John Brown (abolitionist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Brown
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Photo by Augustus Washington, c. 1846–1847
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| Born | May 9, 1800 Torrington, Connecticut, U.S.
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| Died | December 2, 1859 (aged 59) Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), U.S.
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| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Resting place | North Elba, New York, U.S. |
| Monuments |
Various:
Statues in Kansas City, Kansas, and North Elba, New York; Tragic Prelude, mural in the Kansas State Capitol; John Brown Farm State Historic Site, North Elba, New York; John Brown Museum and John Brown Historic Park, Osawatomie, Kansas; Museum and Statue, Akron, Ohio; John Brown Tannery Site, Guys Mills, Pennsylvania
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| Known for | Involvement in Bleeding Kansas; Raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. |
| Movement | Abolitionism |
| Criminal charge(s) | Treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia; murder; inciting slave insurrection |
| Spouse(s) |
Dianthe Lusk
(m. 1820; |
| Children | 20, including John Jr., Owen, and Watson |
| Parent(s) | Owen Brown (father) |
| Signature | |
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John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist. Brown supported using violence to end slavery in the United States. He first got national attention when he led small groups of people during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856.
In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia). He wanted to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south through the areas of Virginia and North Carolina. He took control of the armory, but seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. Brown wanted to arm slaves with weapons from the armory. However, few local slaves joined his attack. Within 36 hours, Brown's men were killed or captured by local farmers, militiamen, and U.S. Marines. Brown was executed by hanging for treason against the state of Virginia on December 2, 1859. He was the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.
Brown is still a controversial person today. He is both remembered as a heroic martyr, and he is hated as a madman and a terrorist.
Contents
Early years
John Brown was born May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut. He was the fourth of the eight children of Owen Brown (1771–1856) and Ruth Mills (1772–1808) and grandson of Capt. John Brown (1728–1776). Brown's ancestors were 17th-century English Puritans.
In 1805, the family moved to Hudson, Ohio. Owen Brown became a leading and wealthy citizen of Hudson. He operated a tannery and employed Jesse Grant, father of President Ulysses S. Grant.
Hudson had a lot of anti-slavery activity, and Owen Brown was a part of it. He provided a safe house to Underground Railroad fugitives. There was not a high school in Hudson at that time, so John studied at the school of the abolitionist Elizur Wright. Elizur Wright was the father of Elizur Wright, in nearby Tallmadge. John's mother Ruth died in 1808. In his memoir, he wrote that he mourned her for years.
In a story Brown told to his family, when he was 12 years old and away from home moving cattle, he worked for a man with a colored boy, who was beaten before him with an iron shovel. Brown asked him why he was treated like this, the answer was that he was a slave. According to Brown's son-in-law Henry Thompson, it was that moment when John Brown decided to dedicate his life to improving African Americans' condition.
When he was 16 years old, Brown left his family and went to Plainfield, Massachusetts. He joined a preparatory program. Shortly afterward, he went to the Morris Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut.
Personal life
In 1820, Brown married Dianthe Lusk. Their first child, John Jr, was born 13 months later. During 12 years of married life Dianthe gave birth to seven children and died from complications of childbirth in 1832. Only four of their children survived to adulthood: John Jr., Jason, Owen, and Ruth. Another three died before they became adults.
On July 14, 1833, Brown married 17-year-old Mary Ann Day (1817–1884), originally from Washington County, New York; she was the younger sister of Brown's housekeeper at the time. They would eventually have 13 children, seven of whom were sons who worked with their father in the fight to abolish slavery.
Anti-slavery activism
Helping the fugitives
In 1825, looking for a safer place for fugitive slaves, Brown and his family moved to New Richmond, Pennsylvania. He bought 200 acres (81 hectares) of land. He cleared an eighth of it, and he built a cabin, a barn, and a tannery. The tannery had a secret room to hide escaping slaves. The John Brown Tannery Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It "was a major stop on the [Underground] Railroad, marking its place in history from 1825 to 1835." During that period, "Brown helped an estimated 2,500 slaves escape."
In 1836, Brown moved his family to Franklin Mills, Ohio. There, he borrowed money to buy land in the area. He built and operated a tannery along the Cuyahoga River. His partner was Zenas Kent.
Kansas and the Pottawatomie Massacre
From 1846 to 1848, Brown lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he had a farm. In 1848, he bought land in North Elba, New York. After living with his family about two years in a small rented house, and returning for several years to Ohio, he had the current house – now a monument preserved by New York State – built for his family. Since 1895, the John Brown Farm State Historic Site has been owned by New York State and it is now a National Historic Landmark.
In 1855, Brown moved to Kansas Territory. This would later become the state of Kansas in 1861. Several of his sons were already living there. His wife Mary refused to relocate.
Brown's sons wanted his help to fight people from Missouri. The people in Missouri wanted slavery to be legal in Kansas. On May 24, 1856, Brown and his sons killed five people in Kansas who wanted slavery to be legal. They dragged the people out of their homes and killed them with swords. This came to be known as the Pottawatomie massacre. Many people in Kansas were shocked and upset about this. More violent things happened after this. This was the beginning of the period in the Kansas Territory known as Bleeding Kansas. Before leaving Kansas, Brown and his followers were attacked at the Battle of Osawatomie on August 30, 1856. His son Frederick was killed there.
