Tonight Kansas and Missouri renew the Border War in Lawrence. For most fans around the country, it’s a football rivalry. Growing up in Lawrence though, you learn early that the animosity has roots much deeper than sports.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 left settlers to decide whether Kansas would enter the Union free or enslaved. Pro-slavery Missourians crossed the border to influence elections, while Free-State settlers organized to resist them. The resulting violence became known as Bleeding Kansas - a preview of the Civil War.
Lawrence, founded as a Free-State stronghold, was sacked by pro-slavery forces in 1856. Seven years later, William Quantrill and roughly 300 Confederate guerrillas descended on the town, killed around 150 men and boys, and burned more than 200 homes and businesses. So when you grow up there, you’re taught to hate Missouri - mostly in fun today, but with a deep understanding that the history behind the rivalry was anything but.
The word Jayhawk emerged from that turbulent territorial era. Its precise origin is debated, but “Jayhawkers” became associated with Kansas Free-State fighters; the familiar mascot later evolved into a mythical combination of a noisy blue jay and a fierce sparrow hawk.
And then there’s John Brown: radical abolitionist, deeply complicated historical figure and - fair or not - something close to Kansans’ spirit animal. He came to Kansas determined that it would enter the Union without slavery and concluded that violence had to be met with violence.
The centerpiece of this photo, and one of my most prized possessions, is a John Brown-signed 1856 booklet debating the admission of Kansas as a state. It’s a tangible connection to the struggle that gave Kansas its identity - and, eventually, its Jayhawk.
So yes, tonight is “just a game.” But this rivalry carries a little more history than most.
Rock Chalk. Beat Mizzery.
