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How Bloody Was Bleeding Kansas?

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Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 18 (2) (Summer 1995): 116–129 How Bloody Was Bleeding Kansas? Political Killings in Kansas Territory, 1854–1861 by Dale E. Watts consensus on the number of people who were killed for political reasons in territorial Kansas has never been established. Contemporary estimates were vague but were in- flated by implication. Richard Bowlby said in 1856, “Much blood has already been spilt on both sides, and scenes of outrage of the most diabolical character have been enact- Aed within the borders of Kansas.”1 Thomas H. Gladstone wrote a year later, “Murder and cold- blooded assassination were of almost daily occurrence at the time of my visit.”2 Newspaper ac- counts were even more sensational. Reporters from both the North and the South often stretched the truth as they wrote of the level of atrocity that was being inflicted on their partisans in Kansas.3 Typically no firm numbers of killings appeared in contemporary sources. One of the few con- crete estimates was included in the report of the Hoogland Claims Commission of 1859. It said: Dale E. Watts holds master’s degrees in historical museum administration from Cooperstown Graduate Programs, in gifted education from Em- poria State University, and in U.S. History from the University of Kansas. He currently is the historic sites research manager at the Kansas State His- torical Society. 1. Richard Bowlby, Kansas, the Seat of War in America (London: Effingham Wilson, 1856), 10. 2. Thomas H. Gladstone, Kansas; or Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the Far West (London: G. Routledge, 1857), 63. 3. See James C. Malin, John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1942), chapters 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 for the best discussion of the activities of the territorial and the national press. 116 KANSAS HISTORY A political conflict at Fort Titus, Douglas County, on August 16, 1856, resulted in the deaths of two proslavery men and one abolitionist. HOW BLOODY WAS BLEEDING KANSAS? 117 Although not within our province, we may be ex- of events. Both sides tended to overestimate the cused for stating that, from the most reliable in- level of carnage, sometimes to gain sympathy be- formation that we have been able to gather, by cause of their losses, sometimes to convince them- the secret warfare of the guerilla system, and in well-known encounters, the number of lives sac- selves and the world that they were destroying their rificed in Kansas during the period mentioned enemies in great numbers and thus were winning [November 1, 1855–December 1, 1856] probably the contest. One proslavery Atchison newspaper re- exceeded rather than fell short of two hundred.4 ported that fifteen proslavery men had been killed at the Battle of Black Jack in Douglas County in June Many historians have accepted this figure of two 1856.6 In reality no one on either side was killed dur- hundred, probably because it has been the only one ing the battle. The antislavery papers were not any available until recently. more accurate in their reporting. The Lawrence Her- In 1974 Robert W. Richmond arrived at a much ald of Freedom took the proslavery newspapers to lower total. He found that “approximately fifty per- task for exaggerating free-state losses at the Battle of sons died violently [for political reasons] during the Osawatomie in Lykins (Miami) County in August territorial period.”5 He admitted that it was difficult 1856, but in the same article the Herald made the to determine how many deaths really stemmed wild claim that thirty or forty dead proslavery men from the slavery controversy, but the number prob- were hauled from the battlefield.7 Only two of these ably was far lower than those that had been project- proslavery casualties can be documented. ed historically. This study will support Richmond’s conjecture eyond the problem of willful distortion, the and will show that the antislavery party was not the historical record is in confusion for a number innocent victim of violence that its propagandists, B of reasons. Records are incomplete, especially both contemporary and subsequent, tried to portray. those of the proslavery party which was over- Both sides employed violent tactics and both were whelmed by its victorious opponents. Many of the adept at focusing blame on their opponents, habitu- vanquished presumably took their papers with them ally claiming self-defense in any killings committed as they exited the territory, and the victors showed by their own men. However the antislavery party, as little interest in preserving those that remained. Sur- the ultimate victor in the contest, was in a position viving records often are imprecise, detailing the gen- to write the history of the period from its point of eral carnage of political warfare in Kansas Territory view. The facts, as nearly as they can be reconstruct- but failing in some cases to give sufficient