Leavenworth KA

Wikipedia says: Leavenworth is the county seat of and the largest city in Leavenworth County, Kansas, United States. Leavenworth is located on the west bank of the Missouri River, on the site of Fort Leavenworth, built in 1827. The city became known in American history for its role as a key supply base in the settlement of the American West. During the Civil War, many volunteers joined the Union Army from Leavenworth. The city has been notable as the location of several prisons, particularly the United States Disciplinary Barracks and United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth.

History

Leavenworth, founded in 1854, was the first city incorporated in the territory of Kansas. The city developed south of Fort Leavenworth, which was established as Cantonment Leavenworth in 1827 by Colonel Henry Leavenworth. Its location on the Missouri River attracted refugee African-American slaves in the antebellum years, who were seeking freedom from the slave state of Missouri across the river. Abolition supporters helped them find refuge. In the years before the Civil War, Leavenworth was a hotbed of anti-slavery and pro-slavery agitation, often leading to open physical confrontations on the street and in public meetings.

On April 3, 1858, the “Leavenworth Constitution” for the state of Kansas was adopted here. Although the federal government never approved this early version of the state constitution, it was considered one of the most radical of the four constitutions drafted for the new territory because it recognized freed black people as citizens.

Refugee African Americans continued to settle in the city during the war. By 1865, it had attracted nearly one-fifth of the 12,000 black people in the state. In 1866, the 10th Regiment of Cavalry, an all-black unit within the U.S. Army, was stood up at Fort Leavenworth. Charles Henry Langston was an African-American leader from Ohio who worked and lived in Leavenworth and northeastern Kansas in the Reconstruction era and afterward. In Kansas, Langston worked for black suffrage and the right of African Americans to sit on juries, testify in court, and have their children educated in common schools.