John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He led the
Pottawatomie MassacreThe Pottawatomie Massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers killed five settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas...
during which five men were killed, in 1856 in
Bleeding KansasBleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War, was a series of violent events, involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858...
, and made his name in the unsuccessful
raidJohn Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859...
at
Harpers FerryHarpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. In many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe....
in 1859. Later that year he was executed but his speeches at the trial captured national attention. Brown has been called "the most controversial of all 19th-century Americans" and "America's first domestic terrorist."
Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five pro-slavery Southerners, and inciting a slave insurrection, found guilty on all counts, and was hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the
Republican PartyThe United States Republican Party is the second oldest currently existing political party in the United States after its great rival, the Democratic Party. It emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas Nebraska Act which threatened to extend slavery into the territories, and to promote more vigorous...
to end slavery. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Brown first gained attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis. Unlike most other Northerners, who advocated peaceful resistance to the pro-slavery faction, Brown demanded violent action in response to Southern aggression. Dissatisfied with the pacifism encouraged by the organized abolitionist movement, he reportedly said, "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!"
During the Kansas campaign he and his supporters killed five pro-slavery southerners in what became known as the
Pottawatomie MassacreThe Pottawatomie Massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers killed five settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas...
in May 1856 in response to
the raidIn the northern spring of 1856, the Sacking of Lawrence helped ratchet up the guerrilla war in Kansas Territory that became known as Bleeding Kansas.-Background:...
of the "free soil" city of
LawrenceLawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
. In 1859 he led a raid on
the federal armoryHarpers Ferry Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, was the second federal armory commissioned by the United States government located in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , the first federal armory being the Springfield Armory located in Springfield,...
at Harpers Ferry. During the raid, he seized the armory; seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. He intended to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but the attack failed. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had fled or been killed or captured by local pro slavery farmers, militiamen, and U.S. Marines led by
Robert E. LeeRobert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
. Brown's subsequent capture by federal forces seized the nation's attention, as Southerners feared it was just the first of many Northern plots to cause a slave rebellion that might endanger their lives, while Republicans dismissed the notion and said they would not interfere with slavery in the South.
Historians agree John Brown played a major role in the start of the Civil War. David Potter (1976) said the emotional effect of Brown's raid was greater than the philosophical effect of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and that his raid revealed a deep division between North and South. Brown's actions prior to the Civil War as an abolitionist, and the tactics he chose, still make him a controversial figure today. He is sometimes memorialized as a heroic martyr and a visionary and sometimes vilified as a madman and a terrorist. Some writers, such as Bruce Olds, describe him as a monomaniacal zealot, others, such as
Stephen B. OatesStephen B. Oates is a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history....
, regard him as "one of the most perceptive human beings of his generation."
David S. ReynoldsDavid S. Reynolds is an American historian and literary critic, noted for his specialized books on the Civil War period and his expert knowledge of Walt Whitman.-Life and career:...
hails the man who "killed slavery, sparked the civil war, and seeded civil rights" and Richard Owen Boyer emphasizes that Brown was "an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans might be free." For Ken Chowder he is "at certain times, a great man", but also "the father of American terrorism." The song "
John Brown's Body"John Brown's Body" is an American marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The tune arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp meeting movement of the 19th century...
" became a
UnionDuring the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
marching song during the Civil War.
Early years
John Brown was born May 9, 1800, in
Torrington, ConnecticutTorrington is the largest city in Litchfield County, Connecticut and the northwestern Connecticut region. It is also the core city of the largest micropolitan area in the United States. The city population was 36,383 according to the 2010 census....
. He was the fourth of the eight children of Owen Brown (February 16, 1771 May 8, 1856) and Ruth Mills (January 25, 1772 December 9, 1808) and grandson of Capt. John Brown (1728–1776).
In 1805, the family moved to
Hudson, OhioHudson is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 22,262 at the 2010 census. It is an affluent exurban community and is part of the Akron, Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, where Owen Brown opened a tannery. Brown's father became a supporter of the Oberlin Institute (original name of
Oberlin CollegeOberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
) in its early stage, although he was ultimately critical of the school's "Perfectionist" leanings, especially renowned in the preaching and teaching of Charles Finney and
Asa MahanAsa Mahan was a U.S. Congregational clergyman and educator and the first president of Oberlin College and Adrian College.-Career:...
. Brown withdrew his membership from the Congregational church in the 1840s and never officially joined another church, but both he and his father Owen were fairly conventional evangelicals for the period with its focus on the pursuit of personal righteousness. Brown's personal religion is fairly well documented in the papers of the Rev Clarence Gee, a Brown family expert, now held in the Hudson [Ohio] Library and Historical Society.
Brown's father had as an apprentice Jesse R. Grant, father of future general and U.S. President
Ulysses S. GrantUlysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
.
At the age of 16, John Brown left his family and went to
PlainfieldPlainfield is a town on the northwestern edge of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, about 25 miles east of Pittsfield and 30 miles northwest of Northampton. The population was 589 at the 2000 census...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, where he enrolled in a preparatory program. Shortly afterward, he transferred to the Morris Academy in
LitchfieldLitchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, and is known as an affluent summer resort. The population was 8,316 at the 2000 census. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town...
, Connecticut. He hoped to become a
CongregationalistCongregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
minister, but money ran out and he suffered from eye inflammations, which forced him to give up the academy and return to Ohio. In Hudson, he worked briefly at his father's tannery before opening a successful tannery of his own outside of town with his adopted brother.
In 1820, Brown married Dianthe Lusk. Their first child, John Jr, was born 13 months later. In 1825, Brown and his family moved to
New RichmondRichmond Township is a township in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,379 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 36.7 square miles , of which, 36.6 square miles of it is land and...
, Pennsylvania, where he bought 200 acres (81 hectares) of land. He cleared an eighth of it and built a cabin, a barn, and a tannery. Within a year the tannery employed 15 men. Brown also made money raising cattle and surveying. He helped to establish a post office and a school. During this period, Brown operated an interstate business involving cattle and leather production along with a kinsman, Seth Thompson, from eastern Ohio.
In 1831, one of his sons died. Brown fell ill, and his businesses began to suffer, which left him in terrible debt. In the summer of 1832, shortly after the death of a newborn son, his wife Dianthe died. On June 14, 1833, Brown married 16-year-old Mary Ann Day (April 15, 1817 – May 1, 1884), originally of
MeadvilleMeadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city is generally considered part of the Pittsburgh Tri-State and is within 40 miles of Erie, Pennsylvania. It was the first permanent settlement in northwest Pennsylvania...
, Pennsylvania. They eventually had 13 children, in addition to the seven children from his previous marriage.
In 1836, Brown moved his family to
Franklin Mills, OhioKent is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the largest city in Portage County. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeastern Ohio on the western edge of the county. The population was 27,906 at the 2000 United States Census and 28,904 in the 2010 Census...
(now known as Kent). There he borrowed money to buy land in the area, building and operating a tannery along the
Cuyahoga RiverThe Cuyahoga River is located in Northeast Ohio in the United States. Outside of Ohio, the river is most famous for being "the river that caught fire", helping to spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s...
in partnership with Zenas Kent.
http://www.hudsonlibrary.org/hudson%20website/Archives/Archives/john%20brown/jbhome.htm He suffered great financial losses in the economic crisis of 1839, which struck the western states more severely than had the
Panic of 1837The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie ,...
. Following the heavy borrowing trends of Ohio, many businessmen like Brown trusted too heavily in credit and state bonds and paid dearly for it. In one episode of property loss, Brown was even jailed when he attempted to retain ownership of a farm by occupying it against the claims of the new owner. Like other determined men of his time and background, he tried many different business efforts in an attempt to get out of debt. Along with tanning hides and cattle trading, he also undertook horse and sheep breeding, the last of which was to become a notable aspect of his pre-public vocation.
In 1837, in response to the murder of
Elijah P. LovejoyElijah Parish Lovejoy was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor and abolitionist. He was murdered by an opposition mob in Alton, Illinois during their attack on his warehouse to destroy his press and abolitionist materials.Lovejoy's father was a Congregational minister...
, Brown publicly vowed: “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!” Brown was declared bankrupt by a federal court on September 28, 1842. In 1843, four of his children died of
dysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
. As Louis DeCaro Jr shows in his biographical sketch (2007), from the mid-1840s Brown had built a reputation as an expert in fine sheep and wool, and entered into a partnership with Col. Simon Perkins of Akron, Ohio, whose flocks and farms were managed by Brown and sons. Brown eventually moved into a home with his family across the street from the
Perkins Stone MansionThe Perkins Stone Mansion is a historic house museum in Akron, Ohio, USA.- Overview :The mansion is owned and operated by The Summit County Historical Society of Akron, Ohio and is also the organization's headquarters. It was built from 1835 to 1837 by Col. Simon Perkins, son of Akron's founder...
located on Perkins Hill. The John Brown House (Akron, Ohio) still stands and is owned and operated by
The Summit County Historical Society of Akron, OhioThe Summit County Historical Society of Akron, Ohio, abbreviated SCHS, is a 5013 corporation located in Akron, Ohio. It focuses on the history of the City of Akron and Summit County, Ohio.-Purpose:...
