Lawrence, Kansas
Prior to Kansas Territory being established in May 1854, most of Douglas County was part of the Shawnee Indian Reservation (created in 1830). During this period, the Oregon Trail ran parallel to the Kansas River, roughly through the area where Lawrence would eventually be situated and a hill known then as "Hogback Ridge" (i.e., Mount Oread, which sits on the water divide separating the Kansas and Wakarusa River). This area was used as a landmark and an outlook by those on the trail. While this territory was technically unopened to settlement prior to 1854, there did exist a few "squatter settlements" in the area, especially just north of the Kansas River.
Kansas in the American Civil War
The Territory of Kansas was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, in the midst of the national secession crisis: six states had already seceded, and five more would follow in the coming months. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 had rescinded the former Missouri Compromise and permitted the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to determine whether they would enter the Union as slave or free states by popular sovereignty. Violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups began almost immediately. The conflict was especially bloody along the Kansas–Missouri border, where Missouri Border Ruffians and Kansas Free-Staters formed bands of partisan rangers to raid and pillage opposition strongholds, earning it the name "Bleeding Kansas". Kansas' popular vote eventually chose against slavery, so Kansas would fight with the North.