Violence and Slavery: The Civil War Era
1838 Trail of Tears—General Winfield Scott and 7,000 troops force Cherokees to walk from Georgia to a reservation set up for them in Oklahoma (nearly 1,000 miles). Around 4,000 Native Americans die during the journey.
1839
1839 The first camera is patented by Louis Daguerre.
1841
1841 Amistad case comes before the Supreme Court.
1844 First public telegraph line in the world is opened—between Baltimore and Washington.
1846
1846 Michigan becomes the first state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason.
1848
1848 Seneca Falls Convention—Feminist convention held for women’s suffrage and equal legal rights.
1848(-58) California Gold Rush—Over 300,000 people flock to California in search of gold.
1850
1850 The Pinkerton National Detective Agency founded–Pinkerton detectives track hundreds of criminals and bring them to justice.
1854
1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act—States that each new state entering the country will decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. This goes directly against the terms agreed upon in the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
1859
1859 John Brown’s Rebellion—John Brown leads a revolt and takes over the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. However, he is soon forced to surrender by U.S. marines, and then is hung for his crimes.
1861
1861(-65) Civil War —Fought between the Union and Confederate states.
1862
1862 Emancipation Proclamation—Lincoln states that all slaves in Union states are to be freed.
1865
1865 Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—Officially abolishes slavery across the country.
1865 President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated on April 15.
Before the Civil War, more than four million slaves suffered from cruel labor, brutal punishments, and loss of their human rights. At the same time, conflict over this unjust practice pitted faction against faction in America.
The Amistad Case
In 1839 the Schooner Amistad drifted onto the Long Island coast, with two Cuban slave-owners and fifty-three slaves, who had overthrown their white captors at sea, aboard. This incident raised a series of legal questions: what (if any) crimes had been committed? Who now owned the ship’s cargo (including the slaves)?
The Amistad was the scene of a revolt by African captives being transported to Cuba. The schooner had been built in the United States, but a Spaniard living in Cuba owned it. The Africans who took control of the ship were captured off the coast of Long Island by the USS Washington of the United States Revenue Cutter Service. The Amistad (a Spanish word that means “friendship”) became a symbol in the movement to abolish slavery.
A series of trials followed, moving up through the court system. In the meantime, abolitionists (people opposed to the practice of slavery) championed the slaves’ cause. In 1841, the case came before the Supreme Court, where former President John Quincy Adams argued in the slaves’ defense. The Supreme Court ruled that the Amistad’s African passengers were entitled to their freedom.
After the trial, the freed Africans and abolitionists worked together raising money and eventually paid for a ship that carried the freed men, women, and children back to Africa. By affirming the slaves’ rights to liberate themselves, the case set a precedent against the practice of slavery.
Kansas Territory and John Brown: The War Before the Civil War
While politicians and activists in the East debated slavery, settlers headed west seeking new lands to settle, bringing with them the issues of the East. The Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that settlers of those territories would decide by popular vote whether or not to allow slavery, but bloody fights broke out between pro-and anti-slavery factions. Battles over slavery caused the Kansas Territory to be known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
John Brown became the leader of anti-slavery settlers during the Bleeding Kansas battles. Brown didn’t care for the patient and peaceful way most abolitionists worked against slavery. He said, “These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!”
In 1859 Brown and his followers did something that shocked the nation: they attacked the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to capture guns and ammunition to begin a war for slaves’ liberation. Local citizens and the U.S. Marines fought the raiders; half of them were killed, and Brown was captured. Authorities tried Brown for treason, found him guilty, and hanged him.
Brown’s bloody campaign was over, but he lived on in poems, songs, and letters—regarded as either a saint or the worst kind of villain.
An artist’s interpretation of John Brown as the central symbol of the violence in Bleeding Kansas.
John Brown’s Raid
Alexander Boteler, who was with the civilians fighting against the raiders, describes an attempt at gaining a truce with Brown’s forces:
It was thought proper . . . to send Brown a summons to surrender, and a respectable farmer of the neighborhood, Mr. Samuel S——was selected to make the demand, a duty which he undertook very willingly, although it was not unattended with danger. . . . Tying a white handkerchief to the ferrule of a faded umbrella, he went forth upon his mission.
Marching up to the door of the engine house, he called out in stentorian tones, “Who commands this fortification?”
“Captain Brown, of Kansas,” was the answer, from within the building.
“Well, Captain Brown, of Kansas,” continued Mr. S., with his voice pitched in the same high key, “I am sent here, sir, by the authorities in command, for to summon you to surrender; and, sir, I do it in the name of the Commonwealth of old Virginia—God bless her!”
“What terms do you offer?” inquired Brown.
“Terms!” exclaimed S. “I heard nothing said about them, sir, by those who sent me. What terms do you want?”
“I want to be allowed,” said Brown, “to take my men and prisoners across the bridge to Maryland and as far up the river as the lock-house where I will release the prisoners unharmed, provided no pursuit shall be made until I get beyond that point.”
