<Ul> <Li> Wakarusa War </Li> <Li> Lawrence </Li> <Li> Pottawatomie </Li> <Li> Black Jack </Li> <Li> Fort Titus </Li> <Li> Osawatomie </Li> <Li> Marais des Cygnes </Li> </Ul> <Li> Marais des Cygnes </Li> <P> Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 involving anti-slavery "Free - Staters" and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian", or "southern" elements in Kansas . At the heart of the conflict was the question of whether Kansas would allow or outlaw slavery, and thus enter the Union as a slave state or a free state . The Kansas--Nebraska Act of 1854 called for "popular sovereignty"--that is, the decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers (rather than outsiders). It would be decided by votes--or more exactly which side had more votes counted by officials . Pro-slavery forces said every settler had the right to bring his own property, including slaves, into the territory . Anti-slavery "free soil" forces said the rich slaveholders would buy up all the good farmland and work it with black slaves, leaving little or no opportunity for non-slaveholders . As such, Bleeding Kansas was a conflict between anti-slavery forces in the North and pro-slavery forces from the South over the issue of slavery in the United States, and its violence indicated that compromise was unlikely, and thus it presaged the Civil War . </P> <P> The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Republican Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune . </P>

Who was the conflict between in the strife of bleeding kansas