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Although he wasn’t born in Kansas, the abolitionist John Brown has become one of the state’s most iconic figures.
Brown’s determination to end slavery manifested in bold and violent acts during the era of Bleeding Kansas before the Civil War, most infamously the Pottawatomie Massacre. It’s also what drove his failed raid on Harpers Ferry, that ultimately led to his capture and execution.
“I ... am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood,” Brown explained in a letter shortly before his 1859 hanging — which occurred 165 years ago this year.
Was Brown a domestic terrorist or an abolitionist hero? Kansas has grappled with Brown’s complicated legacy in a number of ways across the state.
Read on to see where you can visit Brown’s historical sites and see where he is memorialized in his short-lived home.
Free Kansas history
For those who don’t remember their Kansas state history, in 1854 Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, controversially repealing the 1820 Missouri Compromise. It meant that residents in Kansas and Nebraska would hold elections to decide if the territories would enter the Union as “free states” or “slave states.
This resulted in droves of pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers flooding into the Kansas territory to establish the state in their interests. Years before the Civil War began in 1861, Kansas was the site of violent “border war” conflicts between anti-slavery settlers, many of whom came from the East Coast, and pro-slavery settlers, often from neighboring Missouri.
Kansas eventually entered the Union as a Free State on Jan. 29, 1861, but not without a lot of strife, bloodshed, and electoral drama. Within a day’s drive of Kansas City, there are many historical sites where you can learn the details of this fraught period.
Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence has artifacts and exhibits on Kansas’s pre-Civil War history, as well as engaging exhibits about Lawrence's history in General.
Lecompton, Kansas, about 20 minutes from Lawrence, was designated the territorial capital by the pro-slavery legislature in 1855. Lecompton is now home to two museums that shed light on Kansas’s territorial period. The Territorial Capital Museum is located inside the former Lane University, which operated from 1865 until 1902. Around the corner is Constitution Hall, situated inside the site of the failed pro-slavery constitutional convention in 1857.
Kansas actually drafted three state constitutions before the fourth, the Wyandotte Constitution that banned slavery, was finally approved in Wyandotte County in 1859. You can see the site of another anti-slavery convention in Topeka, at yet another building named Constitution Hall in Topeka. Built in 1855, the building was also an Underground Railroad site.
The building is currently under construction and not open for tours, but its new Welcome Center is slated to reopen in early 2025.
John Brown the abolitionist
John Brown arrived in Kansas from his home in North Elba, New York in 1855, with the goals of helping to establish it as a free state.
Unlike many anti-slavery activists, who saw slavery as antiquated or creating unfair competition for free white laborers, Brown was committed to the cause of advancing Black freedom.
Brown was born into an abolitionist family in 1800, and by the time he traveled to Kansas to fight in the border wars at age 55, he was motivated by deep religious and moral conviction. It also compelled him to help free enslaved individuals along the Underground Railroad.
Grover Barn in Lawrence is a site you can visit where, in January 1859, Brown helped 12 individuals fleeing slavery find shelter for several weeks as they planned their journey to freedom in Canada. Brown accompanied the group all the way to Canada. Six months later, he went on to organize the Harper’s Ferry Raid in Virginia — a deadly and failed mission that eventually led to Brown's execution by hanging on Dec. 2, 1859.
Grover Barn belonged to abolitionists Joel and Emily Grover, who used their farm as a stop-along the Underground Railroad. The barn remained in use through 2006, and at one time it served as a fire station for the City of Lawrence.
A group called Guardians of Grover Brown dedicated themselves to preserving the barn’s abolitionist history. Through their efforts, the building was added as one of Kansas’s 21 official National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom sites.
John Brown's battles
One of Brown’s infamous acts of violence occurred in Kansas, when Brown participated in what is now called the Pottawatomie Massacre in May 1856.
The massacre was an act of retribution for the “Sacking of Lawrence.” On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery advocates rode into Lawrence to attack two anti-slavery newspapers and a hotel. One free-state activist was killed during the battle. (It was far from the last pro-slavery attack on Lawrence — Quantrill's Raid, seven years later, would claim the lives of between 150 and 190 men and boys.)
There is a marker to commemorate the sacking of Lawrence outside of Free State Brewery in downtown Lawrence. It’s close to the former site of the Kansas Free State Press — one of the newspapers targeted in the raid. You can start your John Brown historical tour here, and grab beer or a lunch to fuel your journey.
The Pottawatomie Massacre occurred several days later. On the night of May 24, 1856, Brown accompanied six men, including four of his sons, to attack pro-slavery settlers living near Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas.
The group ended up killing five men, inflaming the Border Wars and solidifying Brown’s reputation as someone who wasn’t afraid to use violence to further his cause.
