John Brown (abolitionist)

John Brown, 1856

Brown and the free settlers were optimistic that they could bring Kansas into the union as a slavery-free state.[27] After the winter snows thawed in 1856, the pro-slavery activists began a campaign to seize Kansas on their own terms. Brown was particularly affected by the sacking of Lawrence in May 1856, in which a sheriff-led posse destroyed newspaper offices and a hotel. Only one man, a Border Ruffian, was killed. Preston Brooks's caning of anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner in the United States Senate also fueled Brown's anger. A pro-slavery writer, Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow, of the Squatter Sovereign, wrote that "[pro-slavery forces] are determined to repel this Northern invasion, and make Kansas a Slave State; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their victims, and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose".[28] Brown was outraged by both the violence of the pro-slavery forces and what he saw as a weak and cowardly response by the antislavery partisans and the Free State settlers, whom he described as "cowards, or worse".[29]

The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. Using swords, Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers took from their residences and killed five "professional slave hunters and militant pro-slavery"[30] settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas.

Speaking of the threats that were supposedly the justification for the massacre, Free State leader Charles L. Robinson stated:

When it is known that such threats were as plenty as blue-berries in June, on both sides, all over the Territory, and were regarded as of no more importance than the idle wind, this indictment will hardly justify midnight assassination of all pro-slavery men, whether making threats or not ... Had all men been killed in Kansas who indulged in such threats, there would have been none left to bury the dead.[31]

In the two years prior to the Pottawatomie Creek massacre, there had been eight killings in Kansas Territory attributable to slavery politics, but none in the vicinity of the massacre. The massacre was the match in the powderkeg that precipitated the bloodiest period in "Bleeding Kansas" history, a three-month period of retaliatory raids and battles in which 29 people died.[32]

A force of Missourians, led by Captain Henry Pate, captured John Jr. and Jason, and destroyed the Brown family homestead, and later participated in the Sack of Lawrence. On June 2, John Brown, nine of his followers, and 20 local men successfully defended a Free State settlement at Palmyra, Kansas, against an attack by Pate (see Battle of Black Jack). Pate and 22 of his men were taken prisoner.[33] After capture, they were taken to Brown's camp, and received all the food Brown could find. Brown forced Pate to sign a treaty, exchanging the freedom of Pate and his men for the promised release of Brown's two captured sons. Brown released Pate to Colonel Edwin Sumner, but was furious to discover that the release of his sons was delayed until September.

In August, a company of over 300 Missourians under the command of General John W. Reid crossed into Kansas and headed towards Osawatomie, intending to destroy the Free State settlements there, and then march on Topeka and Lawrence.[34]

On the morning of August 30, 1856, they shot and killed Brown's son Frederick and his neighbor David Garrison on the outskirts of Osawatomie. Brown, outnumbered more than seven to one, arranged his 38 men behind natural defenses along the road. Firing from cover, they managed to kill at least 20 of Reid's men and wounded 40 more.[35] Reid regrouped, ordering his men to dismount and charge into the woods. Brown's small group scattered and fled across the Marais des Cygnes River. One of Brown's men was killed during the retreat and four were captured. While Brown and his surviving men hid in the woods nearby, the Missourians plundered and burned Osawatomie. Despite his defeat, Brown's bravery and military shrewdness in the face of overwhelming odds brought him national attention and made him a hero to many Northern abolitionists.[36]

On September 7, Brown entered Lawrence to meet with Free State leaders and help fortify against a feared assault. At least 2,700 pro-slavery Missourians were once again invading Kansas. On September 14, they skirmished near Lawrence. Brown prepared for battle, but serious violence was averted when the new governor of Kansas, John W. Geary, ordered the warring parties to disarm and disband, and offered clemency to former fighters on both sides.[37] Brown, taking advantage of the fragile peace, left Kansas with three of his sons to raise money from supporters in the North.

Brown returned to the East by November 1856, and spent the next two years in New England raising funds. Initially he returned to Springfield, where he received contributions, and also a letter of recommendation from a prominent and wealthy merchant, George Walker. Walker was the brother-in-law of Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, the secretary for the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, who introduced Brown to several influential abolitionists in the Boston area in January 1857.[19][38] Amos Adams Lawrence, a prominent Boston merchant, secretly gave a large amount of cash. William Lloyd Garrison, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker and George Luther Stearns, and Samuel Gridley Howe also supported Brown. A group of six wealthy abolitionists – Sanborn, Higginson, Parker, Stearns, Howe, and Gerrit Smith – agreed to offer Brown financial support for his antislavery activities; they eventually provided most of the financial backing for the raid on Harpers Ferry, and came to be known as the Secret Six[39] or the Committee of Six. Brown often requested help from them with "no questions asked" and it remains unclear how much of Brown's scheme the Secret Six were aware of.

On January 7, 1858, the Massachusetts Committee pledged to provide 200 Sharps Rifles and ammunition, which were being stored at Tabor, Iowa. In March, Brown contracted Charles Blair of Collinsville, Connecticut for 1,000 pikes.

