Days after pro-slavery raiders sacked the free-state town of Lawrence, John Brown led seven men, including four of his sons, to cabins along Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas Territory. They hauled five men from their beds and hacked them to death, escalating the guerrilla conflict of 'Bleeding Kansas' and foreshadowing Brown's later raid on Harpers Ferry.
Kansas Territory in 1856 was a bloody preview of the Civil War, as pro- and anti-slavery settlers fought to determine whether the territory would enter the Union free or slave. Just days earlier, pro-slavery forces had ransacked the free-state stronghold of Lawrence, burning buildings and destroying printing presses, and news had also arrived of Congressman Preston Brooks nearly beating Senator Charles Sumner to death on the Senate floor.
John Brown, a fiercely religious abolitionist who believed slavery could only be ended through righteous violence, decided the moment demanded blood for blood. On the night of May 24 into the early hours (with the party assembling and moving on the 23rd), he led a small band, including four of his sons, to the cabins of pro-slavery settlers along Pottawatomie Creek.
They dragged five men outside, away from their families, and killed them with broadswords rather than guns, apparently to avoid alerting neighbors. None of the victims had personally attacked free-state settlers, but Brown considered them part of a hostile political apparatus. The massacre horrified even some abolitionists, but it cemented Brown's reputation as a man willing to shed blood for the cause, three years before Harpers Ferry.
Key people: John Brown