informa- ed, do not support that view, at least in so far as it tion for the historian to establish the identity of killer pertains to the frequency and the one-sided inflic- and victim, much less the motive for the killing. tion of political killings. Records are contradictory. One of the most extreme The reconstruction of those facts is not easy. examples concerns the death of a Lieutenant Cline at Most of the information is contained in highly bi- the Battle of Middle Creek in Lykins (Miami) Coun- ased sources, materials that often were written for ty in August 1856. A.T. Andreas’ History of Kansas propagandistic purposes, not the accurate recording states that Cline was a proslavery man who was mortally wounded by antislavery men under Cap- tain Samuel Anderson.8 Yet in another section of the 4. “Report of the Hoogland Commission on Claims,” Wyandotte, Kansas Territory, July 11, 1859, in Report of the Committee of Claims, Re- ports of Committees of the House of Representatives, 36th Cong., 2d sess., H. 6. Squatter Sovereign (Atchison), June 10, 1856. Rept. 104, serial 1106, 93. 7. Herald of Freedom (Lawrence), November 1, 1856. 5. Robert W. Richmond, Kansas: A Land of Contrasts (St. Louis: 8. A.T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (Chicago: A.T. An- Forum Press, 1974), 61. dreas, 1883), 1103. 118 KANSAS HISTORY Antislavery leaders Charles Jennison (left) and John Brown (right). Their atrocities, committed in the name of the free-state cause, were not always politically motivated. same book Andreas depicts Cline as a free-state mil- personal feuds, the spasmodic functioning of fron- itary leader who was killed by proslavery Missouri- tier justice, and perhaps limitless other causes be- ans led by Captain John E. Brown.9 No evidence has sides the slavery issue. The goal of this study is to come to light to establish definitively whether Cline sort through these complexities and to identify was proslavery or antislavery, if either. those killings in which conflict over slavery can be Even if the records were more complete and demonstrated to have been a preponderant factor. consistent it still would be difficult to determine the Careful analysis indicates that two famous motives for the killings. Motivation is always com- killings usually considered to have been of a politi- plex. Layers of social and biological factors interact cal nature were not caused by the slavery contro- mysteriously to produce behavior. No one in Kan- versy. The first was the shooting of Charles Dow, a sas Territory, including the almost monomaniacal free stater, by Franklin Coleman, a proslavery advo- John Brown, acted strictly because of considerations cate, at Hickory Point in Douglas County. Dow and about slavery. People found themselves caught up Coleman had adjoining land claims. The neighbor- in violence stemming from land disputes, thievery, hood experienced some general conflict over land disputes, as was ubiquitous in new territories, but little agitation over slavery.10 In this case the conflict 9. Ibid., 145. Adding to the confusion is that Andreas wrote of two different Clines in the same passage: the “Lieut. Cline” mentioned here, 10. Testimony of John M. Banks before the Howard Commission, and a “Capt. Cline,” who subsequently fought with John Brown at the Report of the Special Committee to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas, Battle of Osawatomie. 34th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rept. 200, serial 869, 1057. HOW BLOODY WAS BLEEDING KANSAS? 119 Most killings in territorial Kansas historically have been attributed to the slavery controversy. Many, however, actually were the result of other factors, such as James Lane’s fatal shooting of Gaius Jenkins in 1858 over a land dispute. was to prove deadly. Because the official land sur- One of Dow’s friends, Jacob Branson, was arrested vey had not yet been completed, the boundaries of by a posse under Samuel Jones, sheriff of Douglas individual claims still were conjectural. In an at- County, on the complaint from a proslavery neigh- tempt to more accurately delineate his borders and bor that Branson had threatened his life. Antislavery perhaps to gain ownership of some valuable timber men rescued Branson from the sheriff, thereby defy- land, Dow marked off his lines from the Shawnee ing territorial authorities and precipitating open po- Reserve, which was two or three miles away from litical conflict. The aftermath was of great political his claim and had been surveyed. Most of the neigh- importance, but the killing itself was not of a politi- bors, including Coleman, favored waiting for the cal nature, even though Dow and Coleman’s differ- government surveyors to adjust the boundaries, but ing positions on slavery may have made it more dif- Dow insisted on taking possession of a strip of land ficult for them to reconcile their land dispute.13 about 250 yards wide from Coleman’s claim.11 Both The second incident in which killings habitually men tried to control the use of the contested land.
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