. As Brown's associations grew among sheep farmers of the region, his expertise was often discussed in agricultural journals even as he widened the scope of his travels in conjunction with sheep and wool concerns (which often brought him into contact with other fervent anti-slavery people as well).
Transformative years in Springfield, Massachusetts
In 1846, Brown and his business partner Simon Perkins moved to the ideologically progressive city of
Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
. In Springfield, Brown found a community whose white leadership - from the community’s most prominent churches, to its most wealthy businessmen, to its most popular politicians, to its local jurists, and even to the publisher of one of the nation’s most influential newspapers - were deeply involved and emotionally invested in the anti-slavery movement. Brown and Perkins' intent was to represent the interests of the
Connecticut River ValleyThe Pioneer Valley is the colloquial name for the U.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts's portion of the Connecticut River Valley. The Pioneer Valley consists of three counties in Massachusetts which collectively feature much of New England's most fertile farmland...
's wool growers against the interests of the region's wool manufacturers - thus Brown and Perkins set-up a wool commission operation. While in Springfield, Brown lived in a house at 51 Franklin Street.
Several years before Brown's arrival in Springfield, in 1844, the city's African-American abolitionists had founded the Sanford Street "Free Church" - now known as St. John's Congregational Church - which went on to become one of the United States most prominent platforms for abolitionist speeches. From 1846 until he left Springfield in 1850, John Brown was a parishioner at the Free Church, where he witnessed abolitionist lectures by
Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
and
Sojourner TruthSojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she...
. Indeed, during Brown's time in Springfield, he became deeply involved in transforming the city into a major center of abolitionism, and one of the safest and most significant stops on the
Underground RailroadThe Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. John Brown's Bible is still on display at St. John's Congregational Church in Springfield, which to this day remains one of the Northeast's most prominent black churches.
In 1847, after speaking at the "Free Church," the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass spent a night speaking with John Brown, after which he wrote, "from this night spent with John Brown in Springfield, Mass. in 1847 while I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the same less hopeful for its peaceful abolition. My utterances became more and more tinged by the color of this man’s strong impressions.”
While in Springfield, as Brown learned more about abolitionism and the
Underground RailroadThe Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
, he also learned more about the region's mercantile elite, which while initially a 'curse', proved ultimately to be a 'blessing' to Brown's later activities in Kansas and at Harper's Ferry. Springfield's mercantile elite reacted with hesitation to change their theretofore highly-profitable formula of low-quality wool sold en masse for low prices. Initially, Brown naively trusted Springfield's manufacturers, but soon came to realize that they were determined to maintain their control of price-setting. Also, on the outskirts of Springfield, the Connecticut River Valley's sheep farmers were largely unorganized and hesitant to change their methods of production to meet higher standards. In the
Ohio Cultivator, Brown and other wool growers complained that the
Connecticut RiverThe Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
Valley's farmers' tendencies were lowering all U.S. wool prices abroad. In reaction, Brown made a last-ditch effort to overcome the
Pioneer ValleyThe Pioneer Valley is the colloquial name for the U.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts's portion of the Connecticut River Valley. The Pioneer Valley consists of three counties in Massachusetts which collectively feature much of New England's most fertile farmland...
's wool mercantile elite by seeking an alliance with European-based manufacturers. Ultimately, Brown was disappointed to learn that Europe wanted to buy
Western MassachusettsThe Pioneer Valley is the colloquial name for the U.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts's portion of the Connecticut River Valley. The Pioneer Valley consists of three counties in Massachusetts which collectively feature much of New England's most fertile farmland...
's wools en masse at the cheap prices they'd been getting from them. Brown then traveled to England to seek a higher price for Springfield's wool. The trip was a disaster, as the firm incurred a loss of $40,000 (over $980,000 in today's dollars), of which Col. Perkins bore the larger share. With this misfortune, the Perkins and Brown wool commission operation closed in Springfield in late 1849. Subsequent lawsuits tied up the partners for several more years.
The Fugitive Slave Act and The League of Gileadites
Before Brown left
Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
, in 1850, the United States passed the notorious Fugitive Slave Act, a law which gave federal marshals the right to pursue and capture runaway slaves. In response to Fugitive Slave Act, John Brown founded a militant group to prevent slaves' capture -
The League of Gileadites - in Springfield. In the Bible, Mount Gilead was the place where only the bravest of Israelites would gather together to face an invading enemy. Brown founded the League of Gileadites with these words, "Nothing so charmes the American people as personal bravery. [Blacks] would have ten times the number [of whites friends than] they now have were they but half as much in earnest to secure their dearest rights as they are to ape the follies and extravagances of their white neighbors, and to indulge in idle show, in ease, and in luxury." On leaving Springfield in 1850, Brown instructed the League of Gileadites to act "quickly, quietly, and efficiently" to protect slaves that escaped to Springfield - words that would foreshadow Brown's later actions preceding Harper's Ferry. It is worth noting that from Brown's founding of the
League of Gileadites onward, not one person was ever taken back into slavery from Springfield, Massachusetts. On leaving Springfield in 1850, Brown gave his rocking chair to the mother of his beloved black porter, Thomas, as a gesture of affection.
Some popular narrators have exaggerated the unfortunate demise of Brown and Perkins' wool commission in Springfield with Brown's later life choices. In actuality, Perkins absorbed much of the financial loss, and their partnership continued for several more years, with Brown nearly breaking even by 1854. The men remained friends after ending their partnership amicably. Indeed, Brown was a man of great talent and judgment in farming and sheep raising; however, he was not a good business administrator. The Perkins and Brown partnership not only reveal Brown as a man with a widely appreciated specialization (long since forgotten), but reflect his perennial zeal for the underdog which drove him to struggle on behalf of the economically vulnerable farmers of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and those near Springfield, Massachusetts.
Brown's time in Springfield sowed the seeds for the future financial support that he would receive from New England's great merchants, introduced him to nationally famous abolitionists like Douglass and Truth, and included the foundation of his first militant anti-slavery group
The League of Gileadites. During this time, Brown also helped publicize
David WalkerDavid Walker was an outspoken African American activist who demanded the immediate end of slavery in the new nation...
's speech called
Appeal. Brown's personal attitudes evolved in Springfield, as he observed the success of the city's
Underground railroadThe Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
and made his first venture into militant, anti-slavery community organizing. In Springfield, Brown found a city that shared his own anti-slavery passions, and each seemed to educate the other. Certainly, with both successes and failures, Brown's Springfield years were a transformative period of his life, which catalyzed many of his later actions.
Homestead in New York
In 1848, Brown heard of
Gerrit SmithGerrit Smith was a leading United States social reformer, abolitionist, politician, and philanthropist...
's
AdirondackThe Adirondack Mountains are a mountain range located in the northeastern part of New York, that runs through Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Saint Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties....
land grants to poor black men, and decided to move his family among the new settlers. He bought land near
North Elba, New YorkNorth Elba is a town in Essex County, New York, United States. The population was 8,661 at the 2000 census. The town is named after the island of Elba.North Elba is on the western edge of the county...
(near Lake Placid), for $1 an acre, although he spent little time there. After he was executed, his wife took his body there for burial. Since 1895, the farm has been owned by New York state. The
John Brown Farm and GravesiteThe John Brown Farm and Gravesite was the home and is the final resting place of abolitionist John Brown.It is located on John Brown Road in North Elba near Lake Placid, New York, where John Brown moved in 1849 to lead freed slaves in farming...
is now a
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
.
Actions in Kansas
In 1855, Brown learned from his adult sons in the Kansas territory that their families were completely unprepared to face attack, and that pro-slavery forces there were militant. Determined to protect his family and oppose the advances of pro-slavery supporters, Brown left for Kansas, enlisting a son-in-law and making several stops just to collect funds and weapons. As reported by the New York
Tribune, Brown stopped en route to participate in an anti-slavery convention that took place in June 1855 in Albany, New York. Despite the controversy that ensued on the convention floor regarding the support of violent efforts on behalf of the free state cause, several individuals provided Brown some solicited financial support. As he went westward, however, Brown found more militant support in his home state of Ohio, particularly in the strongly anti-slavery Western Reserve section where he had been reared.
