Hello Everyone, John Brown was a revolutionary abolitionist who felt very strongly about ending slavery. He was born in 1800 and died in 1859. His birthplace was Torrington, Connecticut. He belonged to a very loving family with very strong anti-slavery beliefs. He tied the knot twice and brought forth 20 children from those unions. Brown had several business endeavors that failed. In 1842 he filed bankruptcy. He began working as a conductor with the Underground Railroad in order to support the abolitionist cause. He also started the League of Gileadites, which was organized to aid runaway slaves fleeing to Canada. He later moved to a free black farming community in New York. In 1856, at the age of 55, Brown and his sons moved to Kansas Territory, John Brown accompanied by a small army of his four sons and two other men set out along the Pottawatomie Creek and brutally murdered five men and boys whom they believed were promoting slavery. Later on Brown raided Missouri, where he murdered a slave owner and freed 11 of his slaves. …show more content…
In 1859, John Brown, also know as Issac Smith, leased the Kennedy Farmhouse, just miles from Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Brown planned out his attack on Harper’s Ferry. He was going to provide local slaves with weapons. He was hoping to pose fear in the slave owners. Despite the planning, nothing went accordingly. The slaves didn’t join his army as expected. The local police and the US Marines under the authority of Robert E. Lee, put an end to the raid. Most of Brown’s men were killed or captured including his sons. Although, he was wounded badly, he was put on trial very fast and was found to be guilty of murder, treason, and inciting slave insurrection in Virginia. John Brown was put to death by hanging on December
John Brown, an abolistionist who previously murdered five proslavery men in 1856, seized a federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to start a slave uprising, however it failed and he was caught, he was hanged for treason. Document 7 states that both sides, North and South, were both basically surprised; however some Northerners "began to call Brown a martyr for the sacred cause of freedom." Southerners were outraged that such a man would do this, and mobs would even assault people who held or were suspected of holding antislavery opinions. It also scared Southerners (especially those who held slaves) because they were afraid of slave uprisings. This was one step to the Union
John Brown was very similar to Nat Turner they both believed that they were chosen by god to lead slaves into freedom and if that required a fight then that was what they had to do. John Brown had a goal and that was to abolish slavery throughout the united states. The trouble in Kansas began when the Nebraska Act was signed by President Pierce, this act engaged that people make a determination on whether Kansas territory should be free or slave. In hopes that Kansas would become free of slaves, the opposing side which was named Border Ruffians invaded their territory and forced the pro-slavery election. After John heard about the fear of Kansas becoming a slave state and after also hearing that the Border Ruffians ransacked the town of Lawrence
John Brown was a cold-blooded killer. Although John was trying to abolish slavery, violence was not the way to go. According to Robert E. Lee according to Robert E. Lee., John killed a lot of men. He killed 10 raiders, and captured 7. Although they were people who were for slavery, she should have never killed them. Martin Luther King didn't like slavery either but he found another way to stop it and that was by his protesting not killing. According to Fredrick Douglas, John's plan to abolish slavery was not that appealing. I don't think John was looking at both sides of things. I think all John was thinking was kill people who are for slavery but he didn't think about he could abolish slavery with his words and not his swords. According to
Brown was born the son of Owen Brown, a tanner, in the town of Torrington, Connecticut. The Browns were conventional evangelicals, and John went to school in Massachusetts to become a Congregationalist minister. Unfortunately he ran out of money and returned to his family and opened his own tannery with his brother. He soon started a family and his tannery was growing to a very successful business. A few years came to pass, and tragedy struck his family. One of his sons died, Brown became very sick, he incurred a tremendous amount of debt, and his wife passed shortly after the death of a newborn son. A year later he would marry 16 year old Mary Ann, and have 13 children, creating a total of 20 children of which only 11 would survive into adulthood. After moving his family to the town of Franklin Mills, Ohio, he opened a new tannery but soon fell victim to the Panic of 1837, leaving him in more debt. He took up horse and sheep breeding, as well as many other efforts to relieve himself of his debts. Brown was even
Brown made many violent attacks through his long attempt to end slavery. One of Brown's rather horrific attacks was the murder of five pro-slavery settlers in the Pottawatomie Creek. It was once stated that brown did this act of violence out of rage, and it
As John got older, things changed and he wanted to start his own slave rebellion. He wanted people to image what kind of person he really was, and what he wanted to change. Breanna Wolford 5/9/17 Freedom Fighter Essay John Browns actions at Pottawatomie Creek and at Harpers Ferry may cause people to claim he is a terrorist but if you dig deeper, you will find it was just acts of a freedom fighter. On May 21, 1856 John Brown and his men invaded two cabins, and brutally murdered slave owners and civilians. One of the men he killed was James Doyle. I believe that the events that took place at Pottawatomie Creek were justified, because at the raid of Harpers Ferry they did not fire on civilians unlike Pottawatomie Creek which I feel he knew they should have not fired in civilians at the first attack therefore that is why he did not kill civilians at Harpers Ferry. John Brown felt obligated to abolish slavery for good. John had to get done what he had to do because he wanted to get it through to people that slavery was wrong. Furthermore this is why I believe John Brown was a freedom
John Brown thought that the way to overthrow slavery was through violence. John Brown also killed Pro slavery residents or to be more specific civilians that were pro slavery. He also justified his actions by saying it was the will of God, that he committed those murders according to Biography.com.
