Title – Voices Through Time:

By – Joel Latman

Primary Subject – Social Studies

Secondary Subjects – Computers / Internet

Grade Level – 11-12 AP-Upper Level US History

Note from LessonPlanPage.com:

This lesson plan relies heavily on photographs and cartoons that we do not have the rights to publish. Hopefully, with a little research, you should be able to find these pictures yourself, or assign the research to your students. You might also be able to request assistance from the lesson plan author.

Introduction:

This lesson plan was presented to Dr. Mary Ann Wynkoop,
Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City, in partial fulfillment for the requirements of the NEH Landmarks in History Institute — Crossroads of Conflict: Contested Visions of Freedom and The Missouri-Kansas Border Wars

Rationale:

Mom, what’s for dinner?

Far too often, the response is:

Let’s have take-out

, or

Let’s go to the neighborhood fast food restaurant

. This is acceptable on occasion, but a steady diet of fast food is not healthy; it only briefly satisfies one’s taste buds. Over time, fast foods loose their flavor and essence and become even more bland to the palette. A steady diet of burgers, fries and a coke eventually becomes mundane. It has been stated, “variety is the spice of life”. Today teenagers often become “addicted” to fast foods, failing to savoir a multiplicity of cuisines because they may never have experienced food from another culture, their parents may not have exposed them to new and different foods, or the appearance of an entrée may not look appetizing, or even appear messy to the eye.

Unfortunately, according to Mount Holyoke historian Dr. Jonathan Liippman, the above scenario holds true as adolescents learn United States history. Dr. Lippman has stated that to arouse student interest “history needs to be messy, the messier the better.”

High school learners need to be aware that history involves various idiosyncratic personalities in an mélange of interactive experiences with one another.

These characteristics of individuals provide “unique ingredients and various spices” giving unique flavors to history. History does not occur in a vacuum. No two people react to the same situation in the same way.


Traditional high school textbooks provide a homogenized approach to the study of United States history. Schoolbooks tend to gloss over, or even exclude biographical backgrounds and personal anecdotes, which contribute to a student’s deeper understanding and greater appreciation for United States history.

A system of “pasteurization” is employed that filters out the “cream”, and thus secondary textbooks become mundane and bland, thus dulling the “taste buds”, stifling natural curiosity and inquisitiveness. Over time, from grades 1-11 students become weaned on a steady “fast food diet” approach to the study of our nation’s interesting and often times provocative past.

Purpose:

The purpose of “Voices Through Time: Character and Characteristics of the Kansas-Missouri Border War” is to provide opportunities for advanced placement and upper level grade 11-12 United States history students to conduct primary and secondary research and gain a more in-depth understanding of people, places and events in the cavalcade and march to our nation’s Civil War . Students will “taste the full menu” of what United States has to offer. They will learn that the Border War was a highly complex issue involving numerous personalities engaged in a series of many significant historical events.

National and Connecticut State Social Studies Standards:

• Content Standard 1: Individual Development and Identity

  All humans think, learn, act, and develop cognitively, socially, physically, emotionally, personally, and mentally as well as construct, test, confirm, revise, and apply multiple concepts of and multiple identities as to who they are. While much of what humans are and become has been associated with genetics and assumed natural stages of physical, psychological, emotional, and mental development, a far greater factor in mental, social, emotional, personal, and identity construction and application is the interaction of the individual with his or her environments and the consequences of these interactions. All individuals should know the factors that contribute to who they are; to what they think, feel, and believe; to what they decide and do; to why they are likely to make certain decisions and act in particular ways; and to how they perceive themselves, their abilities, their personality, and the world.

  STANDARD 1:

  The student thinks chronologically, therefore, the student is able to:

  • Distinguish between past, present, and future time.

  • Identify the temporal structure of a historical narrative or story: its beginning, middle, and end (the latter defined as the outcome of a particular beginning).

  • Establish temporal order in constructing their [students'] own historical narratives: working forward from some beginning through its development, to some end or outcome; working backward from some issue, problem, or event to explain its origins and its development over time.

