A Plea for Captain John Brown

Bleeding Kansas refers to the period between 1854 and 1859 in which violence escalated between pro-slavery and abolitionist forces during the induction of the Kansas Territory into the United States. The conflict was marked by assassinations, retributive raids on neighboring towns, and election interference. The federal government’s undemocratic acquiescence to the fraudulently elected pro-slavery government in Kansas was meant to be a release valve for flaring national tensions; however, it did the opposite, signaling to abolitionists that their cause had no civil recourse. Thoreau’s statement that “they have not correctly counted Captain Brown’s vote” (30) alludes to this situation.

The border ruffians were a loosely affiliated pro-slavery militia of raiders who migrated into the Kansas Territory from Missouri, largely at the behest of slave owner Jefferson Buford. Buford organized his expedition to secure the ongoing existence of slavery by way of voter fraud, intimidation, assassinations, and property damage. Their notorious violence became a key feature of the Bleeding Kansas era; John Brown’s troops famously fought against the ruffians, and Thoreau quotes Brown saying that “[t]hey had a perfect right to be hung” (12).