Pottawatomie
Brown and the free settlers were optimistic that they could bring Kansas into the union as a slavery-free state. But in late 1855 and early 1856 it was increasingly clear to Brown that pro-slavery forces were willing to violate the rule of law in order to force Kansas to become a slave state. Brown believed that terrorism, fraud, and eventually deadly attacks became the obvious agenda of the pro-slavery supporters, then known as "Border Ruffians." After the winter snows thawed in 1856, the pro-slavery activists began a campaign to seize Kansas on their own terms. Brown was particularly affected by the
Sacking of LawrenceIn the northern spring of 1856, the Sacking of Lawrence helped ratchet up the guerrilla war in Kansas Territory that became known as Bleeding Kansas.-Background:...
in May 1856, in which a
sheriffA sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
-led posse destroyed newspaper offices and a hotel. Only one man, a Border Ruffian, was killed.
Preston BrooksPreston Smith Brooks was a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina. Brooks is primarily remembered for his severe beating of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate with a gutta-percha cane, delivered in response to an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner compared Brooks'...
's caning of anti-slavery Senator
Charles SumnerCharles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...
also fueled Brown's anger. These violent acts were accompanied by celebrations in the pro-slavery press, with writers such as
Benjamin Franklin StringfellowBenjamin Franklin Stringfellow was a Missouri Attorney General, a high ranking border ruffian and one of the organizers of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.-Early life:He was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia...
of the
Squatter Sovereign proclaiming that pro-slavery forces "are determined to repel this Northern invasion, and make Kansas a Slave State; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their victims, and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose" (quoted in Reynolds, p. 162). Brown was outraged by both the violence of the pro-slavery forces, and also by what he saw as a weak and cowardly response by the antislavery partisans and the Free State settlers, who he described as "cowards, or worse" (Reynolds pp. 163–164).
Biographer Louis A. DeCaro Jr. further shows that Brown's beloved father, Owen, had died on May 8, 1856 and correspondence indicates that John Brown and his family received word of his death around the same time. The emotional darkness of the hour was intensified by the real concerns that Brown had for the welfare of his sons and the free state settlers in their vicinity, especially since the sacking of Lawrence seems to have signaled an all-out campaign of violence by pro-slavery forces. Brown conducted surveillance on encamped "ruffians" in his vicinity and learned that his family was marked for attack, and furthermore was given reliable information as to pro-slavery neighbors who had aligned and supported these forces. The pro-slavery men did not necessarily own any slaves, although the Doyles (three of the victims) were slave hunters prior to settling in Kansas. According to Salmon Brown, when the Doyles were seized, Mahala Doyle acknowledged that her husband's "devilment" had brought down this attack to their doorstep further signifying that the Browns' attack was probably grounded in real concern for their own survival.
Sometime after 10:00 pm May 24, 1856, it is suspected they took five pro-slavery settlers James Doyle, William Doyle, Drury Doyle, Allen Wilkinson, and William Sherman from their cabins on Pottawatomie Creek and hacked them to death with broadswords. Brown later claimed he did not participate in the killings, however he did say he approved of them.
Account of the Pottawatomie Massacre by John Doyle, Son of James P. Doyle
"I, John C. Doyle, was born in Knox County, Tennessee December 19, 1838. My father, Pleasant Doyle, moved to Walker County, Ga., in 1845, moved to Chattanooga1 in 1848, and lived in and around Chattanooga until October 11, 1855, at which time we moved to Kansas; traveled through the country in wagons, via Nashville, Hopkinsville, Ky., St. Louis, Mo., Kansas City, Mo., then fifty miles southwest to Franklin County, Kansas, arriving there November 18, 1856. We settled on a claim of one hundred and sixty acres, built a house, and spent the winter there. In the spring of 1856 we planted a crop. Everything was quiet and peaceful until the night of May 24, when John Brown, with about twenty-five men, came to the house and demanded admittance. When refused admittance, they set fire to the house with torches made of prairie hay. To keep up all from being burned to death my father opened the door. They came in the house and handcuffed my father and my two older brothers and started to take me but my mother begged them to leave me, as I would be all the protection she would have. Brown told mother they were going to take father and the boys to the army, and left the house with them. They took them about three hundred yards from the house and murdered them. My father was shot in the head, my brothers cut to pieces. They left them all dead in a heap. They then went over two miles further to Potawatma River and killed two more men by the names of Wilkerson and Sherman. After they had killed my father and brothers, some of Brown's men came back to our house to get our horses, but failed to find them, as we had them staked out on the prairie to graze, as that was the way we had to feed them.
"...After daylight I went to some neighbor's houses and got them to come and help bury father and my brothers. After burying them I loaded up a few things in a wagon and brought my mother and the rest of the children to Cass County, Mo. We remained there until September of the same year, then came back to Chattanooga to live.
"In November, 1859, when John Brown was hanged at Charlestown, W. Va., I had permission from Governor Wise to hang him, but failed to get there on account of a landslide between Morristown and Bristol.
"I went into the Confederate army in June, 1861; was paroled at Charlotte, N. C, May, 1865.
"My mother lived in Chattanooga, until the town was being shelled in 1863, then moved out a few miles in the country, near Chickamauga. As Rosecrans retreated from Chickamauga, his army destroyed everything.
"Our family consisted of six boys and one girl. My father's object in going to Kansas was to get a home for us. Brown said he murdered them on account of being slaveholders, but my father had never owned a negro and never expected to. Brown and his men simply murdered them because they were from the South."
Palmyra and Osawatomie
A force of Missourians, led by Captain Henry Pate, captured John Jr. and Jason, and destroyed the Brown family homestead, and later participated in the Sack of Lawrence. On June 2, John Brown, nine of his followers, and twenty local men successfully defended a Free State settlement at Palmyra, Kansas against an attack by Pate. (
See Battle of Black JackThe Battle of Black Jack took place on June 2, 1856, when anti-slavery forces, led by the noted abolitionist John Brown, attacked the encampment of Henry C. Pate near Baldwin City, Kansas. The battle is cited as one incident of “Bleeding Kansas” and a contributing factor leading up to the American...
.) Pate and twenty-two of his men were taken prisoner (Reynolds pp. 180–181, 186). After capture, they were taken to Brown's camp, and received all the food that Brown could find. Brown forced Pate to sign a treaty, exchanging the freedom of Pate and his men for the promised release of Brown's two captured sons. Brown released Pate to Colonel Edwin Sumner, but was furious to discover that the release of his sons was delayed until September.
In August, a company of over three hundred Missourians under the command of Major General John W. Reid crossed into Kansas and headed towards
Osawatomie, KansasOsawatomie is a city in Miami County, Kansas, United States, southwest of Kansas City. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 4,447. It derives its name from two streams nearby, the Osage and Potawatomie.-History:...
, intending to destroy the Free State settlements there, and then march on
TopekaTopeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
and
LawrenceLawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
.
On the morning of August 30, 1856, they shot and killed Brown's son Frederick and his neighbor David Garrison on the outskirts of Osawatomie. Brown, outnumbered more than seven to one, arranged his 38 men behind natural defenses along the road. Firing from cover, they managed to kill at least 20 of Reid's men and wounded 40 more. Reid regrouped, ordering his men to dismount and charge into the woods. Brown's small group scattered and fled across the
Marais des Cygnes RiverThe Marais des Cygnes River is a principal tributary of the Osage River, about long, in eastern Kansas and western Missouri in the United States. Via the Osage and Missouri rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River...
. One of Brown's men was killed during the retreat and four were captured. While Brown and his surviving men hid in the woods nearby, the Missourians plundered and burned Osawatomie. Despite being defeated, Brown's bravery and military shrewdness in the face of overwhelming odds brought him national attention and made him a hero to many Northern abolitionists, who gave him the nickname "Osawatomie Brown". This incident was dramatized in the play
Osawatomie BrownOsawatomie Brown is a play, by Kate Edwards, about John Brown's struggle with pro-slavery forces in Kansas which brought him national attention and made him a hero to many Northern abolitionists. With only two dozen men he successfully defended the free-soil town of Osawatomie, Kansas against an...
.
On September 7, Brown entered Lawrence to meet with Free State leaders and help fortify against a feared assault. At least 2,700 pro-slavery Missourians were once again invading Kansas. On September 14 they skirmished near Lawrence. Brown prepared for battle, but serious violence was averted when the new governor of Kansas,
John W. GearyJohn White Geary was an American lawyer, politician, Freemason, and a Union general in the American Civil War...
, ordered the warring parties to disarm and disband, and offered clemency to former fighters on both sides. Brown, taking advantage of the fragile peace, left Kansas with three of his sons to raise money from supporters in the north.
Gathering forces
By November 1856, Brown had returned to the East, and spent the next two years in New England raising funds. Initially, Brown returned to Springfield, where he received contributions, and also a letter of recommendation from a prominent and wealthy merchant, Mr. George Walker. George Walker was the brother-in-law of
Franklin Benjamin SanbornFranklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, author, and reformer. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures...
