CHAPTER V. TERRITORIAL TIMES. TERRITORY ACQUIRED FROM FRANCE IN 1803—ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORY— KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT—IMMIGRATION TO KANSAS—TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT— FREE STATE AND PRO-SLAVERY CONFLICT—FIRST ELECTION—SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS—BORDER WAR ACTIVITIES AND OUTRAGES— CONTESTS OVER ADOPTION OF CONSTITUTION—KANSAS ADMITTED TO THE UNION. Kansas is as rich in historic lore and resources as any other region of the great West. George J. Remsburg, who has contributed two chapters of this history, has, with great care and accuracy, put into readable form an account of prehistoric times, Indian occupancy and the record of earlier explorers in northeastern Kansas. It is a tale of absorbing interest to those who would go back to the dawn of civilization here and study the force and character of men who paved the way for the developments that came after. To the intrepid Spanish conquerors of Mexico of the sixteenth century, and the hardy French explorers, two centuries later, we are indebted for the opening up of the Great American Desert, into which American pioneers, the century following, found their way. Thousands of years before these came, Atchison county had been the abode of hunting tribes and the feasting place of wild animals. Then came the ceaseless flow of the tide of civilization, which swept these earlier denizens from the field, to clear it for the “momentous conflict between the two opposing systems of American civilization, then struggling for mastery and supremacy over the Republic.” It was in Kansas that the war of rebellion began, and it was in the northeastern corner along the shores of the Missouri river—in Atchison county—“that the spark of conflict which had irritated a Nation for decades burst into devastating flames.” It is a delicate task to convey anything approaching a truthful account of the storm and stress of opinions and emotions which accompanied the organization of Kansas as one of the great American commonwealths, and the part played by the citizens of Atchison county in that tremendous work, but sixty years have served to mellow the animosities and bitternesses of the past, and it is easier now to comprehend the strife of that distant day and pass unbiased judgment upon it.