John Brown

Bleeding Kansas: From the Kansas-Nebraska Act to Harpers Ferry

In 1859, John Brown, a settler from Kansas Territory, invaded the state of Virginia with plans to raid the Harpers Ferry arsenal and incite a slave rebellion. Among his small band of insurgents were several young men who had also carried out vigilante violence in Kansas in hopes of abolishing slavery in that territory. The raid itself failed, and those who did not escape or die in the raid were later executed, including John Brown.

Nicole Etcheson
Ball State University

Kansas Territory, the Election of 1860, and the Coming of the Civil War: A National Perspective

In many respects, Kansas—and the question of whether slavery, legal in neighboring Missouri, would be allowed to spread to the territory—was the central issue of the 1860 presidential election, the most significant in U.S. history. Curtailing slavery’s expansion and admitting Kansas as a free state was a key plank in the Republican Party’s platform that year, just as it was during the party’s first presidential election in 1856. The seemingly unanswerable “Kansas Question” and the issue of slavery’s expansion split the venerable Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions, allowing the Republican Abraham Lincoln to win the election without a single Southern electoral vote.

Jonathan Earle
Louisiana State University

By Terry Beckenbaugh, U. S. Air Force Command and Staff College

The Battle of Black Jack, fought on June 2, 1856, just outside of modern-day Baldwin City, Kansas, proved to be a watershed moment in United States history as the pro- and antislavery forces fought what some historians consider the first unofficial battle of the Civil War during “Bleeding Kansas.” Kansas Free-State forces, led by abolitionists John Brown and Samuel T. Shore, fought and forced the surrender of proslavery forces led by border ruffian, editor, and U. S. Deputy Marshal Henry C. Pate. The Battle of Black Jack highlighted the escalating violence in Kansas as Free-State and proslavery forces became more organized and the levels of violence increased.

By Chris Rein, Combat Studies Institute, Army University

By the summer of 1856, the debate over whether or not the territory of Kansas would become a free or slave state erupted into widespread violence, including John Brown’s killing of proslavery settlers in the Pottawatomie Massacre and the sacking of the Free-State stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas. Pro- and antislavery factions gathered men into paramilitary units and sought out their opponents across the territory and in neighboring Missouri. Against this backdrop, proslavery forces targeted known abolitionist strongholds in hopes of driving their residents from the territory.

Fort Bain

Fort Bain, a fortified log house capable of housing 50 people, served as a base of operations for radical abolitionist John Brown, James Montgomery, and its namesake, Captain Oliver P. Bain.

Battle of Black Jack

In the unofficial first battle of the Civil War (nearly five years prior to the war's beginning), abolitionist John Brown and his followers attacked the forces of a proslavery settler, Henry C. Pate, who held two of Brown's sons captive.

By Chris Rein, Combat Studies Institute, Army University

On the night of May 24, 1856, the radical abolitionist John Brown, five of his sons, and three other associates murdered five proslavery men at three different cabins along the banks of Pottawatomie Creek, near present-day Lane, Kansas.

By Matthew E. Stanley, Albany State University

John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed in using violent methods to eradicate slavery in the United States. He is most famous for leading an attack on a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1859. Although unsuccessful in his aim of overthrowing slavery in the American South, Brown’s raid and his subsequent execution fueled tensions in the national debate over slavery in the United States. Historians credit Brown, his raid, and the public debates surrounding his trial and legacy with hastening Southern secession and the Civil War.

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