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Kansas Territory
The US had acquired Kansas Territory in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Settlers trickled in at a small pace from 1803 to about 1846. Settlers began arriving in large numbers from 1846 onward. These settlers came from both the North and the South, and as a result Kansas Territory became a microcosm of conflicts about slavery.
After 1846, several ideas were proposed including Douglas's popular sovereignty. Yet none of these ideas would work in the face of Southern "Slave Power" (that is the power of the plantation owners of the South.) As early as 1850 armed clashes began occurring between pro- and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas Territory. As early as 1853, Alvin Kempis and his followers became aware of the armed conflict. In 1856, the first "American Church Relief Station" was set up in Kansas Territory. This "Relief Station" attracted both blacks and Northern & European whites sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause. Michael Johann Hiedler, an Austrian immigrant who joined after the Revolutions of 1848, was sent to manage the "relief station" in 1856.
After 1857, the violent clashes began to calm down a bit. The diary of Michael Johann Hiedler says that the clashes "had ended, and Southern slave power had won."
However these clashes were merely a view of things to come. These clashes would be presaging another war, a Civil War.