T.B. Ferguson published The Jayhawkers: A Tale of the border war in Guthrie the year he arrived in Watonga, 1892.  It is a novel about the border wars between Free Staters who were abolitionists and Pro-Slavery forces out of Missouri.  The conflict existed primarily from 1854 to 1859.  Though born in 1857 in Iowa, Ferguson grew up on a farm in Kansas during this time.

Kansas statehood: Free or Slave?

The wide-ranging conflict began with the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act in which Nebraska would vote to come in to the union as an anti-slavery state.  The surprise came in Kansas. Pro-slavery and Free-staters debated the issue in various locations. Authorities annulled various elections when Missourians crossed over from Missouri to vote. Factions drafted various constitutions in locations along the east-west running Kansas River.  Eventually, the U.S. Senate to accepted Kansas as a free-state 1861 when southern states seceded from the U.S. and Congress.  Wikipedia Bleeding Kansas

Political killings and John Brown

But between1854 and 1859, Missouri Ruffians and Kansas Free Staters participated in bloody conflict on both sides of the Missouri -Kansas border.  One estimate is there were 59 political killings, but some estimate up to 200 were killed.  John Brown and his sons, abolitionists, played a major role in Kansas. He left to attempt a raid in Virginia on the Potomac River at Harper’s Ferry (now West Virginia) in 1859.  Brown was apprehended and hanged in Virginia. 

Historical novel

The book, The Jayhawkers….by Ferguson is a historical novel about the conflict and finishes with the re-enactments after the war, prosperity, and education.  The descriptions of the beauty of the skies, land, rivers and valley are unapologetic.  The book was reprinted in 1970 by Literature House because of its historical value.

African Americans and Native Americans

I read the 415-page novel to better understand Ferguson’s attitudes toward African Americans (and Native Americans).  Violence among the white settlers and Missouri Ruffians spilled over to violence on the floor of the U.S. Senate and eventually across the nation as civil war.  Ferguson supplies colorful language among blacks who are being led by John Brown through the underground railroad to freedom.  Ferguson mentions at least seven native American Tribes who, it appears, assisted the abolitionists, though they suffered from the incursion of whites into their traditional areas. 

Louisiana Purchase and Treaty of Guadalupe

The westward expansion of the United States that began with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 by Jefferson and Treaty of Guadalupe of 1848 with Mexico gave the US what would become the great southwest. Settlers wanted land. Railroads wanted to connect the east with California. Free-staters and pro-slavery forces wanted territories added according to their beliefs about slavery. 

Surely living in Kansas as a boy and researching the book influenced Ferguson’s attitudes about African Americans and Native Americans in Watonga and the Oklahoma Territory for which he served as governor.