, the secretary for the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, who later introduced Brown to several influential abolitionists in the Boston area in January 1857.
Amos Adams LawrenceAmos Adams Lawrence , the son of famed philanthropist Amos Lawrence, was a key figure in the United States abolition movement in the years leading up to the Civil War, and instrumental in the establishment of the University of Kansas and Lawrence University in Appleton,...
, a prominent Boston merchant, secretly gave a large amount of cash.
William Lloyd GarrisonWilliam Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
,
Thomas Wentworth HigginsonThomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...
,
Theodore ParkerTheodore Parker was an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church...
and
George Luther StearnsGeorge Luther Stearns was an American industrialist and merchant, as well as a noted recruiter of blacks for the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Biography:...
, and
Samuel Gridley HoweSamuel Gridley Howe was a nineteenth century United States physician, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind.-Early life and education:...
also supported Brown. A group of six wealthy abolitionists Sanborn, Higginson, Parker, Stearns, Howe, and
Gerrit SmithGerrit Smith was a leading United States social reformer, abolitionist, politician, and philanthropist...
agreed to offer Brown financial support for his antislavery activities; they would eventually provide most of the financial backing for the raid on Harpers Ferry, and would come to be known as the
Secret SixThe Secret Six, or the Secret Committee of Six, were six wealthy and influential men who secretly funded the American abolitionist, John Brown. They were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Gerrit Smith, and George Luther Stearns...
and the Committee of Six. Brown often requested help from them with "no questions asked" and it remains unclear of how much of Brown's scheme the Secret Six were aware.
On January 7, 1858, the Massachusetts Committee pledged to provide 200
Sharps RifleSharps rifles were those of a series begun with a design by Christian Sharps. Sharps rifles were renowned for long range and high accuracy in their day.-History:Sharps's initial rifle was patented September 17, 1848 and manufactured by A. S...
s and ammunition, which was being stored at
Tabor, IowaTabor is a city in Fremont and Mills counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 993 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Tabor is located at ....
. In March, Brown contracted Charles Blair of
Collinsville, ConnecticutCollinsville is a village and census-designated place in the town of Canton in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 2,686 at the 2000 census. The central portion of the village is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Collinsville is...
for 1,000
pikesA pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used regularly in European warfare from the...
.
In the following months, Brown continued to raise funds, visiting
WorcesterWorcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
,
SpringfieldSpringfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
,
New HavenNew Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
,
SyracuseSyracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
and Boston. In Boston, he met
Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
and
Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
. He received many pledges but little cash. In March, while in New York City, he was introduced to Hugh Forbes, an English mercenary, who had experience as a military tactician gained while fighting with
Giuseppe GaribaldiGiuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
in Italy in 1848. Brown hired him to be the drillmaster for his men and to write their tactical handbook. They agreed to meet in Tabor that summer.
Using the alias Nelson Hawkins, Brown traveled through the Northeast and then went to visit his family in
Hudson, OhioHudson is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 22,262 at the 2010 census. It is an affluent exurban community and is part of the Akron, Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. On August 7, he arrived in Tabor. Forbes arrived two days later. Over several weeks, the two men put together a "Well-Matured Plan" for fighting slavery in the South. The men quarreled over many of the details. In November, their troops left for Kansas. Forbes had not received his salary and was still feuding with Brown, so he returned to the East instead of venturing into Kansas. He would soon threaten to expose the plot to the government.
Because the October elections saw a free-state victory, Kansas was quiet. Brown made his men return to Iowa, where he fed them tidbits of his Virginia scheme. In January 1858, Brown left his men in
Springdale, IowaSpringdale is a small unincorporated community in Cedar County, Iowa, United States. Historically, the town was predominantly settled by Quakers, and was a way-station in the Underground Railroad. Its most famous residents were the militant abolitionist John Brown, who resided at John H...
, and set off to visit
Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
in
Rochester, New YorkRochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. There he discussed his plans with Douglass, and reconsidered Forbes' criticisms. Brown wrote a
Provisional ConstitutionJohn Brown's Provisional Constitution was created for the new states in the region he was planning to invade.- External links :*...
that would create a government for a new state in the region of his invasion. Brown then traveled to
Peterboro, New YorkPeterboro, located about twenty-five miles southeast of Syracuse, New York, is a historic hamlet situated in the Town of Smithfield, Madison County, New York.-Founding:...
and Boston to discuss matters with the Secret Six. In letters to them, he indicated that, along with recruits, he would go into the South equipped with weapons to do "Kansas work".
Brown and twelve of his followers, including his son Owen, traveled to
ChathamChatham–Kent is a unitary authority in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Mostly rural, its centres of population are Blenheim, Chatham, Dresden, Ridgetown, Tilbury and Wallaceburg. Modern Chatham–Kent was created in 1998 by the merger of Kent County and its municipalities.- History :The former city of...
,
OntarioOntario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
where he convened on May 8 a
Constitutional ConventionA constitutional convention is now a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...
. The convention was put together with the help of Dr.
Martin DelanyMartin Robinson Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. He became the first African-American field officer in the United...
. One-third of Chatham's 6,000 residents were fugitive slaves, and it was here that Brown was introduced to
Harriet TubmanHarriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
. The convention assembled 34 blacks and 12 whites to adopt Brown's Provisional Constitution. According to Delany, during the convention, Brown illuminated his plans to make Kansas rather than Canada the end of the
Underground RailroadThe Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. This would be the Subterranean Pass Way. He never mentioned or hinted at the idea of Harpers Ferry. But Delany's reflections are not entirely trustworthy. Brown was no longer looking toward Kansas and was entirely focused on Virginia. Other testimony from the Chatham meeting suggests Brown did speak of going South. Brown had long used the terminology of the Subterranean Pass Way from the late 1840s, so it is possible that Delany conflated Brown's statements over the years. Regardless, Brown was elected commander-in-chief and he named John Henrie Kagi as his "Secretary of War".
Richard RealfRichard Realf was a poet who lived in many places throughout the United States, and whose work was informed by these travels.-Early success:...
was named "Secretary of State". Elder Monroe, a black minister, was to act as president until another was chosen. A.M. Chapman was the acting vice president; Delany, the corresponding secretary. In 1859, "A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America" was written.
Although nearly all of the delegates signed the constitution, very few delegates volunteered to join Brown's forces, although it will never be clear how many Canadian expatriates actually intended to join Brown because of a subsequent "security leak" that threw off plans for the raid, creating a hiatus in which Brown lost contact with many of the Canadian leaders. This crisis occurred when Hugh Forbes, Brown's mercenary, tried to expose the plans to Massachusetts Senator
Henry WilsonHenry Wilson was the 18th Vice President of the United States and a Senator from Massachusetts...
and others. The Secret Six feared their names would be made public. Howe and Higginson wanted no delays in Brown's progress, while Parker, Stearns, Smith and Sanborn insisted on postponement. Stearns and Smith were the major sources of funds, and their words carried more weight.
To throw Forbes off the trail and to invalidate his assertions, Brown returned to Kansas in June, and he remained in that vicinity for six months. There he joined forces with
James MontgomeryJames Montgomery was a Jayhawker during the Bleeding Kansas Affair and a controversial Union colonel during the American Civil War...
, who was leading raids into Missouri. On December 20, Brown led his own raid, in which he liberated eleven slaves, took captive two white men, and stole horses and wagons. On January 20, 1859, he embarked on a lengthy journey to take the eleven liberated slaves to Detroit and then on a ferry to Canada. While passing through Chicago, Brown met with
Allan PinkertonAllan Pinkerton was a Scottish American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.-Early life, career and immigration:...
who arranged and raised the fare for the passage to Detroit.
Over the course of the next few months he traveled again through Ohio, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts to draw up more support for the cause. On May 9, he delivered a lecture in
Concord, MassachusettsConcord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
. In attendance were Bronson Alcott, Rockwell Hoar,
EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
and Thoreau. Brown also reconnoitered with the Secret Six. In June he paid his last visit to his family in North Elba, before he departed for Harpers Ferry. He stayed one night enroute in Hagerstown, Maryland at the Washington House, on West Washington Street. On June 30, 1859 the hotel had at least 25 guests, including I. Smith and Sons, Oliver Smith and Owen Smith and Jeremiah Anderson, all from New York. From papers found in the Kennedy Farmhouse after the raid, it is known that Brown wrote to Kagi that he would sign into a hotel as I. Smith and Sons.
