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John Brown: Abolitionist Man

1431 Words6 Pages

Maysun Moore
October 7, 2015
Mrs. Olsen
AP US History
John Brown Essay John Brown, a common abolitionist man born on May 9, 1800 who is mainly known for his raid at Harpers Ferry in the year of 1859. Brown belonged to a family with a hatred of slavery. He himself also had a burning hatred of slavery, he showed this by helping some slaves escape in to free land using the Underground Railroad, providing schooling for them, and he also risked his life to free them. Most people considered Brown a man that was a “symbol of his time” because of the heroic actions he made to try and free the slaves. While aiding the slaves with schooling and the Underground Railroad, Brown and his family faced serious debt problems and family fatalities. Between …show more content…

The North saw him as a flawed-filled hero in history, while the South viewed him as the reason for the Black Republican, and the Republican Party winning in the following year’s election. The south was so infuriated that Senator Jefferson Davis said that the contender for the 1860 Republican Party presidency should have been hanged right along with Brown. Mr. Seward’s political popularity sank, but that didn’t worry the Republicans one bit. Abraham Lincoln was also running for presidency for the 1860 elections. Brown made Lincoln surely to win the nomination for the President of 1860 by his actions he took in 1859. Just six days after Browns sentence, the famous Ralf Waldo Emerson gave a speech in the Boston Music Hall on courage. Emerson reflected his speech towards Browns courageous acts he took to free the slaves of the United States. The Northerners turned a new leaf towards Brown and started seeing him as a pure man who was a new saint. The day before Brown’s execution, he was able to meet up with his wife for one last time. They hugged in silent for quite some time and then he finally told her to live on, and what was happening was for the best for everyone. The day for the execution came, it was time for brown to be hanged on the southeast edge of Charles Town. The town had Thomas Jackson there to guard the place with his cadets. Robert E. Lee stood with his soldiers as the bridges and along the river. The place was surrounded. There was no way Brown could escape. No one was allowed to enter the city but for the exception of a few

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“Fight with fire and strike terror in the heart of the proslavery people” (“UShistory” 1). This inspired John Brown and his followers. John Brown grew up with a father that passionately disagreed with the idea of slavery. As Brown grew older he became a radical abolitionist. He lead the Pottawatomie Creek massacre and the raid at Harpers Ferry.

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Nat Turner and John Brown are both noted, as being symbols of American reform. Leaders of abolitionist groups, who went on a killing spree believing they were given “extraordinary powers from above” and were executed for their strong beliefs of anti-slavery. Their gruesome murders could easily attract followers and spark interest in others to write their biographies. John Brown and Nat turner both came from strong religious backgrounds.

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John Brown was an abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overcome slavery. His raid on Harpers Ferry would affect many people's views on slavery. He had done many other acts against slavery before the raid. Even though his raid was not a success, it still had an impact on the beginning of the civil war. Brown’s was a known abolitionist even before his raid on Harpers Ferry.

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He was seen as a martyr for the abolitionist cause and the abolitionist movement grew off of his sacrifice. John Brown’s goal of abolition would be achieved after his death. (Murphy) John Brown can be related to Chris McCandless in the fact that they were both in disagreement of the norms of American society. Although their methods were very different, they both eventually convinced others that their respective paths and ideas were the way that people and society should live. John Brown convinced helped spark a major growth in the abolition movement while Chris McCandless managed to convince some people that he met along his travels and several others that have read about his ideas and travels to let go of the grips of society and discover yourself in the wild, natural world.(Krakauer)

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John Brown’s Raid was the effort by John Brown to initiate a slave revolt, and his first objective was to arm slaves by trying to take over the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry. John Brown and twenty other men who joined him, including three of his sons and about fourteen African-Americans, went into the town of Harpers Ferry. Brown split up the group into the two, this proved to be the biggest mistake of the whole operation, with one group going to capture Colonel Lewis Washington along with other hostages. The main group, led by John Brown, intercepted a train in hope that slaves in the next town would hear about the rebellion and join it, but no slaves heard about it. After intercepting the train, the group went on to seize the armory in Harpers Ferry.

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He saw the wrong in owning slaves. He believed what he was doing and what he believed in was right not wrong. He was hung with the pleasure of knowing he made an impact on the world. John Brown tried very hard to do anything to please god and free slaves.

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Was John Brown a hero or a villain? I will tell you about his achievements and what he did in his life. You will see the main details from the beginning of his life to the end, but I will not tell you about anything that is not important. By the end of this article I will tell you. John Brown has helped stop slavery and died for his cause by trying to win slaves freedom.

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How far would you go for something you believe in. John Brown is born into a religious family in Torrington, Connecticut in 1800. He is a Calvinists who believes God choose him to end slavery. John Brown met up with Harriet Tubman and other abolitionists in the Underground Railroad. On October 16, 1859, Brown led 21 followers, 5 black men and 16 white men on a raid at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia.

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This would end up helping the abolitionist movement. Like any martyr, he wanted to have powerful words that would inspire people. On the day of his execution, he handed his jailer a note. The note read, “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood. I had as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done (Marrin 136).”

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John Garraty describes Brown as so deranged “that rather than hang him for “dreadful act” …. It would have been far wiser and more just to have committed him to an asylum” (Davidson & Lytle, p. 154). Another historian, Allen Nevins, takes the middle ground on Brown and states, “all questions except for slavery, Brown would act coherently and rationally” (Davidson & Lytle, p. 154). A more contemporary biographer, Stephen Oates, in 1970, said Brown was ““not normal” that he had an excitable temperament and was obsessed with slavery” (Davidson & Lytle, p. 154). Brown had a history of actions against slavery, five months earlier before the raid on Harper’s Ferry, “Brown led a band of seven men (including four of his sons) in a midnight raid on some proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek” (Davidson & Lytle, p. 156).

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He saw groups of abolitionists go against people that were pro-slavery and it ended in a violent battle that was started by the pro-slavery side. This made him cautious but he didn’t yet want to start being violent unless someone else went after him. This quickly changed and he knew that the only way to prove his point was to engage in violent acts like the others. One of these acts involved John Brown going to Rochester and meeting with a man named “Frederick Douglass. His purpose was to enlist the famous black abolitionist's support for his plan to invade the slave South and wage a guerilla war from a base in the Appalachian Mountains” (Earle, John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry; May 8, 1858).

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