Kansas Chautauqua Timeline: 1854-1855

May 1830—Indian Removal Bill uproots the Kickapoo, Shawnee, Delaware, Pottawatomie, Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Iowa, Miami, and Sac and Fox tribes. Congress passed and President Andrew Jackson signed an “Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing within any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.”

1842—Fort Scott established. The military abandons Fort Scott in 1853. Two of the buildings become hotels, the Free State Hotel and the Western or Proslavery Hotel. Most Fort Scott residents are proslavery while free-staters and abolitionists dominate the surrounding area.

May 1853—Fort Riley established.

1854

May 30—The Kansas-Nebraska Act, sponsored by Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois, opens the Kansas Territory for white settlement. The territory stretches from the current eastern border west to the Continental Divide. The act decrees that the territory’s residents are to have popular sovereignty, the right to vote whether Kansas is to be a slave or free state.

August 1—First settlers supported by the New England Emigrant Aid Company (a company interested in peopling the frontier with antislavery (abolitionist settlers) found Wakarusa, soon renamed Lawrence.

October 7—Andrew H. Reeder, first territorial governor, arrives.

November 29—Illegal election selects proslavery congressional representative.

1855

February—Five of John Brown’s sons settle north of Pottawatomie Creek.

March 30—First territorial legislature (“Bogus Legislature”) illegally elected by Missourians who are overwhelmingly proslavery.

July—First Territorial Capitol of Kansas built at Pawnee, adjacent to the Fort Riley military reservation.

July 2-6—First Legislature meets in Pawnee.

Fall—Free-State Party formed. Free State Constitution written in Topeka, and Charles Robinson chosen governor.

October 6-7—John Brown moves to Osawatomie from North Elba, New York.

December 7—John Brown and sons help Lawrence residents during the Wakarusa War. The town is surrounded by Border Ruffians from Missouri, led by David Atchison, former U.S. Senator.

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