In the following months, Brown continued to raise funds, visiting Worcester, Springfield, New Haven, Syracuse and Boston. In Boston, he met Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He received many pledges but little cash. In March, while in New York City, he was introduced to Hugh Forbes, an English mercenary, who had experience as a military tactician fighting with Giuseppe Garibaldi in Italy in 1848. Brown hired him as his men's drillmaster and to write their tactical handbook. They agreed to meet in Tabor that summer. Using the alias Nelson Hawkins, Brown traveled through the Northeast and then visited his family in Hudson, Ohio. On August 7, he arrived in Tabor. Forbes arrived two days later. Over several weeks, the two men put together a "Well-Matured Plan" for fighting slavery in the South. The men quarreled over many of the details. In November, their troops left for Kansas. Forbes had not received his salary and was still feuding with Brown, so he returned to the East instead of venturing into Kansas. He soon threatened to expose the plot to the government.

William Maxon's house, near Springdale, Iowa, where John Brown's associates lived and trained, 1857–1859. Brown himself lived at the home of John Hunt Painter, less than a mile away.

As the October elections saw a free-state victory, Kansas was quiet. Brown made his men return to Iowa, where he told them tidbits of his Virginia scheme.[40] In January 1858, Brown left his men in Springdale, Iowa, and set off to visit Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York. There he discussed his plans with Douglass, and reconsidered Forbes' criticisms.[41] Brown wrote a Provisional Constitution that would create a government for a new state in the region of his invasion. He then traveled to Peterboro, New York, and Boston to discuss matters with the Secret Six. In letters to them, he indicated that, along with recruits, he would go into the South equipped with weapons to do "Kansas work".

Brown and 12 of his followers, including his son Owen, traveled to Chatham, Ontario, where he convened on May 10 a Constitutional Convention.[42] The convention, with several dozen delegates including his friend James Madison Bell, was put together with the help of Dr. Martin Delany.[43] One-third of Chatham's 6,000 residents were fugitive slaves, and it was here that Brown was introduced to Harriet Tubman. The convention assembled 34 blacks and 12 whites to adopt Brown's Provisional Constitution. According to Delany, during the convention, Brown illuminated his plans to make Kansas rather than Canada the end of the Underground Railroad. This would be the Subterranean Pass Way. Delany's reflections are not entirely trustworthy. Brown was no longer looking toward Kansas and was entirely focused on Virginia. Other testimony from the Chatham meeting suggests Brown did speak of going south. Brown had long used the terminology of the Subterranean Pass Way from the late 1840s, so it is possible that Delany conflated Brown's statements over the years. Regardless, Brown was elected commander-in-chief and named John Henrie Kagi his "Secretary of War". Richard Realf was named "Secretary of State". Elder Monroe, a black minister, was to act as president until another was chosen. A. M. Chapman was the acting vice president; Delany, the corresponding secretary. In 1859, "A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America" was written.

Although nearly all of the delegates signed the constitution, very few volunteered to join Brown's forces, although it will never be clear how many Canadian expatriates actually intended to join Brown because of a subsequent "security leak" that threw off plans for the raid, creating a hiatus in which Brown lost contact with many of the Canadian leaders. This crisis occurred when Hugh Forbes, Brown's mercenary, tried to expose the plans to Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson and others. The Secret Six feared their names would be made public. Howe and Higginson wanted no delays in Brown's progress, while Parker, Stearns, Smith and Sanborn insisted on postponement. Stearns and Smith were the major sources of funds, and their words carried more weight. To throw Forbes off the trail and invalidate his assertions, Brown returned to Kansas in June, and remained in that vicinity for six months. There he joined forces with James Montgomery, who was leading raids into Missouri.

Portrait of John Brown by Ole Peter Hansen Balling, 1872

On December 20, Brown led his own raid, in which he liberated 11 slaves, took captive two white men, and looted horses and wagons. (See Battle of the Spurs.) On January 20, 1859, he embarked on a lengthy journey to take the liberated slaves to Detroit and then on a ferry to Canada. While passing through Chicago, Brown met with abolitionists Allan Pinkerton, John Jones, and Henry O. Wagoner who arranged and raised the fare for the passage to Detroit[44] and purchase clothes and supplies for Brown. Jones's wife, Mary, guessed that the supplies included the suit Brown was later hanged in.[45] On March 12, 1859, Brown met with Frederick Douglass and Detroit abolitionists George DeBaptiste, William Lambert, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation.[46] DeBaptiste proposed that conspirators blow up some of the South's largest churches. The suggestion was opposed by Brown, who felt humanity precluded such unnecessary bloodshed.[47]

Over the course of the next few months, he traveled again through Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts to drum up more support for the cause. On May 9, he delivered a lecture in Concord, Massachusetts, that Amos Bronson Alcott, Emerson, and Thoreau attended. Brown reconnoitered with the Secret Six. In June he paid his last visit to his family in North Elba before departing for Harpers Ferry. He stayed one night en route in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the Washington House, on West Washington Street. On June 30, 1859, the hotel had at least 25 guests, including I. Smith and Sons, Oliver Smith and Owen Smith, and Jeremiah Anderson, all from New York. From papers found in the Kennedy Farmhouse after the raid, it is known that Brown wrote to Kagi that he would sign into a hotel as I. Smith and Sons.[48]

Harper's Weekly illustration of U.S. Marines attacking John Brown's "Fort"

As he began recruiting supporters for an attack on slaveholders, Brown was joined by Harriet Tubman, "General Tubman," as he called her.[49] Her knowledge of support networks and resources in the border states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware was invaluable to Brown and his planners. Some abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, opposed his tactics, but Brown dreamed of fighting to create a new state for freed slaves and made preparations for military action. After he began the first battle, he believed, slaves would rise up and carry out a rebellion across the South.[50]

Brown asked Tubman to gather former slaves then living in present-day Southern Ontario who might be willing to join his fighting force, which she did.[51] He arrived in Harpers Ferry on July 3, 1859. A few days later, under the name Isaac Smith, he rented a farmhouse in nearby Maryland. He awaited the arrival of his recruits. They never materialized in the numbers he expected. In late August he met with Douglass in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he revealed the Harpers Ferry plan. Douglass expressed severe reservations, rebuffing Brown's pleas to join the mission. Douglass had known of Brown's plans since early 1859 and had made a number of efforts to discourage blacks from enlisting.

