Download Ad Astra Per Aspera: Kansas Becomes a State

(Ch. 5 – Pages 96-119)
1861 – Kansas becomes a state and Topeka the capital
1861 - 1865 – The Civil War
1862 – James Lane recruits African-American
soldiers for the First Colored Infantry
1863 – Quantrill and Confederates raid Lawrence
1864 – Battle of Mine Creek and Sand Creek Massacre
1866 – Construction on Capitol Building Begins
1867 – Medicine Peace Lodge Treaty
Fort Atkinson was established 8 August 1850
Fort Aubrey was established early in September 1865
Fort Belmont was built about 1860
Fort Dodge was established April 10, 1865
Fort Harker was established in August of 1864
Fort hays was established October 11, 1865
Fort Larned was established October 22, 1859
Fort Mann was established in 1845
Fort Leavenworth, was established May 8, 1827
Fort Monument was established in Nov. of 1865
 Jan.
29, 1861 - Kansas statehood
begins
 State
government based on Wyandotte
Constitution
 Charles
Robinson elected first
governor
“Kansas has been the testing ground for
every experiment in morals, politics, and
social life...every political fallacy nurtured
by misfortune, poverty, and failure... has
here found tolerance and advocacy...
something startling has always happened,
or has been constantly anticipated.”
~ John James Ingalls


Proposed state
motto and designed
state seal (though
seal was changed)
as secretary of state
Member of the 1859
Wyandotte
Constitutional
Convention
Kansas State and U.S. Constitutions
Kansas State
Constitution
Slavery
Women’s
Suffrage
United States
Constitution
Bill of Rights prohibited
slavery (1861)
Did not prohibit
slavery until 13th
Amendment (1865)
Women given right to
vote in school board
elections (1861)
Did not allow women
to vote until the 19th
Amendment (1920)
Populi Voce Nata
“Born of the Popular Will”
Seal of the
Territory of Kansas
Ad Astra Per Aspera
“To the Stars Through Difficulty”
Seal of the
State of Kansas
Landscape with a rising sun (the east). River and steamboat (commerce).
Settler's cabin and a man plowing a field (agriculture). Wagons heading
west (American expansion/pioneer life). Seal also shows Indians hunting
buffalo, 34 stars (34th state to join Union) and the state motto (“Ad Astra
Per Aspera”).



Drouthy: thirsty or dry
The artist Henry Worrall attempted to improve
the image of Kansas as a dry and
uninhabitable place
What persuasive techniques did Worrall show
in his painting?
Ad Astra Per Aspera
“To the Stars Through
Difficulty”

Wyandotte Constitution modeled after U.S.
Constitution

Document has Bill of Rights

Inalienable - incapable of being alienated,
surrendered or transferred
Legislative Branch

Makes and passes laws

Two chambers: House of Representatives and

Senate - 40 members who serve four-year terms

House of Representatives - 125 members who
Senate
serve two-year terms
Executive Branch

Administer laws passed by legislature

Headed by Governor who may serve up to two
four-year terms


Includes Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of
State, Attorney General, State Treasurer and
other agency directors
Governor can approve or veto bills
Judicial Branch

Interpret laws and settle disputes between
people

Hear criminal cases where the state brings
charges against a person

State Supreme Court has 7 justices appointed
by the governor


A criminal case
involves a crime. The
court decides if a
person is guilty and
what punishment fits
the crime.
Remember – All people
are innocent until
proven guilty (It’s the
American way)

A civil case is
between two parties
that have a dispute
over such things as
money or property
rights.

Local governments include city and county
government.

Makes local laws called ordinances

Makes sure federal, state and local laws are followed

Provides important services, safe communities and a
desirable place to live

Federal (United States), State (Kansas), Local: County
(Johnson County), City (Olathe)
Charles Robinson
1st Governor of Kansas
Sam Brownback
46th Governor of Kansas

This media file is in the public domain in the
United States. This applies to U.S. works
where the copyright has expired, often
because its first publication occurred prior to
January 1, 1923. See this page for further
explanation.

Drought, failing crops and, in some areas, scarce
drinking water

No money in the state treasury, and state was in
debt

No guns or ammunition in state armory – a
storehouse for arms

Hostile border with proslavery Missouri
Relief Committee – appealed to
the government, churches and people to
provide assistance to the starving people
of Kansas
 Kansas
Broadsides – advertisement or public
notice printed on a large piece of paper


Thad Allton/The CapitalJournal
After a century of debate
concerning the artwork at the
Statehouse, the "Ad Astra"
statue was placed on the
Capitol dome in October.




One month after Battle of
Mine Creek
Trail from Kansas to gold
fields in Colorado ran
through Cheyenne and
Arapaho lands
About 700 US volunteer
soldiers attacked
Cheyenne Chief Black
Kettle’s camp, killing more
than 150 Indians
Led to further distrust
between Indians and
European Americans.



Three treaties signed between the US Gov.
and Indians on the plains - Cheyenne,
Arapaho, Kiowa, Apache and Comanche at
Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas
Plains Indians considered Medicine Lodge
sacred area and the river to have healing
powers
US Gov. wanted peace with Plains Indians by
having tribes live on reservations. But many
Indians refused.



US Gov. promised to
protect Indians from
whites and provide them
with schools, farming
tools and food
Treaties opened up area
for American settlement
and the railroad
Some tribes chose to live
on reservations; others
chose to remain free.


