Bleeding Kansas (may 30, 1854 – jan 1, 1859)

Description:

Immediately after the passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act, white northerners and southerners flooded into Kansas. However, the pro-slavery majority elected a legislature that legalized slavery. The free-staters were outraged and elected their own officials who petitioned Congress for statehood. President Pierce supported the pro-slavery government and denounced the anti-slavery group are traitors. Later, a pro-slavery federal marshal burned the headquarters of the anti-slavery government. John Brown, a fervent abolitionist, killed pro-slavery settlers in the Pottawatomie Massacre. Sporadic guerrilla warfare waged by sometimes small armies continued throughout Kansas until the 1859.