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John Brown’s Raid toc **Introduction** Considered by some as an abolitionist hero, and by others as a violent lunatic, John Brown is a controversial figure in American history. However, his beliefs were clear; slavery was a sin, and all those who upheld slavery deserved to be punished. A highly religious man, he considered himself to be God’s agent, and believed that he would be the man to rid the United States of Slavery. His religious views however did not stop him from murdering innocent people and cheating coworkers out of thousands of dollars. In the en d, his antics would lead to the start of the American Civil War. John Brown, a fascinating individual, played a major role in changing the fate of slavery in the United States of America.

= **Early Years and Family Life** =

John Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut on May 9, 1800. He was one of sixteen children. Although he was born in Connecticut, the family soon moved to Ohio, a very liberal abolitionist state. The mindset of his neighbors and the lectures of his father, a Revolutionary War veteran, taught him to hate slavery. The family was very religious, but instead of praying for slave owners to see the light, they believed that those who supported slavery deserved to be punished. He would grow up to hold these same ideals and establish them with his own children. And along the way he would be treated with small success and crushing failure. Brown failed in every business he embarked upon, cheated thousands of dollars out of his colleagues, and faced twenty one lawsuits. However he still managed to scrape by. In 1820 he married his first wife Dianthe Lusk, and had seven children. In 1832 however, his wife died in childbirth. In 1833, he married 16 year old Mary Ann Day, and had thirteen more children. Out of all John Brown’s twenty children, only half would live to adulthood, and two would die in his infamous raid on Harper’s Ferry. He had the strange habit of reusing names after his children died, there were Frederick I and II, as well as Ellen I and II. The large, strange family finally settled down in 1849 in North Elba, New York. Living in a black community created by prominent abolitionist Gerrit Smith, Brown soon expressed interest in adopting a black child and raising him as his own, however he never did follow through. In 1855 he would leave his family to follow his five oldest sons to Kansas, where he would finally start taking action in his quest to abolish slavery.

= **Rising Tension Between North and South** = During the mid 1800s before the Civil War, tension between North and South grew rapidly, and with many contributing factors. After the government gained land due to the USA’s victory in The Mexican War, there was a good deal of debate about how new states would be admitted to the Union, and whether or not they would be slave states. Congressman David Wilmot proposed a bill that would ban slavery in the new states. Having a much larger population, the North had more representatives in the house, so the bill passed The House of Representatives but was shut down in the Senate. There was a perfect balance between slave and free states, and both sides wanted to upset that balance in their favor. The possible admission of Texas as a slave state in 1830 angered Northerners so much that it was not admitted until 1845. As time went on the North’s population expanded more, and the South was left with only the Senate to give them voting power. Then, in 1850, California was admitted as a free state. This disrupted the balance of states, and southerners were angered. The United States Government was so divided that congressmen brought guns to meetings for protection from their colleagues. South Carolina Senator Preston Brooks savagely beat abolitionist congressmen Charles Sumner while congress was in session. The country's leaders were in a state of utter chaos. A solution was needed, so in order to please the South the fugitive slave act was created as a part of the compromise of 1850 to ensure that northerners would cease helping slaves. The fugitive slave act required police officers who saw a missing slave to either capture the slave or report the sighting so that they could be returned to their master. This compromise is said to have temporarily held off the coming civil war. However, also in the compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act was passed, setting North and South against each other once more. The Kansas-Nebraska act allowed the citizens of new states to vote on whether the state would be slave or free. This act caused supporters of both sides, pro-slavery and abolitionist, to rush into Kansas hoping to decide the future of the state. Consequentially, fights broke out, and the violence was so extreme the new state was known as “Bleeding Kansas”. The fighting, and the possibility of a new free state, would also attract John Brown himself.

