Pottawatomie massacre

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The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 to the morning of May 25, 1856. In what appears to be a reaction to the Sacking of Lawrence, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers (some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles) killed five pro-slavery settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas.

Introduction

Known as the Pottawatomie Massacre, it was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War known collectively as "Bleeding Kansas". Five men were killed in the Pottawatomie Massacre, including James Doyle and his two sons, who were hacked to pieces by Brown's men wielding swords.

Brown was particularly affected by the Sacking of Lawrence, in which a sheriff-led posse destroyed newspaper offices, a hotel, and killed two men, and Preston Brooks's brutal beating of anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner. Mr. Sumner was giving a speech to the Senate, and Mr. Brooks caned him to within an inch of his life.

The violence was accompanied by celebrations in the proslavery press, with writers such as B. F. Stringfellow of the Squatter Sovereign proclaiming that proslavery forces "are determined to repel this Northern invasion and make Kansas a Slave State; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their victims and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose" (quoted in Reynolds, p. 162). Brown was outraged by both the violence of proslavery forces, and also by what he saw as a weak and cowardly response by the antislavery partisans and the Free State settlers, who he described as "cowards, or worse" (Renyolds pp. 163-166).

Detailed history

A Free State company under the command of John Brown, Jr., set out and the Osawatomie company, under command of a Capt. Dayton, joined them. Together they reached "Ottawa Jones" on the morning of May 22, 1856. There they first heard of the sack of the town, and the arrest of Deitzler, Brown and Jenkins. However, they continued their march toward Lawrence, not knowing whether their assistance might still be needed, and encamped at night "up the Ottawa Creek, near the residence of Capt. Shore." They remained in the vicinity until the afternoon of the 23rd, at which time they decided to return home.

About noon on the 17th, John Brown, whose indignation was at fever pitch, selected a party to go with him on a private expedition. They separated from the main party, ground their shotguns, and having completed their preparations, left the camp together. Capt. John Brown, Jr., objected to their leaving his company, but, seeing his father was obdurate, silently acquiesced, with the timely caution to him to "do nothing rash." The company consisted of Old John Brown, four of his sons - Frederick, Owen, Watson, Oliver - Henry Thompson, his son-in-law, Thomas Winer and James Townsley, whom Old John had induced to carry the party in his wagon to their proposed field of operations.

They encamped that night between two deep ravines on the edge of the timber, some distance to the right of the main traveled road, about one mile above "Dutch Henry's crossing." There they remained unobserved until the following evening (Saturday, May 2). Some time after dark, the party left their place of hiding and proceeded on their "secret expedition." Late in the evening, they called at the house of James P. Doyle, and ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury, to go with them as prisoners. (His 16 year old son John, who was not a member of the pro-slavery Law and Order Party, was left with his mother.) The three men followed their captors out into the darkness, where Owen Brown and Salmon Brown killed them with the broadswords. John Brown Sr. did not participate in the stabbing, but fired a shot into the head of the fallen James Doyle, to ensure death (Reynolds 2005, 172).

Brown and his band travelled half a mile to the house of Allen Wilkinson and ordered him out. He was slashed and stabbed to death by Henry Thompson and Theodore Weiner, possibly with help from Brown's sons (Reynolds 2005, 172-3). From there, they crossed the Pottawatomie, and some time after midnight, forced their way into the cabin of James Harris at sword-point. Harris had three house guests: John S. Wightman, Jerome Glanville, and William Sherman, the brother of Henry Sherman ("Dutch Henry"), a militant pro-slavery activist). Glanville and Harris were taken outside for interrogation, and asked whether they had threatened Free State settlers, or aided border ruffians from Missouri, or participated in the sack of Lawrence. Satisfied with their answers, they let Glanville and Harris return to the cabin. William Sherman was led to the edge of the creek and hacked to death with the swords by Brown's sons, Weiner, and Thompson (Reynolds 2005, 177).

Having learned at Harris's cabin that "Dutch Henry," their main target in the expedition, was away from home on the prairie, they ended the expedition and returned to the ravine where they had previously encamped. They spent a quiet Sunday morning there, then broke camp and rejoined the Osawatomie company encamped on the Middle Ottawa Creek some time during Sunday night (Reynolds 2005, 177).

External articles and references

James Townsley. ["The Pottawatomie Killings: It is Established Beyond Controversy That John Brown Was the Leader."] Republican Citizen. Paola, Kansas, 20 Dec 1879, page 5, column 5.
Andrew Johnson (1859): [What John Brown Did in Kansas] (December 12, 1859): a speech to the United States House of Representatives, December 12 1859. Originally published in The Congressional Globe, The Official Proceedings of Congress, Published by John C. Rives, Washington, D. C. Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1st Session, New Series...No. 7, Tuesday, December 13, 1859, pages 105-106. Retrieved May 16, 2005.
"John Brown's Holy War : People & Events: [Pottawatomie Massacre]". PBS Online / WGBH, 1999
Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. (2002): "Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown (ISBN 0-847-1921-X)
David S. Reynolds (2005): John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (ISBN 0375411887)
Portions of this text was taken from William G. Cutler's [History of the State of Kansas], first published in 1883 by A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL.

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