Download The Kansas-Nebraska Act

The Kansas-Nebraska
Act of 1854
Creation of Kansas and
Nebraska
In 1854 the KansasNebraska Act
created the territories
of Kansas and
Nebraska.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the brain-child of Illinois Senator
Stephen A. Douglas.
The Question of Slavery
The most controversial part of the KansasNebraska Act was that it allowed the people
living in those territories to decide on the issue
of allowing or not allowing slavery.
This was called…
Popular Sovereignty
Reaction to Popular
Sovereignty

The New Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the
Missouri Compromise Line of 1820

Abolitionists were mad at the new law and began
to move into Kansas to assure that the new state
would be a free state

Pro-slavery settlers began to move into Kansas to
assure that it would be a slave state
The New United States Map
The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Horace
Greeley of the New York Tribune.
“Bleeding Kansas”
Bleeding Kansas was a series of
violent events, involving anti-slavery
and pro-slavery settlers, that took place
in the Kansas Territory and the western
frontier towns of the U.S. state of
Missouri between 1854 and 1858.
These incidents were attempts to
influence whether Kansas would enter
the United States as a free or slave
state.
Kansas Jayhawks

Jayhawkers was a term that was
given to militant bands affiliated
with the free-state cause in Bleeding
Kansas. These bands, known as
"Jayhawkers", were guerrilla
fighters who often clashed with proslavery groups from Missouri
known at the time as "Border
Ruffians". After the Civil War, the
word "Jayhawker" became
synonymous with the people of
Kansas. Today the term is a
nickname for a native-born Kansan.
Kansas Becomes a State

Pro-slavery settlers drew up a state
constitution and tried to achieve statehood
but were rejected in 1858 by the U.S.
Congress.

Eventually, in 1861, only months before the
start of the American Civil War, Kansas
was admitted to the United States as a free
state.
Violence in Kansas during the
Civil War
Pro- Slavery
Leader
William
Quantrill's
raid on
Lawrence,
Kansas in
August,
1863 killed
almost 200
people