The New England Emigrant Aid Company (NEEAC) created Lawrence in 1854. It is named after Amos Adams Lawrence, who gave financial support to the city. During Bleeding Kansas, Lawrence was where the Wakarusa War (1855) and the Sack of Lawrence (1856) happened. Lawrence is also the site of the Lawrence Massacre (1863) which happened during the American Civil War (1861–1865).
Lawrence started as an important place for free-state politics. After that, Lawrence's economy grew to be in many industries. These industries include agriculture, manufacturing, and education. Lawrence is called a "college town" because the University of Kansas is an important part of the city. There are many places in town where students like to go.
Before the creation of the Kansas Territory, the area was part of the Shawnee Reservation. The Shawnee reservation was created in 1830. Most of eastern Kansas was in the reservation. In 1854, it became part of the Kansas Territory. The Oregon Trail went through the area. People on the Oregon Trail used a hill called "Hogback Ridge" to help guide them. Today, Hogback Ridge is called "Mount Oread."
In the first half of the 1800s, there were many arguments about slavery in the United States. During this time, every time a free state (a state where slavery was illegal) was added into the country, a slave state (a state where slavery was allowed) had to be added too. The Missouri Compromise continued to let this happen. As a compromise to people arguing about new states being free or slave, Senator Lewis Cass and Senator Stephen A. Douglas promoted the idea of "popular sovereignty." That meant the people in the area would decide to have slavery or not (instead of politicians in Washington deciding). Popular sovereignty was a big part of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. That law undid the Missouri Compromise in practice. The Kansas-Nebraska Act also created the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory.
After the law passed, anti-slavery people were worried that the Kansas Territory would become a slave state. This is because the state next to Kansas is Missouri, which was a slave state. People believed that the first settlers in Kansas would be from Missouri. To stop Missouri from influencing Kansas, anti-slavery people from around the United States came to Kansas. These people wanted to make Kansas a free state. These people were called "free-staters." The New England Emigrant Aid Company (NEEAC) helped anti-slavery people move to Kansas. It sent two men named Charles L. Robinson and Charles H. Branscomb to explore the land. They would decide a good place to send people. They saw Hogback Ridge, and they liked it because it was close to the Oregon Trail. They told the NEEAC to send people to this place.
While Robinson and Branscomb were exploring, the NEEAC was getting people to move to Kansas. The NEEAC wanted to send a big group of people to claim the land. However, a cholera outbreak in the Missouri Valley stopped this from happening. The NEEAC was able to get a small group of only 29 men to go. They left Boston, Massachusetts on July 17, 1854. Many people in Boston were happy to see them do this, and they hoped they would do well. In late July, the group came to St. Louis and met Charles Robinson. He gave them transportation and told them what to do. They came to the Kansas Territory in late July. They ate their first meal on Hogback Ridge on August 1, 1854. After they had eaten, half of them left to claim the land around them. The other half stayed on Hogback Ridge. They began putting up their tents between Mount Oread and the Kansas River (close to where Massachusetts Street is). This was the start of the city.
Four weeks later, Robinson and Samuel C. Pomeroy led a second group of 67 people from Worcester, Massachusetts on August 31. While they were going to Kansas, other anti-slavery people joined them. When they came to Lawrence on September 911, their group had 114 people. This group had about ten women, some children, and some musicians. A third group came on October 8-9. However, many of them "became disgusted" by the settlement because it did not look good, and they went back to New England. Many felt the NEEAC tricked them. A fourth group came on October 30, a fifth group on November 20, and a sixth group on December 1.
On September 18, 1854, the people of Lawrence made a government. On September 20, they wrote a constitution which did not allow slavery. The people of Lawrence wrote this constitution even though other people near them wanted slavery. On September 30, the people of Lawrence came together to protect Thomas J. Ferril, an anti-slavery clergyman from Missouri. Pro-slavery people went to Ferril's house and threatened violence. The pro-slavery people left when they saw free-state people coming with guns. On October 1, a woman destroyed the tent of a free-state man. Pro-slavery people came to stop the settlers from building the tent again, but they built the tent again without violence.
Lawrence was first called "Wakarusa". It also had different names like "New Boston" or "Yankee Town." Some people wanted the city to be called "Lawrence" to honor a man named Amos Adams Lawrence. He was a Republican businessman who did not like slavery. People believed that if they named the city "Lawrence," he would give financial support to the city. He did. On October 1, the people voted to name the city Lawrence. On October 17, people started building houses and businesses. Pro-slavery people tried to build houses close to Lawrence, and people from Lawrence hated this. They had a very angry argument. The pro-slavery people threatened violence, but they left. No violence happened.
In early October 1854, Andrew Horatio Reeder, the first governor of the Kansas Territory, came to Lawrence. He had a party. He asked everyone to get along. He did not say anything about slavery. The first winter in Lawrence was difficult because it was very cold, and people did not have good houses. Two miles south of Lawrence on November 3, 1854, the first elections were held. At the elections, a man named Henry Davis attacked a pro-slavery man named Lucius Kibbee using a Bowie knife. Kibbee then shot Davis and killed him. This was the first murder in Kansas.
Two newspapers were started in 1854. They were the "Kansas Pioneer" and the "Herald of Freedom". The writers of the newspapers wrote about their belief that slavery was wrong. The Plymouth Congregational Church was built in September 1854; it was the first church in Kansas. In January 1855, Lawrence's first post office was built. The first postmaster was E. D. Ladd. On January 10, 1855, Lawrence's first free school was built. The teacher was Edward Fitch.
At the start of 1855, the free-staters and the pro-slavery people around Lawrence started fighting for political power. At the Kansas elections on March 30, 1855, about 700-1,000 pro-slavery people from Missouri voted at the election. They came in more than 100 wagons. They had guns, rifles, pistols, and Bowie knives. They also brought two pieces of artillery. No one argued with them because there were a lot of them. They went back to Missouri the next day. Before the election, the government did a census which showed that 8,601 people lived in Kansas. Of those 2,905 were voters; Lawrence had 369 voters. There were a total of 2,905 voters in the territory, but there were 6,307 votes counted. 1,034 votes were cast in Lawrence, but 802 were from people who did not live in Kansas. Only 232 of the votes were real. At the election, a man named Silas Bond was shot at, and he ran away. He was shot at because he was "an obnoxious free-state man."
On August 27, 1855, the pro-slavery people were happy when the Governor Daniel Woodson chose a pro-slavery man, Samuel J. Jones, to be the county sheriff. In October 1855, the anti-slavery man John Brown came to Kansas. He brought many guns to give to other anti-slavery people.