Event Summary:
Date: May 24-25, 1856
Location: Pottawatomie Creek, Franklin County, Kansas
Adversaries: Abolitionists affiliated with John Brown vs. proslavery Kansas settlers
Casualites: Five proslavery fatalities
Results: Massacre of the proslavery settlers
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. Brown had been enraged by both the sacking of the anti-slavery town of Lawrence several days before and the vicious attack on Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate, in which Representative Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, relentlessly beat Sumner with a cane. The killings at Pottawatomie Creek marked the beginning of the bloodletting of the “Bleeding Kansas” period, as both sides of the slavery issue embarked on a campaign of terror, intimidation, and armed conflict that lasted throughout the summer.
Three days prior to the massacre, on May 21, Brown and the “Pottawatomie Company,” an informal militia group, marched toward Lawrence to protect the town from the proslavery men intent on its destruction. After joining with a similar company from the anti-slavery town of Osawatomie, the men traveled north until they received word that they were too late to prevent the attack on the town, which resulted in the destruction of the Free State Hotel and the offices of the free state newspapers, as well as the looting of many homes and businesses.
