Kansas leaned hard into the history behind one of college football’s oldest rivalries on Thursday night, unveiling a Civil War-themed hype video just a day before Missouri visits Lawrence for Friday’s matchup.
The video, titled “Heroes vs. Villains,” was narrated by former Jayhawk nose tackle Gilbert Brown and quickly set off a wave of reaction online. Kansas used historical imagery tied to the Civil War era and the Border War, including references to the Lawrence Massacre, John Brown and William Quantrill.
The timing fits the setting. No.
23 Missouri is heading to Kansas in a rivalry that began in 1891 and has been played 121 times. The Border War label has long been tied to the conflict between the states during the Civil War years, and Kansas’ latest video leaned directly into that backdrop.
The roots of that tension go back to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which let settlers in new territories decide whether slavery would be allowed. Kansas was not yet a state at the time, but many of the people settling there opposed slavery. As more people moved from slave states and territories, especially Missouri, into anti-slavery areas, the result was years of violence and conflict.
Missouri’s pro-slavery “Border Ruffians” raided Kansas territory in an effort to force it into becoming a slave state. Those who resisted were called “Jayhawkers,” and Kansas adopted the Jayhawks name in 1886 in honor of them. The source material also notes that the violence of the era became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
Kansas eventually entered the United States as a free state, while Missouri came in as a slave state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise, alongside Maine as a non-slave state.
The video also nods to one of the most infamous episodes from the era, the Lawrence Massacre. That attack took place on August 21. 1863, when a Confederate guerilla group led by William Quantrill struck Lawrence, Kansas and killed around 150 men and boys. Quantrill appears in the Kansas video.
Quantrill was a Confederate Guerrilla leader who together with a group of led 10 pro-slavery men. He and his group led several attacks on towns around the Missouri-Kansas area and surrounding towns leading up to the Lawrence massacre.
John Brown is another figure featured in the video. He was a staunch abolitionist who marched with anti-slavery volunteers into Kansas after the massacre and, along with his sons, killed five pro-slave supporters. Brown was hung for treason in 1859 after leading a raid on the federal army in Virginia.
The rivalry has spilled into merchandise before, too. In 2007, Missouri fans created a t-shirt showing the burning of Lawrence in 1863 paired with the word “Scoreboard” and a Missouri logo. Kansas answered in 2012 with a shirt featuring Brown’s face and the line, “Kansas: Keeping America Safe From Missouri Since 1854.”
The reaction to Kansas’ new video was immediate, with fans and observers calling it an intense shot at a rival.
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