crossed the Missouri
River, entered the territory, held squatters' meetings,[1] drove a few
stakes into the ground to represent "squatter claims," went home, and
called on the people of the South to hurry into Kansas. Many did so, and
began to erect tents and huts on the Missouri River at a place which
they called Atchison.[2]

[Footnote 1: At one of their meetings it was resolved: "That we will
afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this country."
"That we recognize the institution of slavery as already existing in
this territory, and advise stockholders to introduce their property as
early as possible."]

[Footnote 2: Called after Senator Atchison of Missouri.]

But the men of the North had not been idle, and in July a band of
free-state men, sent on by the New England Emigrant Aid Society,[1]
entered Kansas and founded a town on the Kansas River some miles to the
south and west of Atchison. Other emigrants came in a few weeks later,
and their collection of tents received the name of Lawrence.[2]

[Footnote 1: The New England Emigrant Aid Society was founded in 1854 by
Hon. Eli Thayer of Worcester, Mass., in order "to plant a free state in
Kansas," by aiding antislavery men to go out there and settle.]

[Footnote 2: After Amos A. Lawrence, secretary of the Aid Society. It
was a city of tents. Not a building existed. Later came the log cabin,
which was a poor affair, as timber was scarce. The sod hut now so common
in the Northwest was not thought of. In the early days the "hay tent"
was the usual house, and was made by setting up two rows of poles, then
bringing their tops together, thatching the roof and sides with hay. The
two gable ends (in which were the windows and doors) were of sod.]

What was thus taking place at Lawrence happened elsewhere, so that by
October, 1854, that part of Kansas along the Missouri River was held by
the slave-state men, and the part south of the Kansas River by the
free-state men.[1]

[Footnote 1: The proslavery towns were Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton,
Kickapoo. The antislavery towns were Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan,
Waubunsee, Hampden, Ossawatomie.]

In November of the same year the struggle began. There was to be an
election of a territorial delegate[1] to represent Kansas in Congress,
and a day or two before the time set for it the Missourians came over
the border in armed bands, took possession of the polls, voted
illegally, and elected a proslavery delegat