Was John Brown Crazy?
Background Information: John Brown was one of the most controversial people in early American history. To some, he was a true champion of human rights and martyr for the cause of abolitionism. To others, he was insane, a lunatic who violently attacked innocent Americans. These differing perspectives are even evident in the images of Brown – two contrasting images follow below. Examine the evidence about John Brown that follows and complete the chart provided.
Facts About John Brown / Does It Suggest He Was Crazy? (Y = Yes, N = No, NR = Not Relevant)1. John Brown was born in Connecticut in 1800, the 4th of 8 children. He moved to Ohio with his family at age 5.
2. At age 16, Brown moved to Massachusetts to attend school, but soon ran out of money and returned to Ohio.
3. In 1820, at the age of 20, Brown married. Their first child was born ~1 year later. A few years after the marriage, the family moved to Pennsylvania, where Brown built a cabin, a barn, and a tannery.
4. In the early 1830s, one of Brown’s 7 children died, as did his wife. Brown remarried and had 13 additional children with his 2nd wife.
5. In 1837, in response to the murder of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy, Brown publicly stated: “Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!”
6. Throughout the 1840s, Brown raised sheep on a family farm, and was known as a local expert on sheep.
7. In 1855, Brown learned that pro-slavery forces were gathering in Kansas. His adult sons who lived in Kansas were worried about potential violence. Brown moved to Kansas.
8. On his way to Kansas, Brown attended an anti-slavery convention in Albany, NY.
9. In May 1856, the city of Lawrence, Kansas was overtaken by a pro-slavery mob. Several buildings were destroyed, and one man was killed. Shortly thereafter, Preston Brooks caned anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor. Both of these acts of violence upset Brown.
10. Brown’s father also died in early May, 1856.
11. On May 24, 1856, Brown and several other abolitionists took five pro-slavery settlers from their cabins at night, and hacked them to death with swords.
12. In August 1856, pro-slavery settlers killed one of Brown’s sons. Brown left Kansas by the end of the year.
13. Brown spent much of 1857 and 1858 meeting with and raising money from abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman and Henry David Thoreau.
14. In December 1858, Brown raided a small settlement in Missouri. He freed 11 slaves and took two white men captive. The next month he helped take 11 freed slaves to Detriot and then to Canada.
15. Brown’s initial plan for raid called for thousands of men. Only 21 showed up to support his raid on Harper’s Ferry. The men were armed with both guns and pikes.
16. The Harpers Ferry Armory was a building complex that contained over 100,000 guns. Brown planned to seize these guns and use them to free local slaves. They would then head south and free additional slaves.
17. At first, Brown and his men captured the armory easily as it was guarded by only one watchman. However, local residents trapped Brown and his men in the armory. Moreover, several hours later news reached of the raid reached Washington DC when a train that had passed through Harpers Ferry arrived in the capitol.
18. Brown sent his son out of the armory under a white flag. The crowd shot and killed him.
19. By the raid’s 3rd day, the armory was surrounded by U. S. Marines, but refused to surrender. The Marines attacked, and within a few minutes all of Brown’s men were killed or captured. Brown was captured.
20. Brown’s trial began one week later. A doctor pronounced him fit for trial. He was charged with murdered 5 people and conspiring with slaves to revolt. He was found guilty one week after the trial began, and sentenced to be hanged one month later.
21. When Brown learned of his conviction he said: “The bible teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!"
22. Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859. In attendance were Stonewall Jackson (future Confederate general) and John Wilkes Booth (future assassin of Lincoln).
23. On the day of his death 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, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."
24. During the Civil War, Union soldiers sang the song John Brown’s Body as a source of inspiration.
25. Some historians have referred to Brown as “a demended dreamer”, “psychologically unbalanced”, “fanatical”. and one of the “great liberators of mankind.”
26. One historian referred to Brown as one of the “great liberators of mankind.” When asked if there were any good white people in the world, Malcolm X named John Brown.