Talk:Pottawatomie massacre

NPOV: Killing vs. Murder
changed "murdered" to killing. As "murder" suggests wrongdoing. His actions, although illegal at the time, can be considered heroic by others & it could be considered an act of war. "Killing" is more neutral & the charges & common name will elude nough to it, IMO. --Duemellon 18:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * that is incredibly rdiciulous, killing children in the middle of the night after dragging them from their house is murder. do you want to rename all the serial killer articles so that 'murder' is not there anymore?

The term "murder" reflects the charges, therefore I see it as an appropriate word even if it is loaded. Also, "shot and killed in righteous retribution" feels a bit too long to put in. Kumlekar (talk) 03:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Pro-slavery?
You indicate that Potawatomie was merely the first time that "pro-slavery forces were doing the bleeding". Don't you mean anti-slavery forces? It was Brown that was involved in the Potawatomie massacre. Johnor 22:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Children-Killing?
John Brown did not kill children; James P. Doyle's sons were full grown. He didn't commit infanticide. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hipjiverobot (talk • contribs). +thats simply a blatant lie. go read a history book. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.185.250.195 (talk • contribs).

Infanticide is an anthropological term for the willful killing of "infants" c.q. babies based on cultural rules. The term is not used correctly here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.240.169.85 (talk) 16:23, 8 March 2016 (UTC)


 * All of the victims of Brown's band were full-grown men. Radgeek 01:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Controvery section NPOV?
I have tagged this as NPOV since reading through it, it seems a certain amount conclusionary and uncited, though I'll freely admit I haven't looked in depth, this was more because an IP user appeared to be having problems with it and I wanted to move the discussion here instead of into the realms of personal attacks, edit warring etc. --pgk( talk ) 10:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Unsupported Statement
I think there's an error in the article. In the second paragraph of the Introduction, it states that two men were killed at the Sacking of Lawrence. I'm doing some research on the event at Lawrence, and I can't find any evidence that anyone was killed there. The article doesn't site any reference for the claim.

"""" Jeff Smith

Spelling error?
I changed prarie to prairie. Please change it back if I am incorrect. Sorry if I am doing this wrong, this is my first edit.

Date
The article says that these events occured in 1756. The entire set of events that Bleeding Kansas consisted of happened in the mid-nineteenth century. I am changing 1756 to 1856.

Discrepency
The article states, "The company consisted of John Brown, four of his other sons — Frederick, Owen, Watson, and Oliver — Henry Thompson (his son-in-law), Thomas Winer, and James Townsley, whom John had induced to carry the party in his wagon to their proposed field of operations," then states, "The three men followed their captors out into the darkness, where Owen Brown and Salmon Brown killed them with broadswords," adding a name of someone who is not listed as in the compay. 24.28.165.165 17:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)Sandra

Aftermath?
I fully expected a description of what happened after the massacre -- were Brown and his men hunted? Was there a trial?--Jrm2007 (talk) 17:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Which Brown is which?
This article is very poorly written. As an Australian, this article's usage of the terms (Brown) Snr and Jnr is very annoying. The authors assume that the reader knows which particular Brown is being written about. I really want to undertand this story, er, it seems like it might be important. Could some literate American english speaker please edit this article to make it comprehensible to the world down under?

And - following current trendy lines of fashion - "Thanks"

POV in Role and motivation section
I added a POV tag because the section seems to be written to the standard of an encyclopedia. It rather seems to be written like an essay in that it presents arguments made by the "opponent" and then disproves them. Most of the information seems to be sourced which suggests the base of the section is alright but I feel it needs to be rewritten. 67.240.112.10 (talk) 23:54, 31 July 2014 (UTC)67.240.112.10

