John Brown was an anti-slavery terrorist in the 1800s. He was born in 1800, in Connecticut, and his family moved around a bit, though not as much as he would once he started his own family. He was a Puritan, and an abolitionist, like his father, who would often have black people for dinner, uncommon even among abolitionists. Once he did have his own family, he move around a lot, the longest he ever stayed anywhere being 10 years in Pennsylvania, where his farm was an essential stop in the underground Railroad, a system to help slaves go to Canada to be free. Brown also had a total of 20 children with two wives, 9 of whom died in childhood. While moving around brown started up schools and churches for the freed blacks, and publicly declared that he would spend his life destroying slavery.
Kansas was a new State at this time, and it was decided that the people would vote on whether or not Kansas would be a slave state or free state. Because of this many people moved into Kansas from the neighboring states to rig the election and muscle people out of the state if they weren’t gonna vote their way. At first, the violence was mostly on the pro-slavery side, with them burning anti-slavery people’s farms and driving off cattle. 5 of Brown’s sons had moved to Kansas, and after receiving threats and witnessing threats being carried out, they called for their dad. When he got there he formed a militia of anti-slavery men to go out and seek retribution for the crimes, killing some 5 men for their parts in the attacks so far. This kickstarted the bloodiest part of the conflict in Kansas, and made John famous.
He eventually left Kansas, and decided that the people didn’t care enough about the anti slavery movement, and decided to wake the people up. He though he could do this by staging a massive slave revolt, though it didn’t quite go to plan. His plan was to take the federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, a West Virginia town, which allowed slaves during this time. Brown only managed to recruit 21 men for his attack, the majority of whom were white, and several of whom were his own sons. They took the armory during the night, but lookouts of theirs had been seen by a train running past, and assuming they were bandits, put on the alarm. After the accidental murder of a baggage handler, (a free black man) the train conductor was told that they weren’t bandits, they were just going to stage a major revolt. The train left, and continued to spread the alarm, as invading a federal armory was a capital crime. The people of Harpers Ferry woke up, and Brown and his men became trapped. The slave revolt never happened, because the messenger who was going to tell the slaves on the nearby plantations was confined to bed with a sickness. So Brown and his men got trapped until the government soldiers arrived, and were all killed or, like Brown himself, hung on a noose.
He became a symbol of the anti slavery movement, although people at the time thought him far too extreme, possibly because he tried to raid a federal armory. But the north started to look at him as a hero, while the south abhorred him. It was Brown who further widened the rift in America, and helped ensure the Civil War.
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