Pottawatomie massacre

Pottawatomie Massacre
Part of Bleeding Kansas
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Location	Franklin County, Kansas
Coordinates	38°26′14″N 95°6′32″W / 38.43722°N 95.10889°W / 38.43722; -95.10889
Date	May 23–24, 1856
Target	Pro-slavery settlers
Attack type	Mass homicide by slashing and shooting, kidnapping, child abduction[a]
Deaths	5
Victims	Five killed, one child kidnapped
Perpetrators	John Brown Pottawatomie Rifles

The Pottawatomie massacre occurred on the night of May 24–25, 1856, in the Kansas Territory, United States. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces on May 21, and the telegraphed news of the severe attack on Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers—some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles—responded violently. Just north of Pottawatomie Creek, in Franklin County, they abducted and killed five pro-slavery settlers in front of their families, which included several children. One teenage son of one of the settlers was also abducted by Brown and his fellow perpetrators, but was ultimately spared.

This soon became the most famous of the many violent episodes of the "Bleeding Kansas" period, during which a state-level civil war in the Kansas Territory was described as a "tragic prelude" to the American Civil War which soon followed. "Bleeding Kansas" involved conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery settlers over whether the Kansas Territory would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. It has also been described as John Brown's most questionable and controversial act, both to his friends and his enemies. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass described the incident as "a terrible remedy for a terrible malady."^[1]: 371

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