Requested move

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move. Cúchullain t/ c 14:56, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Pottawatomie Massacre → Pottawatomie massacre – Per MOS:CAPS; caps are not necessary here, as it's not a proper name; sources typically use lower case. Dicklyon (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Support as nom – per MOS:CAPS (see section below on book evidence) and for consistency with other article titles in its categories (e.g. Category:Mass_murder_in_the_United_States). Lacking any evidence that it's a proper name, or treated as such by sources, WP style is to use lower case. Many recent moved discussions have affirmed that.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This is an absurd argument. That category is extremely broad, and includes many titles that are purely descriptive and constructed for our own purposes, and rightfully decapitalised, such as 2010 Appomattox shootings. This title is not comparable to those descriptive titles, because it is the common accepted name for a historical event, and is capitalised by our fellow encyclopaedias. By its nature it cannot be a WP:NDESC title, because the word "massacre" is not a neutral description. If we were to rename this article "1856 Pottawatomie killings" or something similar, that'd be WP:NDESC, and hence would not demand capitalisation. RGloucester  — ☎ 06:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * What was affirmed was the principle; the particular question of whether this title is descriptive or proper might be best addressed after looking at the data. See the book evidence section below and let us know if you will reconsider.  I understand you don't like "massacre" in a descriptive title, but that's a separate issue we can consider if people want to.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose – Caps are absolutely necessary here per WP:ENGLISH and WP:MOSCAPS. Almost always capitalised in sources. Above editor is on a mass unilateral decapitalisation campaign, which I am in the process of reverting. RGloucester  — ☎ 04:18, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Your link to "sources" is a single web page that capitalizes it. Look at the books that don't (majority lowercase if you discount the e-Study pseudobooks).  And there's nothing at WP:ENGLISH to suggest overriding MOS:CAPS in such cases.  Dicklyon (talk) 07:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:UCN: "Other encyclopedias are among the sources that may be helpful in deciding what titles are in an encyclopedic register, as well as what names are most frequently used". We are writing in the encyclopaedic register. Per MOS:CAPS, we use capitalisation when it is necessary. It is necessary here to maintain the encyclopaedic register, per WP:UCN. We are not a rag paper, and given that the Britannica capitalises it and that the Encylopedia of African American History capitalises it, we must too. Please note that WP:UCN is a policy, whereas MOSCAPS is only a guideline. RGloucester  — ☎ 18:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose The title of this article has all of the characteristics of a proper name -- it refers to a specific event at a specific time in a specific place. What else do you need? It seems like a very bad idea to initiate this action when the issues relevant here are being debated for 30 different articles, as a result of the initiator of this proposal, at Talk:Watts Riots. The consensus there appears to be running heavily against the originators position.  The decision there, where the Lawrence Massacre is one of the 30, is relevant here. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:58, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This one came first. The 30 came later.  The issues are the same: no evidence in sources that this is a proper name.  All recent precedents affirm lower case for such situations (Talk:Villatina massacre, Talk:Rock Springs massacre, Talk:Potato riots, Talk:Chicago race riot of 1919).  The main problem with the 30 moves that were reverted seems to be that people want to discuss each one individually, which we may get to.  Dicklyon (talk) 18:43, 10 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Support—since capping is minority usage, and our guidelines say to cap only where necessary. No necessity is evident here. Tony   (talk)  07:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Support—I'm surprised how few sources capitalize the 'm'. Almost none of the sources in the article do.  The evidence below is extraordinarily compelling.  If something isn't consistently capitalized in sources, we typically don't, either.  ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 08:10, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Support, since the sources do not regularly capitalise this. One can be as 'strong' as one likes in fist-shaking about this, but the facts are the facts. This is a routine WP:MOSCAPS maintenance move. Please actually read Proper name (or, frankly, a more reliable source on how proper names work in English, and how to distinguish them from other appellations); this clearly doesn't actually have the characteristics of a proper name. Even if it did, MOSCAPS and WP:COMMONNAME are grounded in what sources do, not a philosophical discussion of proper naming criteria. As Tony1 says below, the book evidence alone is means "case over" for this one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Book evidence
See common lower-case usage in books. Dicklyon (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

