John Brown Abolitionist

John Brown was a radical abolitionist who was born in a religious family in Connecticut in 1800. Like John Brown his father also opposed slavery. He is known as a revolutionary to some and a terrorist to others. Some believe he is the one who sparked the civil war with his actions toward slavery. Brown hated the idea of owning slaves; he fought against slavery whenever possible. One of his first acts was at the Bleeding Kansas, a political confrontation about anti-slavery and pro-slavery in the State of Kansas. Brown, with his sons and other followers planned to murder some settlers who were pro-slavery. Browns and his followers killed all five of them after kidnapping them from their beds with broadswords (NPR). The shocking part was that none of the five men killed were

Brown went on to hire a drillmaster named Hugh Forbes to train his 21 followers including his sons. His plan was to gather escaped slaves along the way to the Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Before he left he wanted Frederick Douglass to accompany him, but Fredrick Douglass declined citing “it was a suicide mission”. On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown and his followers overran the arsenal of Harpers Ferry. They seized the armory and seven people were killed while a dozen others were wounded. His intention was to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but no slaves came to his calling and the raid was put to rest by Colonel Robert E. Lee and his marines. These acts of treason are what made John Brown a important figure back then. He tried a different approach to having slaves freed but in the end it back fired and cost him and some of his kids their lives. Some people say he was a hero because he stood up to the south bulling of slaves but others say he was a terrorist because he killed innocent people based on their