The Saga of Bleeding Kansas

The Saga of Bleeding Kansas

Time Line

Compromise of 1850

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Wakarusa War

Pottawatomie Massacre

1820

1850

1854

1856

1855

Wyandotte Constitutional Convention

1859

Missouri Compromise

Allowed 2 additional states to enter the union, Missouri as a slave state and Maine as the free state.It also banned slavery in the lands of the Louisiana Purchase

Stated that California would enterUnion as free state, but the FugitiveSlave Act would be adopted. This Actgave southern states something theywanted.

This Act was based on popular sovereigntyand repealed the Missouri Compromise.It opened 2 new territories for settlement, Kansas and Nebraska, and they got to chooseif they were a free state or slave state.

ABOLITIONISTa person who advocated or supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S.

ANTISLAVERYopposed to slavery

BORDER RUFFIANpro-slavery activists from the slave state of Missouri, who in 1854 to 1860 crossed the state border into Kansas Territory, to force the acceptance of slavery there

BUSHWHACKERa guerrilla, especially a Confederate

PROSLAVERY the favoring or support of slavery

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTYthe doctrine that the inhabitantsof a territory should be free from federal interference in determining their own domestic policy, esp in deciding whether or not to allow slavery

KEY TERMS

occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers - some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles — killed five settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas

Started by the killing of a free-stater.The seige was part of the Wakarusa War.During the seige, the proslavery forcesblocked supplies from reaching Lawrence.A major attack on Lawrence never came,but the media interest in the War was intense

The fourth and final constitutional convention. The Wyandotte constitution made Kansas a free state. The document restricted most voting rights and service in the militia to white men. But it made some improvements in the rights of women.