"Pottawatomie Massacre": The Story of One Execution

Abstract

This article is devoted to one of the most famous and at the same time terrifying episodes of the Kansas Civil War of 1854–1859. It went down in American history as the "Pottawattomie Creek Massacre" or the "Pottawattomie Massacre". The brutal massacre of five Southern settlers, committed by an abolitionist group led by John Brown on the night of May 25, 1856, led to an unprecedented surge in violence in Kansas and an open armed confrontation between supporters and opponents of slavery. In the future, it also became one of the factors of the growing tension between the North and the South, which would later lead to the Civil War of 1861–1865. This study analyzes the causes and background of the "Pottawattomie Creek massacre", the motives of the crime, and provides a detailed critical description of the events of May 24–25 and their consequences. A special place in the study is occupied by a review of historiography, in which the author focuses on the perception of this event. The work is based on the materials of leading experts and a large source base, including correspondence materials, witness statements and newspaper publications. The research uses narrative, comparative historical, retrospective and causal methods of historical research.