JOHN BROWN’S MASSACRE - MAY 24, 1856

As revenge for the first burning of Lawrence, Kansas, rabid abolitionist John Brown, with several of his sons and followers, murdered 5 supposedly proslavery settlers on May 24, 1856 with broadswords near the Pottawatomie Creek, hacking several of them to pieces.  Instantly, Brown became the evil villain in the eyes of the South, and in many respects the champion of the Northern Abolitionist movement.  His actions caused an outbreak of hostilities, which further polarized the separating nation. 

Asked by one of his son’s who did not participate in the massacre, as to why he did it, Brown replied, “God is my judge, we were justified under the circumstances.”  Three years later Brown would seize the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia with the intent of arming a 200,000 slave army to sweep through the South liberating the slaves.  He would be captured, tried and hanged for his attempted raid on December 1859, in Virginia.