In late September, the 950 pikes arrived from Charles Blair. Kagi's draft plan called for a brigade of 4,500 men, but Brown had only 21 men (16 white and 5 black: three free blacks, one freed slave, and a fugitive slave). They ranged in age from 21 to 49. Twelve had been with Brown in Kansas raids. On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 18 men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory. He had received 200 Beecher's Bibles—breechloading .52 (13.2 mm) caliber Sharps rifles—and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Douglass and Brown's family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states.

Initially, the raid went well, and they met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grandnephew of George Washington. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand. Two of the hostages' slaves also died in the raid.[52]

Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. After holding the train, Brown inexplicably allowed it to continue on its way. At the next station, where the telegraph still worked, the passenger train conductor, sent a telegram to Baltimore:

Monocacy, 7.05 A. M., October 17, 1859. Express train bound east, under my charge, was stopped this morning at Harper's Ferry by armed abolitionists. They have possession of the bridge and the arms and armory of the United States. Myself and Baggage Master have been fired at, and Hayward, the colored porter, is wounded very severely, being shot through the body, the ball entering the body below the left shoulder blade and coming out under the left side.[53]

News of the raid reached Baltimore early that morning and Washington by late morning. In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down the raiders in the armory by firing from the heights behind the town. Some of the local men were shot by Brown's men. At noon, a company of militia seized the bridge, blocking the only escape route. Brown then moved his prisoners and remaining raiders into the engine house, a small brick building at the armory's entrance. He had the doors and windows barred and loopholes cut through the brick walls. The surrounding forces barraged the engine house, and the men inside fired back with occasional fury. Brown sent his son Watson and another supporter out under a white flag, but the angry crowd shot them. Intermittent shooting then broke out, and Brown's son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him and end his suffering, but Brown said "If you must die, die like a man." A few minutes later, Oliver was dead. The exchanges lasted throughout the day.

Illustration of the interior of the Fort immediately before the door is broken down

By the morning of October 18 the engine house, later known as John Brown's Fort, was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of First Lieutenant Israel Greene, USMC, with Colonel Robert E. Lee of the United States Army in overall command.[54] Army First Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart approached under a white flag and told the raiders their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, "No, I prefer to die here." Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledgehammers and a makeshift battering ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives.

Altogether Brown's men killed four people, and wounded nine. Ten of Brown's men were killed (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Five escaped (including his son Owen), and seven were captured along with Brown. Among the raiders killed were John Henry Kagi, Lewis Sheridan Leary, and Dangerfield Newby; those hanged besides Brown included John Anthony Copeland, Jr., and Shields Green.[55][56]

Brown and the others captured were held in the office of the armory. On October 18, 1859, Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise, Virginia Senator James M. Mason, and Representative Clement Vallandigham of Ohio arrived in Harpers Ferry. Mason led the three-hour questioning session of Brown.

The old Court House at Charles Town, Jefferson County, Virginia, where John Brown was tried; it stands diagonally across the street from the jail (ca. 1906)

The Jefferson County Jail at Charles Town, Virginia, where John Brown was imprisoned during and after his trial, since torn down and now the site of the Charles Town post office

Although the attack had taken place on federal property, Wise ordered that Brown and his men be tried in Virginia in Charles Town, the nearby seat of Jefferson County just seven miles west of Harpers Ferry (perhaps to avert Northern political pressure on the Federal government, or in the unlikely event of a presidential pardon). The trial began October 27, after a doctor pronounced the still-wounded Brown fit for trial. Brown was charged with murdering four whites and a black, conspiring with slaves to rebel, and treason against Virginia. A series of lawyers were assigned to him, including Lawson Botts, Thomas C. Green, Samuel Chilton, a lawyer from Washington D.C., and George Hoyt, but it was Hiram Griswold, a lawyer from Cleveland, Ohio, who concluded the defense on October 31. In his closing statement, Griswold argued that Brown could not be found guilty of treason against a state to which he owed no loyalty and of which he was not a resident, that Brown had not killed anyone himself, and that the raid's failure indicated that Brown had not conspired with slaves. Andrew Hunter, the local district attorney, presented the closing arguments for the prosecution.

On November 2, after a week-long trial and 45 minutes of deliberation, the Charles Town jury found Brown guilty on all three counts. He was sentenced to be hanged in public on December 2. In response to the sentence, Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked that "[John Brown] will make the gallows glorious like the Cross." Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute under the leadership of General Francis H. Smith and Major Thomas J. Jackson (who earned the nickname "Stonewall" less than two years later) were called into service as a security detail in the event Brown's supporters attempted a rescue.

