John Brown was an ordinary man that committed sinful deeds and justified them with religion. John Brown’s actions at Pottawatomie Creek and Harper’s Ferry were not justified; his actions today would define him as a modern day terrorist. Terrorism is when one or more persons threaten others for various reasons. John Brown displayed terrorism in many ways. One way would be the innocent civilians he murdered to obtain what he wanted. Terrorist groups such as Hamas do the same things. They murder civilians so they can get what they want and in this way John Brown was the same as an active terrorist group. They are also willing to die for their cause. Terrorists often die or are caught in their acts. John Brown was like this too. John was able …show more content…
In John Browns case he had the secret six. They were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Gerrit Smith and George Luther. They funded him secretly, they wanted no one to know that they were funding him. That is why they are known as the secret six. At Harper’s Ferry and Pottawatomie Creek innocent were murdered. At Pottawatomie Creek an innocent family was taken out of their home and slaughtered in the middle of the night. Johns reasoning behind this was because he had a “vision” or dream about it. At Harper’s Ferry the first causality was a free black; one of the people that he was trying to fight for was shot because of him. The other deaths were those of his son and other free blacks he had brought with him for the fight. Some might say that he was fighting for freedom, therefore he was a freedom fighter and his actions were called for because it was for a good cause. But someone who is really religious knows that murdering is wrong no matter what they believe in or what their opinions. John Brown murdered innocent civilians because they did not join him in his thinking and beliefs. He wanted to become a martyr and that is what he did. He was captured and died for his cause; if you look at modern terrorism that is what happens to most modern day