I think it was because the first people to get there could choose whether or not the state allowed slaves. Therefore both sides wanted to quickly get there and claim it as their own.
The Kansas territory was a potential area for the expansion of slavery. The people who profited from slavery saw this as a huge opportunity. Most of the pioneers moving into Kansas were anti-slavery. Several pro-slavery Missouri gangs, popularly called Bushwhackers, organized raids into Kansas. They disrupted elections, robbed stores and in some cases shot or hanged anti-slavery leaders. The Kansas people organized their own border gangs called Jayhawkers, who raided small towns in Missouri in reprisal for the Bushwhacker raids. Some of the raids were incredibly cruel. More than 200 people died.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 called for "popular sovereignty." The decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers in Kansas rather than by outsiders. The decision as to whether Kansas would become a free state or a slave state would be decided by the votes of people in Kansas. Whichever side had more votes counted by officials would decide if Kansas would become a free state or a slave state.
Slavery was the cause of violence in the Kansas Territory from 1854 until Kansas entered the Union as a free state in 1861. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed settlers to vote on whether a territory would be a slave or free state when it entered the Union. Pro and anti- slavery groups used armed and deadly conflict. It was almost like an internal civil war.
Tensions and violence over slavery spread outside Kansas
Bleeding Kansas
Tensions and violence over slavery spread outside Kansas
Tensions and violence over slavery spread outside Kansas
Lincoln wanted Kansas to fight the south; instead, Kansas seceded from the union and fought with the south
Tensions and violence over slavery spread outside Kansas
Violence
no
No- and not just Kansas, but nowhere in the US. FEDERAL law.
Violence erupted in Kansas due to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Pro-slavery people and anti-slavery people became savage with each other over the issue of slavery. The result of the severe violence is termed "Bleeding Kansas".
Tensions and violence over slavery spread outside Kansas
Prior to Kansas joining the Union, the Kansas Territory was a hotbed of violence and chaos between anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers. Kansas was known as Bleeding Kansas as these forces collided over the issue of slavery in the United States. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Republican Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune.