BLIND IRONY

Between 1854 and 1861, the Territory of Kansas was a bloody battleground of unrestrained terror and violence as Northern abolitionists and pro-slavery Southerners vied for the dominance of their respective causes, historically described as “Bleeding Kansas.”During the ferocious struggle between Free-Soilers and pro-slavery factions, Native American Indians were being betrayed by the U. S. government, stripped of their ancestral lands, and pushed relentlessly south and west to be confined slave-like on reservations. Few people noticed the incongruity ofthese two movements. Those who did were in double jeopardy.