Women in the 19C United States of America: Today in History - 1855 Rival Governments in Bleeding Kansas

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Today in History - 1855 Rival Governments in Bleeding Kansas

Photo of John Brown 1856

On this day in 1855, in opposition to the fraudulently elected pro-slavery legislature of Kansas, the Kansas Free State forces set up a governor & legislature under their Topeka Constitution, a document that outlaws slavery in the territory.

Trouble in territorial Kansas began with the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act by President Franklin Pierce in 1854. The act stipulated that settlers in the newly created territories of Nebraska and Kansas would decide by popular vote whether their territory would be free or slave. In early 1855, Kansas' first election proved a violent affair as over 5000 so-called Border Ruffians invaded the territory from western Missouri forcing the election of a pro-slavery legislature. To prevent further bloodshed, Andrew H. Reeder, appointed territorial governor by President Pierce, reluctantly approved the election.

In May 1856, Border Ruffians sacked the abolitionist town of Lawrence In retaliation a small Free State force was formed, armed by supporters in the North & under the leadership of militant abolitionist John Brown. It massacred five pro-slavery Kansans along the Pottawatomie Creek. Raids, massacres, and skirmishes follow the establishment of Kansas' second government, and the territory becomes popularly known as "Bleeding Kansas.” However, in 1861 the irrepressible differences in Kansas are swallowed up by the outbreak of full-scale Civil War in America..

About this blog

In colonial America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality while man’s sphere was the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”