Border ruffians were proslavery raiders who crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri during the mid-19th century to help ensure the territory entered the United States as a slave state. Their activities formed a major part of a series of violent civil confrontations known as "Bleeding Kansas", which peaked from 1854 to 1858. Crimes committed by border ruffians included electoral fraud, intimidation, assault, property damage and murder; many border ruffians took pride in their reputation as criminals. After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, many border ruffians fought on the side of the Confederate States of America as irregular bushwhackers.
The 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary reflects the 19th century understanding of the word ruffian as a "scoundrel, rascal, or unprincipled, deceitful, brutal and unreliable person".
Among the first to use the term border ruffian in connection with the slavery issue in Kansas was the Herald of Freedom, a newspaper published in Lawrence, Kansas. On October 8, 1857, it reported the following:
Gov. Reeder soon after March 30 visited Washington, hoping to induce Pres. Pierce to disregard the election. On his way there he stopped at his old home, Easton, Pa., and told the story of Kansas' wrongs, in a speech to his old neighbors. In this he designated the invaders as "Border Ruffians", and said they were led by their chiefs, David R. Atchison and B. F. Stringfellow. [1]
Armed with revolvers and Bowie knives, border ruffians forcefully interfered in the Kansas row over slavery. [2] [3] A correspondent for the London Times while visiting Kansas in 1856 reported many occurrences of the so-called bowie-knife voting in Kansas when voters were heckled and harassed by border ruffians. [4] In response, the New England Emigrant Aid Company shipped Sharps rifles to the Kansas Territory, in crates said to have been labeled "Bibles". [5] [6]
At that time, many Kansas settlers opposed slavery. However, slavery advocates were determined to have their way regardless. When elections were held, bands of armed border ruffians seized polling places, prevented Free-State men from voting, and cast votes illegally, falsely stating they were Kansas residents. [7] [8]
Border ruffians operated from Missouri. It was said that they voted and shot in Kansas, but slept in Missouri. [9] They not only interfered in territorial elections, but also committed outrages on Free-State settlers and destroyed their property. This violence gave the origin of the phrase "Bleeding Kansas". However, political killings and violence were exercised by both warring sides. [10] [11] [12]
The federal government did not interfere to stop the violence. [13] Hence, such ignominious episodes as the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, in May 1856 became possible. U.S. Senator David Rice Atchison (D-Missouri) personally incited the assembling mob:
Gentlemen, Officers & Soldiers! This is the most glorious day of my life! This is the day I am a border ruffian! ... Spring like your bloodhounds at home upon that d--d accursed abolition hole; break through every thing that may oppose your never flinching courage! Yess, ruffians, draw your revolvers & bowie knives, & cool them in the heart's blood of all those d--d dogs, that dare defend that d--d breathing hole of hell. [14] [15]
Border ruffians contributed to the increasingly violent sectional tensions, culminating in the American Civil War. [16]
Border ruffians did not constitute an organized group. They never had meetings, had no designated leaders, and no one ever directed any message to them as a body.
