Battle of Black Jack

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The Battle of Black Jack took place on June 2, 1856, when anti-slavery forces, led by the noted abolitionist John Brown, attacked the encampment of Henry C. Pate near Baldwin City, Kansas. The battle is cited as one incident of “Bleeding Kansas” and a contributing factor leading up to the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865.

1 Background
2 Battle
3 Legacy
4 References

[edit] Background

In 1854, the U.S. Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which stipulated that the residents of these territories would decide whether they wished to enter the Union as a slave or free state. This doctrine became known as popular sovereignty. As expected, Nebraska became a free territory with the assumption that Kansas, with its large slaveholding population, would become a slave state. Organized groups from the North, however, sent thousands of abolitionist supporters to Kansas in an attempt to tip the balance in favor of free state advocates. As a result, pro- and anti-slavery groups had frequent clashes culminating in the Battle of Black Jack.

In May 1856, Henry C. Pate led a group of pro-slavery on a raid of anti-slavery newspaper offices in Lawrence, Kansas, an abolitionist stronghold, destroying the offices and two printing presses. Subsequently, a band of men, led by John Brown and commrade Captain Shore, retaliated by using broadswords to hack five proslavery men to death at Pottawatomie Creek — an action which came to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. Following the massacre, three anti-slavery men were taken prisoner, including two of John Brown’s sons.

[edit] Battle

On June 2, the two bands met and battled for three hours, ending with Brown’s antislavery forces securing the surrender of Pate and his men. In exchange for his freedom, Pate agreed to return Brown’s sons, but their release was delayed until September of that year.

[edit] Legacy

Some historians consider the Battle of Black Jack to be the first true battle of the American Civil War. The “official” event that is cited as the beginning of the war is the attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, by Confederate troops on April 12, 1861.

The site of the battle is located near U.S. Highway 56, about three miles (5 km) east of Baldwin City, and has been designated the Robert Hall Pearson Memorial Park by the state of Kansas in honor of one of Brown and Shore's fighters who gave a handwritten account of the battle.

In 1970, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Baldwin City, Baker University professor and playwright Don Mueller (not to be confused with the baseball player of the same name) wrote a play called The Ballad Of Black Jack to tell the story of the events that led up to the battle. The Ballad Of Black Jack played as part of the city's Maple Leaf Festival from 1970-83 and again from 2001-05. It also played in nearby Lawrence in 1986 and in August 2006 as a part of Lawrence's Civil War On The Western Frontier program.