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John Brown was among many antislavery people in the antebellum period, but he was ultimately distinguished by his determination to use force when necessary against proslavery violence. In 1855, Brown joined his sons, who had moved to the Kansas territory, which was then in a ballot contest between proslavery and antislavery settlers over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free state or slave state. The majority of settlers were antislavery people, but proslavery terrorists flooded into Kansas from Missouri and the South, and used violence and terrorism to force slavery. Brown's sons were avowed antislavery people and drew the hostility of proslavery neighbors who plotted against them with the intention of bringing armed terrorists against them. With no recourse to law or protection from territorial or federal forces, they were in certain danger. Learning of this, Brown and a group of men, including some of his sons, identified the key conspirators and killed them in order to thwart their attack. In modern terms, Brown's actions were taken in a wartime context and while they were martial killings, they were undertaken to preempt a terrorist assault. These facts mitigate against labeling Brown a "radical murderer," although this if often the assumption of prejudiced and unlearned people. The killings of five men had no collateral damage and were strategic, so they were comparable more to modern attacks on terrorist cells or terrorist leaders. Leading biographers and students of Brown, such as David Reynolds, Paul Finkelman, and Louis DeCaro would disagree with the conventional 20th century notion of Brown as a radical murderer. This view tended to reflect the pro-Southern revisionism that dominated historical writing during the era of the Civil Rights era. However unpleasant, there is substantial evidence that the "Pottawatomie massacre" actually was a preemptive strike that primarily involved securing the immediate security of the Brown family and other free state neighbors placed in jeopardy by proslavery conspirators in their neighborhood.

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