Border ruffians were driven by the rhetoric of politicians such as David Rice Atchison, Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow, John H. Stringfellow, editor of the pro-slavery newspaper Squatter Sovereign (Atchison, Kansas), and Speaker of the House in the First Kansas Territorial Legislature, the so-called Bogus Legislature. [17] and Rev. Thomas Johnson, a Methodist preacher. [18] Samuel J. Jones, and Daniel Woodson, a proslavery newspaper editor. [19] [20] [ page needed ] In particular, Atchison called Northerners "negro thieves" and "abolitionist tyrants". He encouraged Missourians to defend their institution "with the bayonet and with blood" and, if necessary, "to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the district". [21]
Few of the ordinary border ruffians actually owned slaves because most were too poor. Their motivation was hatred of Yankees and abolitionists, and fear of free Blacks living nearby. Kansas slavery was small-scale and operated mainly at the household level. [22] Most of the Kansans, according to historian David M. Potter, were concerned primarily about land titles. He pointed out that, "the great anomaly of 'Bleeding Kansas' is that the slavery issue reached a condition of intolerable tension and violence ... in an area where a majority of the inhabitants apparently did not care very much one way or the other about slavery." [23]
Frank W. Blackmar's encyclopedia of Kansas history summarizes how the rank-and-file among border ruffians took pride in both how they were called and what they were doing:
While the main objects of the Border Ruffian chiefs were the overthrow and destruction of free-state men and the establishment of slavery in Kansas, the ruffian border bands delighted in raiding towns, ransacking houses, stealing horses, and doing whatever they could that was annoying, exciting, and rough. The towns and country along the eastern tier of counties were raided with uncomfortable frequency. Free-state men holding claims were driven from them, elections were molested and crimes of violence committed. When the crash came between north and south many of these men became bushwhackers or guerrillas. [24]
The presence of violent bands of both Kansan and Missourian combatants made it difficult for settlers on the Kansas–Missouri border to remain neutral. [7]
The history of border ruffians is woven into the historical context of Bleeding Kansas, or the border war, a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas in 1854–1859. [25] Kansas Territory was created by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. The Act repealed the previous Federal prohibition on slavery in that area. Instead, the locally elected territorial legislature was to decide on the slavery issue. [7]
The first territorial census, taken in January–February 1855, counted 8601 people; 2905 were deemed eligible to vote; there were 192 enslaved in the Territory. [26] [ page needed ] [27]
After the Kansas–Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and allowed Kansans to vote on slavery, the opponents from both sides of the slavery debate started to recruit settlers to increase support of their causes.
Proslavery immigrants aided by the Lafayette Emigration Society, and anti-slavery settlers, established their own territorial enclave (such as Atchison and Leavenworth), and Free-State immigrants aided by the New England Emigrant Aid Company established theirs (such as Lawrence, Topeka). [28] [29] [30] This circumstance resulted in a deep partisan divide in regard to the slavery question among settlers and their civic and business leaders. Then extremists on both side resorted to arms. On the pro-slavery side violence was committed by the border ruffians and on the free-state side by the jayhawkers. [24] [31] [32] [33]
On November 29, 1854, border ruffians elected a pro-slavery territorial representative to Congress, John W. Whitfield. It was determined after a Congressional investigation that 60% of the votes were illegal. [23]
On March 30, 1855, border ruffians elected a pro-slavery Territorial Legislature, which introduced harsh penalties for speaking against slavery. [34] It was called the Bogus Legislature by Free-Staters due to the fact that border ruffians arrived en masse and there were twice as many votes cast than there were eligible voters in the Territory. Failure to ensure fair elections led to establishment of two territorial governments in Kansas, one pro-slavery and another Free State, each claiming to be the only legitimate government of the entire Territory. [23]
Despite all border ruffians' attempts to push anti-slavery settlers out of the Territory, far more Free-State immigrants moved to Kansas than pro-slavery.[ citation needed ] In 1857, the pro-slavery faction in Kansas proposed the Lecompton Constitution for the future state of Kansas. It tried to get the Lecompton Constitution adopted with additional fraud and violence, but by then there were too many Free-Staters there and the U.S. Congress refused to confirm it. [8]
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. This became the nearly bloodless climax to the "Wakarusa War".