Raid
Brown arrived in
Harpers FerryHarpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. In many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe....
on July 3, 1859. A few days later, under the name Isaac Smith, he rented a
farmhouseThe Kennedy Farm is an American landmark where John Brown planned and began his raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 1859. Also known as John Brown's Headquarters and Kennedy Farmhouse, the log, stone and brick building has retained its historical integrity and is essentially the same as it was...
in nearby
MarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. He awaited the arrival of his recruits. They never materialized in the numbers he expected. In late August he met with Douglass in
Chambersburg, PennsylvaniaChambersburg is a borough in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is miles north of Maryland and the Mason-Dixon line and southwest of Harrisburg in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley. Chambersburg is the county seat of Franklin County...
, where he revealed the Harpers Ferry plan. Douglass expressed severe reservations, rebuffing Brown's pleas to join the mission. Douglass had actually known about Brown's plans from early in 1859 and had made a number of efforts to discourage blacks from enlisting.
In late September, the 950 pikes arrived from Charles Blair. Kagi's draft plan called for a brigade of 4,500 men, but Brown had only 21 men (16 white and 5 black: three free blacks, one freed slave, and a fugitive slave). They ranged in age from 21 to 49. Twelve of them had been with Brown in Kansas raids.
On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 18 men in an attack on the
Harpers Ferry ArmoryHarpers Ferry Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, was the second federal armory commissioned by the United States government located in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , the first federal armory being the Springfield Armory located in Springfield,...
. He had received 200
Beecher's Bibles"Beecher's Bibles" was the name given to the breech loading Sharps rifles that were supplied to the anti-slavery immigrants in Kansas.The name came from the eminent New England minister Henry Ward Beecher, of the New England Emigrant Aid Society, of whom it was written in a February 8, 1856,...
—breechloading .52 caliber Sharps
rifleA rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s—and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Frederick Douglass and Brown's family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, essentially wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states. Thus, while violence was essential to self-defense and advancement of the movement, Brown's hope was to limit and minimize bloodshed, not ignite a slave insurrection as many have charged. From the Southern point of view, of course, any effort to arm the enslaved was perceived as a definitive threat.
Initially, the raid went well, and they met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grandnephew of
George WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand . Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. The train's baggage master tried to warn the passengers. Brown's men yelled for him to halt and then opened fire. The baggage master, Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of John Brown's war against slavery. Ironically, Shepherd was a free black man. Two of the hostages' slaves also died in the raid. For some reason, after the shooting of Shepherd, Brown allowed the train to continue on its way.
A. J. Phelps, the Through Express passenger train conductor, sent a telegram to W. P. Smith, Master of Transportation of the B. & O. R. R., Baltimore:
Monocacy, 7.05 A. M., October 17, 1859.
Express train bound east, under my charge, was stopped this morning at Harper's Ferry by armed abolitionists. They have possession of the bridge and the arms and armory of the United States. Myself and Baggage Master have been fired at, and Hayward, the colored porter, is wounded very severely, being shot through the body, the ball entering the body below the left shoulder blade and coming out under the left side.
News of the raid reached Baltimore early that morning and then on to Washington by late morning.
In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down the raiders in the armory by firing from the heights behind the town. Some of the local men were shot by Brown's men. At noon, a company of militia seized the bridge, blocking the only escape route. Brown then moved his prisoners and remaining raiders into the engine house, a small brick building at the entrance to the armory. He had the doors and windows barred and loopholes were cut through the brick walls. The surrounding forces barraged the engine house, and the men inside fired back with occasional fury. Brown sent his son Watson and another supporter out under a white flag, but the angry crowd shot them. Intermittent shooting then broke out, and Brown's son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him and end his suffering, but Brown said "If you must die, die like a man." A few minutes later he was dead. The exchanges lasted throughout the day.
By the morning of October 18 the engine house, later known as
John Brown's FortJohn Brown's Fort was the building built in 1848 that was originally constructed for use as a guard and fire engine house for the federal Harpers Ferry Armory in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, then a part of Virginia....
, was surrounded by a company of
U.S. MarinesThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
under the command of
ColonelColonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Robert E. LeeRobert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
of the United States Army. A young Army lieutenant,
J.E.B. StuartJames Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart was a U.S. Army officer from Virginia and a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb", from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use...
, approached under a white flag and told the raiders that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, "No, I prefer to die here." Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledge hammers and a make-shift battering-ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives. Altogether Brown's men killed four people, and wounded nine. Ten of Brown's men were killed (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Five of Brown's men escaped (including his son Owen), and seven were captured along with Brown. Among the killed raiders were
John Henry KagiJohn Henry Kagi, also spelled John Henrie Kagi , was an American attorney, abolitionist and second in command to John Brown in Brown's failed raid on Harper's Ferry. He bore the title of "Secretary of War" in Brown's "provisional government." At age 24, Kagi was killed during the raid...
;
Lewis Sheridan LearyLewis Sheridan Leary , an African-American harnessmaker from Oberlin, Ohio, joined John Brown's unsuccessful raid on Harpers Ferry, where he was killed. He was the first husband of Mary Patterson...
and
Dangerfield NewbyDangerfield Newby was the oldest of John Brown's raiders, one of five black raiders, and the first of his men to die at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Born a slave in Fauquier County, Virginia, Newby married a woman also enslaved. Newby was later freed by his Scottish father, but his wife and seven...
; those hanged besides Brown were
John Anthony Copeland, Jr.John Anthony Copeland, Jr. was born a free black in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1843 when he was a child, his family moved north to Oberlin, Ohio, where he later attended Oberlin College. He became involved in abolitionist and antislavery activities, and participated in the successful...
and
Shields GreenShields Green , also known as "Emperor," was an ex-slave who participated in John Brown's unsuccessful raid on Harpers Ferry. Though he had a chance to escape capture, he returned to the fighting and was captured with Brown. For their parts in the raid, Green and John A. Copeland were hanged on...
John Brown raiders
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/people.html:
Killed
Hanged in 1859 following the raid
Hanged in 1860
Albert Hazlett
Aaron D. Stevens
Died during US Civil War
Barclay CoppockEdwin Coppock, Barclay's brother, redirects here.Barclay Coppock was a follower of John Brown and a Union Army soldier in the American Civil War. Along with his brother Edwin Coppock , he participated in Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry...
Charles Plummer Tidd
Survived
Osborne Perry AndersonOsborne Perry Anderson was an African-American abolitionist and the only surviving African-American member of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and later a soldier in the Union army of the American Civil War.-Early life:...
Owen Brown
Francis Jackson Meriam
Imprisonment and trial
Brown and the others captured were held in the office of the armory. On October 18, 1859, Virginia Governor
Henry A. WiseHenry Alexander Wise was an American politician and governor of Virginia, as well as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.-Early life:...
, Virginia Senator
James M. MasonJames Murray Mason was a United States Representative and United States Senator from Virginia. He was a grandson of George Mason and represented the Confederate States of America as appointed commissioner of the Confederacy to the United Kingdom and France between 1861 and 1865 during the American...
, and Representative
Clement VallandighamClement Laird Vallandigham was an Ohio resident of the Copperhead faction of anti-war Democrats during the American Civil War. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives.-Biography:...
of Ohio arrived in Harpers Ferry. Mason led the three-hour questioning session of Brown.
Although the attack had taken place on Federal property, Wise ordered that Brown and his men should be tried in Virginia in
Charles TownCharles Town is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,907 at the 2000 census. Due to its similar name, travelers have sometimes confused this city with the state's capital, Charleston.-History:...
, the nearby county seat capital of Jefferson County just seven miles west of Harpers Ferry (perhaps to avert Northern political pressure on the Federal government, or in the unlikely event of a presidential
pardonClemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
). The trial began October 27, after a doctor pronounced the still-wounded Brown fit for trial. Brown was charged with
murderMurder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ing four whites and a black, with
conspiringIn the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
with slaves to rebel, and with
treasonIn law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
against Virginia. A series of lawyers were assigned to Brown, who included Lawson Botts, Thomas C. Green, Samuel Chilton, a lawyer from Washington D.C., and George Hoyt, but it was Hiram Griswold, a lawyer from Cleveland, Ohio who concluded the defense on October 31. In his closing statement, Griswold argued that Brown could not be found guilty of treason against a state to which he owed no loyalty and was not a resident of, and that Brown had not personally killed anyone himself, and also that the failure of the raid indicated that Brown had not conspired with slaves.
Andrew HunterAndrew Hunter was the District Attorney for Charles Town, Virginia, who prosecuted John Brown for the raid on Harpers Ferry....
, the local district attorney, presented the closing arguments for the prosecution.
On November 2, after a week-long trial and 45 minutes of deliberation, the Charles Town jury found Brown guilty on all three counts. Brown was sentenced to be hanged in public on December 2. In response to the sentence,
Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
remarked that "[John Brown] will make the gallows glorious like the Cross." Cadets from the
Virginia Military InstituteThe Virginia Military Institute , located in Lexington, Virginia, is the oldest state-supported military college and one of six senior military colleges in the United States. Unlike any other military college in the United States—and in keeping with its founding principles—all VMI students are...
under the leadership of General Francis H. Smith and Major
Thomas J. Jacksonຄຽשת״ׇׂׂׂׂ֣|birth_place= Clarksburg, Virginia |death_place=Guinea Station, Virginia|placeofburial=Stonewall Jackson Memorial CemeteryLexington, Virginia|placeofburial_label= Place of burial|image=...
