KU News Release

Yearbook reveals role of German revolutionaries in Kansas history

LAWRENCE — The most recent issue of the Yearbook of German-American Studies uncovers previously overlooked connections between dramatic events in Europe, the revolutions of 1848 and 1849, and the struggle for a slave-free Kansas in the 1850s.

The yearbook is a publication of the national Society for German-American Studies. The 2005 edition was released this month through the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies at the University of Kansas. William D. Keel, KU professor of German, edited the yearbook.

“Research shows that German radicals played a prominent role in the establishment of the Republican Party in the mid-1850s and many saw in Kansas a crucial test of freedom,” said Frank Baron, KU professor of German and director of the Max Kade Center, in the yearbook’s introductory essay.

Baron notes that German radicals, who had been frustrated by the failure of revolutions against tyranny in Europe, saw the pre-Civil War struggles in Kansas as a new chance to fight for freedom. John Brown recognized promising allies in these Germans.

One ally was an Austrian immigrant August Bondi, who rode with Brown in 1856. The 2005 yearbook reprints the first five chapters of the 1910 autobiography of Bondi. His autobiography includes what may be the first reference to the term “Jayhawk.” Bondi recalls a meeting with Gen. James Lane during the night of Dec. 14-15, 1857, in which Lane addressed his anti-slavery followers as “Jayhawks” or “Jayhawkers.”

The volume also reprints the German-language “Guide for Settlers in Kansas Territory,” originally published in 1857 by German revolutionary Karl F. Kob, and provides an English translation of the description of settlements in the German guide, including Lawrence and Topeka.

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