Lecompton - Bleeding Kansas Program Series
"Bogus Legislature and Border War: The Politics of the Shawnee Indian Mission and Thomas
Johnson"
This program will be presented by Jennifer Laughlin, site administrator of Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site. The Shawnee Indian Mission, built in 1839, served as a trade school near the Missouri border on the Shawnee Reservation. In the 1850’s, it became a major epicenter of Kansas territorial politics. Thomas Johnson, the Methodist Minister and Superintendent of the School, was himself a leader of the pro-slavery movement during Bleeding Kansas, fueled by his own personal ideologies and close proximity to Westport. Business, culture, assimilation, religion, politics and controversy all found a place on those two-thousand acres until Johnson’s death in 1865.
