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Since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, allowing new states to choose at the ballot box whether to allow slavery or not, popular sovereignty, the Kansas Territory had been on edge. There was never a more divisive issue facing our country since we became a country.
John Brown was a religious zealot believing this country could only be cleansed of slavery through violence.
That led to my first question when I visited Grady Atwater, the Director of the John Brown Museum in Osawatomie, Kansas, “Was John Brown crazy?” No, Grady chuckled.
This museum is one of a kind. In the early 1930s Kansas built a solid limestone building encapsulating the 1854 Adair-Brown Log Cabin. That has kept the cabin in pristine condition. It’s as if John Brown could walk in today and stoke the cabin’s fireplace.
Brown felt slavery was an abomination against humanity. God had instructed him to use whatever means to eliminate that scourge from the earth, and he tried. In 1837 he declared, “Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses from this time, I commemorate my life to the destruction of slavery.”
Born in upstate New York in 1800, Brown was a failed businessman who fathered 20 children, losing nine in their childhood. He continually moved, following his calling and seeking stability. In the early 1850s, three of Brown’s sons moved to Kansas, at the time, the frontier. As Kansas struggled to determine its future through the vote, the battle over slavery was taking shape.
Coaxed by his sons, John Brown moved to Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1856 to join the fight.
There were three basic factions in the territory. Abolitionists in which Brown was one, Free-Staters or Jayhawks soon to be led by Jim Lane and pro-slavers, many having moved in from neighboring Missouri.
Abolitionists wanted to abolish slavery outright. Free-Staters sought to end slavery but didn’t want freed blacks to live in the state and pro-slavers sought to extend the right to own slaves into the territory.
My grandfather Albert Long Bartlett, was born in 1852 and lived in Big Springs, Kansas, just west of Lawrence. His father, Dr. Josiah C. Bartlett, was a representative in the first legislative session of the state of Kansas. Albert went on to become a page in that session in 1861 and no doubt witnessed much of Kansas’ incredible history. He was 68 years old when my mother was born; virility runs in the family! She passed on many of his stories about the times and events that went on from strife, to conflict and eventually war.
Albert would have lived through Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War, Industrial Revolution, World War I, the Great Depression and World War ll, then at the age of 91, he walked my mother down the aisle. What a life.
His early years were difficult times to be alive. I heard tales from my mother of slavery, wagon trains, droughts, disease, murders, election frauds and Indian uprisings. As tempers and violence increased, no stranger could be trusted and everyone was armed.
To John Brown, slavery was a biblical offense conquered only by the sword. He took the argument to the next level: open conflict.
After pro-slavers ravaged Lawrence, Kansas, on May 21, 1856, destroying buildings and killing one, that was enough for John Brown to seek a harsher retribution.
On May 24,1856, Brown with his sons and fellow zealots moved in on a slave holding enclave near Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas. They drug five men out of their homes and murdered them on the spot, in front of their families. To me, this date marks the start of Bleeding Kansas, which led to the Border War that ignited the Civil War.
Of course, the reaction from Missourians and others to Brown’s executions would be retaliation. People were shocked and disgusted by the abolitionist brutality.
Back and forth for years, raids and savagery took place from all sides, and the violence got nastier with mutilations and barbaric acts erasing any hint of morality.
The Battle of Black Jack on June 2, 1856, was the first skirmish between two armed encampments. Pro-slavers had captured two of John Brown's sons; the fight went on for five hours. A truce was won by Brown and his sons were returned. Both sides retired to fight another day but roving bands of men now prowled eastern Kansas and western Missouri seeking justice and vengeance; think “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
Black Jack is only two miles from where I attended college - Baker University, in Baldwin City, Kansas. I have walked the field many times, contemplating that this small skirmish was a catalyst in starting the nationally consuming Civil War. It’s an interesting hike, oddly the Santa Fe Trail with visible ruts goes right through the battlefield.
John Brown wasn’t through. “There will be no peace in this land until slavery is done for.” He had a higher calling, to take his zeal and followers east to raise an army, rebel and abolish slavery.
(Next week, John Brown: From Harpers Ferry to the Hangman’s Noose.)
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You can find more of Bob’s work including Bob Ford’s History, Mystery and Lore podcast on his website, bobfordshistory.com, also our YouTube videos under Bob Ford’s History. He can be reached at robertmford@aol.com