And summary book n-gram stats showing dominant lowercase even before trying to exclude counts of titles and headings:. Dicklyon (talk) 06:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, that Ngrams search shows capitalisation as being dominant since the late 1980s. Anyway, an Ngrams search is useless here because it does not weigh the value of the sources in question. RGloucester  — ☎ 06:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Hardly dominant. If you correct for titles and headings, caps are probably still in the minority.  Certainly nowhere close to the threshold test of "consistent".  Click through and look at books like this 1998 book and this 1997 one or this 1997 one and you'll see capitalized instances that were counted in n-grams but that provide zero support for capitalization in sentence context; WP uses sentence case in titles, as you surely know.   Every lowercase occurrence, by contrast, is evidence of capitalization being unnecessary (or in you theory, evidence that most writes and editors don't know English, perhaps). Dicklyon (talk) 07:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Let's look at all book hits then. This search, all uses in first 2 pages (20 hits), some of which have zero uses in sentence-like context so do not appear: That's 10 lower and 6 upper and 4 not found in sentence in the first 20 book hits. Without going further, it seems clear that we can conclude that "Pottawatomie massacre" is NOT consistently capitalized in sources, and that there's no reason to consider it to be a proper name. Even if the next 10 were all uppercase (which they're not), it still can't come close to any reasonable threshold for "consistently capitalized" in sources. Notice also in this search that the event is also widely referred to as the "Pottawatomie Creek massacre" (and/or "Pottawatomie Creek Massacre") in at least a hundred books. Dicklyon (talk) 05:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "As news of the Pottawatomie massacre traveled eastward,"
 * "The Pottawatomie massacre occurred on..."
 * "denied responsibility for the Pottawatomie massacre,"
 * "The Pottawatomie massacre occurred on..."
 * "MANISHA SINHA The socalled Pottawatomie Massacre committed by John Brown,"
 * "The Pottawatomie Massacre caused the return..."
 * "...abolitionist who led the Pottawatomie massacre in..."
 * "...known in Kansas history as The Pottawatomie Massacre,"
 * "The Pottawatomie Massacre sent shockwaves..."
 * "...had no reference to the Pottawatomie massacre, as up to that time everybody..."
 * "The 'Pottawatomie Massacre ' was denounced..."
 * "...in hopes of capturing the leader of the Pottawatomie massacre"
 * "The incident became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre."
 * "...guerrilla warfare prior to the Pottawatomie massacre,"
 * "...the Pottawatomie massacre was soon eclipsed..."
 * "...in what was termed the Pottawatomie massacre."

It's very simple: MOSCAPS lays out, in effect, two tests
For downcasing, all that MOSCAPS requires is either (1) a demonstration that the capping is not consistent in sources; or (2) that capping is not necessary. Let's not even go to the second test here: Dick's link abundantly shows not just a little inconsistency, but a lot of inconsistency. Case over. Tony  (talk)  02:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You've yet to tackle the importance of the encyclopaedic register, which WP:UCN demands. UCN is a policy, whereas MOSCAPS is only a guideline. Regardless, maintaining the encyclopaedic register requires capitalisation here per the Britannica, therefore making it "necessary". RGloucester  — ☎ 02:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Also note MOS:MILTERMS: "Accepted full names of wars, battles, revolts, revolutions, rebellions, mutinies, skirmishes, risings, campaigns, fronts, raids, actions, operations and so forth are capitalized (Spanish Civil War, Battle of Leipzig, Boxer Rebellion, Action of July 8, 1716, Western Front, Operation Sea Lion)". This is one such name. In addition, MOS:MILTERMS says "Where there is uncertainty as to whether a term is generally accepted, consensus should be reached on the talk page". There are no absolute tests. The MoS is not a straitjacket. There clearly is some "uncertainty" here, and talk page consensus will determine what to do. RGloucester  — ☎ 02:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * But you keep ignoring the principle that that section starts with: "The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper name, as indicated by consistent capitalization in sources, it should be capitalized." Dicklyon (talk) 03:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, WP:UCN is not a policy, but rather a strategy in support of the WP:RECOGNIZABILITY criterion, and it will not be in any way "violated" by following MOS:CAPS.  The title will be no less recognizable if in lower case, just as it is in many books.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:UCN is policy. Read the top of the page "this page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus". You're not following MOSCAPS. You are going against its recommendations. You are also not weighing sources correctly, meaning that you are ignoring the question of the encyclopaedic register. "General rule" does not mean "hard and fast rule". There may be other considerations, which MOSCAPS allows for. RGloucester  — ☎ 04:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The policy says to consider the WP:CRITERIA when choosing a name. We do that, and with no interference from MOS:CAPS which says our style is to avoid unnecessary capitalization.  There is no indication in sources or else where that caps are needed in this case.  Many good sources use lower case.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Our fellow encyclopaedias use capitalisation. UCN says to consider the encyclopaedic register. Large amounts of sources use the capitalisation. "Accepted full names..." should use capitalisation. This is one of those. Capitalisation is certainly necessary, here, if we are to maintain our stature as an encylopaedia in line with WP:UCN. RGloucester  — ☎ 06:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)


