They call themselves, Jayhawks. Fred Hickman from ESPN was quoted to say, “I don’t really know what a Jayhawk is?” Well, I’m going to educate the masses because even those KU Alum and their bandwagon fans don’t know.
According to Wikipedia, information is on their website. This is not fiction.
Origins of “Jayhawk”
The Jayhawk is a cross between two hunting birds–the noisy blue jay and the quiet sparrow hawk. The term came to prominence just before the Civil War, in Bleeding Kansas, where it was adopted by militant abolitionist groups known as jayhawkers. With the admission of Kansas as a free state in 1861, Jayhawker became synonymous with the people of Kansas.
While the term originated during the Bleeding Kansas Affair, Civil War jayhawkers are to be distinguished from Free State Jayhawkers who fought during Bleeding Kansas, which occurred in the decade leading up to the Civil War. Some Civil War jayhawkers had in fact supported Kansas’ admission to the union as a slave state, and had fought on the opposite side from the Free-Staters during the earlier conflict. Rather than anti-slavery sentiment, which motivated the Free-Staters, jayhawker bands organized to prevent and repel possible invasions of Kansas by Missouri bushwhackers. Some of their organizers, such as James H. Lane (R), were nonetheless prominent abolitionist politicians. As is often the case in insurgencies, the conflict between bushwhackers and jayhawkers rapidly escalated into a succession of atrocities committed by both sides.
Well-known jayhawkers include Lane and Charles “Doc” Jennison. Lane and his band of militants wore red gaiters, earning them the nickname “Redlegs.” This moniker is often used interchagably with the term “jayhawkers,” although it is sometimes used to refer specifically to jayhawkers who refused to join units officially sanctioned by the U.S. Army. Guerrillas on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas border achieved some measure of legitimacy through sanction from the Federal and Confederate governments, and the bands who scorned such sanction were typically even more vicious and indiscriminate in their methods than their bureaucratically recognized counterparts. Even within Kansas, the jayhawkers were not always popular because, in the absence of federal support, they supplied themselves by stealing horses and supplies from farmers.
Jayhawker bands waged numerous invasions of Missouri and also committed some of the most notorious atrocities of the Civil War, including the Lane-led massacre at Osceola, Missouri, in which the entire town was set aflame and at least 9 of the male residents killed. The sacking of Osceola inspired the 1976 film The Outlaw Josey Wales, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Jayhawkers also were accused of engineering the collapse of a jail in Kansas City in which female relatives of bushwhackers were incarcerated by Union sympathizers because of their connection to pro-Confederate guerrillas. These two incidents were prior to the Lawrence Massacre in Lawrence, Kansas, led by William Quantrill and his band of bushwhackers, who retaliated (according to Quantrill apologists) by setting the town on fire and killing an estimated 200 male residents.
Items stolen in raids into Missouri were frequently referred to as having been “Jayhawked.”
Where do I begin?
In light of recent government organizations (NCAA) calling for the dismissal of mascots and symbols of discrimination/violence to be removed from institutions of higher education, I petition the Kansas government to have the Jayhawk removed as a symbol of higher education.
Other examples, the “Colonel Rebel” at Ole Miss and the “Chief Illiniwek” at University of Illinois have been removed from university sports arenas. Recently, the NCAA has ordered University of Arkansas State to change their mascot.
As a person who was raised as a christian, I’m appalled. As a born resident of Kansas, I’m ashamed that an institution of higher learning would use a symbol of gratuitous violence.
Kansas Legislators should do the right thing and have this symbol of violence and oppression removed.
History Reference website
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/american_civil_war/3031171.html