During the month before his execution, Brown was allowed to send and receive correspondence, and he wrote many letters. One of the letters was from Mahala Doyle, wife and mother of three of Brown's Kansas victims. She wrote "Altho' vengeance is not mine, I confess that I do feel gratified to hear that you were stopped in your fiendish career at Harper's Ferry ..." In a postscript she added "My son John Doyle whose life I beg[g]ed of you is now grown up and is very desirous to be in Charlestown on the day of your execution."[57]

Brown refused to be rescued by Silas Soule, a friend from Kansas who somehow infiltrated the Jefferson County Jail one day and offered to break him out during the night and flee northward to New York state and possibly Canada. Brown supposedly told Silas that, aged 59, he was too old to live a life on the run from the federal authorities as a fugitive and that he was ready to die as a martyr. Silas left him behind to be executed. Many of Brown's letters exuded spirituality and conviction and, when picked up by the Northern press, won him more supporters in the North while infuriating many white people in the South. On December 1, Brown's wife arrived by train in Charles Town, where she joined him at the county jail for his last meal. She was denied permission to stay the night, prompting Brown to lose his composure and temper for the only time during the ordeal.

The Governor of Virginia was so concerned about an attempt to rescue Brown that he halted almost all transportation on the Winchester and Potomac Railroad (from Maryland south through Harpers Ferry to Charles Town) from the day before through the day after the execution (see Winchester and Potomac Railroad#John Brown's raid).

Victor Hugo, from exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain pardon for John Brown: he sent an open letter that was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. This text, written at Hauteville-House on December 2, 1859, warned of a possible civil war:

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Victor Hugo's letter to the London News

Politically speaking, the murder of John Brown would be an uncorrectable sin. It would create in the Union a latent fissure that would in the long run dislocate it. Brown's agony might perhaps consolidate slavery in Virginia, but it would certainly shake the whole American democracy. You save your shame, but you kill your glory. Morally speaking, it seems a part of the human light would put itself out, that the very notion of justice and injustice would hide itself in darkness, on that day where one would see the assassination of Emancipation by Liberty itself. ... Let America know and ponder on this: there is something more frightening than Cain killing Abel, and that is Washington killing Spartacus.

The letter was initially published in the London News and was widely reprinted. After Brown's execution, Hugo wrote a number of additional letters about Brown and the abolitionist cause.[58]

Abolitionists in the United States saw Hugo's writings as evidence of international support for the anti-slavery cause. The most widely publicized commentary on Brown to reach America from Europe was an 1861 pamphlet, John Brown par Victor Hugo, that included a brief biography and reprinted two letters by Hugo, including that of December 9, 1859. The pamphlet's frontispiece was an engraving of a hanged man by Hugo that became widely associated with the execution.[59]

John Brown's tombstone, North Elba, New York

FMIB 43086 John Brown's Grave (the tombstone is now enclosed in glass)

Brown's body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck. His coffin was then put on a train to take it away from Virginia to his family homestead in New York for burial. His body was supposed to be embalmed in Philadelphia, through which the train would pass. However, because of demonstrations expected from both sides—there were many Southern pro-slavery medical students in Philadelphia—Mayor Alexander Henry "made a fake casket, covered with flowers and flags which was carefully lifted from the coach and the train and sped onward in its destination ... In reality the train carrying Brown's body never actually stopped in Philadelphia, and thus violence was averted by a 'sham coffin'." As a direct result, many Southern medical students and professors left Philadelphia en masse on December 21, 1859, for Southern medical schools, never to return.[63]

In the North, large memorial meetings took place, church bells rang, minute guns were fired, and famous writers such as Emerson and Thoreau joined many Northerners in praising Brown.[64]

John Brown on the way to be executed – two and one-half blocks from the Jefferson county jail to his scaffold

On December 14, 1859, the U.S. Senate appointed a bipartisan committee to investigate the Harpers Ferry raid and to determine whether any citizens contributed arms, ammunition or money to John Brown's men. The Democrats attempted to implicate the Republicans in the raid; the Republicans tried to disassociate themselves from Brown and his acts.

The Senate committee heard testimony from 32 witnesses, including Liam Dodson, one of the surviving abolitionists. The report, authored by chairman James Murray Mason, a pro-slavery Democrat from Virginia, was published in June 1860. It found no direct evidence of a conspiracy, but implied that the raid was a result of Republican doctrines.[65] The two committee Republicans published a minority report, but were apparently more concerned about denying Northern culpability than clarifying the nature of Brown's efforts. Republicans such as Abraham Lincoln rejected any connection with the raid, calling Brown "insane".[66]

The investigation was performed in a tense environment in both houses of Congress. One senator wrote to his wife that "The members on both sides are mostly armed with deadly weapons and it is said that the friends of each are armed in the galleries." After a heated exchange of insults, a Mississippian attacked Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania with a Bowie knife in the House of Representatives. Stevens' friends prevented a fight.[67]

The Senate committee was very cautious in its questions of two of Brown's backers, Samuel Howe and George Stearns, out of fear of stoking violence. Howe and Stearns later said that the questions were asked in a manner that permitted them to give honest answers without implicating themselves.[68] Civil War historian James M. McPherson stated that "A historian reading their testimony, however, will be convinced that they told several falsehoods."[69]

The raid on Harpers Ferry is generally thought to have done much to set the nation on a course toward civil war.[70] Southern slaveowners, hearing initial reports that hundreds of abolitionists were involved, were relieved the effort was so small, but feared other abolitionists would emulate Brown and attempt to lead slave rebellions.[71] Therefore, the South reorganized the decrepit militia system. These militias, well-established by 1861, became a ready-made Confederate army, making the South better prepared for war.[72]