 * "Our fellow encyclopaedias use capitalisation." I'm not sure that they all do, and so what if they do? Maybe we should close WP down. "Large amounts of sources use the capitalisation."—you mean "Large numbers of", I guess. But the evidence indicates that they are in a minority. " "Accepted full names..." should use capitalisation." What is a "full name", then? "Capitalisation is certainly necessary, here, if we are to maintain our stature as an encylopaedia in line with WP:UCN."—Again, why don't we close the site down and send everyone to Encyc. Britt.? The idea that "stature" has anything to do with capitalisation is very strange. Why? Tony   (talk)  07:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * UCN says that we should conscious of the encyclopaedic register, which is right. We are writing an encylopaedia, not a rag or a newspaper. Therefore, our style must be more conscious of how it uses language than a newspaper, and of course, we must not use journalistic shorthand or jargon. We are not enemies of the Britannica or any other encylopaedia. They are our brothers and sisters in the realm of tertiary sources. I don't know why you want to "close WP down". I'm merely following the policy of WP:UCN. If you don't like the policy, that's not my fault. If you hate the Britannica, please go to their office and set it alight. That has nothing to do with what we are doing here, which is defined by policy. As far as a "full name" is concerned, a "full name" is defined by MOS:MILTERMS. It is a commonly accepted term to refer to one particular historical event, i.e. "Battle of Such and Such", "Such and Such Massacre", "So and So Skirmish". RGloucester  — ☎ 16:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 21 January 2015
Pottawatomie Massacre → Pottawatomie massacre – Since guidelines, sources, and two-thirds of responding editors favor lowercase, it hard to see why the article was not moved after the previous RM discussion. Can we try again? See detailed data and analysis in the previous discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 04:46, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you had a problem with the previous result, you should've filed a move review. RGloucester  — ☎ 05:22, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw no particular procedural flaw worthy of a review. I discussed it with the closer, who noted "By my count there were 4 supports and 2 opposes who made about equal arguments in terms of the policies and guidelines" and gave his reasons for why he didn't see the net as a consensus.  I disagree with his assessment, but that's not something that would carry much weight at WP:MRV; just look at how things go there when there is a glaring procedural problem.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Support - adding my voice to previous support !votes per sources. As per previous supporters, see no reason for capitalization here. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Support for procedural reasons. I do not personally support this move—proper names should be capitalized in English—but the case for a move seems to have been made above and a number of other editors agreed.  —  AjaxSmack   01:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Support—for all the reasons proffered above. Tony   (talk)  02:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Move review
Since the above non-admin RM close was contrary to the unaminous expressed opinion in the discussion, it is being reviewed at Move_review. Dicklyon (talk) 04:08, 2 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm now overturning my close (see above) per the discussion there.  Sunrise    (talk)  02:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

"Slave Catchers"
I see this statement in the article- "James P. Doyle and ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury (all former slave catchers)." I don't find any source that describes them as "slave catchers" except for a few Wikipedia articles. Where does this come from? -BorderRuffian —Preceding undated comment added 16:46, 22 April 2016 (UTC)


 * BorderRuffian, it took me a few minutes on Google to find this, which I'll add as a source momentarily:
 * The Doyle family were from Tennessee; they were of that class considered too low in the social and moral scales to be amenable to law. Though detested and despised, and by slavery reduced to a level below the negro, they believed in the vile system and were ready to commit any outrage suggested by its advocates. They had lived in the South by patrolling plantations and spying on the actions of slaves; they brought their bloodhounds to Kansas with them, and were located in this settlement to hunt down and turn back fugitive slaves.
 * — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 18:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah...let's check that out...
 * Connelley: "The Doyle family were from Tennessee....They had lived in the South by patrolling plantations and spying on the actions of slaves" (page 102)
 * Connelley: "The Doyle family were from Tennessee....They had lived in the South by patrolling plantations and spying on the actions of slaves" (page 102)