  STANDARD 5:

  The student engages in historical issues-analysis and decision-making, therefore, the student is able to:

  • identify problems and dilemmas confronting people in historical stories, myths, legends, and fables, and in the history of their school, community, state, nation, and the world.

  • Analyze the interests, values, and points of view of those involved in the dilemma or problem situation. Identify causes of the problem or dilemma.

  • Propose alternative ways of resolving the problem or dilemma and evaluate each in terms of ethical consideration (is it fair? just?), the interest of the different people involved, and the likely consequences of each proposal.

  • Formulate a position or course of action on an issue by identifying the nature of the problem, analyzing the underlying factors contributing to the problem, and choosing a plausible solution from a choice of carefully evaluated options.

  • Identify the solution chosen by characters in the story or in the historical situation; or, recommend a course of action they. Evaluate the consequences of the actions taken.

  • Explain how events after the Compromise of 1850 and the Dred Scott decision in 1857 contributed to increasing sectional polarization. [Analyze cause-and-effect relationships]

• Content Standard 2: Local, United States, and World History

  • Students will use historical thinking skills to develop an understanding of the major historical periods, issues and trends in United States history, world history, and Connecticut and local history.

  • Demonstrate an under-standing of major events and trends in world history, United States and local history from all historical periods and from all the regions of the world.

  • Analyze the causes and consequence of significant events that were associated with
    “Bleeding Kansas” and the onset of the Civil War.

  • Locate the events, peoples and places they have studied in time and place ( e.g., on a time line and map) relative to their own location.

  • Explain relationships among the events and trends studied in local, national and world history.

  • Identify various parties and analyze their interest in conflicts from selected historical periods.

  • Describe, explain and analyze political, economic and social consequences that came about as the resolution of a conflict.

  • Demonstrate an under-standing of the ways race; gender, ethnicity and class issues have affected individuals and societies in the past.

  • Demonstrate and perform specific research techniques and skills to locate and analyze primary source materials.

  • Analyze specific quotations and character descriptions to identify significant people and
    
    the roles they played in major events of the mid-nineteenth century.

Using the descriptions and quotations listed below, please match each with the corresponding person’s photograph, best painting or most accurate political cartoon. Please place the correct name in the space that is provided at the left. Please note that each photograph, painting or political cartoon may be used only once.

____________ 1. Prior to my death I uttered these words “I _______ ________ am
now quite certain the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged
away; but with Blood. I had as I now think; vainly flattered myself
that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”

____________ 2. The fourteenth President of the United States, to strengthen the
Democratic Party in Kansas appointed me Kansas’ first territorial
governor. Who am I ?

____________ 3. My political enemies portrayed me as “a politician who coveted
the White House, sought to overturn the Missouri Compromise
and to introduce popular sovereignty into Kansas-Nebraska
Territory. Who am I ?

____________ 4. “All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates Counties, Missouri,
and in the part of Vernon included in this district, except those living
in 1 mile of Independence, Hickman Mills, Pleasant Hill and Harrisonville, Creek and west of the Big Blue are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the
date hereof. Those who, within that time establish their loyalty to
the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station
nearest their present places of residence will receive from him
certificates stating the fact of their loyalty, and the names of the
witnesses to remove to any military station in the district, or to any
part of the State of Kansas except counties on the eastern border of
the State”. I issued this order in response to violence occurring the
Border War. Who am I ?

____________ 5. As a leading benefactor of the New England Emigrant Aid Company
(NEEAC), I provided resources for the establishment for a non-slave
owners’ settlement in Kansas Territory. Who am I ?

____________ 6. “At the front door the gang entered, met by Julia and her frightened
children. Cursing and yelling fiercely, they demanded her husband.
Receiving no reply from the terror-stricken woman, the men crashed
through the home, up and down, from one room to the next, madly
hunting their prey. Failing in this, it was decided simply to smoke the
victim out. Setting the house on fire, the raiders fell back into the
street to watch and wait for the mayor’s appearance.” I was the
leader of this 1863 guerrilla raid into the bastion of free state territory.
Who am I ?