Southern Democrats charged that Brown's raid was an inevitable consequence of the Republican Party's political platform, which they associated with abolitionism. In light of the upcoming elections in November 1860, the Republicans tried to distance themselves as much as possible from Brown, condemning the raid and dismissing its leader as an insane fanatic. As one historian explains, Brown was successful in polarizing politics: "Brown's raid succeeded brilliantly. It drove a wedge through the already tentative and fragile Opposition-Republican coalition and helped to intensify the sectional polarization that soon tore the Democratic party and the Union apart."[72]

Many abolitionists in the North viewed Brown as a martyr, sacrificed for the sins of the nation. Immediately after the raid, William Lloyd Garrison published a column in The Liberator, judging Brown's raid "well-intended but sadly misguided" and "wild and futile".[73] But he defended Brown's character from detractors in the Northern and Southern press and argued that those who supported the principles of the American Revolution could not consistently oppose Brown's raid. On the day Brown was hanged, Garrison reiterated the point in Boston: "whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections".[74][75]

After the Civil War, Frederick Douglass wrote, "His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine—it was as the burning sun to my taper light—mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him."[76]

• The best-known image of Brown in the later 19th century is a Currier and Ives print, based on a lost painting by Louis Ransom. It portrays Brown as a Christ-like figure. The "Virgin and Child" typically depicted with Christ are here a black mother and mulatto child (see Children of the plantation). Legend says that Brown kissed the baby. Above his head, the flag of Virginia and its motto, Sic semper tyrannis. ("Thus always to tyrants".)
• In 1938–40, American painter John Steuart Curry painted Tragic Prelude, a mural of Brown holding a rifle and a Bible, between Union and Confederate troups, with a whirlwind approaching. It is located on the second floor of the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, Kansas. It portrays Brown with a Bible in one hand, a rifle in the other, between Union and Confederate forces, with an approaching tornado in the background. It was not well received; reaction was so negative that Curry's mural project was abandoned.[77]
• In 1941, Jacob Lawrence illustrated Brown's life in The Legend of John Brown, a series of 22 gouache paintings. By 1977, these were in such fragile condition that they could not be displayed, and the Detroit Institute of Arts had to commission Lawrence to recreate the series as silkscreen prints. The result was a limited-edition portfolio of 22 hand-screened prints, published with a poem, John Brown, by Robert Hayden, commissioned specifically for the project. Though Brown had been a popular topic for many painters, The Legend of John Brown was the first series to explore his legacy from an African-American perspective.[78] Paintings such as Hovenden's The Last Moments of John Brown immortalize an apocryphal story in which a Black woman offers the condemned Brown her baby to kiss on his way to the gallows. It was probably a tale invented by journalist James Redpath.[79]

• 
  John Brown as Christ, with a black mother and mulatto child. Currier and Ives print.
• 
  John Brown, en route to the gallows, being adored by a black mother and child
• 
  The Last Moments of John Brown (1882–84) by Thomas Hovenden. Brown kisses the black baby.
• 
  Frederick Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, painting by Jacob Lawrence
• 
  John Brown in Tragic Prelude, a mural in the Kansas State Capitol

Life-size white marble statue of John Brown in Quindaro Townsite, Kansas

• Kansas City, Kansas, at the Quindaro Townsite, 27th and Sewell: a pillar with a statue of Brown. Lettering reads: "Erected to the Memory of John Brown by a Grateful People". There is a bronze plaque. Quindaro was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. In March, 2018, the statue was defaced with swastikas and "Hail Satan".[80]
• At the John Brown Farm State Historic Site near Lake Placid, New York, on John Brown Road, is a larger-than-life statue of Brown escorting a black child to freedom. The artist was Joseph Pollia. Brown's tombstone is enclosed in glass. The bodies of some of the others who died with him were reburied there.
• The cabin he lived in while in Kansas is the John Brown Museum, also known as the John Brown Museum State Historic Site and John Brown Cabin. It is in Osawatomie, Kansas, in the John Brown Memorial Park. There is also a bronze statue of Brown, with a plaque.
• The wagon that carried Brown from jail to his execution is preserved by the Jefferson County, West Virginia Museum in Charles Town.[81]
• An approximate replica of the firehouse was built in 2012 at the Discovery Park of America museum park in Union City, Tennessee. There is a marker explaining the link with John Brown's raid.[82][83][84]
• There is an unmarked obelisk at the site of the building called John Brown's Fort, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. There is a historical marker.
• Iowa has set up the John Brown Freedom Trail, marking his journey across Iowa leaving Kansas, en route to Chatham, Ontario, and then Harpers Ferry.[85]
  • Lewis, Iowa: "Fighting Slavery – Aiding Runaways. John Brown Freedom Trail — December 20, 1858 – March 12, 1859."
• In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Avenue John Brown is a main street.

