Kansas
and Nebraska were important areas for growing wheat, corn, oats and
rye and were therefore popular places for migrants from the eastern
areas of American to settle. In 1854 Stephen
A. Douglas
introduced his Kansas-Nebraska
bill to the Senate. These states could now enter the Union with or
without slavery. Frederick Douglass
warned that the bill was "an open invitation to a fierce and
bitter strife".
The result of this legislation was to open the territory to organised
migrations of pro-slave and anti-slave groups. Southerners now entered
the area with their slaves while active members of the Anti-Slavery
Society also arrived. Henry Ward Beecher,
condemned the bill from his pulpit and helped to raise funds to supply
weapons to those willing to oppose slavery in these territories. These
rifles became known as Beecher's Bibles. John
Brown and five of his sons, were some of the
volunteers who headed for Kansas.
Kansas elected its first legislature in March, 1855. Although less
than 2,000 people were qualified to take part in these elections,
over 6,000 people voted. These were mainly Missouri slave-owners who
had crossed the border to make sure pro-slavery candidates were elected.
The new legislature passed laws that imposed the death penalty for
anyone helping a slave to escape and two years in jail for possessing
abolitionist literature.
In
January 1861 Kansas entered the Union as a Free State. During the
American Civil War Kansas provided 20,000
soldiers from the Union Army. This made
it a target and on 21st August 1863, the Quantrill
Raiders raided the town of Lawrence. attacked
the town of Lawrence. During the raid Quantrill's gang killed 150
inhabitants and destroyed over 180 buildings.
After
the American Civil War there was a
great demand for meat in the northern and eastern parts of the United
States. It is estimated that at this time there were over 5 million
Longhorns
in
Texas. Between
1866 to 1895 some 10 million cattle were taken to the railroad cowtowns.
The main route from Texas to Kansas was the Chisum
Trial
and the Goodnight Trail.
The
task of the cowboy was to take part in
cattle drives where cattle were driven from Texas to the railroad
cowtowns in Kansas (Ellsworth,
Abilene,
Dodge
City,
Wichita
and Newton).
Family
and their sod house in Nebraska.
(1)
Everett Dick, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890 (1937)
These young emigrant couples, having joined their life interests,
came West with high hopes and optimistic plans for the future.
With little more than their health and hands as initial capital,
they were ready to brave any hardship in the hope of securing
a home on the prairie. In fewer instances older couples with children
came to improve their circumstances and face the unfavorable
conditions of nature.
Four factors in the life
of the plains' settler made life difficult: the
perpetual winds, the absence of water, the terrific heat, and the
absence of trees. A fifth, the deadening cold, was particularly severe
in the Dakotas. There can be no doubt that the real burden of these
adverse conditions fell upon the wife and mother.
Courageously the frail
girl broke old ties in the East hardly daring to hope ever to see
her old home and friends again. Resolutely and tearfully she turned
her back on the comforts of the East, the excellent furniture, flowers
and garden, to face life on the bleak prairie in a dugout with but
meager furniture and the monotonous solitude of the prairies.
(2)
Leola Howard Blanchard, Conquest of Southwest Kansas (1931)
Occasionally children became lost on the prairie. In 1868 in Lancaster
County, Nebraska, two children, seven and eight and a half years old,
wandered out to where their brother was herding cattle. They became
lost in the high grass. The parents sought for them for four days
and, thinking that the wolves had eaten them, mourned them as dead.
A neighbor brought word they had been at his house and he had given
them some food but, not knowing they were lost, had let them go. Finally
after they had been absent eleven days, the father found them purely
by accident. They were sleeping in the high grass. Their clothing
was torn and they were so weak from lack of food that they could not
walk. The father carried the little girl on his back some distance,
then set her down and went back for the little boy; thus alternately
carrying his precious burdens, he finally brought them back home safely.
(3)
Frank Root, The Overland Stage to California (1901)
The pioneers of Kansas, particularly a number who settled on the frontier
- along the upper valleys of the Smoky Hill, Republican, Solomon,
and Saline rivers - practically owed their lives to the existence
of the buffalo. For years in the early '60's a goodly portion of the
meat consumed by those early settlers was cut from the carcass of
the noble, shaggy animal which so long existed as monarch of the plains.
Thousands of people who at an early day went overland to Utah, Oregon
and California drew their supply of meat from the buffalo. Where this
life preserver was found, it was known that, by following their paths,
near by water would be found. The principal article of fuel found
on the frontier for cooking the meat of the buffalo was the dried
excrement of the animal, known in early Kansas and Nebraska parlance
as "buffalo chips." The buffalo was one of the noblest of
all animals. It seemed indispensable. It furnished man with an abundance
of the most wholesome meat; the hide was made into shoes and garments
worn during the day, and it made a comfortable bed and supplied warm
covering in or out of doors at night.