____________ 7. “You and your people are aggressors upon our rights. You come to
drive our ‘peculiar institution and us’ from Kansas. We do not intend,
cost what it may, to be driven or deprived of any of our rights.” Who
was responsible for making this statement ?

____________ 8.” Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, that all that part of the territory
of the United States included within the following limits, except such portions
thereof as are hereinafter expressly exempted from the operations of this
act, to wit: beginning at a point in the Missouri River where the fortieth parallel
of north latitude crosses the same; then west on said parallel to the east
boundary of the Territory of Utah, the summit of the Rocky Mountains; thence
on said summit northwest to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude; thence
east on said parallel to the western boundary of the territory of Minnesota;
thence southward on said boundary to the Missouri River; thence down the
main channel of said river to the place of beginning, be, and the same is
hereby, created into a temporary government by the name of the Territory
Nebraska; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory or any
portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with without slavery, as
their constitution may prescribe at the time of the admission: Provided, That
nothing in this act contained shall be construed to inhibit the government of
the United States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in
such manner and at such time as Congress shall deem convenient and
proper, or from attaching a portion of said Territory to any other State or
Territory of the United States.” I maneuver this legislation through the U.S.
Senate. Who am I ?

____________ 9. On the morning of August 21, 1863, being one of the youngest
members, “I rode with the Devil” – killing more than 150 Kansas
adolescent boys and free-state men. After the Civil War, I gained
fame by committing train robberies. Who am I ?

____________ 10. “Cowering over the cabin with her four younger children,
Mahala Doyle heard two gunshots, moaning, and a “wild whoop.”
In the morning, John found the bodies of his father and eldest
brother on the road near the house. James Doyle had been shot
in the forehead and stabbed in the chest. William’s head was cut
open, and his face and side bore knife wounds. Drury lay apart
from the others in a ravine. His fingers and arm were severed,
his head and chest slashed open”. I was responsible for these
actions. Who am I ?

____________ 11. Known by the sobriquet “the Grim Chieftain” and as a friend of President
Lincoln after Kansas became a free state, I was elected her first
United States Senator. I eventually became the most powerful
politician west of the Mississippi River during the Civil War.
Who am I ?

____________ 12. “My enemies accused my bill of violating ‘a sacred pledge,’ of
being ‘part and parcel of an atrocious plot’ to transform the
northern portion of the old Louisiana Purchase ‘into a dreary
region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves’”.
Who am I ?

____________ 13. I was present when President Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska
bill, and remarked to the president: “Your victory is but an
adjournment of the question from the halls of legislation at Washington to the prairies of the freedom-loving West, and there, sir,
we shall beat you.” As one who was opposed to slavery in Kansas, I
was opposed to violence. I eventually became a national senator
from Kansas. Who am I ?

____________ 14. As a result of my ruling (1) blacks could not be citizens of the United
States; (2) slaves were property protected by the Constitution; and
(3) a state could decide for itself if someone formerly emancipated
should revert to slavery within that state’s boundaries. Coming when
forces already were setting the stage for Civil War, Who am I ?

____________ 15. Following the Bushwhackers attack on Kansas in August of 1863,
the federal government declared martial war. In 1869 -1870, still
disturbed and angered by this hostile action, I responded in a
unique way. My efforts and response to this day remain evident to
my fellow Americans. Who am I ?

____________ 16. Two months before I took office, my wife and I saw our eleven-year-old son killed when our train was wrecked. After pro-slavery Border Ruffians, mostly from Missouri, illegally voted in a government
which I recognized, I called the Topeka Constitution, a shadow
government set up by Free-Staters, an act of “rebellion.” I
continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature even after a
congressional investigative committee found its election illegitimate.
I dispatched federal troops to break up a meeting of the shadow
government in Topeka. The act provoked outrage among
northerners who saw me as kowtowing to slave-holding interests,
and contributed to critical estimates of me as untrustworthy and
easily manipulated. My motto eventually became “there’s nothing
left to do, but get drunk.” Who am I ?

