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On May 30, 1854 the
Kansas-Nebraska
Act was signed, which opened the two territories to white settlement
primarily so that a railroad could be built across the vast plains to
the Rockies. Though the area was reserved for the Indians, the
treaty was disregarded with the coming of the steam engine. Little did those long ago legislators realize the chain of events they
had set in motion that would end in the
Civil War and usher in an era
of violence that would plague the plains for the rest of the century.
The
Kansas-Nebraska
Act also repealed the
Missouri Compromise
and reopened the issue of extending slavery north, allowing the two
territories to decide the matter for themselves. As a result,
settlement of the state was spurred, not so much by westward
expansion, as by the determination of both
pro-slavery and abolitionist
factions to achieve a majority population in the territory.
With congressional power in the
grip of the Southerners, the federal government placed the volatile
issue of slavery into the hands of those settling the new territories.
Abolitionists, especially strong in New England, were pitted against
Southerners, who realized that if
Kansas became a
Free-State;
their strength in the congress would be eroded. To the South, this
tip in congressional power was a threat to their political, economic
and cultural existence.
Soon, New
England abolitionists began organizing emigrant aid societies to
encourage like-minded citizens to settle in the new territory. One of the men who joined the New England Emigrant Society and settled
in
Kansas for several years was
Horace Tabor,
before he moved on to
Leadville,
Colorado
to later become known as the famous "Silver King.”
Pro-slavery
interests in and throughout the South took counteraction. Towns
were established by each faction -
Lawrence and Topeka by the
Free-Staters and
Leavenworth and
Atchison by the
pro-slavery settlers.
On August
1, 1854, Twenty-nine northern emigrants, mostly from Massachusetts and
Vermont, were the first to arrive in
Lawrence,
Kansas,
named for Amos A.
Lawrence,
a promoter of the Emigrant Aid Society. A second party of 200 men,
women and children arrived in September.
Soon all the tasks required to organize a new
territory for statehood would become secondary to the single issue of
slavery.
On October 16, 1854, the first anti-slavery
newspaper was established to voice the sentiments of the New England
Emigrant Society. The newspaper called the Kansas Pioneer,
further enraged the
pro-slavery supporters. |
