kansas
No state's creation was more dramatic, more at the center of national attention, more involved in fundamental moral conflict, than that of Kansas. In a sense, the state's history began with the Indians of the area and the Spanish explorers. A moral conflict of pro-slavery forces in the Civil War that led to "Bleeding Kansas", and the moral contradiction between a declaration that claimed, "all people are created equally". A constitution pragmatically permitting slavery had led to the repeated compromise in American history until the issue found resolution in war. "Kansas as a body politic was born of that process and much of its permanent character or personality was determined by it," {K.Davis}. The state character has changed drastically over time. The first recorded history of this area was made by the Spanish chroniclers of the Francisco Vinquez de Coronado expedition. They set out from the Rio Grande to visit region in the present central part of the state they identified as Quivira. On this trip in the summer of 1541 they found the soil to their liking and capable of growing all products of Spain. The Indians were described as being physically attractive, but they lived in grass houses and possessed no gold, the primary o
The United States had earlier expressed interest in the Trans-Mississippi area, and plans were formulated for exploration there even before the Louisiana Purchase Three army expeditions exploring some part some part of the future state were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, by Zebulon Pike, and by Stephen Long. One of the biggest technological advances occurred in the area of transportation and manufacturing. The last time Kansas has gained the American spotlight was the release of the movie "The Wizard of Oz". The first transcontinental railroads across the state were the Kansas Pacific and the Atchison Topeka, and Santa Fe. During the mid-eighteenth century wars, Spain and France became allies, and in 1763 the Spanish acquired French claims to all the land west of the Mississippi. Each county, upon organization, selected a county seat and struggled to gain control over the courthouse. The twin territories of Kansas and Nebraska were created by the Kansas- Nebraska of May 1854. Drought plagued the region during the 1930's this hurt farmers of the region, which were already struggling from the Great Depression. They were given reservations with precise boundaries carved out of country formerly claimed by the Kansa and the Osage. Pike's report emphasized aridity, but it was Long, a few years later, who defined the western part of the grassland as the Great American Desert, a term that conjured up visions of blowing sand and the absence of water and vegetation. These explorations, particularly those led by Pike and Long, were to have a profound influence on American understanding of the area during the first half of the twentieth century. There is great drama and some extravagance surrounding the settlement of any region, and Kansas was no exception. So successful was the venture that Becknell repeated his trip the following year loading wagons and inaugurated the commercial use of the Sante Fe Trail, which extended across the future state and was to become a vital link of transportation from the Missouri River to Sante Fe for the next fifty years. In reality at least half of the two hundred or so violent deaths that occurred in the territorial Kansas were a product not of the free state- pro-slavery struggle but of issues of a nonpolitical character.
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