Battle of Osawatomie 1856 was a Mexican-American War engagement fought in Kansas, 1856. It was a Pro-slavery forces victory.
The Battle of Osawatomie was an armed engagement that occurred on August 30, 1856, when 250-400 pro-slavery Border ruffians, led by John W. Reid, attacked the town of Osawatomie, Kansas, which had been settled largely by anti-slavery Free-Staters. Reid was intent on destroying the Free-State settlement and then moving on to Topeka and Lawrence to do more of the same. Abolitionist John Brown first learned of the raiders when they shot his son Frederick. With just 40 or so men, Brown tried to defend the town against the pro-slavery partisans, but ultimately was forced to withdraw; five Free-Staters were killed in the battle, and the town of Osawatomie was subsequently looted and burned by Reid's men. The battle was one of a series of violent clashes between abolitionists and pro-slavery partisans in Kansas and Missouri during the Bleeding Kansas era.
The passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 began the period called "Bleeding Kansas". Whether the new Kansas Territory would be slave or free was left up to popular sovereignty, counter to the prohibitions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Migrants on both sides of the issue immediately rushed in to settle and to determine the fate of the new territory. Almost immediately, tensions erupted into a full-blown border war waged mostly between civilians known as "Free-Staters", mostly from New England and other northeast states, and pro-slavery "Border ruffians" from Missouri.
The question of whether Kansas Territory would become a slave state or a free state was far more than a question about Kansas. The nation's impasse over slavery grew ever more acute. Rather than abolishing slavery in the United States, abolitionists turned to the politically and economically easier task of preventing its spread. If Kansas could choose slavery, other upcoming states could too. If Kansas were not allowed to choose slavery, then slavery would be limited to the states where it already existed, without the possibility of expansion. The Slave Power states found this unacceptable: American slavery, they claimed, was kind and healthy for both the individual and the country; Northern white workers, they suggested, might want to consider voluntary enslavement. To accept limits on slavery's expansion meant accepting that slavery should be limited. For the South to accept this meant making public its venality.
Following the 1855 arrival of the assertive abolitionist John Brown in Kansas, open conflict escalated with the Border ruffians' May 21, 1856, sacking of Lawrence, a stronghold of abolitionist sentiment. In retaliation, four days later, Brown and his followers committed what became known as the Pottawatomie massacre against five pro-slavery men. The Battle of Black Jack followed in early June, ending in the anti-slavery forces' favor and making Brown a threat in the eyes of the Border ruffians. Violence in Kansas steadily increased throughout the summer of 1856.
Approximate location. The nearest recorded settlement is shown; the exact site is unrecorded.
This page covers Battle of Osawatomie 1856. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.