(who would earn the nickname "Stonewall" less than two years later) were called into service as a security detail in the event Brown's supporters attempted a rescue.
During his month in jail, Brown was allowed to send and receive correspondence. He refused to be rescued by
Silas SouleSilas Stillman Soule was a Massachusetts abolitionist, Kansas Territory Jayhawker, and a soldier in the Colorado infantry and cavalry during the American Civil War. Captain Soule, as commander of Company D, 1st Colorado Cavalry, was present at the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29, 1864...
, a friend from Kansas who had somehow infiltrated the Jefferson County Jail offering to break him out during the night and flee northward. Brown supposedly told Silas that, being 59-years-old, he was too old to live a life on the run from the Federal authorities, and he was ready to die as a
martyrA martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
. Silas left him behind to be executed. More importantly, many of Brown's letters exuded high tones of spirituality and conviction and, when picked up by the northern press, won increasing numbers of supporters in the North as they simultaneously infuriated many white people in the South. On December 1, his wife arrived by train in Charles Town where she joined him at the county jail for his last meal. She was denied permission to stay for the night, prompting Brown to lose his composure for the only time through the ordeal.
Victor Hugo's reaction
Victor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, from exile on
GuernseyGuernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...
, tried to obtain pardon for John Brown: he sent an
open letterAn open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
that was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic (cf.
Actes et parolesActes et Paroles is a book by Victor Hugo, that recounts his life story and his dreams of the future. It speaks of universal education and a United States of Europe. It adopts a hostile tone to the military and the church....
). This text, written at Hauteville-House on December 2, 1859, warned of a possible
civil warA civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
:
Death and aftermath
On the morning of December 2, Brown wrote "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done." He read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife, which included his will. At 11:00 he was escorted from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers a few blocks away to a small field where the gallows were. Among the soldiers in the crowd were future Confederate general
Stonewall Jacksonຄຽשת״ׇׂׂׂׂ֣|birth_place= Clarksburg, Virginia |death_place=Guinea Station, Virginia|placeofburial=Stonewall Jackson Memorial CemeteryLexington, Virginia|placeofburial_label= Place of burial|image=...
and
John Wilkes BoothJohn Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
, who borrowed a militia uniform to gain admission to the execution. The poet
Walt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, in "Year of Meteors," described viewing the execution.
Brown was accompanied by the sheriff and his assistants, but no minister since he had consistently rejected the ministrations of pro-slavery clergy. Since the region was in the grips of virtual hysteria, most northerners, including journalists, were run out of town, and it is unlikely any anti-slavery clergyman would have been safe, even if one were to have sought to visit Brown. He elected to receive no religious services in the jail or at the scaffold. He was hanged at 11:15 a.m. and pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m. His body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck. In the North, large memorial meetings took place, church bells rang, minute guns were fired, and famous writers such as
EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
and
ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
joined many Northerners in praising Brown.
John Brown is buried on the
John Brown FarmThe John Brown Farm and Gravesite was the home and is the final resting place of abolitionist John Brown.It is located on John Brown Road in North Elba near Lake Placid, New York, where John Brown moved in 1849 to lead freed slaves in farming...
in
North Elba, New YorkNorth Elba is a town in Essex County, New York, United States. The population was 8,661 at the 2000 census. The town is named after the island of Elba.North Elba is on the western edge of the county...
, on the outskirts of
Lake PlacidLake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....
. The farm and grave are located near Old Military Road. Also buried near Brown are his sons
Oliver Brown and
Watson Brown. The
tombstone of Captain John Brown (1728–1776) is on the grave of his grandson John Brown.
Senate investigation
On December 14, 1859, the U.S. Senate appointed a bipartisan committee to investigate the Harpers Ferry raid and to determine whether any citizens contributed arms, ammunition or money . The Democrats attempted to implicate the Republicans in the raid; the Republicans tried to disassociate themselves from Brown and his acts.
The Senate committee heard testimony from 32 witnesses, including Liam Dodson, one of the surviving abolitionists. The report, authored by chairman James M. Mason, a pro-slavery politician from Virginia, was published in June, 1860. It found no direct evidence of a conspiracy, but implied that the raid was a result of Republican doctrines. The two committee Republicans published a minority report, but were apparently more concerned about denying Northern culpability than clarifying the nature of Brown's efforts. Republicans such as
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
rejected any connection with the raid. Lincoln called Brown "insane."
Aftermath of the raid
The raid on Harpers Ferry is generally thought to have done much to set the nation on a course toward civil war. Southern slaveowners, hearing initial reports that hundreds of abolitionists were involved, were relieved the effort was so small. Yet they feared other abolitionists would emulate Brown and attempt to lead slave rebellions. Therefore the South reorganized the decrepit militia system. These militias, well-established by 1861, became a ready-made Confederate army, making the South better prepared for war.
Southern Democrats charged that Brown's raid was an inevitable consequence of the Republican Party's political platform, which they associated with Abolitionism. In light of the upcoming elections in November 1860, the Republican political and editorial response to John Brown tried to distance themselves as much as possible from Brown, condemning the raid and dismissing Brown as an insane fanatic. As one historian explains, Brown was successful in polarizing politics:
- "Brown's raid succeeded brilliantly. It drove a wedge through the already tentative and fragile Opposition-Republican coalition and helped to intensify the sectional polarization that soon tore the Democratic party and the Union apart."
Many abolitionists in the North viewed John Brown as a martyr who had been sacrificed for the sins of the nation. Immediately after the raid,
William Lloyd GarrisonWilliam Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
published a column in The Liberator, judging Brown's raid as "well-intended but sadly misguided" and "an enterprise so wild and futile as this". However, he defended Brown's character from detractors in the Northern and Southern press, and argued that those who supported the principles of the
American RevolutionThe American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
could not consistently oppose Brown's raid. (Garrison reiterated the point, adding that "whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections", in a speech in Boston on the day Brown was hanged).
On December 22, 1859,
John Greenleaf WhittierJohn Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
published a poem praising him, "Brown of Ossawatomie".
After the Civil War, Black leader
Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
wrote, "His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine—it was as the burning sun to my taper light—mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him."
Viewpoints of historians
As the United States distanced itself from the cause of slavery and "bayonet rule" in the South, the historical view of Brown declined in a manner parallel with the demise of Reconstruction. In the 1880s, Brown's detractors some of them contemporaries embarrassed by their fervent abolitionism began to produce virulent exposés, particularly emphasizing the Pottawatomie killings of 1856.
Although
Oswald Garrison VillardOswald Garrison Villard was an American journalist. He provided a rare direct link between the anti-imperialism of the late 19th century and the conservative Old Right of the 1930s and 1940s.-Biography:...
's 1910 biography of Brown was thought to be friendly, Villard being the grandson of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, he also added fuel to the anti-Brown fire by criticizing him as a murderer de facto. Villard himself was a pacifist and admired Brown in many respects, but his interpretation of the facts provided a paradigm for later anti-Brown writers. By the mid-20th century, some scholars were fairly convinced that John Brown was a fanatic and killer, while some African Americans sustained a positive view of the man. Even as late as the mid-20th century, some Southerners used his name as a substitute for profanity and used the eponym as a curse.
Recent biographers accounts vary, although several works that have been published on Brown since the opening of the 21st century have marked a significant shift away from the hostility of writers on Brown. Toledo (2002), Peterson (2002), DeCaro (2002, 2007), Reynolds (2005), and Carton (2006) are critically appreciative of Brown's history, far from the opinions of earlier writers. A division of opinion is evident in two recent works of historical fiction: Bruce Olds's 1995 "Raising Holy Hell", which portrays Brown as a religious zealot tortured by delusions of godly violence; and the more unapologetically sympathetic fictional portrayal of Brown found in Russell Banks's 1998 "Cloudsplitter". The shift to an appreciative perspective on Brown moves many white historians toward the view long held by black scholars such as W. E. B. DuBois, Benjamin Quarles, and Lerone Bennett Jr.
Writing in the 1970s, Albert Fried, a biographer and historiographer of Brown, concluded that historians who portrayed Brown as a dysfunctional figure are "really informing me of their predilections, their judgment of the historical event, their identification with the moderates and opposition to the 'extremists.'" Unfortunately it is this less studied, highly interpretive view of Brown that has prevailed in academic writing as well as in journalism; as biographer Louis DeCaro Jr. has recently written, "there is no consensus of fairness with respect to Brown in either the academy or the media." The current trend among some writers to portray Brown as another Timothy Mc Veigh or Osama bin Laden may still reflect the same bias that Fried discussed a generation ago. DeCaro likewise complains of writers taking "unstudied liberties" and concludes that in the 20th century alone, "poisonous portrayals [of Brown were] so prevalent as virtually to have formed one long screed of hyperbole and sarcasm in the name of historical narrative."
