the North and South; some Northerners were repulsed by Brown's radical actions while others admired him for his anti-slavery stance and hard-to-ignore actions.  Southerners were horrified, particularly plantation owners, who operated under the constant fear of slave uprisings.  Brown's actions were seen by many as yet another indicator that the Union could not be saved, and Southerners were validated further in this respect after Brown tried to organize a slave rebellion at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.  Ultimately unsuccessful, it did cement his reputation as a martyr for his cause when he was executed. 

At Pottowatomie Creek, Kansas in 1856, John Brown and a small group of followers, including his adult sons, captured and hacked to death five proslavery men. The attack, which was carried out in retaliation for the "sack of Lawrence" by a proslavery mob shortly before, occurred in the context of a larger struggle between proslavery and antislavery forces in Kansas, newly open to settlement, with the status of slavery to be determined by popular sovereignty. Brown became a symbol for many of the brutality of the conflict. In the South, particularly, his actions were viewed as indicative of the extent "fanatic" abolitionists would go to in order to end slavery. In the North as well, he was initially widely reviled except within among the most radical of abolitionists. His celebrity status among these ultras allowed him to solicit funding and assistance for his planned raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia with the purpose of leading a massive slave uprising. Brown symbolized the transformation of slavery from a parliamentary issue to be debated and compromised over in Congress to a moral struggle in which one side must emerge victorious.

In some ways, the killing of five proslavery men at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas was fairly typical of the bitter partisan fighting between pro- and antislavery factions in "Bleeding Kansas." John Brown, who led the attack on the proslavery town, intended it to be retribution for the "sack of Lawrence," an attack on the acknowledged capital of antislavery Kansas that witnessed the burning of that small town. Like much that transpired in "Bleeding Kansas," the attacks captivated the attention of the national media, which portrayed events in lurid terms. Brown, an idiosyncratic figure to say the least, fascinated readers across the country, though people viewed him in very different ways depending on their views about slavery.

To the South, Brown's actions were further evidence of the radicalism of Northern abolitionists, who they saw as revolutionaries bent on leading a slave revolt. Bolstered by the popular reception of Brown among northern abolitionists, especially in New England, they used him as grounds for digging in on the issue of slavery. In the North, he was viewed in differing terms. Most Northerners decried the use of violence, but many abolitionists, noting his religiosity, saw him as the instrument of a vengeful God, a man sent to destroy the wicked institution of slavery. In short, Brown was seen by Southerners as a dangerous, murderous radical, and by many Northern abolitionists as a harbinger of divine justice. His reputation, and his significance as a divisive figure in the buildup to secession and civil war, would be enhanced by his uprising at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1859.