• According to the Historical Marker Database (<http://hmdb.org>), Brown is mentioned on the following historical markers:
  • At his birthplace in Torrington, Connecticut, on John Brown Road.
  • Baldwin City, Kansas: "Battle of Black Jack"
  • Franklin County, Kansas: At the site of the Pottawatomie massacre.
  • Lawrence, Kansas: "John Brown and the Siege of Lawrence, September 14–15, 1856"
  • Near Netawaka, Kansas: Battle of the Spurs
  • Osawatomie, Kansas:
    • At the site of the Battle of Osawatomie, in John Brown Memorial Park.
    • "Soldiers' Monument". Commenorating the 5 persons killed, including one of Brown's sons. "This inscription is also in commemoration of the heroism of Capt. John Brown who commanded at the Battle of Osawatomie August 30, 1856; who died and conquered American slavery on the scaffold at Charlestown Va. Dec. 2, 1859."
    • "John Brown Country"
    • 1935 plaque by The Woman's Relief Corps, Department of Kansas
    • Old Stone Church Marker. "Built by Rev. Samuel Adair brother-in-law of John Brown" (1861).
  • Topeka, Kansas: "Capital of Kansas" ("In the late 1850's negroes bound north on the 'underground railway' were hidden here by John Brown.")
  • Near Trading Post, Kansas:
    • "Marais des Cygnes Massacre" – site of a "fort" built by Brown after the massacre
    • "Murder on the Marais des Cygnes"
  • Hagerstown, Maryland: at the site of the Washington House Hotel, where Brown stayed on his way to Harpers Ferry.
  • Hyattsville, Maryland: Osborne Perry Anderson, who fought with Brown.
  • Sharpsburg, Maryland: at the site of the Kennedy Farm.
  • Marlborough, Massachusetts: at the John Brown Bell, once in Harpers Ferry, since 1892 on display in Marlborough. The second-most-famous American bell, after the Liberty Bell.
  • Detroit, Michigan: at the house of William Webb, site of the "Frederick Douglass – John Brown meeting".
  • Hudson, Ohio:
    • At his boyhood home.
    • First Congregational Church in Hudson: "At a November 1837 prayer meeting, church member and anti-slavery leader John Brown made his first public vow to destroy slavery." Another marker mentions Brown at the former site of the church.
  • Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: "Abolitionist John Brown Boards in Chambersburg"
  • In rural Crawford County, Pennsylvania, there is a John Brown Road, and on it two historical markers at the site of Brown's house and tannery.
  • Indiana, Pennsylvania: marker for Absalom (Albert) Hazlett, a member of Brown's party who was also hanged at Charles Town (in 1860)
  • King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (Valley Forge National Historic Park): "Knox's Quarters — John Brown Farm".
  • Kent, Ohio: marker for Underground Railroad stops mentions John Brown's residence in Kent (then called Franklin Mills) during the 1830s.
  • Mont Alto, Pennsylvania: "John Brown Raid", where John Cooke, one of Brown's followers, was captured. (Two markers.)
  • Near Amissville, Virginia: Dangerfield Newby marker.
  • Winchester, Virginia: "A 'Malicious Design' — Burning the Winchester Medical College". The body of John Brown's son Watson was brought there for dissection by medical students.
  • Charles Town, West Virginia:
    • "Jefferson County Courthouse — Where John Brown Was Tried"
    • "Two Treason Trials". (The other had nothing to do with Brown.)
    • "Hanging Site of John Brown. Creation of a Martyr. Prelude to War."
    • "John Brown Scaffold"
    • "Site of the execution of John Brown"
    • "Edge Hill Cemetery — John Brown Raid Victims"
    • Beallair, home of Colonel Lewis Washington, held hostage by Brown.
    • Focus of Action — Jefferson County in the Civil War
  • Harpers Ferry, West Virginia:
    • "Pilgrimage." Marks the site of an 1896 visit by the National League of Colored Women.
    • "Holy Ground". Marks 1906 visit by members of the Niagara Movement, predecessor of the NAACP, on what they called John Brown Day, August 17.
    • "John Brown", plaque erected in 1918 by the alumni of Storer College.
    • "John Brown", plaque erected in 1932 by the NAACP.
    • "John Brown Fort."
    • "A Nation's Armory"
    • "Arsenal Square"
    • "'for the deposit of arms'"
    • "John Brown Monument", on the site of the original location of "John Brown's Fort"
    • "John Brown's Last Stand", at the same location.
    • "Allstadt House — John Brown's Hostages — Prelude to War"
    • "The John Brown Raiders", all those who participated in the raid.
    • "In Honor of Private Luke Quinn" — killed during the capture of John Brown
    • "The Murphy Farm", location of John Brown's Fort between 1895 and 1910.
    • "Hayward Shepard – Another Perspective"
    • "Heyward Shepherd"
  • Chatham, Ontario: "John Brown's Convention 1858".

Many black leaders of the time—Martin Delany, Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman—knew and respected Brown, and black businesses across the North closed on the day of his execution.[1]^:180 Church bells tolled across the North.[1]^:179 Shortly after Brown's death, Victor Hugo predicted it "would open a latent fissure that will finally split the Union asunder", and many poets responded to the event. In 1863 Julia Ward Howe wrote the popular hymn the Battle Hymn of the Republic to the tune of "John Brown's body", which included a line "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free", analogizing Brown's sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ.[1]^:179

Writers continue to vigorously debate Brown's personality, sanity, motivations, morality, and relation to abolitionism.[2] In his posthumous The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976), David Potter argued that the emotional effect of Brown's raid exceeded the philosophical effect of the Lincoln–Douglas debates, and reaffirmed a deep division between North and South. Malcolm X said that white people could not join his black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity, but "if John Brown were still alive, we might accept him".[86]

Some writers describe Brown as a monomaniacal zealot, others as a hero. In 1931, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans erected a counter-monument, to Heyward Shepherd, a free black man who was the first fatality of the Harpers Ferry raid, claiming without evidence that he was a "representative of Negroes of the neighborhood, who would not take part".[87] By the mid-20th century, some scholars were fairly convinced that Brown was a fanatic and killer, while some African Americans sustained a positive view of him.[88][89] Journalist Richard Owen Boyer considered Brown "an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans might be free", and others held similarly positive views.[90][91][92]

