Sesquicentennial
Written by Ted W. Stillwell
The word “Sesquicentennial” mean one hundred and fifty. It is not only
a hard word to say, but is even harder to spell. That word has some meaning to
us this year, because the 150th Anniversary of Kansas statehood is January 29th.
Events for that weekend include a big ceremony outside of the capitol in Topeka,
along with activities at the Shawnee Indian Mission and at the Grinter House
over towards Edwardsville on Kaw Drive. Also opening will be a year-long exhibit
at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka.
Check out www.ka150.org for a full calendar of 2011 lectures and
festivals.
Statehood did not come easy for Kansas, beginning with the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Border Wars, and the American Civil War, which followed
closely on the heels of statehood. The Kansas-Nebraska act effectively canceled
the “Missouri Compromise” of 1820, which forbid the creation of any more Slave
States from the western territories. The country had been evenly divided by the
Mason-Dixon Line with an equal number of Slave States and Free States. Since
Missouri had been settled by southerners who brought their slaves with them to
the frontier, the Missouri Compromise allowed Missouri to enter temporarily as a
Slave State, even though they were north of the Mason Dixon Line.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed for “squatters sovereignty,” or the
right of the people to vote whether to enter as a Slave State of a Free State.
It was assumed that Nebraska would enter the Union as a Free State and Kansas
would enter as a Slave State, since Kansas bordered with Missouri, holding on to
that balance. However, the people of that era were very passionate about their
freedoms to the point they were willing to lay down their lives for those
beliefs, and many did just that.
The Civil War also hits the sesquicentennial mark this year, and
numerous reenactments are planned around local battle sites. The Battle of
Carthage will be reenacted July 8-9; the Battle of Wilson’s Creek August 12-14;
the Battle of Lexington September 16-18, and the first Battle of Booneville will
be reenacted July 17-19.
The ladies will even be able to get dressed up in their ball gowns and dance the
Virginia reel on March 12 at the Fourth Missouri Grand Ball in Springfield,
Missouri. More information on the ball at www.4moinf.com
The Missouri Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission also has a new website up for
information about Civil War events. It’s www.MoCivilWar150.com. The site also
has links to photos from the Civil War, social media outlets such as facebook
and twitter, a special YouTube channel, and a series of war related videos from
Wide Awake Films.
The Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Central Library in Kansas City
has all kinds of things to access at 14 West 10th Street. Border Warfare
special topics appear at www.kclibrary.org/kchistory:border-warfare-civil-war.
Our friends at the Missouri-Kansas Border War Network have created a YouTube
site of interest on the burning of Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863 at
www.youtube,com/moksbwn.
You can also view seven podcasts created by Freedom’s Frontier to tell the story
about the Missouri-Kansas Border Wars by going to www.freedomsfrontier.org.
These podcasts are a pardership with the Kansas Humanities Council. The seven
podcasts are “James Henry Lane and Lanesfield” (Lanesfield School Historic Site
at Edgerton, Kansas), “The Burnt District, Cass County, and the Youngers (Cass
County Historical Society, Harrisonville, Missouri), “The Story of Aunt Polly”
(Humboldt, Kansas), “The Battle of Lexington” (The Battle of Lexington State
Historical Site, Lexington, Missouri), “John Brown’s Raid on Vernon County”
(Bushwhacker Museum, Vernon County Historical Society, Nevada, Missouri), “John
Brown and the Adairs” (John Brown State Historical Site, Osawatomie, Kansas),
and “The Story of Opothleyahola” (Wilson County and Woodson County, Kansas).
Ref: Civil War Roundtable of Western Missouri
If you are involved in an event we have missed, please contact this newspaper.
To reach Ted W. Stillwell send an e-mail to teddystillwell@yahoo.com or call him
at 816-252-9909