Kansas Territory
The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Kansas.
History of the Kansas City metropolitan area
As a result of the new potential for slavery in Kansas, pro-slavery activists infiltrated Kansas Territory from the neighboring slave state of Missouri. To abolitionists and other Free-Staters, who desired Kansas to be admitted to the Union as a free state, they were collectively known as Border Ruffians. Pro-slavery Missourians flocked to Kansas in force, electing a pro-slavery Kansas Territorial Legislature. In response, abolitionists began arriving in the area, and in 1855 they declared the Kansas Territorial Legislature "bogus" and elected their own representatives to form a new territorial government in Lawrence, Kansas (approximately west of the City of Kansas). The newly established City of Kansas soon found itself in the middle of a dispute known as Bleeding Kansas.