On May 21, 1856, an even larger force of border ruffians and pro-slavery Kansans captured Lawrence, which they sacked. [7]
Free-State settlers struck back. Anti-slavery Kansan irregulars, led by Charles R. Jennison, James Montgomery, and James H. Lane, among others, and known as jayhawkers, attacked proslavery settlers and suspected border ruffian sympathizers. [35] Most notoriously, abolitionist John Brown killed five proslavery men at Pottawatomie. [7] [36] In revenge, a band of border ruffians, led by John W. Reid, sacked the village of Osawatomie, Kansas after the Battle of Osawatomie. [37]
T. W. Higginson, a minister, was instrumental in turning the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, a former subsidiary of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, into a nationally known organization. [38] It worked to recruit abolitionist settlers, raised funds for them to migrate to Kansas, and equipped them with rifles to use against border ruffians. [39] In 1856 it acquired 200 Sharps rifles for $4,947.88 that were shipped to Kansas via Iowa and ended in John Brown's hands. [40] In September 1858, it invested $3,800 in 190 Sharps rifles for Kansas. [41] Abolitionist Henry W. Beecher pronounced that,
Sharps rifle was a truly moral agency, and that there was more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred Bibles. You might just as well ... read the Bible to Buffaloes as those fellows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow; but they have a supreme respect for the logic that is embodied in Sharps rifles. [40]
It was documented that in 1855–1856 various aid organizations from free states spent at least $43,074.26 on rifles, muskets, revolvers, and ammunition, including one cannon, destined for Kansas. [40]
On July 9, 1856, the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee and the New England Emigrant Aid Company initiated the establishment of the Kansas National Aid Committee headquartered in Chicago. Thaddeus Hyatt, head of the national committee, began collecting money, arms, provisions, clothing, and agricultural supplies to aid the Free-State cause in Kansas. The goal was to transport five thousand settlers to Kansas Territory giving them a year's worth of supplies. [42]
A distribution depot was set up at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, where immigrants were furnished not only with horses and wagons and other supplies, but also with arms; they were organized into companies and drilled. The National Kansas Committee spent in 1856–1857 around US$100,000(equivalent to $3,390,000 in 2023) on the Free State cause. [40] [43]
On August 2, 1858, the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution of 1857 was rejected at the polls, signifying the defeat of border ruffians' cause. [44] On January 29, 1861, President James Buchanan signed the bill that approved the Wyandotte Constitution and Kansas came to the Union as a Free State. [45]
During the American Civil War, the violence on the Kansas-Missouri border not only continued, but escalated tremendously. Many of the former border ruffians became pro-Confederate guerrillas, or bushwhackers. They operated in western Missouri, sometimes raiding into Kansas, and Union forces campaigned to suppress them. Farms on the Missouri-Kansas state line were looted and burned. Suspected guerrillas were killed; in retaliation, bushwhackers murdered Union sympathizers and suspected informers. Confederate guerrilla leaders, such as "Bloody Bill" Anderson and William Quantrill, were feared in Kansas during the war. [46]
Many of the Union troops fighting bushwackers were former jayhawkers who held deep grudges against border ruffians. Charles R. Jennison recruited the 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment, which became known as the Jennison's Jayhawkers. In the fall and winter of 1861 and 1862, Jennison's Jayhawkers became infamous for looting and destroying the property of Missourians. [47]
Some of the jayhawkers joined a paramilitary group called the Red Legs. Wearing red gaiters and numbered around 100, Red Legs served as scouts during the punitive expedition of the Union troops in Missouri. Jayhawkers and Red Legs pillaged and burned multiple towns in 1861–1863 in Missouri.[ further explanation needed ] [48] [49] The destruction of Osceola, Missouri, is depicted in the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales . [50]
David Rice Atchison was a mid-19th century Democratic United States Senator from Missouri. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate for six years. Atchison served as a major general in the Missouri State Militia in 1838 during Missouri's Mormon War and as a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War under Major General Sterling Price in the Missouri Home Guard. Some of Atchison's associates claimed that for 24 hours—Sunday, March 4, 1849, through noon on Monday—he may have been Acting President of the United States. This belief, however, is dismissed by nearly all scholars.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 was a territorial organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. Douglas introduced the bill intending to open up new lands to develop and facilitate the construction of a transcontinental railroad. However, the Kansas–Nebraska Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, stoking national tensions over slavery and contributing to a series of armed conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas."
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.
The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the free state of Kansas.
Jayhawker and red leg are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers". After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan.
The sacking of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when pro-slavery settlers, led by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, attacked and ransacked Lawrence, Kansas, a town that had been founded by anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts who were hoping to make Kansas a free state. The incident fueled the irregular conflict in Kansas Territory that later became known as Bleeding Kansas.
The New England Emigrant Aid Company was a transportation company founded in Boston, Massachusetts by activist Eli Thayer in the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed the population of Kansas Territory to choose whether slavery would be legal. The company's ultimate purpose was to transport anti-slavery immigrants into the Kansas Territory. The company believed that if enough anti-slavery immigrants settled en masse in the newly-opened territory, they would be able to shift the balance of political power in the territory, which in turn would lead to Kansas becoming a free state when it eventually joined the United States.