The proposed terms were, of course, inadmissible; and after the paper containing them had been read by two or three of us it was handed to Lawson Botts, who threw it contemptuously upon the floor, and placing his foot on it, said: “Gentlemen, this is adding insult to injury. I think we ought to storm the engine-house, and take those fellows without further delay.”
The Un-Civil War: Raiders and Outlaws in Missouri
When the South seceded (broke away) from the Union, that action divided states where citizens held opposing views of slavery. Missouri was one such divided state. Before the war, anti-slavery citizens’ groups known as Jayhawkers or Redlegs raided farms, burning, looting, and freeing slaves. Meanwhile, pro-slavers, known as Bushwhackers, terrorized anti-slavery settlers.
The Missouri border during the Civil War was the scene of the greatest savagery in American history. William Quantrill, who led the pro-slavery violence, is considered by many historians to have been a psychopath who took advantage of the situation to satisfy his craving for violence.
As soon as the South seceded from the Union, as the citizens of Missouri were debating their loyalties, Northern soldiers entered the state and took possession of it. Many Missourians were not slaveholders and they had been sympathetic to the North, but the Union soldiers’ heavy-handed tactics bred resentment. Those who sympathized with the South began a guerilla war, where neighbor fought against neighbor, and fighters often attacked without uniforms, making it difficult to judge between soldiers, raiders, and outlaws.
William Anderson—also known as Bloody Bill—was one of William Quantrill’s followers. Together, the two men tortured and terrorized their way across Missouri, Kansas, and Texas.
During the war, William Quantrill led many of the Confederate sympathizers, and his men were known as Quantrill’s Raiders. Both sides fought out of uniform, burned homesteads, and killed civilians. The lawless and violent nature of these Civil War struggles carried over into the Wild West after the war, and the legendary James Gang, among other outlaw bands, was born from that conflict.
SNAPSHOT FROM THE PAST
Reverend Beecher’s Bibles: The Missouri Prairie, 1859
“Pa, there’s a man here with a big box on his wagon, says it’s for you,” Jessica Parker called to her father.
Her father and brother stepped outside and gathered by the side of the buckboard. Now Jessica saw a word stamped on the side of the wooden crate: “Bibles.” She scratched her head: what was Pa going to do with so many Bibles? But her father sure looked excited.
Rev. Henry Beecher was a wellknown and controversial abolitionist during his day.
There’d been an awful lot of tension lately over the issue of slavery. Just last month, pro-slavery Bushwhackers had come by and threatened to run her family right off their land. Maybe someone back East thought there’d be less violence if all the Kansas folk read Scripture?
Pa and her brother grunted, lifting the box off the wagon. There was a metallic clanging noise as it hit the dirt. The driver pulled out a crowbar, and the men pried the top of the box open, and pulled out . . . rifles.
Jessica’s eyes widened. The crate was filled with shiny new firearms.
The wagon driver explained. “Reverend Henry Beecher sent these to you folks. He supports the abolitionists in this territory, and while he prefers weapons of the Spirit, he knows some of you settlers require more . . . practical tools to defend yourselves.” He nodded toward the guns. “He ships ’em labeled as Scripture, so the Bushwhackers won’t capture the guns.”
Jessica looked up at her father. He was not a violent man, but he was obviously pleased with the new gun in his hands. Jessica wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or not.
Would it have been better, she wondered, if the case had been filled with real Bibles?
INCREDIBLE INDIVIDUAL
John Horse (1812–1882)
John’s mother was an escaped African slave, and his father was a Native Seminole tribesman: throughout his life, John strove for the rights of both Natives and Blacks—stances that sometimes put him outside United States law.
As a young man, John fought with the Seminole tribe against U.S. occupation of their lands. After this attempt failed, the government moved Horse to Oklahoma with other Seminoles, where he became a leader of transplanted tribal members. In 1844, the U.S. government decreed that people of African descent living among Native tribes could be captured and sold as slaves, so John moved his people into Mexico, where slavery had been abolished. After the Civil War, he worked for the U.S. Cavalry as a scout, but toward the end of his life he returned to Mexico to champion greater civil rights for Native people there.
NATIONAL SENATOR BEATEN IN THE HOUSE CHAMBER
New York Tribune
May 23, 1856
By the news from Washington it will be seen that Senator Sumner has been savagely and brutally assaulted, while sitting in his seat in the Senate chamber, by the Hon. Mr. Brooks of South Carolina, the reason assigned therefore being that the Senator’s remarks on Mr. Butler of South Carolina, who is uncle to the man who made the attack. The particulars show that Mr. Sumner was struck unawares over the head by a loaded cane and stunned, and then the ruffianly attack was continued with many blows, the Hon. Mr. Keitt of South Carolina keeping any of those around, who might be so disposed, from attempting a rescue... It is not in the least a cause for wonder that a member of the national House of Representatives, assisted by another as a fender-off, should attack a member of the national Senate.
