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Border ruffians also engaged in general violence against Free-State settlements. They burned farms and sometimes murdered Free-State men. Most notoriously, border ruffians twice attacked Lawrence, the Free-State capital of the Kansas Territory. On December 1, 1855, a small army of border ruffians laid siege to Lawrence, but were driven off.
G. Murlin Welch, a historian of the territorial period described the Jayhawkers as bands of men that were willing to fight, kill, and rob for a variety of motives that included defense against pro-slavery "Border Ruffians", abolition, driving pro-slavery settlers from their claims of land, revenge, and/or plunder and personal profit. [19]
Just as had happened in the election of November 1854, "Border Ruffians" from Missouri again streamed into the territory to vote, and proslavery delegates were elected to 37 of the 39 seats—Martin F. Conway and Samuel D. Houston from Riley County were the only Free-Staters elected. Free-Staters loudly denounced the elections as fraudulent.
Finally, the Border Ruffians charged, and Brown's forces were forced into a retreat through the woods and back across a river. [1] Five of the Free-Staters were killed, including Frederick Brown, with several others wounded. The pro-slavery forces, instead of trying to catch Brown's men, then felt free to turn their attention to the town itself.
A reader asked about the history behind a memorial to Charles Carroll Spalding in Penn Valley Park. We unearthed the complicated story behind Kansas City’s first historian.
After taking 11 local free-staters hostage from their homes and fields, the border ruffians forced them into a nearby ravine and began shooting at them. 10 of the men were hit by the fire, five of them fatally. The wife of one of the victims followed the border ruffians to the site, and attempted to give medical treatment to the wounded.
Whereas, Certain judicial arrests have been directed to me by the First District Court of the United States, etc., to be executed within the county of Douglas, and whereas an attempt to execute them by the United States Deputy Marshal was evidently resisted by a large number of the people of Lawrence, and as there is every reason to believe that any attempt to execute these writs will be ...
Violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups began almost immediately. The conflict was especially bloody along the Kansas–Missouri border, where Missouri Border Ruffians and Kansas Free-Staters formed bands of partisan rangers to raid and pillage opposition strongholds, earning it the name "Bleeding Kansas".