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The phrase “Bleeding Kansas” is most commonly associated with John Brown, an abolitionist who fought against slavery in the Kansas Territory in the 1850s.
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John Brown
John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed in and advocated armed insurrection as the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. He led the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 and was tried and executed for treason and murder.
His early life
John Brown was born on May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut. He was the fourth of eight children born to Owen Brown and Ruth Mills, farmers who shared a passion for social reform. Though he had little formal education, John Brown was an avid reader and took great interest in the events of his day. At the age of 20, he moved to Ohio to work on a farm. It was there that he met and married Dianthe Lydius in 1820. The couple would go on to have seven children together.
In 1849, John Brown left Ohio for California, hoping to strike it rich during the Gold Rush. When that didn’t pan out, he returned East and settled in North Elba, New York. It was there that he became an outspoken opponent of slavery and began helping runaway slaves escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
In 1855, John Brown moved his family to Kansas Territory, which was then embroiled in a bloody conflict over whether or not it would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state. The violence climaxed with the massacre of five pro-slavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856. Though John Brown was not present at the killings, he was widely believed to be behind them. The incident earned him the nickname “Osawatomie Brown” and cemented his reputation as an anti-slavery radical.
His time in Kansas
John Brown was born in 1800 in Connecticut and was raised in Ohio. He was a fierce abolitionist and was known for his extremist views. He believed that violence was the only way to end slavery and he incite slave rebellions. In 1855, he led a raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to start a nationwideslave insurrection. He was captured and executed for his crimes. The chaos and violence that followed in Kansas became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
William Quantrill
The phrase “Bleeding Kansas” is most associated with the activities of William Quantrill. Quantrill was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War. He is best known for his raid on Lawrence, Kansas in August 1863. This raid resulted in the deaths of over 150 men and the burning of much of the city.
His early life
William Clarke Quantrill was born in Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837. His father, Thomas Henry Quantrill, was a tavernkeeper and a local leader of the Democratic Party. His mother, Caroline Cornelia Clark, died when he was six years old. He was educated in the local schools and at age sixteen he began teaching in a school near Canal Dover. In 1854, he went to California during the Gold Rush but was unsuccessful in striking it rich and returned to Ohio after a few months.
His time in Kansas
In the spring of 1856, pro-slavery settlers from Missouri, angered by the election of an anti-slavery government in Kansas, attacked the town of Lawrence, looting and burning buildings. In response, abolitionist John Brown led a group of men in what has become known as the Pottawatomie Massacre, in which five pro-slavery men were killed.
In May of that year, Quantrill led a raid on Lawrence in revenge for the Pottawatomie Massacre. The raiders looted and burned much of the town, and killed more than 150 men and boys. Many of those killed were unarmed, and some were killed after they had surrendered. The massacre horrified both sides in the conflict, and is widely seen as a major turning point in the violence leading up to the Civil War.
George Armstrong Custer
The phrase “bleeding Kansas” is most associated with George Armstrong Custer. Custer was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. He is best known for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
His early life
George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, on December 5, 1839, the fifth of seven children of Emanuel Henry Custer, a blacksmith and farmer, and his wife, Maria Ward Kirkpatrick Custer. His family moved several times during his boyhood as his father looked for work. Emanuel Custer finally found stability in Marshall, Michigan, where he took up farming again and opened a harness shop. George received his early education in the district school near his home. He later attended the local academy and then enrolled in the newly established Mount Pleasant Male Academy, where he studied for two years before returning home in 1857 to help his father on the farm.
His time in Kansas
George Armstrong Custer was a renowned United States Army general who fought in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. He is most well-known for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where he and his men were defeated by a coalition of Native American tribes. Custer spent time in Kansas during the Bleeding Kansas conflict, which was a series of violent events between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the years leading up to the Civil War.