Harper's Ferry
In 1859, Brown decided to attack the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). He was planning on giving the weapons to slaves. The slaves would use the weapons to fight against their masters and become free. Brown attacked the arsenal in October 1859. His sons and several other men, including several black men, helped him with the attack. His attack failed. Brown was captured, and was executed by hanging for treason against the state of Virginia on December 2, 1859.
Death and aftermath
On the morning of December 2, 1859, Brown wrote:
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, [naively thought] that [it could be done without much bloodshed].
He read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife. The letter included his will. At 11:00 a.m. he was taken from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers a few blocks away. He was taken to a small field where the gallows were. Among the soldiers in the crowd were future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson, and John Wilkes Booth (Booth borrowed a militia uniform to watch the execution). The poet Walt Whitman, in Year of Meteors, described watching the execution.
Brown chose to receive no religious services. After he was executed on Friday, December 2, 1859, his widow took his body there for burial. The trip to his final reating place - his farm in North Elba, New York -took five days, and he was buried there on Thursday, December 8.
Aftermath of the raid
The raid on Harpers Ferry is generally thought to have pushed the United States towards civil war. Southern slaveowners, hearing early reports that hundreds of abolitionists were involved, were glad the action was so small. However, they feared other abolitionists would also try to lead slave rebellions. Therefore, the South reorganized the old militia system. These militias became a ready-made Confederate army, making the South better prepared for war.
Many abolitionists in the North believed Brown was a martyr, and that he sacrificed for the evils of the nation. Immediately after the raid, William Lloyd Garrison published a column in The Liberator. He said Brown's raid "[meant well] but sadly unwise" and "wild and [pointless]". However, he defended Brown's character from haters in the Northern and Southern press. He argued that those who supported the ideas of the American Revolution could not consistently oppose Brown's raid. On the day Brown was hanged, Garrison said in Boston: "whenever [it happens], I all slave revolts succeed".
After the Civil War, Frederick Douglass wrote, "His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine ... I could live for the slave, but he could die for him."
Public opinion
People had strong feelings about John Brown. Some people thought that he was crazy or evil. Other people thought that he was a hero. His attack on Harpers Ferry helped lead to the American Civil War. The war would start in 1861.
Many Black leaders of the time—Martin Delany, Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman—knew and respected Brown. "Tubman thought Brown was the greatest white man who ever lived." Douglass called him "a brave and glorious old man."
Black businesses in the North closed on the day of his execution. Church bells rang across the North.
John Brown quotes
- "I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day."
- "Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word 'caution.' It is nothing but the word of cowardice!"
- "Holiness...consists in thinking as God thinks and willing as God wills."
- "These men are all talk. What is needed is action - action!"
- "I bring you one of the best and bravest persons on this continent — General Tubman as we call her."
- "Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great... every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment."
- In 1837, Brown promised: "Here, before God, with witnesses around me, from now on, I dedicate my life to the destruction of slavery!"
John Brown Memorials
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Statue of Brown in front of the John Brown Museum, Osawatomie, Kansas
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Life-size white marble statue of John Brown in Quindaro Townsite, Kansas
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Statue of John Brown
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Museums
- John Brown Museum, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
- John Brown Farm State Historic Site, North Elba, New York
- John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum, Guys Mills, Pennsylvania
- John Brown House (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)
- John Brown Museum, Osawatomie, Kansas
- John Brown Raid Headquarters (Kennedy Farm), Samples Manor, Maryland
All of the museums above except the one in Harpers Ferry are places Brown lived or stayed.
Interesting facts about John Brown
- John Brown believed that all people should be treated the same, no matter what their skin color was. Many white Christians in America at this time did not agree with this.
- Brown knew the Bible thoroughly and could catch even small errors in Bible recitation.
- After the Bible, his favorite books were Plutarch's Lives and he enjoyed reading about Napoleon and Cromwell.
- He never used tobacco nor drank tea, coffee, or alcohol.
- In 1829, some white families asked Brown to help them remove Native Americans who hunted annually in the area. Brown told them, "I will have nothing to do with [such a] mean act. I would [rather] take my gun and help [remove] you from the country." Throughout his life, Brown kept peaceful relations with his Native American neighbors. Sometimes he would go with them on hunting trips, and he invited them to eat in his home.
- Numerous American poets have written poems about him, including John Greenleaf Whittier, Louisa May Alcott, and Walt Whitman.
- He was a hero and icon in the North. Union soldiers marched to the new song "John Brown's Body", that portrayed him as a heroic martyr.
Related pages
Images for kids
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The John Brown Tannery Site, a historic archaeological site that includes the remains of Brown's tannery in Pennsylvania
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John Brown's Farm, North Elba, New York
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Brown, c. 1856
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John Brown in 1859
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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, which was less than a mile away.
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Portrait of John Brown by Ole Peter Hansen Balling, 1872
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Illustration of the interior of the Fort immediately before the door is broken down
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Pamphlet for support for Brown
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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)
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Jail at Charles Town, Jefferson County, Virginia, where John Brown was imprisoned
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John Brown Wax Museum, Harpers Ferry
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John Brown on the way to be executed – two and one-half blocks from the Jefferson county jail to his scaffold
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"The Tragic Prelude"
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An 1856 image of Brown
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See also
In Spanish: John Brown para niños
