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The answer to who led the raids on Kansas may surprise you. These men were known as the Jayhawkers, and their story is one of courage and determination.
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The Raids on Kansas
The Raids on Kansas were a series of violent events in the Kansas Territory during the time leading up to the American Civil War. The raids were carried out by pro-slavery elements from Missouri, against anti-slavery elements, mostly from New England.
The Border War
The Border War, which lasted from 1854 to 1865, was a series of violent confrontations between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups in the American West, particularly in the states of Kansas and Missouri. The violence culminated in the American Civil War.
The conflict began with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and opened them up to white settlement. Pro-slavery settlers from Missouri soon began moving into Kansas with the intention of making it a slave state, while anti-slavery settlers from New England and other northern states also moved into the territory with the intention of making it a free state.
This led to a series of clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups, which reached a fever pitch in May 1856 when a group of pro-slavery raiders destroyed an anti-slavery town called Lawrence. In response, anti-slavery raiders led by John Brown attacked a pro-slavery settlement called Pottawatomie Creek, killing five men.
These raids were just a prelude to the larger conflict that would erupt across Kansas and the entire country over the next decade.
The Jayhawkers
The Jayhawkers were a group of anti-slavery vigilantes from Kansas Territory who clashed with proslavery forces from Missouri. The violence reached its peak in 1856, when dozens of people were killed in the “Bloody Kansas” conflict.
The Jayhawkers were led by abolitionist John Brown, who advocated for armed resistance against slavery. Brown and his followers raided settlements and stealing horses and supplies. They also targeted Proslavery settlers, and on May 24, 1856, they killed five men in the town of Pottawatomie.
The killings provoked a violent response from Proslavery groups, who began raiding Kansas themselves. The violence continued for several years, until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
The Missouri Bushwhackers
In the fall of 1862, 4,000 Missourians under the command of Major General Sterling Price descended on Kansas in an attempt to wrest the state from Union control and bring it back into the fold of the Confederacy. The Missouri Bushwhackers, as they were called, were a motley crew of ex-Confederate soldiers, border ruffians, and criminals. They looted and burned their way across Kansas, terrorizing the populace. When they reached Lawrence, they sacked the city and killed more than 150 men and boys in one of the most notorious atrocities of the Civil War. The raiders were eventually turned back by a combined force of Kansas militia and Union troops, but not before wreaking havoc on the state.
Who Led the Raids on Kansas?
The raids on Kansas were led by John Brown. Brown was a white abolitionist who believed in using violence to end slavery. He and his followers staged several raids on Kansas slaveholders in 1856. These raids resulted in the deaths of several people, including a U.S. Senator.
The Jayhawkers
The Jayhawkers were a group of abolitionist settlers from Indiana and Illinois who, in the 1850s, moved to the Kansas Territory to help make it a free state. The Jayhawkers were opposed by another group of settlers known as the Border Ruffians, who were proslavery. The two groups clashed over the issue of slavery, and this led to a series of raids on Kansas by the Jayhawkers.
The Missouri Bushwhackers
The Missouri Bushwhackers were a group of pro-slavery raiders who attacked anti-slavery settlements in Kansas during the American Civil War. The Bushwhackers were made up mostly of Missourian farmers and slaveholders who were opposed to Kansas’ admission to the Union as a free state. Led by William Clarke Quantrill, the Bushwhackers waged a campaign of terror against Jayhawkers and other opponents of slavery in Kansas. Their most notorious atrocity was the Lawrence Massacre, in which they killed more than 150 civilians.
