As he is led to his execution, Brown pauses to kiss a black child

John Brown was an American abolitionist who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. In 1856, he led the Pottawatomie Massacre in Bleeding Kansas.

[John Brown and his men] encamped that night between two deep ravines on the edge of the timber, some distance to the right of the main traveled road. There they remained unobserved until the following evening of May 24. Some time after dark, the party left their place of hiding and proceeded on their “secret expedition”. Late in the evening, they called at the house of James P. Doyle and ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury, to go with them as prisoners. (Doyle’s 16-year-old son, John, who was not a member of the pro-slavery Law and Order Party, was left with his mother.) The three men were escorted by their captors out into the darkness, where Owen Brown and one of his brothers killed them with broadswords. John Brown, Sr., did not participate in the stabbing but fired a shot into the head of the fallen James Doyle to ensure death .

Brown and his band then went to the house of Allen Wilkinson and ordered him out. He was slashed and stabbed to death by Henry Thompson and Theodore Winer, possibly with help from Brown’s sons.[4] From there, they crossed the Pottawatomie, and some time after midnight, forced their way into the cabin of James Harris at sword-point. Harris had three house guests: John S. Wightman, Jerome Glanville, and William Sherman, the brother of Henry Sherman (“Dutch Henry”), a militant pro-slavery activist. Glanville and Harris were taken outside for interrogation and asked whether they had threatened Free State settlers, aided Border Ruffians from Missouri, or participated in the sack of Lawrence. Satisfied with their answers, Brown’s men let Glanville and Harris return to the cabin. William Sherman was led to the edge of the creek and hacked to death with the swords by Brown’s sons, Winer, and Thompson.

After his death, Union soldiers marched off tho war proudly singing John Brown’s Body.

Brown has been portrayed by many as a hero.  Others called him a terrorist.

• Biographer Richard Owen Boyer has called him “an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans might be free”;
• Biographer Stephen B. Oates has described him as “maligned as a demented dreamer… (but) in fact one of the most perceptive human beings of his generation”;
• Biographer David S. Reynolds gives Brown credit for starting the civil war and “killing slavery”, and cautions others against identifying Brown with terrorism. Reynolds sees him as the inspiration for the Civil Rights Movement a century later, arguing “it is misleading to identify Brown with modern terrorists.”
• Historian and Brown researcher Paul Finkelman calls him “simply part of a very violent world” and states 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”
• 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.”
• 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.”;
• Biographer Otto Scott introduces 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.”
• Criminologist James N. Gilbert writes: “Brown’s deeds conform to contemporary definitions of terrorism, and his psychological predispositions are consistent with the terrorist model.”[33]
• Novelist Bruce Olds calls him “fanatical, … monomaniacal, … a zealot, and … psychologically unbalanced”; and finally
• Journalist Ken Chowder states he is “stubborn … egoistical, self-righteous, and sometimes deceitful; yet … at certain times, a great man”; Chowder argues that Brown has been adopted by both left and right wing, and his actions “spun” to fit the world view of the spinner at various times in American history. “[29]
• According to his autobiography, when he was asked if white people could join his black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity, Malcolm X replied “maybe John Brown”.
• There was also the John Brown Revolutionary League organized in 1969 in Houston, Texas and worked along The People’s Party II and MAYO as the Rainbow Coalition. Radical young groups from Black, white and Chicano backgrounds working to better their communities. Both the People’s Party II and John Brown Revolutionary League participated in an armed stand off against abusive Houston police on July 26, 1970. Carl Hampton, Chairman of the People’s Party II (later Black Panther Party) was killed in the battle. Bartee Haile, leader of the JBRL was also wounded. 400 mostly Black supporters were arrested moments after the battle ended.

This man who fought in Bleeding Kansas elicits many emotions. Some see him as a true American hero of almost saintly status. Others see him as a cold blooded killer more closely related to Timothy McVeigh. What is the truth? It is still hard to say in Bleeding Kansas.

Whatever the case, slavery was the great original sin of America and John Brown fought the evil with all he had.

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