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Other John Brown sites. John Brown's Fort, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The John Brown House, where he lived from 1844 to 1854, and John Brown Memorial, [308] the latter of which is located in the Perkins Park area of the Akron Zoo.
- Brown was a devout Christian who considered his battle against slavery as a divine vocation. John Brown’s abolitionist zeal was inextricably linked to his religious beliefs.
- John Brown’s life was marked by a series of diverse business ventures. Initially, he worked in the tanning industry, which exposed him to the harsh reality of slave labor and solidified his anti-slavery beliefs.
- He declared bankruptcy. John Brown was 42 years old when he declared bankruptcy. His early enterprises, which included land speculation and sheep husbandry, did not turn a profit.
- Brown is well-known for leading a group of men in the heinous Pottawatomie massacre. On the night of May 24, 1856, radical abolitionist John Brown, five of his sons, and three other allies murdered five pro-slavery men in three different cabins along the Pottawatomie Creek near present-day Lane, Kansas.
He did not yet possess the full gray beard that later made him so recognizable, but his features were so stern and plain that one can imagine the men calling him “Old” John Brown as well as “Captain.” These were but the beginning of a slew of titles and nicknames that would be bestowed upon him.
- Early Life
- Family and Financial Problems
- Timbuctoo
- Bleeding Kansas
- Harpers Ferry
- John Brown's Raid
- John Brown's Fort
- Robert E. Lee and The Marines
- John Brown's Body
- Sources
Brown was born on May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut, the son of Owen and Ruth Mills Brown. His father, who was in the tannery business, relocated the family to Ohio, where the abolitionist spent most of his childhood. The Brown family’s new home of Hudson, Ohio, happened to be a key stop on the Underground Railroad, and Owen Brown became acti...
Initially, Brown’s business ventures were very successful, but by the 1830s his finances took a turn for the worse. It didn’t help that he lost his wife and two of his children to illness at the time. He relocated the family business and his four surviving children to present-day Kent, Ohio. However, Brown’s financial losses continued to mount, alt...
By 1850, he had relocated his family again, this time to the Timbuctoo farming community in the Adirondack region of New York State. Abolitionist leader Gerrit Smith was providing land in the area to Black farmers—at that time, owning land or a house enabled Black men to vote. Brown bought a farm there himself, near Lake Placid, New York, where he ...
Brown’s first militant actions as part of the abolitionist movement didn’t occur until 1855. By then, two of his sons had started families of their own, in the western territory that eventually became the state of Kansas. His sons were involved in the abolitionist movement in the territory, and they summoned their father, fearing attack from pro-sl...
By early 1859, Brown was leading raids to free enslaved people in areas where forced labor was still in practice, primarily in the present-day Midwest. At this time, he also met Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, activists and abolitionists both, and they became important people in Brown’s life, reinforcing much of his ideology. With Tubman, wh...
The operation began on October 16, 1859, with the planned capture of Colonel Lewis Washington, a distant relative of George Washington, at the former’s estate. The Washington family continued to own enslaved people. A group of men, led by Owen Brown, was able to kidnap Washington, while the rest of the men, with John Brown at the lead, began a raid...
Brown’s men were able to capture several local slaveowners but, by the end of the day on October 16, local townspeople began to fight back. Early the next morning, they raised a local militia, which captured a bridge crossing the Potomac River, effectively cutting off an important escape route for Brown and his compatriots. Although Brown and his m...
Late in the afternoon of October 17, 1859, President James Buchanan ordered a company of Marines under the command of Brevet Colonel (and future Confederate General) Robert E. Leeto march into Harpers Ferry. The next morning, Lee attempted to get Brown to surrender, but the latter refused. Ordering the Marines under his command to attack, the milit...
Lee and his men arrested Brown and transported him to the courthouse in nearby Charles Town, where he was imprisoned until he could be tried. In November, a jury found Brown guilty of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, at the age of 59. Among the witnesses to his execution were Lee and the actor and ...
American Battlefield Trust. “John Brown’s Harpers Ferry Raid.” Battlefields.org. Bordewich, F.M. (2009). “John Brown’s Day of Reckoning.” Smithsonianmag.com. “John Brown.” PBS.org.
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Sep 11, 2024 · John Brown, militant American abolitionist and veteran of Bleeding Kansas whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859 and subsequent execution made him an antislavery martyr and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dec 31, 2006 · Some of the earliest protests came from Southern universities where the song was a marching band staple. The fact that segregationists adopted “Dixie” as their answer to songs like “We Shall Overcome” was the death knell for the song which was increasing regarded a as a racist relic.
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Jun 27, 2020 · Dixie was considered the land south of the Mason-Dixon line, where slavery was legal. But once the term was used in a minstrel song, its correlation with racist ideologies became crystal clear ...