Flew an American flag (given to
him by Pres. Lincoln and a
white flag from his tipi – but
the signals were ignored
Colorado forces killed 163
Cheyenne by shooting or
stabbing. They burned down
the village encampment. Most
of the victims were women and
children. For months
afterward, members of the
militia displayed trophies in
Denver of their battle,
including body parts they had
taken for souvenirs




Abolitionist
Julia and her husband, Charles
Lovejoy, a moved to Kansas
Terr. in 1855 from New
Hampshire as part of the New
England Emigrant Aid Company
Built the first house in
Manhattan, later moved to
Lawrence
Diary and letters reveal what
life was like during the
territorial days of Kansas
“My neighbors began to clear their houses of
all their valuables, and secrete them in woods
and cornfields. I caught a little tin trunk with
our valuable papers and husband’s watch in
it…and concealed it in tall weeds…Nearer and
nearer they came.”
~ Lovejoy, who lived in Lawrence, describing
William Quantrill’s raid on the town
Just after midnight on
Sept. 7, 1862, raiders
under the command of
William Quantrill
attacked Olathe, killing
several men and
looting businesses and
private homes
This flag, apparently carried by
one of the Confederate raiders,
was dropped in Olathe.


Kansas became a state less than three months
before the Civil War started (Kansas statehood
begins Jan. 29, 1861; the Civil War starts April
12, 1861)
The Civil War (1861-1865) was fought
between the Union (northern states) and the
Confederacy (southern states)


Most Kansans supported the Union (which
they had just joined) and wanted the Union
preserved, as did President Lincoln.
Kansas had the highest death rate of any
state in the Union (Nearly 8,500 of 20,000
volunteers in Kansas regiments died in Civil
War battles



One of Kansas’ first
U.S. senators
Lane organized
Kansans into the
Frontier Guard
More than 100
Kansans provided
special protection for
President Lincoln
“I have a hundred men from Kansas
in this crowd, all armed, all
fighting men, just from the
victorious fields of Kansas!”
~ James Lane to Southerners who booed
him in Washington D.C., showing his
resolve to defend the nation’s capital after
the outbreak of the Civil War
Kansas

Free state

Union state
Missouri



Slave state (Missouri
Compromise of 1820)
Border state during Civil
War
Not a Confederate state
(never seceded from the
Union) but home to many
Confederates and
Southern sympathizers


Battle fought between Union and Confederate
forces at Mine Creek, where Union forces
defeated Confederate General Sterling Price
At least 200 Confederate soldiers died; Union
troops also suffered causualties



Self-portrait of Samuel
Reader staking a claim in
Kansas Territory.
He came here for land, but
stayed for the free-state
cause.
Fought with Union troops
against Confederate troops
led by Gen. Price; taken
prisoner but escaped by
posing as a Confederate

Background
“Order No. 11”: issued by Union patrolling the
Kansas-Missouri border to clear all settlers
out of four western Missouri counties
image depicts the scene of
William Quantrill's raid in 1863
August 21, 1863 Quantrill and 400
men raided
Lawrence, KS.
William C. Quantrill, Confederate guerilla
At least 140 men and
boys were killed and
about a quarter of
the town’s buildings
burned.

Comanche Chief
who spoke at the
Medicine Lodge
Peace Treaties


Abolitionist, sent letters to newspapers back
east about Kansas Terr.
She and her husband, Charles Haseltine
Lovejoy, a preacher, moved in 1855 from New
Hampshire to Kansas Terr. as part of the New
England Emigrant Aid Company.



oldest active army post west of the
Mississippi River
Served as first Kansas capital during
territorial Kansas
Protected wagons trains on the Santa Fe and
Oregon-California Trails.

Built to protect the expanding American
frontier

Troops protect workers building the Union
Pacific Railroad

Comanche Chief Ten Bears
spoke at the Medicine Lodge
Peace Treaties
“The Comanches are not weak,
and blind, like pups of a dog
when seven sleeps old. They
are strong and farsighted, like
grown horses…But there are
things which you have said to
me which I do not like. They
were not sweet like sugar, but
bitter like gourds. You said
that you wanted to put us
upon reservations, to build us
houses and to make us
Medicine Lodges. I do not want
them.”

Source: Ten Bears, Yapparika Comanche Chief
Public Domain Document
I heard of your coming when I was many sleeps away I knew that you had come to do good to me and my people. I looked for the
benefits which would last forever, and so my face shines with joy as I look upon you.
My people have never first drawn a bow or fired a gun against the whites. It was you who sent out the first soldier, and it was we who
sent out the second.
blue dressed soldiers and the Utes came from out of the night when it was dark and still, and for campfires, they lit our lodges. Instead of
hunting game, they killed my braves and the warriors of the tribe cut short their hair for the dead.
The Comanches are not weak and blind like the pups of a dog when seven sleeps old. They are strong and farsighted like grown horses.
We took their road and went on it. The white women cried, and our women laughed.
But there are things which you have said to me which I did not like. They were not sweet like sugar, but bitter like gourds. You said that
you wanted to put us on a reservation, to build us houses and to make us Medicine Lodges. I do not want them.
I was born upon the prairie where the wind blew free, and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no
enclosures, and where everything drew free breath. I want to die there, and not within walls.
I know every stream and every wood between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over the country. I lived like my
fathers before me, and like them I lived happily.
Do not ask us to give up the buffalo for the sheep. The young men have heard talk of this, and it has made them sad and angry. Do not
speak of it any more. The white man has the country we loved and we only wish to wander on the prairie until we die.
Any good thing you say to me shall not be forgotten. I shall carry it as near to my heart as my children, and it shall be as often on my
tongue as the name of the Great Spirit.
I want no blood upon my land to stain the grass. I want it all clear and pure, and I wish it so, that all who go through among my people
may find peace when they come in, and leave it when they go out.
- Ten Bears of the Yapparika Comanche