Several 21st-century works about Brown are notable for the absence of hostility that characterized similar works a century earlier (when Lincoln's anti-slavery views were de-emphasized).[1]^:181–189 Journalist and documentary writer Ken Chowder considers Brown "stubborn ... egoistical, self-righteous, and sometimes deceitful; yet ... at certain times, a great man" and argues that Brown has been adopted by both the left and right, and his actions "spun" to fit the world view of the spinner at various times in American history.[2] Toledo (2002), Peterson (2002), DeCaro (2002, 2007), Reynolds (2005), and Carton (2006) are critically appreciative of Brown's history, far from the opinions of earlier writers.[93] The shift to an appreciative perspective moves many white historians toward the view long held by black scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Benjamin Quarles, and Lerone Bennett, Jr.[94]

Once the Reconstruction era ended and the country distanced itself from the anti-slavery cause and the martial law imposed in the South, the historical view of Brown changed. In the 1880s, Brown's detractors — some of them contemporaries now embarrassed by their former fervent abolitionism — began to produce virulent exposés, particularly emphasizing the Pottawatomie killings of 1856. Historian James Loewen surveyed American history textbooks circa 1995 and noted that until about 1890, historians considered Brown perfectly sane, but from about 1890 until 1970, he was generally portrayed as insane.[1]^:173–203

Although Oswald Garrison Villard's 1910 biography of Brown was thought to be friendly (Villard being the grandson of abolitionist Garrison), he also added fuel to the anti-Brown fire by criticizing him as a muddled, pugnacious, bumbling, and homicidal madman.[2][95] Villard himself was a pacifist and admired Brown in many respects, but his interpretation of the facts provided a paradigm for later anti-Brown writers. Similarly, a 1923 textbook stated, "the farther we getaway from the excitement of 1859 the more we are disposed to consider this extraordinary man the victim of mental delusions."[96]

In 1978, NYU historian Albert Fried concluded that historians who portrayed Brown as a dysfunctional figure are "really informing me of their predilections, their judgment of the historical event, their identification with the moderates and opposition to the 'extremists.'"[97] This view of Brown has come to prevail in academic writing as well as in journalism. Biographer Louis DeCaro Jr. wrote in 2007, "there is no consensus of fairness with respect to Brown in either the academy or the media."[98] More recent portrayals of Brown as another Timothy McVeigh or Osama bin Laden[2][99] may still reflect the same bias Fried discussed a generation ago.

• Some historians, such as Paul Finkelman, compare Brown to contemporary terrorists such as Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh,[100] Finkelman calling him "simply part of a very violent world" and further stating that Brown "is a bad tactician, a bad strategist, he's a bad planner, he's not a very good general—but he's not crazy".[2]
• Historian James Gilbert labels Brown a terrorist by 21st-century criteria.[101] Gilbert writes: "Brown's deeds conform to contemporary definitions of terrorism, and his psychological predispositions are consistent with the terrorist model."[102]
• Biographer Stephen B. Oates has described Brown as "maligned as a demented dreamer ... (but) in fact one of the most perceptive human beings of his generation".[103]

External video

Presentation by Reynolds on John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, May 12, 2005, C-SPAN

• Biographer David S. Reynolds gives Brown credit for starting the Civil War or "killing slavery", and cautions others against identifying Brown with terrorism.[104] Reynolds saw Brown as inspiring the Civil Rights Movement a century later, adding "it is misleading to identify Brown with modern terrorists."[105]
• Biographer Louis A. DeCaro Jr., who has debunked many historical allegations about Brown's early life and public career, concludes that although he "was hardly the only abolitionist to equate slavery with sin, his struggle against slavery was far more personal and religious than it was for many abolitionists, just as his respect and affection for black people was far more personal and religious than it was for most enemies of slavery".[106]
• Historian and Brown documentary scholar Louis Ruchames wrote: "Brown's action was one of great idealism and placed him in the company of the great liberators of mankind."[107]
• Biographer Otto Scott introduced his work on Brown by writing: "In the late 1850s a new type of political assassin appeared in the United States. He did not murder the mighty – but the obscure. ... his purposes were the same as those of his classic predecessors: to force the nation into a new political pattern by creating terror."[108]
• Lawyer Brian Harris writes: "Whatever view you take of the consequences of Harpers Ferry, and for all that it was a botched job which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of innocents, it had at least the merit of having been undertaken for the noblest of motives. The same cannot be said for the sadistic butchery that was Pottawatomie. It served no useful purpose other than to vent an old man's rage, and Brown is the smaller for it."[109]

In 1927, white supremacist Thomas Dixon Jr. published a screenplay entitled The Torch; A story of the paranoiac who caused a great war. It was never produced.