- Biographer Richard Owen Boyer has called him "an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans might be free";
- Biographer Stephen B. Oates
Stephen B. Oates is a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history....
has described him as "maligned as a demented dreamer... (but) in fact one of the most perceptive human beings of his generation";
- Biographer David S. Reynolds
David S. Reynolds is an American historian and literary critic, noted for his specialized books on the Civil War period and his expert knowledge of Walt Whitman.-Life and career:...
gives Brown credit for starting the civil war or "killing slavery", and cautions others against identifying Brown with terrorism. Reynolds sees him as the inspiration for the Civil Rights MovementThe civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
a century later, arguing "it is misleading to identify Brown with modern terrorists."
- Historian and Brown researcher Paul Finkelman
Paul Finkelman is an American historian and legal scholar. He is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy, and Senior Fellow in the Government Law Center at Albany Law School in Albany, NY...
calls him "simply part of a very violent world" and states that Brown "is a bad tactician, a bad strategist, he's a bad planner, he's not a very good general-but he's not crazy"
- Biographer Louis A. DeCaro Jr., who has debunked many historical allegations about Brown's early life and public career, concludes that although he "was hardly the only abolitionist to equate slavery with sin, his struggle against slavery was far more personal and religious than it was for many abolitionists, just as his respect and affection for black people was far more personal and religious than it was for most enemies of slavery."
- Historian and Brown documentary scholar Louis Ruchames wrote: "Brown's action was one of great idealism and placed him in the company of the great liberators of mankind.";
- Biographer Otto Scott introduces his work on Brown by writing: "In the late 1850s a new type of political assassin appeared in the United States. He did not murder the mighty—but the obscure. . . . his purposes were the same as those of his classic predecessors: to force the nation into a new political pattern by creating terror."
- Criminologist James N. Gilbert writes: "Brown's deeds conform to contemporary definitions of terrorism, and his psychological predispositions are consistent with the terrorist model."
- Novelist Bruce Olds calls him "fanatical, ... monomaniacal, ... a zealot, and ... psychologically unbalanced";
- Journalist Ken Chowder states he is "stubborn ... egoistical, self-righteous, and sometimes deceitful; yet ... at certain times, a great man"; Chowder argues that Brown has been adopted by both left and right wing, and his actions "spun" to fit the world view of the spinner at various times in American history. "
- Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
said that white people could not join his black nationalistBlack nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
Organization of Afro-American UnityThe Organization of Afro-American Unity was a Pan-Africanist organization founded by Malcolm X in 1964. The OAAU was modeled on the Organisation of African Unity, which had impressed Malcolm X during his visit to Africa in April and May 1964...
, but "if John Brown were still alive, we might accept him."
- There was also the John Brown Revolutionary League organized in 1969 in Houston, Texas and worked along The People's Party II and MAYO as the Rainbow Coalition. Radical young groups from black, white and Chicano backgrounds working to better their communities. Both the People's Party II and John Brown Revolutionary League participated in an armed stand off against Houston police on July 26, 1970. Carl Hampton, Chairman of the People's Party II (later Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
) was killed in the battle. Bartee Haile, leader of the JBRL was also wounded. 400 mostly black supporters were arrested moments after the battle ended.
Visual portrayals
The two most noted screen portrayals of Brown have both been given by actor
Raymond MasseyRaymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
. The 1940 film
Santa Fe TrailSanta Fe Trail is a 1940 western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the seventh Flynn-de Havilland collaboration. The film also has nothing to do with its namesake, the famed Santa Fe Trail...
, starring
Errol FlynnErrol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
and
Olivia de HavillandOlivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
, depicted Brown completely unsympathetically as an out-and-out villainous madman, and Massey added to that impression by playing him with a constant, wild-eyed stare. The film gave the impression that it did not oppose African-American slavery, even to the point of having a black "
mammy"The mammy archetype is perhaps one of the best-known archetypes of African American women. She is often portrayed within a narrative framework or other imagery as a domestic servant of African descent, generally good-natured, often overweight, very dark skinned, middle aged, and loud...
character say, after an especially fierce battle, "Mr. Brown done promised us freedom, but... if this is freedom, I don't want no part of it". Massey portrayed Brown again in the little-known, low-budget Seven Angry Men
, in which he was not only unquestionably the main character, but was depicted and acted in a much more restrained, sympathetic way.
Raymond Massey would also portray Brown on the BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
stage, one of three characters he played in the acclaimed 1953 dramatic reading of Stephen Vincent BenetStephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...
's epic poem John Brown's BodyJohn Brown's Body is an epic American poem written by Stephen Vincent Benet. Its title references the radical abolitionist John Brown, who raided Harpers Ferry in West Virginia in the fall of 1859. He was captured and hanged later that year, and his name and rebellion inspired the civil war song...
. Tyrone PowerTyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
and Judith AndersonDame Judith Anderson, AC, DBE was an Australian-born American-based actress of stage, film and television. She won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.-Early life:...
also starred in the production. In Book I of his epic poem, Benet called him a stone, "to batter into bits an actual wall and change the actual scheme of things."
Brown was also portrayed on film by John Cromwell in the 1940 Abe Lincoln in IllinoisAbe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his departure from Kentucky until his election as President of the United States....
. Cromwell was the director of the film and was not credited in the role. Lincoln was played by Raymond Massey.
Singer Johnny CashJohn R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
portrayed John Brown in Book I, Episode Five of the 1985 TV miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
North and SouthNorth and South is the title of three American television miniseries broadcast on the ABC network in 1985, 1986, and 1994. Set before, during, and immediately after the American Civil War, they are based on the 1980s trilogy of novels North and South by John Jakes. The 1985 first installment, North...
. He is revered by character Virgilia Hazard (Kirstie AlleyKirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991...
). During the Harpers Ferry episode, he exchanges brief words with character Orry Main (Patrick SwayzePatrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...
) and appears noble in his aims, but unrealistic.
Royal DanoRoyal Edward Dano was an American film and television character actor.-Early life:Dano was born in New York City to Mary Josephine , an Irish immigrant, and Caleb Edward Dano, a printer for newspapers. He reportedly left home at the age of twelve and at various intervals, lived in Florida, Texas...
portrayed John Brown in the 1971 western comedy Skin GameSkin Game is a 1971 movie comedy western starring James Garner and Louis Gossett, Jr.- Plot :Quincy Drew and Jason O'Rourke travel from town to town in the south of the United States during the slavery era. Drew claims to be a down-on-his-luck slave owner who is selling O'Rourke as a slave...
.
The progressive rock band Kansas uses the portrait of John Brown as the cover of their first album, 'Kansas', released in 1974.
Sterling HaydenSterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
also portrayed John Brown in the 1982 miniseries The Blue and the Gray
.
In 1938–1940, American painter John Steuart CurryJohn Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
created Tragic Prelude, a mural of John Brown holding a gun and a Bible, in the
Kansas State CapitolThe Kansas State Capitol, known also as the Kansas Statehouse, is the building housing the executive and legislative branches of government for the U.S. state of Kansas. It is located in the city of Topeka which has served as the capital of Kansas since it became a state in 1861...
in
Topeka, KansasTopeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
. In 1941,
Jacob LawrenceJacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...
illustrated the life of John Brown in The Legend of John Brown, a series of twenty-two
gouacheGouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
paintings. By 1977, the original paintings were in such fragile condition they could not be displayed, and the Detroit Institute of Arts commissioned Lawrence to recreate the series as a portfolio of silkscreen prints. The result was a limited edition portfolio of twenty-two hand-screened prints. The works were printed and published with a poem, John Brown, by Robert Hayden, which was commissioned specifically for the project. Though John Brown had been a popular topic for many painters, The Legend of John Brown was the first to explore the topic from an African American perspective.
In fiction
- Henry Miller's Plexus (Book Two of The Rosy Crucifixion) discusses John Brown.
- The 1998 biographical novel about John Brown, Cloudsplitter
Cloudsplitter is a 1998 historical novel by Russell Banks relating the story of abolitionist John Brown.The novel is narrated as a retrospective by John Brown's son, Owen Brown, from his hermitage in the San Gabriel Mountains of California...
, by Russell BanksRussell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry.- Biography :Russell Banks was born in Newton, Massachusetts on March 28, 1940. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in upstate New York, and has been named a New York State Author. He is also...
was a Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
finalist. It is narrated from the point of view of Brown's surviving son, Owen.
