During his lifetime, John Brown was severely despised by some and regarded as a hero by others. While Southerners were frightened by the brutality he used to attain his goals, reformers who supported the abolition of slavery applauded his acts as being vital to destroy the system. Others, such as Abraham Lincoln, challenged the methods even though they supported the goal of ending slavery. Rarely has a person sparked as much debate on his historical persona as a hero or a criminal. Nevertheless, he was a person who changed history and made the necessary contribution as an abolitionist, which led to the formation of modern society and cannot be regarded as a terrorist or criminal.
Brown was raised in the anti-slavery Western Reserve of northeastern Ohio in a deeply religious family from Connecticut in 1800. While working as a surveyor, tanner, farmer, shepherd, horse trader, and wool broker, he was exposed to many challenges and successes of America’s developing market economy. He had at least fifteen company failures, was the subject of at least twenty-one lawsuits, lost ten of them, and at least one involved financial misappropriation. It was not until Brown was in his mid-fifties, in 1855, that he rose to prominence in the anti-slavery movement.
He thought of starting a school as one way to aid African Americans in the 1830s. In the 1840s, he became good friends with Frederick Douglass and relocated to the Adirondacks to help a group of free black farmers whom rich abolitionist Gerrit Smith had given land. Later, Douglass claimed that Brown was the only white person he knew who did not bear any prejudice (Poland 76). Due to two incidents in his life, the Pottawatomie raid in the Kansas Territory in 1856 and his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, Brown is associated with terrorism. Both entailed acts of violence and murder and prompted some individuals to declare him a terrorist (Webb 45). Brown planned to command an army in a raid on the government armory at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia, as he told a few abolitionist friends. He intended to steal the weapons and give them to formerly enslaved people. Brown relocated covertly to a farm close to Harper’s Ferry in the summer of 1859, but he only succeeded in enlisting twenty-one men.
He drafted a new constitution that guaranteed equal rights for people of all races and a political manifesto called ‘A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America,’ based on the Declaration of Independence. During the attack, Lewis Washington, the great-grandnephew of President George Washington, was among the enslavers that Brown and his men had captured (Chura 3). Brown went out of his way to defend and ensure the safety of these captured individuals, but he did not kill any of them. When a railroad luggage worker ignored their orders to stop, the attackers shot and murdered him. In a battle, they killed a few town residents, including the mayor. Brown was eventually captured, and many of the rebels died.
The public image was transformed in large part because of Brown himself. Many believed that he was a Christ-like martyr, not a murderer or a traitor, because of his calm demeanour and passionate dedication to the anti-slavery cause. Abolitionists, journalists, eulogists, speakers, clergy members like the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, and poets and authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau contributed to his success (Poland 24). In addition to denouncing Brown for his treachery, killing, and violence, Abraham Lincoln praised him for his noble intentions and great courage. Consequently, he became part of the complex process of slavery abolishment, and his movement contributed to the development of the ongoing changes that took place later in American history.
Works Cited
Chura, Patrick. Thoreau and John Brown as proletarian heroes. The Thoreau Society Bulletin, vol. 310. 2020, Web.
Poland, Charles P. America’s Good Terrorist: John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid. Casemate. 2020.
Webb, Richard D. The Life and Letters of Captain John Brown. Books on Demand. 2022.