Brown, John

Brown, John (1800–1859), northern white abolitionist whose attempt to start a slave uprising at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), helped bring on the Civil War.Brown, a businessman with a checkered career, joined the antislavery movement in the 1830s. He helped fugitive slaves escape via the Underground Railroad; befriended black leaders, notably Frederick Douglass; and eventually quit business to take up arms against the “Slave Power.” In 1855–1857, Brown fought against proslavery militia in the guerrilla war for control of Kansas territory, winning a national reputation for courage but local notoriety for the “Pottawatomie massacre” (23–24 May 1856) in which he supervised the lynching of five proslavery men.

In 1857–1859, his focus shifted to the South and to inciting servile insurrection. With the secret support of prominent abolitionists, he organized an interracial “army” of twenty‐one men and led them in an assault on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry (16–17 October 1859), expecting to seize weapons and arm the slaves. Instead, state and federal troops (the latter commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee), crushed his force. Brown himself was captured; hastily tried for treason in a Virginia court; convicted; and, on 2 December 1859, hanged. The bravery of the “old man” during this ordeal, as well as his eloquence in defending his actions, made a powerful impression on the country. Many northerners hailed him as a martyr for freedom, while white southerners excoriated him as the embodiment of northern aggression. In this charged political atmosphere, compromise between the sections became increasingly impossible.
See also Antebellum Era; Civil War: Causes; Kansas‐Nebraska Act; Slave Uprisings and Resistance.

Bibliography

Stephen B. Oates , To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown, 1970.
Paul O. Boyer , The Legend of John Brown: A Biography and a History, 1972.

Dean Grodzins