- The 1994 novel, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord is a 1994 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the tenth of the Flashman novels.-Plot introduction:Presented within the frame of the supposedly discovered historical Flashman Papers, this book describes the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays...
, by George MacDonald FraserGeorge MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
. The central character, Harry Paget FlashmanSir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser , but based on the character "Flashman" in Tom Brown's Schooldays , a semi-autobiographical work by Thomas Hughes ....
becomes involved in the Harpers Ferry Raid; the novel includes both a description of the raid and a study of the character of John Brown.
- The 1921 dramatic monologue "John Brown" by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.- Biography :Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870...
. In which, Brown speaks to his wife on the night before his execution.
- In Langston Hughes Selected Poems, on page 10 is a poem called October 16. In the poem Hughes celebrates John Browns actions.
Secondary sources
- Barney, William L. "Brown, John." The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2001.
- Ken Chowder, "The Father of American Terrorism." American Heritage (2000) 51(1): pp 81+; online version
- DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. "Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown (2002)
- W. E. B. Du Bois John Brown (ISBN 0-679-78353-9) (1909).
- Finkelman, Paul, ed. His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995)
- Goodrich, Thomas War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861 (1998).
- Hotchkiss, Jed. "John Brown's Raid." The Confederate Military History. Oct. 27 2009.John Brown's Raid
- Malin, James. John Brown & the Legend of Fifty-Six (1942), the most influential scholarly attack on Brown (ISBN 0-8383-1021-4)
- McGlone, Robert E. John Brown's War against Slavery. Cambridge, CUP, 2009.
- Nevins, Allan
Allan Nevins was an American historian and journalist, renowned for his extensive work on the history of the Civil War and his biographies of such figures as President Grover Cleveland, Hamilton Fish, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller.-Life:Born in Camp Point, Illinois, Nevins was educated at...
. Ordeal of the Union. 2 vols. (1947), in depth scholarly history.
- Nichols, Roy F. "The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43 (September 1956): 187–212. in JSTOR
- Nudelman, Franny, John Brown's Body: Slavery, Violence, and the Culture of War (2004).
- Oates, Stephen B. To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown (1970).
- Oates, Stephen B. Our Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, and the Civil War Era (1979)
- Peterson, Merrill D. (2002): John Brown: The Legend Revisited (ISBN 0-8139-2132-5), how history has treated Brown
- Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976), Pulitzer prize; scholarly national history
- Renehan, Edward J. The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown. 1995.
- Reynolds, David S. (2005): John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (2005) a favorable biography; says (p. 8): "My stand on some key issues is: (a) Brown was not insane; instead, he was a deeply religious, flawed, yet ultimately noble reformer; (b) the Pottawatomie affair was indeed a crime, but it was a war crime committed against proslavery settlers by a man who saw slavery as an unprovoked war of one race against another; and (c) neither Brown's provisional constitution nor the Harpers Ferry raid were wild-eyed, erratic schemes doomed to failure; instead, they reflect Brown's overconfidence in whites' ability to rise above racism and in blacks' willingness to rise up in armed insurrection against their masters."
- Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.
- Otto Scott
Otto Scott was a journalist and author of corporate histories who also wrote biographies on notable figures such as the abolitionist John Brown, James I of England and Robespierre.-Early life:...
, The Secret Six: John Brown and The Abolitionist Movement (1979).
- SenGupta, Gunja. “Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay.” Kansas History 24 (Winter 2001/2002): 318–341.
- Villard, Oswald Garrison, John Brown 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After (1910). full text online
Primary sources
- Louis Ruchames, ed. A John Brown Reader: The Story of John Brown in His Own Words, in the Words of Those who Knew Him (1959)
- Franklin Sanborn
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, author, and reformer. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures...
(ed.) (1891): The Life and Letters of John Brown
- DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. John Brown—The Cost of Freedom: Selections from His Life & Letters (New York: International Publishers, 2007)
- Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
(1859): A Plea for Captain John Brown
- Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
(1859): What John Brown Did in Kansas (December 12, 1859): a speech to the United States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, December 12, 1859. Originally published in The Congressional Globe, The Official Proceedings of Congress, Published by John C. Rives, Washington, D. C. Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1st Session, New Series...No. 7, Tuesday, December 13, 1859, pages 105–106. Retrieved May 16, 2005.
On-line
- "John Brown, the good 'fanatic'" by Clinton Cox (2009)
- "John Brown's body and blood" by Ari Kelman: a review in the TLS, February 14, 2007.
- John Brown Museum State Historic Site Osawatomie
Osawatomie is a city in Miami County, Kansas, United States, southwest of Kansas City. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 4,447. It derives its name from two streams nearby, the Osage and Potawatomie.-History:...
, KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
- What John Brown Did In Kansas Battle of Osawatomie, 1856
- John Brown, Abolitionist, by David Reynolds, 2005
- West Virginia Archives and History
- Project Gutenberg: John Brown's Body (1928) (full text)
- John Brown, by Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1921
Historical fiction
- Olds, Bruce. Raising Holy Hell (1995).
- Banks, Russell
Russell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry.- Biography :Russell Banks was born in Newton, Massachusetts on March 28, 1940. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in upstate New York, and has been named a New York State Author. He is also...
. CloudsplitterCloudsplitter is a 1998 historical novel by Russell Banks relating the story of abolitionist John Brown.The novel is narrated as a retrospective by John Brown's son, Owen Brown, from his hermitage in the San Gabriel Mountains of California...
(1998).
- Ehrlich, Leonard. God's Angry Man (1932).
- Bisson,Terry Fire on the Mountain (1988)
- George Macdonald Fraser "Flashman and the Angel of the Lord
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord is a 1994 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the tenth of the Flashman novels.-Plot introduction:Presented within the frame of the supposedly discovered historical Flashman Papers, this book describes the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays...
" (1994)
- Rinaldi, Ann. Mine Eyes Have Seen. (1997)
- Cliff, Michelle. Free Enterprise. (1993)
- Brooks, Geraldine. March: A Love Story in a Time of War (2006)
- Flint, Eric
Eric Flint is an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works are alternate history science fiction, but he also writes humorous fantasy adventures.- Career :...
. "1824: The Arkansas War1824: The Arkansas War is a 2006 alternate history novel by American writer Eric Flint.-Plot summary :The story, takes place in 1824–25, ten years after 1812: The Rivers of War...
" (2006)
- Santa Fe Trail (film)
Santa Fe Trail is a 1940 western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the seventh Flynn-de Havilland collaboration. The film also has nothing to do with its namesake, the famed Santa Fe Trail...
. (1940)
- Summers, Kevin G. "His Soul Goes Marching On" in Tales of Moreauvia, Issue One (2008).
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...
, 1929Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The Little Review, edited by Margaret Caroline Anderson and Jane Heap, ceases publication* The Dial ceases publication...
: Stephen Vincent BenetStephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...
, John Brown's BodyJohn Brown's Body is an epic American poem written by Stephen Vincent Benet. Its title references the radical abolitionist John Brown, who raided Harpers Ferry in West Virginia in the fall of 1859. He was captured and hanged later that year, and his name and rebellion inspired the civil war song...
- John Brown's Body
"John Brown's Body" is an American marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The tune arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp meeting movement of the 19th century...
(originally known as "John Brown's Song"), UnionDuring the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
marchingA march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
songIn music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
of the American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
- Robinson, Edwin Arlington
Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.- Biography :Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870...
. John Brown. (1921)
External links
- Johnson, Mary. "'His Soul Goes Marching On':The Life and Legacy of John Brown." West Virginia Division of Culture and History.
- New York History Net, John Brown's Farm
- John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery by David S. Reynolds excerpt
- John Brown's pedigree
- John Brown Song and Battle Hymn of the Republic
- 150 years since the execution of John Brown by Fred Mazelis, World Socialist Web Site
The World Socialist Web Site is the online news and information center of the International Committee of the Fourth International . The site publishes articles and analysis covering a wide range of topics and events all around the world. The daily 'Perspective' article presents the position of the...
, December 2009
- Freedom's Martyr NY Times editorial by David S. Reynolds, Weds December 2, 2009
- The 9/11 of 1859 NY Times editorial by Tony Horwitz, Weds December 2, 2009
- Correspondence relating to the Insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, 17th October, 1859, Senate of Maryland, 1860. Western Maryland History Online
- John Brown Pike - Kansas Historical Society
- "John Brown and his Men, with Some Account of the Roads Traveled to Reach Harper's Ferry," poem by Jared Carter
-Background:Carter studied at Yale and at Goddard College. After military service and travel abroad, he made his home in Indianapolis, where he has lived since 1969...
.
- John Brown Desk - Kansas Historical Society
- Harpers Ferry Revolver - Kansas Historical Society