Crossroads of Conflict: Contested Visions of Freedom & the Missouri-Kansas Border Wars
The Historic Sites
The landmarks selected for inclusion in ”Crossroads of Conflict” workshop are historic sites and institutions that shed light on the deeper cultural themes of the workshop. These landmarks will allow workshop participants to see, hear, smell, feel, touch and taste evidence of the past.
The John Wornall House (Kansas City) was built less than three miles from the town of Westport by a successful farm family that emigrated from Kentucky to Missouri in 1843. By 1858 John Wornall was a wealthy farmer whose Greek revival style home exemplified antebellum prosperity. The house was at the center of the Kansas/Missouri Border War and acted as a field hospital for both Confederate and Union wounded during the 1864 Battle of Westport.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City) contains a significant collection of work by George Caleb Bingham and other artists who documented mid 19th Century Missouri. Margaret Conrads, Morton Sosland Curator of American Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, will introduce workshop participants to this portion of the collection and to the museum’s new Ford Resource Center for Teachers that helps teachers apply the Nelson’s collections to a variety of subjects.
The Arabia Steamboat Museum (Kansas City) provides a snapshot into the commerce of 1856 by exhibiting the contents of a fully-loaded steamboat bound from St. Louis to Sioux Falls when it sank on a snag in the Missouri River. Fabric and buttons, bourbon, champagne, boots and tools are among the thousands of items recovered from the sunken vessel; these provide evidence of the diverse lifestyles and levels of sophistication on the frontier that contributed to conflict. Workshop participants will meet with David Hawley whose family excavated the steamboat, and learn what the Hawleys discovered about the variety and abundance of consumer products that were available in the burgeoning West.
Watkins Woolen Mill (Excelsior Springs) provides insight into the Border Wars from the perspective of a Kentucky immigrant in transition who came to Missouri and began an estate, an industry and a thriving community. In addition to an intact, three-story woolen mill, the 1,600 acre site also contains an elegant home, fruit-drying shed, smokehouse, brick kiln, sawmill, gristmill and acres of well tended orchards and croplands. A brick schoolhouse and church are also in the vicinity. This preserved community and living history program provides insights into the foodways, gender roles and traditions that were a part of life in this early industrial setting.
Lecompton, Kansas, originally settled by southern sympathizers, was the first territorial capital of Kansas. The newly renovated Constitution Hall was the meeting place for the Kansas Territorial Government which convened in 1856 to write the constitution for a pro-slavery state—a document that came within eight votes of being passed by the Congress of the United States.
Lawrence, Kansas was established by radically anti-slavery settlers and subsidized, in part, by emigrant aid societies in the Northeast. Lawrence was the site of raids and the Lawrence Massacre atrocity. It was a rallying point for the shadow “Free State” government and referred to by pro-slavery advocates as an “abolitionist hellhole.”
Battle of Black Jack Historic Site— The "battle" which took place in a grove of black jack oaks south of Lawrence, Kansas, was part of the struggle to make Kansas a free state. In June of 1856 “Free State” forces lead by Henry C. Pate raided a settlement in Palmyra, Kansas and took three prisoners in retaliation for John Brown’s raid on Lawrence and the brutal killing of five pro-slavery men on nearby Pottawatomie creek. Brown then attacked Pate's camp at the battle site. Both sides had several wounded and numerous desertions before Pate and 28 men surrendered. As evidence of civil war in the United States, this fight received national publicity and excited both the North and South.
Historic Westport and the Battle of Westport site (Kansas City)--Outfitting the wagon trains was big business: that’s why Westport became a prosperous town that drew people on both sides of the slavery and free soil issues to and through the area. The overland outfitting trade fulfilled all of the traveler's needs, supplying everything: foodstuffs, wagons, animals and other provisions. The town was victimized by colliding Union and Confederate forces during the 1864 Battle of Westport. The historical legacy of Old Westport remains with us and workshop participants will be led on a walking tour of the area by members of the Westport Historical Society.