Newspaper account of David Hoyt's murder

About the Project

A page from the New York Daily Tribune reporting on the violence occurring in the Kansas territory. In August 1856, David Hoyt was murdered by pro-slavery forces in Kansas Territory. A series of violent political confrontations between Kansas abolitionists known as "Free-Staters" and pro-slavery men took place in Kansas Territory and neighboring Missouri between 1854 and 1861. Known as Bleeding (or Bloody) Kansas or the Border Wars, these events were set into motion by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which nullified the Missouri Compromise and instituted a popular sovereignty approach to slavery. Concerns over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state led settlers on both sides of the conflict to flood the territory and act out what was essentially a proxy war over the issue of slavery. David Hoyt (1821–1856) was a strong and active supporter of the Free State Cause. Hoyt was sent to negotiate with a group of “Border Ruffians” under Captain Saunders. It is believed he had an amicable interview with the captain, but a couple of the “ruffians” followed him as he left camp to return to Lawrence and shot him from behind. His partially buried body was found by his friends the next day. Help us transcribe an important contemporary account of the events that led to David Hoyt's death.

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