Suspect 8: Bleeding Kansas
When Kansas and Nebraska asked to join the United States, Congress
decided to test popular sovereignty out and let each of those states
have an election to decide whether they would be free states or slave
states. So, the people of Kansas and Nebraska voted on whether they
wanted the state that they lived in to be a free state or a slave state.
Unfortunately, when they voted thousands of proslavery people from
Missouri came to Kansas illegally to vote for Kansas to become a slave
state. The people of
Kansas fought over
whether the illegal
Missouri votes
should have counted.
Many abolitionists1
in Kansas have
threatened to “get
revenge” if the illegal
Missouri votes
counted and Kansas became a slave state. Finally, one night, an
abolitionist named John Brown snuck into the house of a pro-slavery
family, and murdered them while they were asleep. Many pro-slavery
people attacked anti-slavery people to get revenge for the murders.
The anti-slavery people attacked back and soon it led to a war in
Kansas. Everyone started calling Kansas “Bleeding Kansas”.
1
abolitionist: a person that is against slavery