The Enigma Of John Brown

1462 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: introduction of the Abolitionist movement into American politics

John Brown was an American abolitionist, born in Connecticut and raised in Ohio. He felt passionately and violently that he must personally fight to end slavery. This greatly increased tension between North and South. Northern mourned him as a martyr and southern believed he got what he deserved and they were appalled by the north's support of Brown. In 1856, in retaliation for the sack of Lawrence, he led the murder of five proslavery men on the banks of the Pottawatomie River. He stated that he was an instrument in the hand of God. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured. Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859. He became a martyr for many because of the dignity and sincerity that he displayed during his popular trial. Before he was hanged he gave a speech which was his final address to the court that convicted him. And he was thankful to Bob Butler for letting him send that text in electronic form. "This court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to the instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of his despised poor, I did not wrong but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingles my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I say let it be done." (http://members.

Show More
Related

  • John Brown Was Not Justified in His Raids

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Brown was a man who lived in the mid eighteen-hundreds and who fought against the evil of slavery. He had a very strong belief that slavery was unjust, and this is true, but he thought that in order to abolish slavery, violence would be the best method. That’s where he went wrong. John Brown led two attacks on slave owners and those who supported slavery, the first at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas on May 24th, 1856, and the second at Harper Ferry, Virginia on October 16th, 1859. At Pottawatomie Creek, joined by seven others, Brown brutally hacked to death five men with sabers. These men supported slavery but weren’t even slave owners themselves. On October 16th, 1859, Brown led 21 men on another raid on Harpers Ferry attempting to take possession of the U.S. arsenal and use the weapons in a revolt against slave owners, gathering up an army of slaves as he made his way south. Brown’s attacks were not in self-defense, they were heinous acts of revenge upon slave owners, and therefore his attack had no justification.

    Read More

  • Tony Horwitz Midnight Rising Sparknotes

    792 Words  | 2 Pages

    Brown had his mind made up to travel on the pathway to Harpers Ferry right when he was born and believed he is the only one that has to lead this battle. His parents were passionate Calvinists who taught their children to view life as an endless fight contrary to evil. The battle of John Brown was on a more personal level where he remembered a memory when he was five years old and his mother whipped him for stealing a vast amount of brass pins. In addition, the battle was somewhat on a political point as well because Brown and his family considered that the sincere had to be spectators against the bad people in America. They assumed that the biggest evil during their time has to be none other than the establishment of slavery. Therefore, the father of John Brown replaced their family residence in northeast Ohio into a stop on the Underground Railroad and made his son into a dedicated abolitionist. Brown’s developing participation in the movement in the 1830s and ’40s made him set his commitment as well as the rising nationwide fight over slavery’s position in a country supposedly devoted to equal opportunity. During this era, abolition...

    Read More

  • John Brown as the Villian or Hero

    1962 Words  | 4 Pages

    Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry affected American culture more than can ever be understood. Tension between the North and South was building in the 1850's. Slavery among many other things was dividing the country into two sections. Brown was executed on December 2, 1859 for his murderous out-lash on society. Was his mind so twisted and demented that he would commit cold-blooded murder? The answer is no. John Brown was a man with a goal and a purpose. When he said that abolition could not be achieved without blood he was right. It is one of histories great ironies; John Brown's struggle preceded the Civil War by only 17 months. Thousands of people were killed in the Civil War, yet John Brown is still looked on as a criminal. He was not a criminal but a hero, fighting for what was right. He was a man ahead of his time.

    Read More

  • Sterling Allen Brown: Academic and Writer

    953 Words  | 2 Pages

    A realist not only by artistic and significant persuasion, but by temperament, Sterling A. Brown has shown concern throughout his career with poetry as an art of communication. Brown's essential writings deal primarily with the literary portrayal of Afro-Americans. Brown renders in a trend that emerged from many types of folks discourse, a black dialect matrix that features the blues and ballads, the spirituals and work songs. Brown’s final referents are African-American music and mythology. Brown was born in May 1901 and graduated with honors from Dunbar High in 1918. when after he went to Williams college on a scholarship and was the only student awarded Final Honors. From 1922 to 1923 Brown took a masters degree in English at Harvard University.

    Read More

  • What Is The Significance Of The Harpers Ferry Raid

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1850’s the Kansas Civil War, known as “Bleeding Kansas,” started and John Brown started becoming involved in this war leading a small group of men. He had remained fighting to create Kansas as a free state and led a raid known as the Pottawatomie Massacre in May 1856. This event turned into more of a show of their power than for getting revenge. With the involvement people changed their views on the abolition of slavery, “... many were losing faith in the electoral process as a means of destroying slavery- The Civil War was to prove them right- while some were increasingly inclined to believe that John Brown’s projected invasion...must be tried” (Boyer 7-8). He returned to Iowa and started on his next project, launching an attac...

    Read More

  • John Brown- A Hero Or Villain?

    2503 Words  | 6 Pages

    What makes a hero or a villain? A hero is defined as a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life. By this definition, there existed countless heroes in America during the 1800’s with relation to slavery. There were many abolitionists, particularly from the North, that exhibited courageous attitudes. It was these heroes that taught the southerners, who believed their lives could only prevail if slavery survived and expanded westward, what they knew was morally right (3, 92). John Brown is one abolitionist who stands out amongst the rest and has been noted as one of the most important men in the process of abolishing slavery. It was Brown’s work that sparked the revolts and fighting that would occur between the North and the South after his time. Brown can be considered a hero on account of his actions in Kentucky and Virginia.