= **The Potawatommie Murders** = The Potawatommie Creek murders show the side of John Brown that lead many to believe that he was insane. A brutal act, in which he, his sons and some followers killed five proslavery men because they heard that five abolitionists were killed in a raid, did not only give John Brown a reputation but also lead people to believe he was a leader. The men they killed had not participated in any raids, nor had they killed any abolitionists. Had it not been for the falsely publicized details of the murders, John Brown would have been seen very differently. In May of 1856 while fighting in Kansas, Brown heard that there was to be a raid on the antislavery town of Lawrence, and he assembled a small militia to go to their aid. However, when he and his men arrived, the town had already been attacked and looted. Many of the free-staters with him went home. Somewhere in the journey he picked up that five abolitionists had been killed in the raid. He decided that if five anti-slavery men had died, then five pro-slavery men would die that night. He, his four sons, one son in law and some other followers set off to Potawatommie creek, a proslavery town where they intended to find five men and hack them to death with their swords. Once they arrived at Potawatommie creek they hid in the underbrush until nightfall, created a list of victims and set off. They arrived at a cabin owned by James Doyle, took him outside with his two sons and brutally killed them. They then did the same to Allen Wilkinson, a member of the local legislature, and lastly, they killed a man named William Sherman, and left his body in the creek as they rode away on the dead men’s horses. Brown was never brought to trial for the murders and was able to walk away from the whole ordeal still feeling that he was God’s agent, even though he had killed three virtually innocent men and two teenagers. The murders even became common knowledge, however more folklore than anything. It seemed none of his supporters thought less of Brown for what he had done. The incident really shows that on both sides of the spectrum, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, there was the punishment of innocent human beings.

= **The Secret Six** = John Brown was beginning to gain fame for his fighting in Kansas, and he wanted to strike a large blow to slavery. First, however, he would need supporters. Wealthy Northerners had often supplied free-staters with weapons and money during the skirmishes in Bleeding Kansas, so Brown, practically a celebrity now, traveled to New England seeking these types of men to finance his new plans. He had established an image of him self as a frontiersmen, a leader and a fighter. He carried letters of recommendation from respected abolitionists such as Senator Salmon Chase, who would become the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Brown was praised by men such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder and editor of //The Liberator//. He was hosted in the homes of famous philosophers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Brown was gaining fame, and living a celebrity lifestyle. Even with all the popularity, Brown barely raised enough funds to support him and his followers. Many benefactors promised large sums of money that he never received. With the little money he had, he hired an English Military adviser to train his troops, and then proceeded in purchasing 1000 spearheads, which even in that time were worthless in battle. Incredibly frustrated, he returned to Kansas in 1857 to be told he was no longer wanted to lead the free-staters. Crushed, and desperate to do something before all was lost, he revealed to his most loyal followers his plans for the raid on Harper's Ferry. Frederick Douglas thought the plan was hopeless, even one of Brown’s sons walked out on him. However he did get financial backers for this plan. Six northerners, by the names of George Stearns, Thomas Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Sanborn and Gerrit Smith would fund the raid. These men would be known as the //Secret Six//, and they had invested in what could have been the biggest blow to slavery until the Civil War.

