Emory Washburn signs legislation officially recognizing the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. It founded by Eli Thayer, Alexander H. Bullock and Edward Everett Hale.
First settlers arrive in Kansas under the New England Emigrant Society charter. They set up tents on the Kansas River, west of its confluence with the Missouri.
Under direct orders from President Franklin Pierce, Edwin Vose Sumner leads 200 infantrymen into Topeka, Kansas, unlimbers his artillery and informs the freestaters they may not hold a convention.
Known under a variety of names including Jayhawker, Redlegs, Border Ruffians and Missouri Pukes, the men who aroused the violence in Bleeding Kansas where either thugs or terrorists, whether free-soiler or pro-slavery. However, the underlying cause of the violence was the brewing sectional conflict over the abolition of slavery.
Shortly after the Compromise of 1850 pressure renewed on Congress to add new states. Steven Douglas wanted to ensure the railroad center for the rapidly expanding West was Chicago, in his home state of Illinois.
Southerners were strong supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the bill was finally known, because they made the assumption that Kansas would be slave and Nebraska would be free.