The American abolitionist
John Brown is remembered especially for his raid on the federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va., in
1859. Born on May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Conn., he grew up in
Ohio. During most of his adult years Brown wandered from job
to job. Ill fortune, business reverses, and charges of illegal
practices followed him from the 1820s onward. By the 1850s, however,
he had become deeply interested in the slavery
question.
Brown envisioned emancipation by massive slave insurrection,
but he did not pursue that goal until the 1859 raid on Harpers
Ferry. Before then, he and five of his sons became embroiled
in the struggle between proslavery and antislavery forces for
control of the territorial government in Kansas. By the spring
of 1855, civil war had broken out and Brown had assumed command
of local Free-Soil militia. Within a year, proslavery forces
had sacked the Free-Soil town of Lawrence, an event that triggered
a bloody retaliation by Brown. During the night of May 24, 1856,
Brown, four of his sons, and two other followers invaded the
Pottawatomie River country and killed five helpless settlers,
hacking them with sabers. Brown, who was never caught, took full
responsibility for the act.
From then on, Brown became even more preoccupied with
abolition by slave insurrection. Observers often remarked on
his magnetic ability to dominate and involve others in his designs.
By 1858 he had persuaded a number of the North's most prominent
abolitionists to finance his insurrectionary projects. After
protracted conspiracy, delay, and diversion, Brown finally chose
Harpers Ferry as his point of attack, hoping to establish a base
in the mountains to which slaves and free blacks could flee.
Brown assembled an armed force of 21 men about five miles from
Harpers Ferry, and on Oct. 16, 1859, they seized the town and
occupied the federal arsenal. The town was soon surrounded by
local militia, and federal troops under Robert
E. Lee arrived the next day.
Ten of Brown's army died in the ensuing battle, and
Brown himself was wounded. Arrested and charged with treason,
Brown conducted himself with great courage and displayed considerable
skill in arousing Northern sympathy. Many hailed him as a noble
martyr, even as Southern whites expressed deep outrage at his
fanaticism.
Before hearing his sentence, Brown was allowed make
an address to the court:
"I believe to have interfered as I have done,
. . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right.
Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life
for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood
further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of
millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by
wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be
done."
His hanging, on Dec. 2, 1859, symbolically foreshadowed
the violence of the Civil War,
which broke out two years later.
Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many
Northerners began to speak favorably of the militant abolitionist.
"He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them
as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address
to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. "No man in America
has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity
of human nature. . . ."
For many years after his death, Brown was generally
regarded among abolitionists as a martyr to the cause of human
freedom. He became the subject of a famous song, known generally
by the first line as "John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring
in the grave." |
John Brown