John Brown was an anti-slavery renowned abolitionist in the mid-1800’s. He was famous, or in other’s opinions infamous, for his violent roles in the Pottawattamie Massacre and the Raid on Harpers Ferry. He got his anti-slavery ways from his father. His first attempts to end slavery failed, but when he heard about “Bleeding Kansas”, he and his sons went to fight for a free, anti-slave country. His sons died heroically, and he was hung. I believe John Brown was a martyr who was fighting for an important cause.
John Brown was born around the 1800’s in Connecticut. His strong hate for slavery probably is rooted from his Calvinist father. When Brown could take action he did, he believed that God’s words led him. His first attempts at putting a halt to slavery failed, so he knew he had to bite back stronger than ever. Therefore, innocent pro-slavery blood had to be spilled to grab the attention of slaves, plantation owners, and slave supporters. It was the only way. The uproar that his violent acts caused was devastating, I would say he started the Civil War.
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He knew eventually he would die, either a hero or a traitor in people’s minds. But he also knew he would “die in faith” because he believed his actions were “God’s will”. He did not feel “degraded by my imprisonment, my chains, or prospect of the Gallows”, quoted in a letter to his friend Reverend H. l. Vaill. He even finished the letter cheerfully stating, “I send, through you, my best wishes to Mrs. W I and her son George, and to all dear friends.” John Brown knew that something had to be done about slavery in the South. I believe that if Brown wouldn’t have made such bold, strong actions, slavery may still be here
In the biography Fiery Vision, The Life and Death of John Brown by Clinton Cox, I noticed that John Brown spent more time fighting for slavery than with his family. In finding this, I was very intrigued to learn that someone would fight for something he believes in so much rather than be with his family in time of need. I think that he spent too much time on the cause. Slavery is in fact wrong but to me, family would come first. Brown's family struggled to survive and only saw him every so often, but he did write to his family all the time. On one of his visits, before Brown was really involved in the fight for slavery, he told his second wife Mary Anne Day to "consider herself a widow," and for his children to be "committed to the care of Him who fed the ravens." I think Brown was telling his wife not to get her hopes up of him coming home to her. John Brown loved his family so much, but rarely spent time with them. When he did get to see them, he was a true father. Brown always sang, "Blow Ye the Trumpet Blow" to his family. John, Jr. one of his sons, said ."..For thirty years there was a baby in the house, and he sang us all to sleep...with that same hymn." Brown raised his family around church and required them to worship in the cabin every morning. If Brown loved his family so much why did he leave them? To fight a greater cause, slavery.
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.
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.
In conclusion the election of Lincoln as president in 1860 caused a civil war because it was falsely perceived by the south that Lincoln would threaten the state’s constitutional right to slavery. This false idea was due to a rift between the northern and southern states in both an economic and ideological manner. That is the north was based on industry and generally was opposed to slavery. But the South was an agricultural society which ran on slavery and, due to Nat Turner’s Insurrection and John Brown’s stand at Harper’s Ferry, was fearful of the north’s involvement in the governing of states as well as being opposed to this on the basis of state’s rights. The election of Lincoln caused the south to succeed from the union causing civil war.
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.
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
John Brown was a radical who believed he was led by god to evoke a war on pro-slavery activists and slave owners in order to diminish slavery. At the age of 59 Brown set out to put a team of anti-slavery abolitionist and free black men together, call them an army and execute his plan. However only 21 people enlisted mainly whites, 13, no slaves or free blacks joined. As surprising as this was to Brown it surprises me too. I wonder if the blacks were scared. Why didn’t they jump at every opportunity and chance to free those oppressed by the inhumane of slavery? Maybe they had their own plans to victory in the works. Brown still pursued his plan and went fourth with his 21 men. Although a follower of Christ, John believed the only way to overthrow
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.
In Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Chapter 6, he talks about John Brown. He says most textbooks don’t include John Brown’s full story. In high school, I was taught that John Brown was a radical abolitionist who gathered a small army and attempted to lead a slave revolt. He captured a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry to get tools for the slave rebellion he attempted to lead. The slaves didn’t get the memo and he was captured there. They later hung him but he died being known as a martyr. Loewen reinforced all of these ideas. He also said a few things I didn’t know. One thing he said that I didn’t know was why Brown was the person he was. He said because Brown made friends with a black boy early in life, that made him realize that all black people
But his men only saw him trying to start a general slave insurrection. Then after getting caught at the Harper 's Ferry and put in jail he tried to offer a contrary explanation of repeatedly denying his intentions to commit violence or to start a slave rebellion. Brown did this knowing that his death would strengthen the abolitionist movement. Americans soon started to see John Brown as either a calculating insurrectionist, a martyr or as insane. There were also multiple people wrote their opinions on John Brown 's sanity like John Garraty and Allen Nevins, who believed that he was truly insane. But the most remarkable of these writers would be Stephen Oates, who thought that it was unfair to judge Brown 's sanity because if you call him insane “is to ignore the tremendous sympathy he felt for the black man in America.” Overall most of his acquaintances saw Brown 's mental state change after the Pottawatomie killings. Also some people say that Harpers Ferry happened due to his insanity but this idea is denied by most. It was also shown that not only was Brown mentally insane, he was spiritually insane too. He had believed that God personally gave him the mission to end slavery. Also, Governor Wise stated that Brown 's sanity was as much of a Political and legal issue than a medical problem. At the time
How the Actions of Governor Wise and the State of Virginia in the Case of John Brown may be easily Justified.
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.
I would re-review the case to finally determine that John Brown was not being traitorous against the government. He was going against the law to fix what he believed was wrong. He wasn't in it for personal gain. Brown was a true idealist. I was always raised to fight for what I believe in, however wrong in the methods he was, I would still give him the chance to explain himself to a jury.
86 years old, passed away at the Overlook Massachusetts Health Center on Wednesday, March 7,1875 from a brief flu illness. He was born on February 10, 1789 in Salem, Massachusetts.
Brown became obsessed with the idea of taking overt action to help win justice for