today we're looking to Bleeding Kansas
hello welcome to the day of the bell ring please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the
questions down in the description also I'd love to see your answer question number five in the
comments below so Bleeding Kansas I'm attorney Kansas really refers to the guerilla war that
broke out in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups between 1854 basically
through 1861 really this is a mini civil war that is kind of the predecessor to the Civil
War that's going to grip the entire nation now is this happens as a result of the Kansas and
Nebraska Act which was passed in May of 1854 if you remember the Kansas Nebraska Act allowed
slavery to spread into western territories based on the idea of popular sovereignty that people
could vote in those territories when they applied for statehood whether or not they want to be slave
state or a free State now in March of 1855 Kansas was ready to vote for a territorial legislature
which is basically kind of the first step towards getting statehood all right and it would dictate
this legislature would dictate whether this was really a free state or a slave state now despite
the fact that most of the settlers in Kansas favored being a free state when the time came
for the election there were a bunch of people from Missouri that crossed over the border into Kansas
and they begin to basically wreck the polls and they're known they become known as border ruffians
these guys that come over and vote and actually in the vote itself there was only 1,500 people living
in Kansas at the time but when the vote was taken there were over 6,000 votes that were cast so what
ends up happening of course is the pro-slavery group ends up winning the legislature and they
begin to write laws that favor pro-slavery in fact maybe in the right laws that say you cannot
be involved in our government unless you are pro-slavery so of course the free slavery are
the free state supporters they're outraged by this and they decide to hold their own election
they decide to set up their own government and so by 1856 we have two opposing governments in
Kansas the pro-slavery group sets up their Center in Lecompton Kansas while the anti-slavery group
sets up basically their capital in Topeka Kansas and both governments begin form their own armies
and so of course they begin to clash and we became out of this little mini civil war that breaks
out and so on May 21st of 1856 one of the most famous incidents of Bleeding Kansas takes place
800 pro-slavery southerners surround the town of Lawrence Kansas which was kind of a part of some
of the the Free State activity and they go in and begin to basically just destroy the town they fly
a flag that says southern rights one of their main targets was to take out the Free State Hotel in
Lawrence and actually have artillery with him at a cannon with them and they turn it on the hotel and
they destroy the hotel and they go on to loot the town so that occurs on May 21st but the talk of
what's going on in Kansas has or is being debated of course in Washington DC and actually on May
22nd violence breaks out in Congress in Washington DC over this issue of Kansas abolitionists Charles
Sumner who was one of the big leaders and trying to stop the spread of slavery and stop slavery
period he gives this speech a few days earlier basically saying how terrible it is in Kansas
what's going on that the food of these pro-slavery groups are basically just you know cheating the
system and they're they're taking over well of course southerners didn't like what he had to
say especially a southerner from South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks and he actually goes
on to the floor of the Senate and at acts Charles Sumner with a cane beating him in the head and you
know causing brain damage basically all right and so we have violence breaking out there in
Congress over this issue of Kansas and so word of the attack at Lawrence begins begins to spread
across the state and of course word of the attack on Charles Sumner became to spread and it reaches
John Brown okay John Brown is this abolitionist who has come to Kansas to try to fight against the
pro-slavery groups and John Brown is not different Kitab abolitionist he doesn't necessarily believe
in a peaceful resolution to slavery he believes it's going to take the violence and when he when
he gets word of this his sons actually say that that John Brown just snaps that something just
happens that he's like I'm going to take revenge for what happened at warrants and what happened
with Charles Sumner all right and so on the night of May 24th 1856 John Brown five of his sons and
three other followers they go to this little settlement known as Pottawatomie Creek course
right on the pond amount water me Creek there in Kansas and they know that this settlement
is basically a pro-slavery settlement and so they go and they start dragging guys from their
houses and killing them and killing them very violently actually using broad swords to kill
these pro-slavery men they end up killing five pro-slavery men there at Potawatomi Creek and so
John Brown becomes you know infamous he becomes known as Potawatomi Brown for being responsible
for the Potawatomi massacred so he goes into hiding and he'll resurface of course few years
later when we see the raid on Harpers Ferry but violence in Kenya Kansas continues and the issue
of slavery wasn't really settled until the Civil War is really beginning it isn't until January
1861 that Kansas is a minute as a free state but the conflict divides the Democratic Party even
further it serves as a way for the Republican farm party to begin to form and argue against
the spread of slavery so bleeding Kansas really contributed to the division of the country which
eventually leads us toward civil war hopefully you learned something there and thanks for watching
you