John Brown: Hero Or Traitor?

One of the most important figures in the struggle against slavery before the war, was John Brown. Brown was hanged in 1859 for his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Many people saw him as the start of something that was impending in the future. The Southerners feared him because he was a white man willing to die for someone of color, for slavery. They would have considered him a traitor for this. The Northerners considered him morally right and a leader who fought back against the South.

In 2000, the United States marked the two-hundredth anniversary of Brown’s birth. During that year, historians talked about whether John Brown was America’s first terrorist. A year after Brown’s anniversary, the meaning of terrorism changed. Now, it wasn’t

This included personal and political factors. In the 1840’s, Brown was declared bankrupt, was evicted from his farm, and lost four children. Later in the early 50’s he was separated from his family for long periods of time, he lost another child, and several sons abandoned their religion. Brown decided to leave the material world, abandoning his farm, his business, and even his wife. He joined his sons in Kansas and dedicated his time to overthrowing slavery.

Brown had played a crucial role in reshaping his public image. His commitment to the anti-slavery cause persuaded many that he was like a martyr, not a murderer or traitor. He was helped by many including Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and even Abraham Lincoln. Although at first Lincoln had committed Brown for violence, bloodshed, and treason, he changed his mind and thought he had great courage and selflessness.

At this time the nation had reached an increasingly violent problem that seemed to have no solution. The truth was that America could not be rid of slavery without bloodshed. It was noticed that moral persuasion and political organizations had failed to end slavery. Sadly in the end, slavery could only be ended by

Brown led a raiding party that consisted of his four sons, his son in law, and two other men to Pottawatomie Creek. Brown and his men entered cabins, interrogated many men, and killed some of them. Some were killed quickly while others, who resisted, were cut in many places. This could seem like an act of torture by the way they let the men suffer. “My husband was a pro-slavery man. They told my husband that he and the boys must surrender, they were their prisoners. These men were armed with pistols and large knives... In a short time afterwards I heard the report of pistols... My husband and two boys; my sons, did not come back any more. I went out next morning in search of them, and found my husband and William, my son, lying dead in the road near together, about two hundred yards from the house. My other son I did not see any more until the day he was buried. I was so much overcome that I went to the house. They were buried the next day. On the day of the burying I saw the dead body of Drury. Fear of myself and the remaining children induced me to leave the home where we had been living”(Mahala