The Wakarusa War was an armed standoff that took place in the Kansas Territory during November and December 1855. It is often cited by historians as the first instance of violence during the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions in the region.
Eli Thayer was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861. He was born in Mendon, Massachusetts. He graduated from Worcester Academy in 1840, from Brown University in 1845, and in 1848 founded Oread Institute, a school for young women in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is buried at Hope Cemetery, Worcester.
"Beecher's Bibles" was the name given to the breech-loading Sharps rifle that were supplied to and used by the anti-slavery settlers and combatants in Kansas, during the Bleeding Kansas period (1854–1860). The breech loading model 1853 Sharps Carbines were shipped in crates marked "Books and Bibles". After an 1856 article in the New-York Tribune carried a quote by Henry Ward Beecher, the Sharps Carbines became known as Beecher's Bibles.
Missouri Blue Lodges were secret proslavery societies formed in western Missouri during 1854 to thwart Northern anti-slavery plans to make Kansas a free state under the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They not only promoted the migration of proslavery settlers to Kansas but occasionally crossed the border to participate in the election of proslavery members to the territorial government.
Free-Staters was the name given to settlers in Kansas Territory during the "Bleeding Kansas" period in the 1850s who opposed the expansion of slavery. The name derives from the term "free state", that is, a U.S. state without slavery. Many of the "free-staters" joined the Jayhawkers in their fight against slavery and to make Kansas a free state.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Kansas was the newest U.S. state, admitted just months earlier in January. The state had formally rejected slavery by popular vote and vowed to fight on the side of the Union, though ideological divisions with neighboring Missouri, a slave state, had led to violent conflict in previous years and persisted for the duration of the war.
The Battle of Osawatomie was an armed engagement that occurred on August 30, 1856, when 250–400 pro-slavery Border ruffians, led by John W. Reid, attacked the town of Osawatomie, Kansas, which had been settled largely by anti-slavery Free-Staters. Reid was intent on destroying the Free-State settlement and then moving on to Topeka and Lawrence to do more of the same. Abolitionist John Brown first learned of the raiders when they shot his son Frederick. With just 40 or so men, Brown tried to defend the town against the pro-slavery partisans, but ultimately was forced to withdraw; five Free-Staters were killed in the battle, and the town of Osawatomie was subsequently looted and burned by Reid's men. The battle was one of a series of violent clashes between abolitionists and pro-slavery partisans in Kansas and Missouri during the Bleeding Kansas era.
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War, until being dishonorably discharged for murder and robbery.
Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow was a pro-slavery border ruffian in Kansas, when the slavery issue was put to a local vote in 1855 under the Popular Sovereignty provision.
Samuel Dexter Lecompte was an American jurist best known for his extreme pro-slavery views, his involvement in the events of Bleeding Kansas, and for being the founder and namesake of Lecompton, the erstwhile capital of the Kansas Territory.
The Marais des Cygnes massacre is considered the last significant act of violence in Bleeding Kansas prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. On May 19, 1858, approximately 30 border ruffians led by Charles Hamilton, a Georgia native and proslavery leader, crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri. They arrived at Trading Post, Kansas, in the morning and then headed back to Missouri. Along the way, they captured 11 abolitionist Free-Staters, none of whom were armed and, it is said, none of whom had participated in the ongoing violence. Most of the men knew Hamilton and apparently did not realize he meant them harm. These prisoners were led into a defile, where Hamilton ordered his men to shoot, firing the first and last bullet himself. Five men were killed and five severely wounded. Only one Free-Stater escaped injury.
Dunavant is an unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Kansas, United States.
John H. Stringfellow was an early physician of Kansas, one of the founders of Atchison, and speaker of the house in the first territorial legislature, the pro-slavery Bogus Legislature. He was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, son of Robert Stringfellow, a farmer, veteran of the War of 1812, merchant at Raccoon Ford on the Rapidan River, and Mary Plunkett, daughter of an early industrialist in Orange County, Virginia. Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow was his younger brother. He was educated at Caroline Academy, Va., Columbia University, and graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1845. Soon after, he relocated to Carrollton, Missouri, where he married Ophelia J. Simmons, niece of Missouri Governor John C. Edwards.