 * The Doyles were from Hamilton County, TN. The 1850 Census lists Mr. Doyle as a farmer and not a  "slave catcher."  The county had a population of 10,075 of which 672 (6.7%) were slaves (about half that number were children and the elderly).  The 672 were owned by 158 persons.  That's an average of 4+ per household - not exactly plantation country.  Number of fugitive slaves reported in the 1850 Census: none.  The entire region in an around Hamilton County was sparsely populated with slaves.  If you were going to make a living by being a "slave catcher" this was not the place to be.


 * Hamilton County in the southeast part of Tennessee-
 * http://www.censusfinder.com/_derived/maptn.htm_txt_maptnsmall.gif


 * Concentration of slaves, 1850-
 * http://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/branch/ex1/m2-slave-conc.jpg
 * -BorderRuffian   —Preceding undated comment added 15:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

"Maehala [Childress Doyle, wife of James Pleasant Doyle] never knew why John Brown had selected her husband and sons for the murder because to her knowledge in the approximately six months they had been there [Kansas]they had not expressed themselves either for or against slavery, it being a thing far from their personal interests while they were trying to claim the land and build the farm". ''Information from Doyle family notes on Maehala Doyle. Undated. Unpublished. Original in possession of Philip Arthur Phillips, direct descendant of James Pleasant Doyle and Maehala Childress Doyle. Portland, Oregon April 29, 2016Mitzi Yates (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2016 (UTC)''


 * Yeah, we need to hear both sides of the story. My personal belief is that Old Brown just started killing at random because he was in "Pro-Slavery" territory.  -BorderRuffian  —Preceding undated comment added 22:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)


 * BorderRuffian, kindly sign your messages, and please don't put messages inside threads; it disrupts the chronology. As for the content itself, it seems to me that {{U|Malik Shabazz}'s source is pretty unassailable, and no amount of original research can change that. That an 1850 census doesn't list these boys as slave catchers is unsurprising especially if, as you claim, they were from an area with few slaves; if I can extend your original research, it would make sense that they occupied that trade elsewhere, and if I understand you correctly they had six years to do that in. Likewise, unverified and unpublished primary notes from a family member basically exonerating them won't stand up in court or on Wikipedia. Sorry, but personal beliefs don't apply here. Drmies (talk) 18:01, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Just received this item today- The Secret Six by Edward J. Renehan.
 * "Utter...referred Mrs. Doyle to the fact that some said the Doyles were slave hunters in Tennessee, before they came to Kansas, and had brought their bloodhounds with them. 'To that she replied simply that there was no foundation for it of any kind whatever.  They had never owned slaves or blood-hounds, nor had any of her people ever been concerned in slave hunting' (from page 99).


 * Looks like Connelley did a hatchet job on the Doyles...the second one. -BorderRuffian 22:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Your unassailable source: "Connelley had published, in 1899....a biography of Lane, and during the following year a full length life of John Brown.  Both books were highly partisan, and besides, made no contribution to knowledge." -John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six (1971 ed.) by James C. Malin (Professor of American History, University of Kansas), p459. -BorderRuffian  00:45, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, that's better--and certainly better than your OR. But it does not negate the claim about these three men. (Pinging correctly this time.) Drmies (talk) 02:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I apologize, BorderRuffian, for not noticing that there was a new message between two eight-month-old messages, or I would have replied sooner. In April, you said you couldn't find any sources so I found one. I don't vouch for its author, although it appears he was a well-regarded self-taught historian at a time when few historians were professionals. Did he have an agenda, particularly vis-à-vis Brown? Like James C. Malin, William Elsey Connelley lived in Kansas, so I assume they both had POVs concerning Brown. I also assume that, as historians, they did their homework and accurately described what they find.
 * If you think it remarkable that the U.S. Census doesn't describe the Doyles as slave catchers by profession, I can only recommend that you educate yourself about both the U.S. Census and the history of slavery and whiteness in the United States. I'm not saying they were, and I'm not saying they weren't, but I'm saying that the U.S. Census probably didn't describe any white Southerner as a slave catcher because it was just part of being a white man in the South. You see an escaped slave, you catch him or her. Some white men made a little money at it, some made a lot of money at it—but it was an unremarkable duty expected of all white men.
 * So please take the phrase out of this article if it makes you feel better. I'm not a historian, amateur or professional, and I have better things to do with my time than being your Google monkey. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Appropriate Place in this Article for Unpublished 'Doyle family version' of the Pottawatomie Massacre?
I have possession of notes handed down to direct descendants of James Pleasant Doyle. It has Mrs. Maehala Childress Doyle's version of events. There are also notes indicating that both the Chattanooga, Tennessee newspaper and the Chicago Tribune interviewed her in the 1870s or 1880s about the Pottawatomie Massacre. I do not have access to the Chattanooga newspaper. To the best of my knowledge, it is only available on microfilm at The Public Library in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mitzi Yates (talk) 16:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You need to check out Identifying reliable sources. It states in its very first sentence:


 * "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Neutral point of view)." In addition to the notes apparently not being published, they would also fall into the category of primary sources -- see  Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources further down in the article which states:


 * "Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere." and:


 * "Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. Although they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred." Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:24, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The best thing would be to write an article for a history journal and get it approved by an editor and published. Then you could cite it as a source for an alternative view of events. Without the help of an intermediate editor or journal to approve the material, it would be very hard to accept it into wikipedia as a reliable source. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The Mahala Doyle letter to John Brown is mentioned and quoted in several sources- https://www.google.com/#q=%22mahala+doyle%22+letter&tbm=bks And here are the sworn statements of the Doyles and others- http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/housecommittee.html --BorderRuffian  —Preceding undated comment added 22:32, 1 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Then you can cite some of those sources, putting what they say into the article. Dicklyon (talk) 22:39, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Basic question about the use of secondary sources. From the published accounts, Maehala was illiterate. (She signed an 'X') The secondary sources seem to greatly embellish and insert details not found in the 'family version' of her testimony. There were distinct political agendas by these 'secondary' sources dating from the 19th century. Short of publishing in the modern era (available only to scholars or those with financial resources to do so) then the 'enhanced' version of history as quoted from those 19th century sources are what do as 'fact'? Is there any mechanism realistically available to offer 'other' viewpoints without violating the spirit of wiki?Mitzi Yates (talk) 15:00, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Uncritical use of Malin as a source
See Our Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, and the Civil War Era by Stephen Oates.

"Rejecting a considerable body of evidence to the contrary, Malin argued that all the threats of murder and annihilation issued by proslavery forces had no impact on Brown, that enemy atrocities did not disturb him either, and that he instigated the Pottawatomie massacre largely for political reasons. According to Malin, Brown selected his victims for two reasons: because they had been associated with Cato's proslavery court when it sat in session at Pottawatomie Creek, and because they were going to testify against Brown at the Lykins County session of the court, to open on May 26, 1856, on a charge of treasonably resisting the pro-slavery territorial government. Yet Malin conceded that there was a problem with his interpretation: Brown had spared the life of James Harris, who had also been a juror on Cato's court. "If the assassination was directed at those who participated in the court, why was he permitted to go free?" Malin did not answer his own question. Nor did he address himself to other problems his thesis contained. For one thing, since neither Brown nor any of his sons had been indicted at the Pottawatomie session of Cato's court, why should Brown have been preoccupied with the personnel of the court?"

There are several pages more in the book discussing Malin.

The article is pretty superficial, but I don't have the time to fix it. Doug Weller talk 11:11, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

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Can someone explain to me how this qualifies as a "massacre"?
"Massacre", to me, and I think in general use, implies indiscriminate, mass killings. This was neither mass nor indiscriminate - the targets were a few specific men chosen for being militant pro-slavery actors. Call it executions, assassinations or extrajudicial killings, sure, but calling this event a massacre just reeks of confederate apologia to me.

I'd suggest changing them name and terminology of this article to "killings" rather than "massacre". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.179.120.195 (talk) 13:25, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Here's a definition from Merriam-Webster: "the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty."  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/massacre  That surely fits. -Topcat777