Background
John Brown was particularly affected by the sacking of Lawrence, in which a sheriff-led posse destroyed newspaper offices, private houses and a hotel. The violence against abolitionists was accompanied by celebrations in the pro-slavery press, with writers such as Benjamin F. Stringfellow of the Squatter Sovereign proclaiming that pro-slavery forces "are determined to repel this Northern invasion and make Kansas a Slave State; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their victims and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose." Brown was outraged by both the violence of pro-slavery forces, and also by what he saw as a weak and cowardly response by the antislavery partisans and the Free State settlers, whom he described as cowards, or worse. In addition, two days before this massacre Brown learned about the caning of abolitionist Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks on the floor of Congress.
Read more about this topic: Pottawatomie Massacre
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