Ruins of Free State Hotel after the
attack
In the summer of 1856, the
Sacking of Lawrence
helped ratchet up the
guerrilla
war in
Kansas Territory that
became known as
Bleeding
Kansas.
Background
Lawrence
was
established in 1854 by antislavery settlers,
many with the help of the New England Emigrant Aid
Company, and soon became the center of proslavery violence in
Kansas Territory. While the
village had been
besieged in December
1855, it was not directly attacked at that time. The non-fatal
shooting of
Douglas County
Sheriff Samuel Jones on
April 23 1856, while he was attempting to arrest free-state
settlers in Lawrence, is believed to have been the immediate cause
of the violence. Lawrence residents drove Jones out of town after
he was shot and on
May 11, federal marshal J.
B. Donaldson proclaimed that this action had interfered with the
execution of warrants against the extralegal
Free-State legislature, which had been set up in
opposition to the official proslavery territorial government.
Building on this proclamation and a finding by a grand jury that
Lawrence's Free State Hotel was actually built as a fort, Sheriff
Jones collected a posse of 750
southerners to enter Lawrence, disarm
the citizens, wreck the town's antislavery presses, and destroy the
Free State Hotel.
Sacking
On
May 21,
1856, a posse
of 1000 southerners led by Sheriff Jones gathered closer to the
town. A large force was stationed on Mount Oread and cannon planted
so as to cover and command the place. The house of Lawrence
resident, and the first governor of Kansas,
Charles L. Robinson was taken as headquarters for
the Marshal and the officers of his army. On every road leading to
the town and on the opposite side of the river, detachments of
troops were posted to prevent escape from the assault. The forces
mustered two flags. The blood-red flag, on which was inscribed
"Southern-rights," floated side by side that day with the "stars
and stripes."
The two printing offices were hacked, the presses destroyed, and
the types thrown in the river. The planned work was finished by
destroying the Free State Hotel. The first shot was fired from a
cannon on the opposite side of Massachusetts Street by
David Rice Atchison, but it failed to
hit the building. About fifty shots were afterwards fired with
little effect upon the solid walls. Next the posse attempted to
blow it up. Several kegs of gunpowder were exploded within, with no
appreciable damage to the walls. Its destruction was finally caused
by an incendiary, and in the early evening it was a roofless,
smoldering ruin. This work was followed by petty robberies and
looting throughout the half-deserted town. As the men left, they
burned Robinson's private dwelling on Mount Oread.
There was one fatality, a slavery proponent killed by falling
masonry.
See also
References
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