Brown, John
Achievements: Anti-slavery leader of Harper’s Ferry attack
Born: May 9, 1800; Torrington, Connecticut
Died: December 2, 1859; Charlestown, Virginia (Aged 59)
Field & Discipline: Politics; Abolitionist
Language: English
Father: Owen Mills
Mother, Ruth
Siblings: Two
Spouse: 1) Dianthe Lusk; 2) Mary Ann Day
Children: by Lusk: four sons and one daughter: John; Jason; Owen; Frederick; Ruth. by Day: three sons and three daughters: Watson; Salmon; Oliver; Anne; Sarah; Ellen.
Education: Frontier school, Hudson
Life & Times:
John Brown played a leading role in the anti- slavery movement. In 1837, at a meeting, he raised his right hand and said, "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery". By this time the economic climate had changed, land values had fallen and farmer Brown was declared bankrupt. However, from his nineteen remaining sheep Brown built up a flock, then a successful wool business in partnership with Simon Perkins.
On his travels for the wool business, he went to East to Springfield, Massachusetts. While there, he arranged to meet Frederick Douglass, a slave who had bought his freedom and was now one of the most inspiring abolitionist speakers. Brown wanted Douglass' advice on how to help slaves free themselves.
His plan was to have a small force in the Appalachian Mountains which could would form armed groups, of as few as five men, to which any fleeing slaves could attach themselves. In this way, groups of escaping slaves could be given an armed guard and supplied with food and guides. In preparation for this, in 1849 Brown moved his family to the Adirondacks at North Elba, NY, to a black community set up by the philanthropist, Gerrit Smith, with whom he became friends.
In 1850 a law was passed making it mandatory for all citizens to help the Federal army to catch fugitive slaves.
Two years later, Brown returned to live in Ohio, and for the next two years was busy with litigation relating to his failed wool business. In 1854, five of his sons moved to Kansas Territory, where an Act had been passed allowing settlers in the territory to decide whether or not to legalize slavery. Most chose not to do so.
Brown’s son John wrote asking for weapons to fight a group of Southerners known as the Border Ruffians, who were roaming the state attempting to legalize slavery.
In 1855 Brown travelled to Osawatomie in Kansas, taking with him a wagon, guns and ammunition. His sons had settled in a small place which they named Brownsville, in an area where the pro-slavery element was in power, thanks to rigged elections. Laws had been passed forbidding freedom of speech or the press on the subject of anti-slavery and anybody who helped a fugitive slave, or had books in their possession that dealt with slave rebellion, faced the death penalty.
The anti-slavery group among the settlers set up their own government, with their own constitution, in the town of Lawrence, but on May 22 1856, news came to Brownsville that, Border Ruffians were assembling to attack Lawrence. John Brown Junior was the captain of a militia company called the Liberty Guards, so he rounded up his men and his father accompanied them as they set out for Lawrence.
Brown led a raid on the pro-slavery settlement of Shermanville, at Pottawatomie Creek, where they killed five men, claiming this action was needed to inspire "a restraining fear" in the pro-slavers. He was now an outlaw leader of a band of guerrillas, including his two sons, his son-in-law, and a few other settlers. Two of his sons, John Junior and Jason, freed two slaves at gunpoint from a slaveholder, but were caught and imprisoned, narrowly escaping the death penalty. Brown returned to East in 1856 after his sons were freed and the Border Ruffians expelled from Kansas territory, convinced that peace in Kansas was only temporary. He began to store guns and supplies.
In 1857, Brown went to Boston and met Franklin Sanbourn, a graduate of Harvard and the secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. He introduced Brown to influential Bostonians and offered to help him raise and arm a company of men for Kansas. A group of men, later called the "Secret Six" (among them Gerrit Smith) raised funds for Brown. While in Boston he also met the writers [met] Thoreau* and [met] Emerson* as well as Bronson Alcott, the educationalist and father of [met father of] Alcott*.
In October 1857 the free-state candidates won a majority in the Kansas elections. Brown now felt he was free to invade the South and began to assemble a fighting force in Kansas, while he worked on a new constitution for the United States, drawn up in the name of "the oppressed citizens of the country".
In 1858, after lobbying the country’s black leaders, Brown called a meeting in Chatham, Ontario to explain his plan to establish a mountain sanctuary for escaped slaves. He was elected Commander-in-Chief of the new order.
By 1859, Brown had decided to attack the Federal armoury at Harper's Ferry as an announcement, to the blacks in the South, of his plans to free them. Harper's Ferry was to be a rallying call to the movement.
In June he said goodbye to his family, rented a farmhouse in Maryland across the Potomac from Harper’s Ferry, brought in arms, and collected volunteers. Disguised as a fisherman, he had a final meeting with Frederick Douglass and on October 16th 1859 took the armoury and about sixty hostages. During the attacks, to which only a handful of blacks arrived in support, two of Brown’s sons were killed and he surrendered to the US Marines, commanded by Colonel (later General) [captured by] Lee*.
On October 30th, at Concord, Thoreau gave a lecture called, "A Plea for Captain John Brown" describing him as a man of ideas and principles who dared to sacrifice his life for the liberation of the slaves. He delivered the same message at Worcester and Boston and used the trial to promote "the eternal justice and glory" of Brown's cause. However, Brown was tried, convicted of murder, slave insurrection, and treason and, on 2nd December 1859, was hanged. His death inspired [inspired] Julia Ward Howe* to write [inspired] ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic*’ In consequence of the Harper Ferry attack, more than two hundred and fifty troops were sent to garrison the armory, among whom was [work related to] John Wilkes Booth* (who later assassinated Abraham Lincoln).
Extra Connections: President [work related to] Buchanan* thought his acts would encourage secession.
He received support from [supported by] Greeley*
Assessment: John Brown's action at Harper's Ferry precipitated the South's withdrawal from the Union and the subsequent Civil War.
Oneliner: John Brown, radical anti-slavery leader
Bibliography:
- Oates, Stephen B, To Purge This Land With Blood, A Biography of John Brown, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1970.
- Scott, John Anthony and Scott, Robert Alan, John Brown of Harper's Ferry, Facts on File, New York, 1988.
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