The last
herd of buffalo that I ever saw in the wild, native state was in the
fall of 1870. It was along the Kansas Pacific railroad near the headwaters
of the Smoky Hill river. The railroad had just been built, and the
animals seemed terribly frightened at the cars. In their mad race
westward along the railroad, they actually kept up with the passenger-train,
which was moving along from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour. The
race became exciting, and all of the passengers, many of whom had
never seen a buffalo, held their breath in suspense. It was noticed
that the animals never changed their course, but kept steadily coming
nearer the train, apparently determined to cross the track at the
curve a short distance beyond. Not caring for a collision which might
possibly derail the train, the engineer gave up the race and whistled
"down brakes," stopping within a few rods of the animals
to let them cross. A parting salute was given by
some of the passengers, who emptied the chambers of their six- shooters
among the beasts, but which they did not appear to mind any more than
a blast from a toy pop-gun. While these animals used to cover the
plains of western Kansas and Nebraska in countless millions, hardly
one of them is now left to remind us of the once noble and powerful
herds originally known in the great West as "crooked back oxen."
For four
years-1865-1869-during the lively era of constructing the Pacific
railroad and its branches, no less than 250,000 buffaloes were slaughtered
in Kansas and other western states. From 1869 to 1876 the greatest
slaughter took place, and the number in those years slain ran up into
the millions. The animals had become quite scarce in the later '70's
and the early '80's, yet no less than one and a half million buffaloes
were killed The year 1870 was a great year in hunting the buffalo,
during which time upwards of two million were killed in Kansas, Indian
Territory and Texas. ''
The most conspicuous person
engaged in the great slaughter was the intrepid scout and Indian fighter,
Col. William F. Cody who has been more familiarly known as "Buffalo
Bill." In 1867, when the Kansas Pacific railroad was being built
across the plains to Denver, Cody, then a young man, made a contract
with the railway officials to keep its officials supplied with buffalo
meat. For doing this he received $500 per month. He was engaged in
this work eighteen months, during which time he killed an average
of about eight a day-in all 4280 buffaloes; and this is how Cody be-
came the renowned "Buffalo Bill."
(4)
Samuel Prouty, Dodge City Globe (18th August, 1885)
The experience of all cattle towns is
that their growth has been held in check during the period when they
depended upon the cattle traffic for support. The country surrounding
could not be developed while it was being held for stock ranges. Abilene,
Wichita, Newton, Ellsworth and Great Bend have all been cattle towns.
They all supposed they would be ruined when the cattle trails departed
from them. They were mistaken. Those towns all shot ahead with amazing
rapidity when the cattle business left them. Dodge city has been for
the past ten years an exclusive cattle town. The cattle traffic made
money for its citizens but it did not make a town. It was a question
whether the country would ever warrant the making of a respectable
town here. The rains of the past three years, the assurance that the
soil of the country is susceptible of successful cultivation, the
recent absorption of the public domain by settlers, the removal of
the cattle trail and the rapidly disappearing cowboy, have now thoroughly
convinced our people that a permanent commercial metropolis at this
point is demanded by the needs of the country.
(5)
John Martin, governor of Kansas, letter to Robert Wright, mayor of
Dodge
City (5th November, 1885)
The fact is the condition
of affairs in Dodge, instead of improving, as I had hoped, seems to
be growing worse. I hear, every now and then, of robberies committed
on innocent strangers, who have come to Kansas to seek homes. Visitors
inform me that the saloons are increasing, not only in numbers, but
in depravity; and that thieves, desperadoes, gamblers and criminals
generally, are multiplying. It is also alleged that these lawless
characters dominate in the city; that they have terrorized all the
better elements of society; that they openly and defiantly flaunt
their viciousness and depravity; and that they appear to think there
is no power or authority that can reach or punish them.
(6)
Robert
Wright, mayor of Dodge
City,
letter to John
Martin, governor
of Kansas (9th November, 1885)
You must recollect that our situation is different from that
of other towns in the Eastern part of the State, which have always
enjoyed the benefits of churches, schools & other civilizing influences.
We have always been a frontier Town, where the wild & reckless
sons of the Plains have congregated, their influences are still felt
here, but we are rapidly overcoming them, let us alone & we will
work out our own salvation in due season. I flatter myself that I
know how to handle the boys, they cannot be driven. Please do not
borrow trouble Governor about the conduct or management of Dodge City.
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