Bleeding Kansas

Take that, slavery-supporting shitnuggets

Half a dozen years before the U.S. Civil War, the Kansas Territory—it wasn’t a state yet—was a harbinger of things to come. That’s why they called it “Bleeding Kansas,” a regional civil war over the subject of, you guessed it, slavery.

There was some other shit people were disagreeing over too, but slavery was the big one. Just like the Civil War was largely about treating humans like things and not what those coal-rolling Confederate flag–waving fuckwipes claim was “a war of Northern Aggression” where the South was fighting for “states’ rights.” States’ rights to do what, exactly? TO DO WHAT?!

Anyfuckingway, Kansas was bleeding, and John Brown—a white man—was ready to go all massacre on some slavery-supporter shitburgers.

This dress rehearsal for the Civil War saw several dozen killed in clashes between those who believed enslaving people was just peachy and others who said yeah no that’s some evil-ass shit. The massacre in question was in reaction to two events. Lawrence, Kansas, was an anti-slavery town, and on May 21, 1856, three hundred pro-slavery cockbags sacked the place, burning and looting as they went. That pissed off those in Kansas who wished to abolish slavery.

The abolitionists were further vexed by the events of the following day. Senator Charles Sumner had recently given a fiery speech to a full Senate called “The Crime Against Kansas.” In it, he called out some pro-slavery senators for sucking. One of those senators targeted in Sumner’s speech was Andrew Butler. Butler’s nephew Preston Brooks couldn’t abide the truth being told about his assbutt of an uncle, and attacked Sumner on the Senate floor with a cane, beating him near to death.

That’s when radical abolitionist leader John Brown decided fuck this, we need to start wasting these assholes. On May 24, 1856—two days after the attack on Sumner—Brown, along with five of his sons and three others, committed what would be called the Pottawatomie Massacre. Late at night, the nine men attacked three separate pro-slavery settlements near the banks of Pottawatomie Creek. The men in the settlements were taken from their homes and murdered via a combination of shooting and sword hacking by Brown and his crew. Five men were killed in the massacre. As you might imagine, the massacre did not improve relations between pro and anti-slavery groups in the Kansas Territory. Rather, it led to months of retaliatory raids and battles.

Three years later, Brown led a raid on a Virginia armory to gain weapons to support an uprising of enslaved people in the south. The attack failed and Brown was captured and tried for treason. Found guilty, he was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person to be executed for treason in America.

The U.S. Civil War erupted sixteen months later, resulting in approximately 650,000 lives lost, the deadliest war in the nation’s history.

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