John Brown

Born in 1800, John Brown was a radical abolitionist. Brown is most well-known for his Raid at Harpers Ferry, but prior to that he was the leader of anti-slavery guerrillas in Kansas. Due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, western territories would become a state and enter the Union either as a free or slave state based on a popular vote of the residents. The violent struggle in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates is known as Bleeding Kansas. Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in October 1859 is an example of the violent sect of abolitionism. Brown led a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, as an attempt to start an armed slave rebellion in the South. Brown was accompanied by 21 people: 16 white men (3 were his own sons), 4 free Black men, and one fugitive slave. In the end, the attack on Harpers Ferry failed due to the overwhelming lack of support from the enslaved men and women. Ten of the men were killed, including two of Brown’s sons. On November 2, 1859, Brown was tried for treason and murder; after found guilty, he was sentenced to death. Just before his execution he handed the executioner a piece of paper that read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”