About an hour away from Lawrence, you can visit the historical plaque in Lane, Kansas, that commemorates the Pottawatomie Massacre. At the time of the event, the community was known as Dutch Henry’s Crossing.
The historical marker, erected by the Franklin County Historical Society, is located at the intersection of 5th Street and Kansas Avenue, marking where Brown and his team crossed the Pottawatomie Creek.
Not long after the massacre, on June 2, 1856, Brown led a team of roughly 30 antislavery fighters in a successful attack on a pro-slavery militia, led by newspaper publisher and soldier Henry Pate, in the village of Black Jack in Douglas County, Kansas. The event, which became known as the Battle of Black Jack, led to Pate’s surrender.
To immerse yourself in this history, you can visit the site of the Black Jack Battlefield, located just outside of Baldwin in Wellsville, Kansas. The site is managed by the nonprofit Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park, which is also working to ecologically restore the battlefield site to native prairie land. The nonprofit also manages the Robert Hall Pearson House, a historic 1800s home built by a Kansas settler.
Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park has launched a $2.1 million capital campaign to build a visitor’s center and renovate the Pearson home, but their efforts have stalled and they are still working to raise the necessary funds.
Osawatomie Brown
There is another famed Brown battlefield located at the large John Brown Memorial Park and Museum in Osawatomie, Kansas, about an hour from both Kansas City and Lawrence.
Situated on a 23-acre park at 10th and Main, the site contains the Adair Cabin where Brown stayed during his time in the state, and a large statue of Brown erected in 1935.
The park also commemorates the Battle of Osawatomie, which occurred in August 1865 when approximately 250 pro-slavery settlers traveled to the town to destroy Brown’s Free State base. Brown was only able to assemble an estimated 30–50 fighters, and the battle resulted in his son Frederick’s death as well as the destruction of the town of Osawatomie. After the battle, John Brown became known as “Osawatomie Brown.”
The preserved Adair Cabin, built in 1854, was home to Brown’s half-sister Florella and brother-in-law Samuel Adair, who used it as a stop along the Underground Railroad. When Brown came to Kansas, he used the cabin as his military base. The cabin is now contained within the John Brown Museum, and it holds artifacts like Civil War-era weapons and items that John Brown used.
The museum is open from 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, or by appointment. Hours are subject to change, so call and confirm it is open before you make the drive.
While you’re in Osawatomie, you can drive about 10 minutes to see John Brown Lookout — a hill in Miami County where Brown and his fellow abolitionists were rumored to have scouted for potential military threats. The spot is unmarked at 31788 Lookout Road, Paola, KS 66071.
If you plan to visit this site, wear sturdy shoes, because it requires a short hike up to the top.
Commemorating John Brown
One of the most iconic tributes to John Brown is painted on the walls of the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka. The “Tragic Prelude” mural, on the second floor of the Capitol building, depicts a fanatic, larger-than-life painting of Brown holding a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
Kansas native John Steuart Curry painted the image in 1942 and faced significant criticism for various elements of the painting -- like the stereotypical association of Kansas with tornados, Brown’s enormous stature, and a woman’s too-short skirt. Curry was so frustrated by the backlash that he “decided to quit in protest and never signed the murals,” according to the Kansas State Historical Society.
While some previously criticized Curry’s image of Brown for the supposedly crazed look on his face, many now embrace the depiction. One such place is the speakeasy-style bar in Lawrence named in his honor, John Brown Underground.
In keeping with the bar’s theme, they display a custom-made interpretation of “Tragic Prelude,” painted in 2014 by Brian Timmer — although in this tribute to the Jazz Age, the abolitionist is holding a microphone and saxophone, and is flanked by a flapper and a throng of partygoers.
If you visit to see the painting, stay for a craft cocktail. They have a regularly rotating list of creative concoctions. Right now John Brown Underground’s menu celebrates its 10th anniversary by showcasing some of its favorites from the past decade. Notable drinks include the Uncrustables, which is made with peanut butter bourbon, crème de cassis, and is even served with its own mini peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or, in keeping with the John Brown theme, you can try the Free Lawrence with whisky, aged rum, brandy, a Cocchi-demerara reduction, and bitters.
You can also pay homage to Brown in Kansas City, Kansas, by visiting the John Brown Statue at 27th and Sewell. The monument was dedicated in 1911 on the site of the now-closed Western University — the state’s only historically Black college. Originally opened as the Quindaro Freedman’s School in 1865, Western University shuttered in 1943 after financial challenges due to the Great Depression.
Western University was once part of Quindaro, a former Free Black town during Kansas’s territorial period that was once a stop along the Underground Railroad. In 2018, city officials discovered that the John Brown statue had been vandalized with racial epithets.
Noting the need to preserve this important part of Kansas’s early Black history, community members have succeeded in having part of the Quindaro Ruins recognized as a historical site by the National Park Service.
