 and 1853. This violent demise comparability makes Kansas Territory appear virtually calm given its small variety of political killings recorded in the course of the much-hyped Border Struggle.

Single-digit Casualties

Considerably, Watts reveals that of these 56 murders, 30 had been “pro-slavery” advocates, together with the one lady slain, Sarah Carver, whose husband merely professed to be pro-slavery whereas there have been 24 anti-slavery proponents killed. One sufferer was an ostensibly impartial U.S. Military soldier whereas one was an officer whom each side tried to say. Furthermore, some allegedly “bloody battles” (referred to as “wars” and “massacres” on the time) had been primarily cold or resulted in single-digit casualties. For instance, within the June 1856 “Battle” of Black Jack not one particular person was killed.

No “Bleeding Kansas” engagement produced greater than 5 deaths. Anti-slavery radical John Brown and his sons killed 5 allegedly pro-slavery settlers throughout his infamous “Pottawatomie Bloodbath” from Might 24-25, 1856 alongside Pottawatomie Creek. The attackers used broadswords to hack their neighbors to demise in retaliation for the practically cold “sack” of Lawrence three days prior.

Even the inaptly-named Might 21, 1856 “Sack of Lawrence” produced solely two casualties—one on both sides. This incident is to not be confused with the later Lawrence Bloodbath in the course of the Civil Struggle in August 1863 by Accomplice guerrilla William Quantrill’s raid that killed over 160, principally civilians. The 1856 incident primarily consisted of Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones main a pressure of about 800 residents to Lawrence to implement a authorized warrant, and the harm to property consisted of the razing of the Free State Resort (then used as headquarters of Kansas’ anti-slavery forces) together with the residence of anti-slavery firebrand, Massachusetts-born Charles L. Robinson who was elected Kansas’ first state governor in 1861 and in 1862 grew to become the primary U.S. state governor—and solely Kansas governor—to be impeached. A single pro-slavery man was killed by being crushed in a collapsing constructing and a single anti-slavery man suffered a non-fatal damage.

Watts’s analysis proves conclusively that “Bleeding Kansas” was a delusion that grew from fabrications in biased newspapers and fueled by political events searching for to advertise partisan pursuits. Practically 1,000,000 Individuals would die making warfare on one another within the subsequent Civil Struggle, which was largely precipitated by the 1854-1860 “Bleeding Kansas” Border Struggle.

this text first appeared in navy historical past quarterly