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Bleeding Kansas Themes

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Chase Nichols History, Civics, Social Responsibility Mr. Kaufmann Movie Review The West: Episode 4 (Death Runs Riot) In the 1850's, more American pioneers moved west, bringing with them slavery that would ignite the Civil War. Tactics that had defeated the armies of the South would then begin to be used against the Native Americans of the West. In "Bleeding Kansas," abolitionists battle for free soil. In Utah, federal troops march against Mormon their practice of polygamy. The war between North and South unleashes visceral savagery in the West, and leaves behind an army prepared for total war against the Native Americans of the plains. Introductory comments suggest that the West, at least during this time, was a region of exaggerated violence in places such as Pottawattamie …show more content…

Julia Lovejoy, an antislavery advocate who had recently moved to Kansas, provides some narrative unity for the first theme. Her letters, written to relatives in New Hampshire, detail the horrors of "bleeding Kansas." The second theme is told effectively from the perspective of Black Kettle, the Cheyenne peace chief, whose people were the victims of both Colonel John Chivington's massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado, and George Armstrong Custer's 1868 attack on the banks of the Washita River. Individual segments, which could be shown separately or safely omitted, tell the stories of: Samuel Clemens sharpening his wit in his early years as a reporter in Nevada City; and John D. Lee, who led the Mormons in a massacre of a wagon train at Mountain Meadows. This tragic incident, controversial both then and now, is explained in the context of rising American hostility toward Mormons, and the latter group's fears of the U.S. Army marching against them toward Salt

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