Slave territory, free state slaveholders and slaves in early Kansas.

Abstract

This thesis addresses several questions regarding slavery within Kansas Territory. After an overview of the events of"Bleeding Kansas," this study examines the potential of Kansas to support staple-crop agriculture and slavery. This work then analyzes the background and economic motivations of Kansas slaveholders as well as their attitudes toward their slaves. The third chapter examines the living conditions of slaves in Kansas and details their contribution to the defeat of the proslavery cause. Finally, this study details the political influence of slaveholders in Bleeding Kansas and evaluates their role as victims and participants in the territorial violence. Within these descriptions and analyses are several important contentions. Chapter one suggests that Kansas offered the potential for staple-crop agriculture and was therefore suitable for slavery. Slavery's ultimate failure in Kansas is attributable to social and political factors rather than an inability of Kansas to support staple-crop agriculture. Subsequent chapters describe the activities of slaveholders and slaves in the territory. As for the slaveholders, most came to Kansas seeking material advancement in the form of land and slaves. While committed to materialism and economic advancement, slaveholding Kansans held a paternalistic outlook that demanded relatively humane treatment of their bondsmen. Chapter three demonstrates that masters met these demands. However, Kansas slaves abandoned the paternalistic relationship in astonishing numbers, a fact that weakens paternalistic explanations of slavery. The final two chapters of this study examine the roles of slaveholding Kansans in territorial politics and violence. Slaveholders influenced all levels of proslavery politics, including participation in the election fraud and other forms of political cheating that plagued the territory. Additionally, slaveholding Kansans involved themselves in the fighting of Bleeding Kansas as perpetrators and victims. Most importantly, slaveowners provided much of the leadership of the proslavery forces.