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Jayhawker
Jayhawker and red leg are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers". After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan.
The term did not appear in the first American edition of Burtlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), but was entered into the fourth improved and enlarged edition in 1877 as a cant name for a freebooting armed man in the western United States.
It was established that the term was adopted as a nickname by a group of emigrants from Illinois traveling to California in 1849, who got stuck in Death Valley.
In 1858–59, the slang term "Jayhawking" became widely used as a synonym for stealing. Examples include:
O'ive been over till Eph. Kepley's a-jayhawking.
Men are now at Fort Scott, working by the day for a living as loyal as Gen. Blunt himself, who have had every hoof confiscated, or jayhawked, which is about the same thing, for all the benefit it is to the Government.
The term became part of the lexicon of the Missouri–Kansas border in about 1858, during the Kansas territorial period. The term came to be used to describe militant bands nominally associated with the free-state cause. One early Kansas history contained this succinct characterization of the Jayhawkers:
Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the name—whatever its origin may be—of jayhawkers.
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Jayhawker
Jayhawker and red leg are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers". After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan.
The term did not appear in the first American edition of Burtlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), but was entered into the fourth improved and enlarged edition in 1877 as a cant name for a freebooting armed man in the western United States.
It was established that the term was adopted as a nickname by a group of emigrants from Illinois traveling to California in 1849, who got stuck in Death Valley.
In 1858–59, the slang term "Jayhawking" became widely used as a synonym for stealing. Examples include:
O'ive been over till Eph. Kepley's a-jayhawking.
Men are now at Fort Scott, working by the day for a living as loyal as Gen. Blunt himself, who have had every hoof confiscated, or jayhawked, which is about the same thing, for all the benefit it is to the Government.
The term became part of the lexicon of the Missouri–Kansas border in about 1858, during the Kansas territorial period. The term came to be used to describe militant bands nominally associated with the free-state cause. One early Kansas history contained this succinct characterization of the Jayhawkers:
Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the name—whatever its origin may be—of jayhawkers.
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