The two most noted screen portrayals of Brown were both given by actor Raymond Massey. The 1940 film Santa Fe Trail, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, depicted Brown completely unsympathetically as an out-and-out villainous madman; Massey added to that impression by playing him with a constant, wild-eyed stare. The film gave the impression that it did not oppose slavery, even to the point of having a Black "mammy" character say, after an especially fierce battle, "Mr. Brown done promised us freedom, but ... if this is freedom, I don't want no part of it". Massey portrayed Brown again in the little-known, low-budget Seven Angry Men, in which he was not only the main character, but depicted in a much more restrained, sympathetic way.[110] Massey along with Tyrone Power and Judith Anderson starred in the acclaimed 1953 dramatic reading of Stephen Vincent Benet's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning poem John Brown's Body (1928). Three actors in formal dress recited and acted in a two-hour presentation of the poem. The production toured 60 cities in 28 states.[111]

Numerous American poets have written poems about him, including John Greenleaf Whittier, Louisa May Alcott, and Walt Whitman.[112] The Polish poet Cyprian Kamil Norwid wrote two poems praising Brown: "John Brown" and the better known "Do obywatela Johna Brown" ("To Citizen John Brown").[113] Marching Song (1932) is an unpublished play about the legend of John Brown by Orson Welles.[114]^:222–226 Russell Banks's 1998 biographical novel about Brown, Cloudsplitter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. It is narrated by Brown's surviving son Owen.[115] James McBride's 2013 novel The Good Lord Bird tells Brown's story through the eyes of a young slave, Henry Shackleford, who accompanies Brown to Harpers Ferry. The novel won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction.[116] A limited episode series based on the book is planned starring Ethan Hawke.[117]

• Barney, William L. "Brown, John". The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2001.
• DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. "Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown (2002)
• DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. Freedom's Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
• Du Bois, W. E. B. (1909) John Brown (ISBN 0-679-78353-9)
• Finkelman, Paul, ed. His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995)
• Furnas, J. C. The Road to Harpers Ferry. New York, William Sloane Associates, 1959
• Goodrich, Thomas War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861 (1998).
• Horwitz, Tony. Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2011.
• Hotchkiss, Jed. "John Brown's Raid." The Confederate Military History. Oct. 27, 2009. John Brown's Raid
• Laughlin-Schultz, Bonnie. The Tie that Bound Us: The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.
• Long, Roderick (2008). "Brown, John (1800–1859)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 39–40. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n26. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
• Malin, James. John Brown & the Legend of Fifty-Six (1942) (ISBN 0-8383-1021-4)
• McGinty, Brian (2009). John Brown's Trial. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03517-1.
• McGlone, Robert E. John Brown's War against Slavery. Cambridge, CUP, 2009.
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union. 2 vols. (1947)
• Nichols, Roy F. "The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43 (September 1956): 187–212. in JSTOR
• Nudelman, Franny, John Brown's Body: Slavery, Violence, and the Culture of War (2004).
• Oates, Stephen B. To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown (1970).
• Oates, Stephen B. Our Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, and the Civil War Era (1979)
• Peterson, Merrill D. (2002): John Brown: The Legend Revisited (ISBN 0-8139-2132-5)
• Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976)
• Renehan, Edward J. The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown. 1995.
• Reynolds, David S. (2005): John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (2005)
• Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.
• Scott, Otto, The Secret Six: John Brown and The Abolitionist Movement (1979).
• SenGupta, Gunja (Winter 2001). "Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay" (PDF). Kansas History (24): 318–341.
• Smith, Ted A., Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.
• Villard, Oswald Garrison (1910). John Brown 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After. Houghton Mifflin.
• Whitman, Karen (October 1972). "Re-evaluating John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry". West Virginia Historyadded Article. 34 (1): 46–84.

• John Brown letters and photos on Kansas Memory, the digital portal of the Kansas State Historical Society
• DeCaro, Louis A. Jr., ed. John Brown Speaks: Letters and Statements from Charlestown. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
• Louis Ruchames, ed. A John Brown Reader: The Story of John Brown in His Own Words, in the Words of Those who Knew Him (1959)
• Franklin Sanborn (ed.) (1891): The Life and Letters of John Brown
• DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. John Brown – The Cost of Freedom: Selections from His Life & Letters (New York: International Publishers, 2007)
• Henry David Thoreau (1859): A Plea for Captain John Brown
• Andrew Johnson (1859): What John Brown Did in Kansas (December 12, 1859): a speech to the United States House of Representatives, December 12, 1859. Originally published in The Congressional Globe, The Official Proceedings of Congress, Published by John C. Rives, Washington, D. C. Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1st Session, New Series ... No. 7, Tuesday, December 13, 1859, pp. 105–06. Retrieved May 16, 2005.

• Du Bois, W. E. B. (1997). John Brown. A new edition with primary documents and introduction by John David Smith. Routledge. ISBN 978-1563249723.
• Hinton, Richard Josiah (1894). John Brown and his men; with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.
• Von Holst, Hermann (1889). John Brown. Boston, Cupples and Hurd.

• "John Brown, the good 'fanatic'" by Clinton Cox (2009)
• What John Brown Did In Kansas Battle of Osawatomie, 1856
• John Brown, Abolitionist, by David Reynolds, 2005
• Project Gutenberg: John Brown's Body (1928) (full text)
• John Brown, by Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1921

• Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter (1998).
• Bisson, Terry. Fire on the Mountain (1988)
• Brooks, Geraldine. March: A Love Story in a Time of War (2006)
• Cliff, Michelle. Free Enterprise. (1993)
• Ehrlich, Leonard. God's Angry Man (1932).
• Flint, Eric. 1824: The Arkansas War (2006)
• Fraser, George Macdonald. Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994)
• McBride, James. The Good Lord Bird (2013)
• Olds, Bruce. Raising Holy Hell (1995).
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1929: Stephen Vincent Benet, John Brown's Body
• Rinaldi, Ann. Mine Eyes Have Seen. (1997)
• Robinson, Edwin Arlington. John Brown. (1921)
• Santa Fe Trail, film. (1940)
• Summers, Kevin G. "His Soul Goes Marching On" in Tales of Moreauvia, Issue One (2008).