In reprisal for the Sack of Lawrence and the attack on Charles Sumner, John Brown and six companions murdered five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas. A war of reprisals left 200 dead in “Bleeding Kansas.”
Pro-slavery forces burned a hotel and other buildings in Lawrence, Kansas.
Anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces in Kansas clashed in a series of violent conflicts throughout the 1850s.
“Bleeding Kansas” describes the violence in that territory over the question of slavery that preceded Kansas’ entry into the Union.