= **The Raid On Harper's Ferry** = The Raid on Harper’s Ferry would be John Brown’s first attempt at creating revolution, and his last. John Brown’s plans were not solid, his methodology strange, but his goal was crystal clear. He wanted to end slavery immediately. He planned to capture the fort at Harper’s Ferry, send men from there to induce slave riots in the local plantations, and to then lead the slaves back to the Allegheny mountains where they had assembled a base. He would need more followers, and he would need to get the word out. John Brown held a convention in 1858 in Chatham, Canada, which was attended by merely fifty people, in which he announced they would create an all black nation in the Allegheny Mountains, and they needed to write up a constitution. In less than four hours, the constitution was finished, electing Brown as commander in chief. In July of 1859 he worked as a housekeeper on a farm in Maryland. The farm's close vicinity to Harper’s Ferry made it an ideal place to work on his plan. He assembled a team of merely twenty one people, and planned to attack in the fall. In the middle of the night on October 16 of 1859 he and his men crossed over the Potomac River into Virginia; he would write his name into history on a Sunday. They met few obstacles on the way. A free black man by the name of Hayward Shepherd, a baggage handler on a train they detained for five hours, confronted them and was killed where he stood. Brown and his men moved to the arsenal, and took local slave owners as hostages. They cut the telegraph wires but were unable to send out men to the surrounding plantations before the town was aware of the situation. With the townspeople firing on the arsenal, Brown and his men were having difficulty staying on track. Brown, refusing to lose hope, said that the slaves would know to come. A hostage by the name of John Dangerfield who had been taken form the train tried to talk sense into Brown, but Brown insisted that he would have 1,500 men by noon. Brown and his men were soon cornered into the arsenal by the state militia as they waited for an army of slaves that would never come. The government reinforcements came relatively quickly, and soon Brown and his men were facing off against marines. The marines, lead by the highly respected war general Robert E. Lee, did not attack immediately. Lee sent in lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart to try to persuade Brown to surrender. Stewart, coincidentally, had served with Brown in Kansas, and was not surprised to hear that Brown’s response was that he would not surrender. Stewart returned, and with the rest of the marines he reluctantly charged his former captain's men with bayonets. Brown’s men panicked once under attack, and attempted to flee. William H. Leeman attempted to swim across the Potomac but was shot down by drunken townspeople, who then proceeded in using his dead body for target practice. John Brown was cut down with a sword and severely injured in the charge, ten of his followers had died and two of his sons. Even worse, he had failed to free even one slave. Historians have gone over John Brown’s plans time and time again, and cannot help but wonder about the media type="youtube" key="T1Vwqyr4stM" height="279" width="339" align="left" numerous flaws in his plan and execution. Was he insane, or, having lost most of his respect, did he plan to die a martyr’s death? Brown had failed to bring food or water for his men and his expected recruits, he had chosen a town where his escape could be blocked by the control of merely two bridges and he had failed to alert the slaves of the coming chance to escape. He had also left a bag of letters at the farm he had worked at connecting him to all of his supporters, including the secret six. With this new connection made, Frederick Douglas fled the country, Gerrit Smith entered an insane asylum to avoid arrest and the others, besides Higginson who plotted to rescue Brown, fled to Canada. His plan had failed, his most loyal sons were dead, but somehow, John Brown went to the gallows ready to die.

A short clip from the mini series //North and South//, in which Johnny Cash played the role of John Brown.

= **Death** = After the failure at Harper’s Ferry, many of Brown’s critics and supporters believed that he was truly mad. Even so, his supporters did not want him to be hanged. His relatives were even able to find documents that proved insanity ran in his family. However, John Brown considered this method cowardice. Even still, Thomas Higginson planned to rescue Brown until, in a conversation with Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise, Brown revealed that he would willingly walk to the gallows. Furthermore, long, publicized conversations with Wise showed Virginia that Brown was not only sane, but was exceptionally courageous. In trial Brown was charged with treason against the state of Virginia, conspiring to incite slave revolts and murder. He accepted all charges, and wrote to his family saying he awaited death with optimism. “I have now no doubt but that our seeming disaster will ultimately result in the most glorious success.” Before his hanging, Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke in Brown’s defense for the last time. “When a government puts forth it’s strength on the side of injustice, as ours to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself a merely brutal force, or worse, a demonical force… It was (Brown’s) doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him.” Brown was hanged, a proud man, and although his success was small, his conscience was clear. He had done everything in his power to save the oppressed from the oppressors.

= **Conclusion** = John Brown’s master plan, The Raid on Harper’s Ferry, was not a success. However nor was it a failure. John Brown freed no slaves on October 16, 1859 when he executed his infamous raid, but he did make an impact. Northern supporters wanted him freed, angry southerners wanted him hanged, the country was split over yet another issue. He was openly praised by influential figures such as Henry David Thoreau, who said, referring to Brown and his men’s bravery, that, “These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live.” Brown, while still thought of as a mad man, created national impact. Predicting the coming war, he stated, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” The man was right, and not only did he create a spark that would light the fire that became the Civil War, but in the end, he contributed to the abolition of slavery in the United States.

Bibliography:

Information:

1. "The Brown Family." //Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities//. The John Brown Museum. Web. 15 May 2011. . 2. "John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid." //West Virginia Division of Culture and History//. Government of West Virginia, 2011. Web. 15 May 2011. . 3. Lilley, Stephen R. //Fighters Against American Slavery//. San Diego: Lucent, 1999. Web. 15 May 2011. Video: 4. // YouTube - Johnny Cash Is John Brown! // Perf. Johnny Cash. //YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.// YOUTUBE, 18 May 2008. Web. 15 May 2011. . Pictures: 5. (All courtesy of Wikicommons, besides the poster which was made by me)