=Trouble in Southeastern Kansas.= These events of Territorial history
occurred within a small area. With Lawrence as a center, a circle with
a radius of thirty miles would include virtually all of them. Another
part of Kansas, the southeastern, including what is now Miami, Linn
and Bourbon counties, came into prominence at this time and showed
that the period of bloodshed was not yet past. The southeastern part
of the Territory had been settled largely by proslavery people, but
gradually the Northerners began to come in. The proslavery people
frequently made raids on them, the free-state settlers retaliated, and
southern Kansas was soon in the midst of a guerrilla warfare. The
free-state people engaged in this warfare came to be known as
Jayhawkers.[14] Their leader was a man named James Montgomery.
=The Marais des Cygnes Massacre.= These conditions continued until in
the spring of 1858. While the Lecompton and Leavenworth constitutions
were being considered in the Territory, there occurred in Linn County
the Marais des Cygnes massacre, the most shocking and bloody event of
the whole Territorial period. A Southerner named Hamelton made up a
list of free-state men whom he planned to seize and execute. On May
19, almost two years to the day after the Pottawatomie massacre by
John Brown, Hamelton with a gang of Missourians captured eleven of the
free-state men, marched them to a near-by gulch, lined them up and
fired a volley. Five men were killed, five were wounded, and one
remained unharmed. This terrible deed created great excitement, and an
unsuccessful attempt was made to capture Hamelton and his men.[15]
=Order Restored.= Steps were taken to bring about a more settled
condition in southeastern Kansas. Though several other outrages took
place, none of them was so barbarous as the Marais des Cygnes
massacre, and order was gradually restored.
=Proslavery and Free-state Names Dropped.= During the trouble over the
Lecompton Constitution in the closing days of 1857 Governor Walker was
compelled to resign, and in the autumn of 1858 Governor Denver, who
succeeded him, voluntarily resigned. Although Denver was the fifth
Territorial Governor, he was the first one who had not been compelled
to give up his office. This was one of the indications that better
days were beginning in Kansas. Lawlessness was practically over. The
South was no longer hopeful of making Kansas a slave state. The
settlers dropped the terms proslavery and free-state, and identified
themselves with the National political parties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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