    Read More

  • Biography of Abolitionist John Brown

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Brown, who was an abolitionist, led a group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry which at time was in Western Virginia. This was an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and abolish slavery. John Brown was born in Connecticut in 1800 and was raised in Ohio. He came from an antislavery family which added to his want to free the slaves. He never succeeded at any business projects and resulted into his increased debt. In 1837 His life changed when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, this was when he publicly announced his dedication to destroy slavery. The lead up to the attack at Harpers Ferry, the ultimate downfall of the attack, and John Brown’s death were what led to the Civil War and the end of slavery in America.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Davidson And Lytle's After The Fact

    2229 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many Northern abolitionists, including Frederick Jackson, were ashamed of Brown. Most Northern abolitionists were pacifists and tried to emancipate slaves using newspapers, rallies, cartoons, and literature. Moderates on both sides also disliked Brown and his actions. Men like Abraham Lincoln, who wanted to preserve the Union at all costs, felt like Brown’s drastic actions would serve only to be yet another reason for Southerners to secede. As history shows us, Lincoln was right. Harpers Ferry convinced many Southerners that they could not live in peace nor safety as long as Northern abolitionists kept questioning their “peculiar institution” and pulling stunts like these, so they wanted to secede, almost like how certain people in the North had tried to leave society to create their own “utopias”. It appears that the only people who liked what Brown did were indeed the Transcendentalist writers in the Northeast who sought to leave society. As Davidson and Lytle point out, many historians think of the raid on Harpers Ferry as one of the most significant triggers to the Civil War.

    Read More

  • John Brown's Abolishment Of Slavery

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1856 the same group attacked the Kansas territory where Brown and his family resided, which much like anyone would he saw as a threat and attacked in revenge killing 5 pro-slavery activists. Not much later the activists retaliated killing Browns son (Utter 1883). Brown and a group of men planned to go to Harpers Ferry, Virginia and seize the U.S arsenal. His plan was funded by various wealthy northern abolitionists and on October 16, 1859 his plan started to come into action. After the two-day battle back and forth between Browns men and the U.S Marines, seventeen people had died and Brown was arrested and put to trial, which led to the jury decision on November 2, 1859 for him to be hanged for murder and treason. Brown was from there on known as the first white man to die for an Africans freedom. He was called an abolitionist martyr for the sake of freedom. Browns deep roots of religion are one of the most obvious reasons for his actions. Slavery was an unjust system taking away basic God given rights of life, liberty, and happiness. Being a follower of Christ means that you devote yourself to teaching and living by Gods design, so when he was taught that this action was against the God he so loved how could he stand for it? When he was brought up under religion and firm discipline of course he would see it as unjust when he was exposed to the white

    Read More

  • John Brown was not justified in his raids

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Brown was a man you lived in the mid eighteen-hundreds and who fought against slavery. John Brown had a very strong belief that slavery was wrong, and this is true, but he thought that in order to abolish slavery, violence would be the best way, that’s where he went wrong because violence cannot be justified unless it is in self-defense, Brown’s attacks were not in self-defense they were acts of revenge upon slave owners, therefore Brown’s attack had no justification. As pointed out before he went wrong when he led the raid at Pottawatomie Creek and the raid on Harpers Ferry.

    Read More

  • John Brown

    414 Words  | 1 Pages

    On October 18, the Marines, headed by Colonel Robert E. Lee, requested the surrender of Brown. He refused. The Marines attacked and captured John Brown. Brown’s trial took place in one week and on November 2, 1859, John Brown was charged with murder, treason, and leading a slave revolt. He was sentenced to death.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    Douglass's life as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For 16 years he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame as an orator and writer of great persuasive power. In thousands of speeches and editorials he levied an irresistible indictment against slavery and racism, provided an indomitable voice of hope for his people, embraced antislavery politics, and preached his own brand of American ideals. In the 1850s he broke with the strictly moralist brand of abolitionism led by William Lloyd Garrison; he supported the early women's rights movement; and he gave direct assistance to John Brown's conspiracy that led to the raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859.

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart: Impact of Decisions Made by Mr. Brown

    657 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, the native Ibo people of Umuofia endure seemingly countless trials and tribulations to their faith and culture when Christian missionaries attempt to bring their cultural beliefs to, what they believe, are the savage indigenous people. Despite the initial weariness of the new dispensation, a swelling number of men and women in Umuofia begin to see “something vaguely akin to method in the overwhelming madness” (Achebe 178). This can be attributed to a white missionary by the name of Mr. Brown. His calm and open-minded personality appeals to the locals trust. The various decisions based off of his personal beliefs positively affect the people of Umuofia, namingly the converts, along with his fellow missionaries, however, it can be argued against him in some aspects.

    Read More

  • The Journey of Young Goodman Brown

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, Young Goodman Brown, Brown goes on a journey through the forest that drastically changes him. While we never know the real reason why Brown went to the forest, the experience in the forest caused him to become a bitter, sad, and lonely man who couldn't look at life the same after that night. There were many events that occurred in the forest that caused this change in him.

    Read More

  • Dan Brown: An Un-Authorized Biography

    938 Words  | 2 Pages

    A writer of seven books and musician with five albums to his credit, Dan Brown is a man of many talents. While his music has not been very successful, his books have. As of 2009, his books have sold over 80 million copies and have been translated into over 40 languages. (Wikipedia)

    Read More

More about The Enigma Of John Brown

Open Document