Feeding Kansas: Food, Famine, and Relief in Contested Territory The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Mulcare, Jerad Ross. 2016. Feeding Kansas: Food, Famine, and Relief in Contested Territory. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:26718737 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Feeding Kansas: Food, Famine, and Relief in Contested Territory A dissertation presented by Jerad Ross Mulcare to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2016 © 2016 Jerad Ross Mulcare All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Joyce E. Chaplin Jerad Ross Mulcare Feeding Kansas: Food, Famine, and Relief in Contested Territory Abstract “Feeding Kansas” is an analysis of how food and its availability shaped the experiences of settlers and Native Americans in the two decades following the opening of Kansas Territory in 1854. From the outset, food was central to conceptions of the plains. White settlers arrived in Kansas expecting a verdant Eden; their expectations were quickly altered by the realities of farming and living in the semi-arid region. This dissertation argues that, in the face of these realities, there emerged a Kansas aid complex, an overlapping set of institutions and practices that provided settlers with options to receive various forms of aid when they needed it. This system was put to the test in 1860, when the territory was struck by a devastating drought that, over the course of the year, became a famine. I argue that hungry settlers and Natives had expectations that the federal government would intervene on their behalf to prevent outright starvation, but only the treaty claims of the latter proved strong enough an incentive for the Buchanan administration to take any action. White Kansans were ultimately saved by a private aid network, one orchestrated and operated by abolitionists who understood that to keep Kansas fed was to keep it free as well. In 1874, Kansans again looked outward for help, as a “Grasshopper Plague” occurred that summer, bringing many of the same issues to the fore. In 1874-75, I argue, changing demographics on the plains and a significantly more powerful post- Civil War federal government led to a different outcome. Kansans were once again fed, but it was iii primarily because of the efforts of a group of Army officers stationed throughout the plains. Using promotional literature, travel narratives, diaries, newspapers, and government records, this dissertation reconsiders the “Bleeding Kansas” period, arguing that the divisive politics at the local and national levels concerning Kansas had a critical, heretofore under-examined environmental component. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements vi! Introduction 1! Chapter 1: Expectations & Arrivals 23! Chapter 2: The Kansas Aid Complex 61! Chapter 3: Feeding Kansas 104! Chapter 4: “Buchananism” & The Politics of Hunger, 1854–1861 148! Chapter 5: Insects & Armies, The “Grasshopper Plague” of 1874–75 191! Conclusion 231! Bibliography 238! v Acknowledgements I could not have completed this dissertation without the help of Joyce Chaplin. Since entering graduate school she has been an unfailingly supportive and encouraging mentor and advisor. I have tested the patience of what an advisor should deal with, with my topic changes, desire to take a year off to work on a farm, and several bouts of serious doubt about the entire academic enterprise. Joyce supported my decisions at each of these points, but also lent the guiding hand I needed to keep me on track toward my goal. She is the type of graduate advisor that others should be judged by; she is remarkably attentive, but never overbearing. Throughout my graduate career I have been thankful that she has allowed me to pursue the questions that truly interest me, not simply limit myself to what interested me as first-year student. In addition to looking to her as a mentor and advisor, I also consider her a friend. Though my days of serving as her teaching assistant in Venice are over, I look forward to visiting La Serenissima in the future to share in some cicchetti and spritz, this time as a friend and colleague, not just a graduate student. The remaining members of my dissertation committee, Rachel St. John and Walter Johnson, were also instrumental in helping me see this dissertation to the end. Rachel, from the outset, has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project, and she has consistently pushed me to make it better. Her expertise on the history of the American West has helped me better understand my own work in that context, and I learned much about nineteenth-century American history more broadly from her course at Harvard and her commentary on this work. Rachel also generously gave many hours of her vi time to several very thorough readings of the entire manuscript at the end stages, ensuring that what I was arguing was coherent and compelling. I asked Walter Johnson to be on my committee late in the process. He graciously agreed and has been a helpful and encouraging reader since. I owe my interest in history and appreciation of the work that historians do to several professors, both at the University of Oklahoma, and at Harvard. First, Josh Piker was exactly the mentor a wandering undergraduate like myself needed—simultaneously demanding, and encouraging. My interest in American history began in his Colonial America course at OU, and has branched out wildly from there. Likewise, Cathy Kelly and James Hart were instrumental in making me appreciate what historians do, and giving me the encouragement to try my own hand at it as an undergraduate. While at Harvard, I worked with several professors whose keen insights into history and the academic profession shaped me as a scholar: David Armitage, Vince Brown, Jill Lepore, Susan O’Donovan, and Malinda Maynor Lowery. I am thankful for their advice and guidance, both professional, intellectual, and personal. Harvard, like all large institutions, can be a bureaucratic nightmare, but several people have made my years as a graduate student much easier with their deft navigation of university policies and procedures. Dan Bertwell has been a remarkable Graduate Coordinator, ensuring that my paperwork is always in order, and responding to my seemingly endless inquiries with patience and kindness; his predecessors, Matthew Corcoran and Gail Rock deserve mention as well. Laura Johnson, Kimberley O’Hagan, and Cory Paulsen have also been generous with their time and attention; they are but a few of the unsung heroes of the Harvard history department. There have been many different professors in the position of Director of Graduate Studies while I have been at Harvard, all of whom have surely vii helped make the experience of being a graduate student here a generally pleasant one. Two in particular—David Armitage and Alison Frank Johnson—provided me much-needed guidance and support at different times during my time at Harvard. I tested the central argument of this dissertation in 2010 at the annual conference of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic. I am grateful to commentator, Greg Nobles, my co-presenter, MacKenzie Moore, and the many attendees whose offered incisive comments and suggestions on what directions I could take my research. Conevery Bolton Valencius gave a very close reading of two chapter drafts, and her comments were instrumental in making this dissertation better than it would be otherwise. Joshua Specht deserves thanks as well. Through many conversations about history and historiography, he helped me pinpoint what was interesting and novel in my work, which undoubtedly improved the final product. I am very thankful for the multiple sources of funding that have made my graduate studies possible. The generous funding structure provided by Harvard University deserves mention, particularly the generosity of the Berenson family, whose graduate fellowship provided me with full funding for two years of study. The Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Harvard University Native American Program, and the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies also provided critical funding for research and presentation. I would be remiss to not also thank Erin Quinn, whose financial support allowed me to live within walking distance of campus, take needed research trips, and remain ignorant of what instant ramen noodles actually taste like. The bulk of the archival research for this project was undertaken during a three-week visit to the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka. Archivists and librarians are a vital part of the viii enterprise of writing history, and the staff of the KSHS has certainly contributed greatly to this project. Teresa Coble, Susan Forbes, Lin Fredericksen, and Sara Keckeisen all made my visit to Topeka a pleasant and productive one. Sara deserves special mention for kindly (and quickly) responding to a frantic, last-minute email request regarding a citation issue I was having while finalizing the dissertation. I would also like to acknowledge the many people--volunteers and staff--that have built and maintained the Kansas Memory website (kansasmemory.org), a remarkable digital repository of the KSHS collections that made research for this project easier than it would have been otherwise. The staffs of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Harvard University Libraries, and the Spencer Library at the University of Kansas were also instrumental in allowing me to wrap my head around the source base of this project.