John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist in the decades preceding the American Civil War. An evangelical Christian of strong religious convictions, Brown was profoundly influenced by the Puritan faith of his upbringing. He believed that he was "an instrument of God", raised to strike the "death blow" to slavery in the United States, a "sacred obligation". Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement, believing it was necessary to end slavery after decades of peaceful efforts had failed.
Brown said that in working to free the enslaved, he was following Christian ethics, including the Golden Rule, and the Declaration of Independence, which states that "all men are created equal". He stated that in his view, these two principles "meant the same thing". Brown first gained national attention when he led anti-slavery volunteers and his sons during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of the late 1850s, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. He was dissatisfied with abolitionist pacifism, saying of pacifists, "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!" In May 1856, Brown and his sons killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre, a response to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces. Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie.
In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (which later became part of West Virginia), intending to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south; he had prepared a Provisional Constitution for the revised, slavery-free United States that he hoped to bring about. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed and ten or more were injured. Brown intended to arm slaves with weapons from the armory, but only a few slaves joined his revolt. Those of Brown's men who had not fled were killed or captured by local militia and U.S. Marines, the latter led by Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty of all charges and was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.
The Harpers Ferry raid and Brown's trial, both covered extensively in national newspapers, escalated tensions that in the next year led to the South's long-threatened secession from the United States and the American Civil War. Southerners feared that others would soon follow in Brown's footsteps, encouraging and arming slave rebellions. He was widely viewed as a hero and icon in the North. Union soldiers marched to the new song "John Brown's Body" that portrayed him as a heroic martyr. Brown has been variously described as a heroic martyr and visionary, and as a madman and terrorist.
John Brown was born May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut, to Owen Brown (1771–1856) and Ruth Mills (1772–1808). Owen Brown's father was Capt. John Brown, a Continental Army officer of English descent who died from illness on September 3, 1776, in New York during the American Revolutionary War.
His mother, of Dutch and Welsh descent, was the daughter of Gideon Mills, another Continental Army officer.
Although Brown described his parents as "poor but respectable" at some point, Owen Brown became a leading and wealthy citizen of Hudson, Ohio. He operated a tannery and employed Jesse Grant, father of President Ulysses S. Grant. Jesse lived with the Brown family for some years. The founder of Hudson, David Hudson, with whom John's father had frequent contact, was an abolitionist and an advocate of "forcible resistance by the slaves."
The fourth child of Owen and Ruth, Brown's other siblings included Anna Ruth (born in 1798), Salmon (born 1802), and Oliver Owen (born in 1804). Frederick, identified by Owen as his sixth son, was born in 1807. Frederick visited Brown when he was in jail, awaiting execution. He had an adopted brother, Levi Blakeslee (born some time before 1805). Salmon became a lawyer, politician, and newspaper editor.
While Brown was very young, his father moved the family briefly to his hometown, West Simsbury, Connecticut. In 1805, the family moved, again, to Hudson, Ohio, in the Western Reserve, which at the time was mostly wilderness; it became the most anti-slavery region of the country. Owen hated slavery and participated in Hudson's anti-slavery activity and debate, offering a safe house to Underground Railroad fugitives. Owen became a supporter of Oberlin College after Western Reserve College would not allow a Black man to enroll. Owen was an Oberlin trustee from 1835 to 1844. Other Brown family members were abolitionists, but John and his eccentric brother Oliver were the most active and forceful.
John's mother Ruth died a few hours after the death of a newborn girl in December 1808. In his memoir, Brown wrote that he mourned his mother for years. While he respected his father's new wife, Sallie Root, he never felt an emotional bond with her. Owen married a third time to Lucy Hinsdale, a formerly-married woman. He had a total of 6 daughters and 10 sons.
With no school beyond the elementary level in Hudson at that time, Brown studied at the school of the abolitionist Elizur Wright, father of the famous Elizur Wright, in nearby Tallmadge. In a story he told to his family, when he was 12 years old and away from home moving cattle, he worked for a man with a colored boy who was beaten before him with an iron shovel. He asked the man why he was treated thus, and the answer was that he was a slave. According to Brown's son-in-law Henry Thompson, it was that moment when John Brown decided to dedicate his life to improving African Americans' condition. As a child in Hudson, John got to know local Native Americans and learned some of their language. He accompanied them on hunting excursions and invited them to eat in his home.
At 16, Brown left his family for New England to acquire a liberal education and become a Gospel minister. He consulted and conferred with Jeremiah Hallock, then clergyman at Canton, Connecticut, whose wife was a relative of Brown's, and as advised proceeded to Plainfield, Massachusetts, where, under the instruction of Moses Hallock, he prepared for college. He would have continued at Amherst College, but he suffered from inflammation of the eyes which ultimately became chronic and precluded further studies. He returned to Ohio.
Back in Hudson, Brown taught himself surveying from a book. He worked briefly at his father's tannery before opening a successful tannery outside of town with his adopted brother Levi Blakeslee. The two kept bachelor's quarters, and Brown was a good cook. He had his bread baked by a widow, Mrs. Amos Lusk. As the tanning business had grown to include journeymen and apprentices, Brown persuaded her to take charge of his housekeeping. She and her daughter Dianthe moved into his log cabin. Brown married Dianthe in 1820. There is no known picture of her, but he described Dianthe as "a remarkably plain, but neat, industrious and economical girl, of excellent character, earnest piety, and practical common sense". Their first child, John Jr., was born 13 months later. During 12 years of married life Dianthe gave birth to seven children, among them Owen, and died from complications of childbirth in 1832.
Brown knew the Bible thoroughly and could catch even small errors in Bible recitation. He never used tobacco nor drank tea, coffee, or alcohol. After the Bible, his favorite books were the series of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. He enjoyed reading about Napoleon and Oliver Cromwell. He felt that "truly successful men" were those with their own libraries.
Brown left Hudson, Ohio, where he had a successful tannery, to be better situated to operate a safe and productive Underground Railroad station. He moved to Richmond Township in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, in 1825 and lived there until 1835, longer than he did anywhere else. He bought 200 acres (81 hectares) of land, cleared an eighth of it, and quickly built a cabin, a two-story tannery with 18 vats, and a barn; in the latter was a secret, well-ventilated room to hide escaping slaves. He transported refugees across the state border into New York and to an important Underground Railroad connection in Jamestown, about 55 miles (89 km) from Richmond Township. The escapees were hidden in the wagon he used to move the mail, hides for his tannery, and survey equipment. For ten years, his farm was an important stop on the Underground Railroad, during which, it is estimated to have helped 2,500 enslaved people on their journey to Canada, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Brown recruited other Underground Railroad stationmasters to strengthen the network.