The term “jayhawker” originated in the 1850s as a symbol of Kansas’ struggle for freedom from pro-slavery Missourians. Jayhawkers were abolitionists who retaliated by raiding Missouri border towns. During the Civil War, jayhawkers were fierce fighters aligned with the Union, but some were too brutal even for the military to support. Notable jayhawkers included James Lane and Charles “Doc” Jennison. The negative connotations have been forgotten, but the term remains a Kansas moniker.
Today most people hear the word jayhawker and think of Kansas University basketball. It is an image as removed from slavery and guerrilla warfare as an image could be. But the Kansas-Missouri border in the 1850s was a hotbed of unrest, and the jayhawker emerged as a symbol of Kansas’ struggle to be a free state. In, a jayhawker was an abolitionist from Kansas, who would cross the border to raid Missouri, usually in revenge for a raid by Missourians called bushwhackers. The term would later apply to most Kansas fighters and eventually anything to do with Kansas.
As Kansas was establishing itself as a territory, bushwhackers, Missourians who were pro-slavery, raided towns and farms in an effort to intimidate anyone who was anti-slavery or a free-stater. The first jayhawker was an abolitionist, guerrilla, and Union sympathizer who would retaliate by raiding Missouri border towns. This period of fighting would become so intense that it would come to be known as the Bleeding Kansas affair.
During the American Civil War, a jayhawker could be almost any Kansas combatant, no matter what side they were on in the prewar years. Civil War jayhawkers were known for their fierce and often brutal fighting. They were occasionally aligned with the Union which gave them some legitimacy, but not always. There were groups of jayhawkers that not even the military could support because of their nastiness. Victims of jayhawker violence would say they are jayhawkers. While jayhawking could be used interchangeably with stealing, there was no stigma associated with it.
Some notable jayhawkers included James Lane, who led “Lane’s Army,” a group of abolitionists who settled in Kansas in hopes of keeping Kansas a free state. Throughout the American Civil War, Lane would fight on and eventually lead the looting of Osceola. Osceola’s firing was made into a film in 1976 called The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Charles “Doc” Jennison was another notable jayhawker who clarified his position on slavery. He was a fervent supporter of John Brown, a famous and militant abolitionist. On more than one occasion Jennison hanged pro-slavery Missourians when they tried to return runaway slaves to their masters.
We are separated by the violence of the days before, during and after the American Civil War by more than a hundred years. The negative connotations are forgotten, but the jayhawker remains a Kansas moniker.
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