Summary of Susan Jonusas's Hell's Half-Acre

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The Kansas Territory was formed in 1854, and in 1855, the settlers there voted to allow slavery. This became known as Bleeding Kansas, as the territory was constantly being threatened by pro-slavery settlers from Missouri.

#2 The violence between the Jayhawkers and the Bushwhackers continued to escalate, and it was not uncommon for towns like Fort Scott to be raided and terrorized by either side.

#3 When Kansas declared itself a free state in 1861, the country descended into civil war. The experience left communities with a strong sense of localized justice and a tendency to take matters into their own hands.

#4 When white settlers arrived in Kansas from the East Coast and parts of Europe, they did so at a devastating cost to its Indigenous peoples. The tribes were forced to cede more and more land to white settlers, who used the land to hunt and farm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669381136

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Insights on Susan Jonusas's Hells Half-Acre

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Kansas Territory was formed in 1854, and in 1855, the settlers there voted to allow slavery. This became known as Bleeding Kansas, as the territory was constantly being threatened by pro-slavery settlers from Missouri.

#2

The violence between the Jayhawkers and the Bushwhackers continued to escalate, and it was not uncommon for towns like Fort Scott to be raided and terrorized by either side.

#3

When Kansas declared itself a free state in 1861, the country descended into civil war. The experience left communities with a strong sense of localized justice and a tendency to take matters into their own hands.

#4

When white settlers arrived in Kansas from the East Coast and parts of Europe, they did so at a devastating cost to its Indigenous peoples. The tribes were forced to cede more and more land to white settlers, who used the land to hunt and farm.

#5

Following the Civil War, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were implemented to try and overrule the local codes, but in 1877, when the last of the federal troops left the South, local legislatures immediately began circumventing protections afforded to Black people.

#6

Labette County was a haven for those on the run from the law or seeking to make a living outside it. It was a land of whistling grass and mirrored waters, and it attracted many outlaws.

#7

The Homestead Act, passed in 1862, offered 160 acres of land to anyone who could afford the eighteen-dollar claimant fee. If the settlers could prove that they had worked on and improved the land over a five-year period, they were entitled to keep it.

#8

The Benders soon made a decision about the location of their claim. When Ern drove the wagon between two small hills into a vale that dipped below the line of the horizon, Gebhardt had immediately inquired about the availability of land. The land with the mounds was owned by a Mr. Hieronymus, but the land