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.
History of Kansas
Congress began the process of creating Kansas Territory in 1852. That year, petitions were presented at the first session of the Thirty-second Congress for a territorial organization of the region lying west of Missouri and Iowa. No action was at that time taken. However, during the next session, on December 13, 1852, a Representative from Missouri submitted to the House a bill organizing the Territory of Platte: all the tract lying west of Iowa and Missouri, and extending west to the Rocky Mountains. The bill was referred to the United States House Committee on Territories, and passed by the full U.S. House of Representatives on February 10, 1853. However, Southern Senators stalled the progression of the bill in the Senate, while the implications of the bill on slavery and the Missouri Compromise were debated. Heated debate over the bill and other competing proposals would continue for a year, before eventually resulting in the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which became law on May 30, 1854, establishing the Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory.