John Brown was an American abolitionist in the decades preceding the Civil War. First reaching national prominence in the 1850s for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, Brown was captured, tried, and executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia for a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859.
Henry Villard was an American journalist and financier who was an influential leader and the sixth president of the Northern Pacific Railway (1881–1884) which completed its trans-continental route during his tenure in 1883.
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War, was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.
Mary Ann Day Brown was the second wife of abolitionist John Brown, leader of a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which attempted to start a campaign of liberating enslaved people in the South. Married at age 17, Mary raised 5 stepchildren and an additional 13 children born during her marriage. She supported her husband's activities by managing the family farm while he was away, which he often was. Mary and her husband helped enslaved Africans escape slavery via the Underground Railroad. The couple lived in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and in the abolitionist settlement of North Elba, New York. After the execution of her husband, she became a California pioneer.
Border ruffians were proslavery raiders who crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri during the mid-19th century to help ensure the territory entered the United States as a slave state. Their activities formed a major part of a series of violent civil confrontations known as "Bleeding Kansas", which peaked from 1854 to 1858. Crimes committed by border ruffians included electoral fraud, intimidation, assault, property damage and murder; many border ruffians took pride in their reputation as criminals. After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, many border ruffians fought on the side of the Confederate States of America as irregular bushwhackers.
Jayhawker and red leg are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers". After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan.
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, three of them former slave catchers. One teenage son of one of the settlers was also abducted by Brown and his fellow perpetrators, but was ultimately spared.
The Wakarusa War was an armed standoff that took place in the Kansas Territory during November and December 1855. It is often cited by historians as the first instance of violence during the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions in the region.
John Ritchie was an American abolitionist in Kansas who served in the Union Army as a brigadier general during the American Civil War.
The Battle of Osawatomie was an armed engagement that occurred on August 30, 1856, when 250–400 pro-slavery Border ruffians, led by John W. Reid, attacked the town of Osawatomie, Kansas, which had been settled largely by anti-slavery Free-Staters. Reid was intent on destroying the Free-State settlement and then moving on to Topeka and Lawrence to do more of the same. Abolitionist John Brown first learned of the raiders when they shot his son Frederick. With just 40 or so men, Brown tried to defend the town against the pro-slavery partisans, but ultimately was forced to withdraw; five Free-Staters were killed in the battle, and the town of Osawatomie was subsequently looted and burned by Reid's men. The battle was one of a series of violent clashes between abolitionists and pro-slavery partisans in Kansas and Missouri during the Bleeding Kansas era.
The timeline of Kansas details past events that happened in what is present day Kansas. Located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, the U.S. state of Kansas was the home of sedentary agrarian and hunter-gatherer Native American societies, many of whom hunted American bison. The region first appears in western history in the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, when Spanish conquistadors explored the unknown land now known as Kansas. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. It became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the 19th century, the first American explorers designated the area as the "Great American Desert."
James Montgomery was a Jayhawker during the Bleeding Kansas era and a controversial Union colonel during the American Civil War. Montgomery was a staunch supporter of abolitionist principles and individual liberty. He liberated slaves during his raids. He also burned and looted pro-slavery populations.
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War, until being dishonorably discharged for murder and robbery.
The Marais des Cygnes massacre is considered the last significant act of violence in Bleeding Kansas prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. On May 19, 1858, approximately 30 border ruffians led by Charles Hamilton, a Georgia native and proslavery leader, crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri. They arrived at Trading Post, Kansas, in the morning and then headed back to Missouri. Along the way, they captured 11 abolitionist Free-Staters, none of whom were armed and, it is said, none of whom had participated in the ongoing violence. Most of the men knew Hamilton and apparently did not realize he meant them harm. These prisoners were led into a defile, where Hamilton ordered his men to shoot, firing the first and last bullet himself. Five men were killed and five severely wounded. Only one Free-Stater escaped injury.
John Henry Kagi, also spelled John Henri Kagi, was an American attorney, abolitionist, and second in command to John Brown in Brown's failed raid on Harper's Ferry. He bore the title of "Secretary of War" in Brown's "provisional government." At age 24, Kagi was killed during the raid. He had previously been active in fighting on the abolitionist side in 1856 in "Bleeding Kansas". He was considered an excellent debater and speaker.
The Puritan is a bronze statue by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Springfield, Massachusetts, which became so popular that it was reproduced for over 20 other cities, museums, universities, and private collectors around the world, and later became an official symbol of the city, emblazoned on its municipal flag. Originally designed to be part of Stearns Square, since 1899 the statue has stood at the corner of Chestnut and State Street next to The Quadrangle.
George Henry Hoyt was an American anti-slavery abolitionist who was attorney for John Brown. During the Civil War, he served as a Union cavalry officer and captain of the Kansas Red Leg scouts, rising to the rank of brevet brigadier general by war's end. Following the war, Hoyt served as the sixth Attorney General of Kansas.
Fort Bain was a log house in the Kansas Territory built in 1857 by John Brown and his associate Captain Oliver P. Bain. The house was located in northern Bourbon County, on the north side of the Osage River 1.5 miles due east of Fort Lincoln, approximately seven miles from the border with Missouri, near the present town of Fulton.
Paris was the first county seat of Linn County, Kansas, in the United States. It once had a population of about 300 or 400 people and was abandoned in the 1860s. It was a rallying point for pro-slavery men during Bleeding Kansas.
Linnville was the third county seat of Linn County, Kansas, United States. It is located immediately south of the old town site of Paris, Kansas, the first county seat of Linn County. The only remainder of the former town is the Linnville Cemetery.
