Osawatomie, KS

Place: Osawatomie, KS (John Brown Museum)
Weather: Thunderstorms, 63/81F
Route: From Kansas City 51 miles SSW on I-35 S and US-169 S.

Significance: We've already come across John Brown once on our trip in Harpers Ferry.  That was the end of his story, but his notoriety started 1,000 miles west in 1856. Two years earlier Kansas became a territory through the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which stipulated that the territories would become free or slave by vote of the inhabitants of each territory.  Centrists in congress hoped that Nebraska would vote free and Kansas vote slave - therefore keeping the balance between free and slave states.  However, abolitionists in the northeast, saw this as an opportunity to move their cause forward and many funded like-mind people to move to the new territory.  Brown's adult sons were among the thousands of people from the northeast to move to Kansas.  His sons were concerned that the "free-soilers", as they were know, were not prepared to defend themselves from "boarder ruffians" coming in from the slave state of Missouri.
Brown decided to move to Kansas to help protect his sons and other abolitionists.  After pro-slavery men destroyed newspaper offices and a hotel in abolitionist Lawrence (known as the "sacking of Lawrence"), Brown and his sons killed 5 pro-slavery men in what was known as the "Pottawatomie massacre."  Over the next 3 months 29 people were killed in various battles and raids.  Brown became most famous in the Battle of Oswatomie, which was actually a defeat for Brown - but where he and his men killed 20 pro-slavery men and wounded another 40.
In November 1856 Brown left Kansas to raise money in the east.  Three years later was his raid on Harpers Ferry.  The site in Osawatomie includes the log cabin where Brown lived, with a museum that tells the story of the battle and abolitionist activity in the area.

Images:

John Brown Museum - the cabin is inside the museum (from kansastravel.org)

Mural in the Kansas Capitol Building depicting Brown (from kansastravel.org)