John Brown (1800 - 1859)

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. In 1856, in retaliation for the sack of Lawrence, he led the murder of five proslavery men on the banks of the Pottawatamie River. He stated that he was an instrument in the hand of God.

Brown did not end there. On Oct. 16, 1859, Brown and 21 followers captured the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Brown planned the takeover as the first step in his liberation of the slaves, but it was taken the next morning by Robert E. Lee. 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.(Renehan,1997)

At the end of Book One, John Brown appears in court, on trial for the crime of treason - "an enemy of Virginia, an enemy of the Union, a foe of the human race." In this excerpt, Benét reprints Brown's speech to the court.

You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now. But this question is still to be settled--this Negro question. I mean; the end of that is not yet," is the testimony that John Brown gave at his trial. Many historians consider him "narrowly ignorant" and "God's angry man". The truth I God never commanded Brown in the sense of giving him instructions; rather, Brown thought deeply about the moral meaning of Christianity and decide that slavery was incompatible with it. He was not "narrowly ignorant," having traveled widely in the United States, England, and Europe and talked with many American intellectuals of the day, black and white. (Document A). He raised the issue of slavery to another level. John Brown took it upon himself to end the war on slavery. "Thought a white gentlemen [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery."(Villard,1910)

John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, 1800. He was heavily influenced by his father's vehement views on slavery. During adulthood he moved around many times and bore 20 children. He worked as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator but he never became very successful. John Brown did minor things as a young adult to promote abolitionism such as help finance David Walker's appeal and the "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves and he and his wife agreed to raise a black boy as an equal. In addition, he participated in the Underground Railroad and helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves.(Renehan,1997)

It wasn't until 1855 that John Brown became of important significance. In 1855 John Brown moved to the Kansas territory with his five sons. He became a leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town ...