John Brown an abolitionist who used violence to end slavery, lead several antislavery attacks during the territorial period of Kansas. On May 24, 1856, he and his followers brutally killed five proslavery settlers near Pottawatomie Creek in Miami County. He led free state forces at the Battle of Black Jack near Baldwin City, Kansas, on June 2, 1856 and at the Battle of Osawatomie on August 30, 1856. Brown's famous attack, in 1859, on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, would led to a trial and a conviction for death by hanging.