John Brown led a midnight attack on the pro-slavery settlement as retaliation for the raid that caused the death of two and destruction of a hotel and two printing presses; five people were killed by Brown and his following; Brown's sons and their
“John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was a radical abolitionist from the United States, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery for good. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. He was tried and executed for treason against the
Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry affected American culture more than can ever be understood. Tension between the North and South was building in the 1850's. Slavery among many other things was dividing the country into two sections. Brown was executed on December 2, 1859 for his murderous out-lash on society. Was his mind so twisted and demented that he would commit cold-blooded murder? The answer is no. John Brown was a man with a goal and a purpose. When he said that abolition could not be achieved without blood he was right. It is one of histories great ironies; John Brown's struggle preceded the Civil War by only 17 months. Thousands of people were killed in the Civil War, yet John Brown
This is when his mission started to become more and more violent. Brown published an essay instructing African Americans to stay together to resist this new law. He ordered them to even if it took killing the slave catchers, that’s what they had to do. He formed an armed resistance against the Fugitive Slave Law. Brown’s United League recruited 44 African Americans. Following this, the Kansas-Nebraska Act surfaced, which allowed settlers to decided whether or not to be free or to practice slavery. Then, in order to achieve the southern support in the 1856 Democratic presidential nomination, Stephen Douglas proposed to divide the new territory into two. This meant that Kansas, since it was in the more southern of the two territories, would be made into a slave state. This would lead to the start of an organized militia against slavery.
John Brown was an abolitionist who tried to get rid of slavery quicker. He was tired of the peaceful demonstrations going on, so he decided to use violence. His plan was to march in Harper's Ferry, with an army of eighteen men, and take all of their federal weapons; this plan failed and led to the hanging of five men, including himself. Brown became a martyr for the abolitionists and it encouraged them to want to abolish slavery faster. This shows that the South should leave the Union before any rebellion or war starts about the issue of
John Brown felt particularly strongly that this organized insurrection was one of the only options to overthrow slavery once and for all. He had originally hoped that slaves would ban together to join him and his small army, he even included Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Tubman in his plotting, however no slaves joined for fear of failure. The raid party stayed at Kennedy Farmhouse located four miles away from Harpers Ferry in preparation for the attack. With many weapons in hand the attackers situated themselves indoors in order to keep suspicions to a minimum. Approximately five men were killed and hostages were taken. Seeing as the raiders were obviously outnumbered they were caught by Robert E. Lee, leader of the U.S. Marines, and convicted of treason against the commonwealth of Virginia. John brown was hung on December 2, 1859, and the others involved were executed on December 16, 1859.
His views on cruelly ending slaving with violence and bloodshed only prove is madness. “Several of his colleagues also petitioned that the courts should look at Brown’s questionable mental state when it came to his actions.” With all the “violence” John Brown tried to create with his radical actions to end slavery, his actions did very little to end slavery. On the contrary, slave owners in the south treated slaves more barbaric because they started to feel threatened as his actions. Many thought his rebellion was going to succeed so many treated the slaves as the target. Many believe that his actions help stir up the civil war. In conclusion, John Brown tried to terminate slavery in savage ways many times and each time revealed his level of
During the 1850s, Douglas was in the fore front in abolishing slavery, which was threatening, to tear the country apart. In the beginning, Douglas felt that John Brown’s anti- slavery ideas and plans were suicidal and he refused to engage in a raid on Harper Ferry. Brown’s activities saw him captured and hanged, an act which