____________ 17. In 1853-54 I was a representative in the Massachusetts legislature
and while there, originated and organized the New England
Emigrant Aid Company. I worked to combine the northern states in
support of my plan to send antislavery settlers into Kansas.
Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, and Osawatomie, Kansas, were
settled under the auspices of my company. Who am I ?

____________ 18. I represented the “radical” or abolitionist wing of the free state movement, but I was also a coalition builder, and thus became a
founder and leader of the Free State Party established in the
summer of 1855. My cool, detached leadership provided a stabilizing
influence on the party —a counter balance to the much more volatile
Jim Lane—and he was subsequently elected governor of under the
“extra-illegal” Topeka Constitution. I helped negotiate a truce that
ended the “Wakarusa War”. Who am I ?

____________ 19. At the beginning of the Civil War, I was personally opposed
secession. I was elected presiding officer of the Missouri State
leaving the Union. Things changed drastically, however, when
Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon seized the state’s Camp Jackson at
St. Louis. Outraged by this act, I joined with the Southerners, and
was assigned by pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson to
command the newly reformed Missouri State Guard in May 1861.
I temporarily secured the city of St. Louis for the South I won even
a greater victory at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, which resulted in
Lyon’s death and temporary Confederate control of southwestern
Missouri. Who am I ?

____________ 20. On May 21, 1856, as their leader, together with a group of
proslavery men acting as a posse, entered Lawrence intent on
destroying the offices of the Herald of Freedom and the Kansas Free
State. In the raid that followed we destroyed the newspaper offices
(dumping their type in the Kansas River), looted several other
businesses, and burned the Free State Hotel (later the Eldridge
House). This action became widely known as the “first sack
Lawrence.” Who am I?

Jim Lane

General Thomas Ewing Jr.

General Order # 11

By George Caleb Bingham

Political Cartoons Involving Stephen A. Douglas

Cartoon 1 – Stephen A. Douglas

Cartoon 2 – Stephen A. Douglas Run For President

General Sterling Price

Sheriff Samuel Jones

Charles Robinson

John Brown

In Kansas

John Brown’s Execution

Governor Andrew Reeder

William Quantrill

Senator Stephen A. Douglas

Jesse James

Franklin Pierce

Senator David Atchison

Eli Thayer

Amos Lawrence

Roger B. Taney

Samuel Pomeroy

1. John Brown’s Execution
   
2. Andrew Reeder
   
3. Political Cartoon # 2 – Stephen A. Douglas Run For President
   
4. General Thomas Ewing Jr.
   
5. Amos Lawrence
   
6. William Quantrill
   
7. Senator David Atchison
   
8. Stephen A. Douglas
   
9. Jesse James
   
10. John Brown In Kansas
    
11. Jim Lane
    
12. Political Cartoon # 1 Stephen A Douglas
    
13. Samuel Pomeroy
    
14. Roger Taney
    
15. George Caleb Bingham
    
16. Franklin Pierce
    
17. Eli Thayer
    
18. Charles Robinson
    
19. General Sterling Price
    
20. Sheriff Samuel Jones

Given the time period 1850-1870, please arrange the previous names and images of pertinent people with specific events they are associated with. Please organize (assigning each picture a letter) the proper sequence of events.

Example:


Compromise of 1850

Henry Clay


Picture of “Henry Clay” would be placed below the date 1850

Collins, Robert.

Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesmen, Kansan

. Gretna,
Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 2007.

Earl, Jonathan.

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry

. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

Atchison, Nichole.

Bleeding Kansas

. Lawrence, Kansas: The
University of Kansas Press, 2004.

Goodrich, Thomas.

Bloody Dawn: The Story of The Lawrence
Massacre

. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1991.

Oates, Stephen.

To Purge This Land With Blood

. New York:
Harper &Row;, 1970.

Oates, Stephen.

The Approaching Fury

. New York: Harper Collins,
1997.

Oates, Stephen.

The Whirlwind of War

. New York: Harper Collins,
1998.

Siddali, Silvanna. (Editor)

Missouri’s War: The Civil War In Documents

. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2009

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Joel Latman

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