History of slavery in Kansas
While cotton never had a significant role in Kansas' early agrarian economy, a tiny portion of the population did engage in the ownership of slaves and plantations in the fertile grounds lining the Missouri River during the mid-19th century.
Armed civil conflict
The presence of slaveowners in Kansas, particularly slaveowners who had migrated from the neighboring slave state of Missouri in order to guarantee the future state's entry into the Union as a slave state, served as a motivating factor for Northern abolitionist movements to move into the Kansas territory in order to prevent such efforts from succeeding. This resulted in the armed conflict known as Bleeding Kansas, a prelude to the Civil War.