John Brown: From Religious Upbringing to Radical Abolitionist

John Brown remains one of the most debated and enigmatic figures in American history. His upbringing, shaped by staunch anti-slavery sentiments and deep religious convictions, profoundly influenced his trajectory as a radical abolitionist. This article explores the formative years of John Brown, examining the influences and experiences that molded his unwavering commitment to eradicating slavery.

Early Life and Family Influences

Born on May 9, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown was raised in a deeply religious family rooted in the old Puritan tradition. His parents, Owen Brown and Ruth Mills, instilled in him a strong moral compass and a deep sense of righteousness. Owen Brown, a tanner by trade, held strong anti-slavery views, which he passed on to his son. The family moved to northern Ohio when John was five, settling in a district known for its anti-slavery sentiments.

Owen Brown's religious convictions included a fundamental opposition to slavery. He operated a tannery and was a leading and wealthy citizen of Hudson, Ohio. John Brown's father was a captain in the American Revolutionary War. The family's anti-slavery stance created an environment where John Brown's moral opposition to slavery could develop from an early age.

Education and Early Experiences

With no school beyond the elementary level in Hudson at that time, Brown studied at the school of the abolitionist Elizur Wright in nearby Tallmadge. 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. He would have continued at Amherst College, but he suffered from inflammation of the eyes which ultimately became chronic and precluded further studies.

In a story he told to his family, when he was 12 years old and away from home moving cattle, Brown 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. This incident left a lasting impression on Brown and further solidified his hatred of slavery.

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.

Marriage and Family Life

Brown married Dianthe Lusk in 1820, describing her as "a remarkably plain, but neat, industrious and economical girl, of excellent character, earnest piety, and practical common sense". There is no known picture of her. Their first child, John Jr., was born 13 months later. 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. Brown made money surveying new roads.

During this period, Brown operated an interstate cattle and leather business along with a kinsman, Seth Thompson, from eastern Ohio. In 1829, some white families asked Brown to help them drive off Native Americans who hunted annually in the area. In 1831, Brown's son Frederick (I) died, at the age of 4. Brown fell ill, and his businesses began to suffer, leaving him in severe debt.

Financial Hardships and Increasing Militancy

Brown became a bank director and was estimated to be worth US$20,000. Like many businessmen in Ohio, he invested too heavily in credit and state bonds and suffered great financial losses in the Panic of 1837.

In November 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, Illinois, for printing an abolitionist newspaper. Brown, deeply upset about the incident, became more militant in his behavior. Brown publicly vowed after the incident: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!"

Brown objected to Black congregants being relegated to the balcony at his church in Franklin Mills. He and his three sons, John, Jason, and Owen, were expelled from the Congregational church for taking a colored man into their own pew; and the deacons of the church tried to persuade him to concede his error. For three or four years he seemed to flounder hopelessly, moving from one activity to another without plan. He tried many different business efforts attempting to get out of debt.

Involvement in the Abolitionist Movement

From the mid-1840s, Brown had built a reputation as an expert in fine sheep and wool. A daguerreotype of Brown taken by African-American photographer Augustus Washington in Springfield, Massachusetts, c. 1846-1847. Brown made connections in Springfield that later yielded financial support he received from New England's great merchants, allowed him to hear and meet nationally famous abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, and included, after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the foundation of the League of Gileadites. Brown's personal attitudes evolved in Springfield, as he observed the success of the city's Underground Railroad and made his first venture into militant, anti-slavery community organizing. In speeches, he pointed to the martyrs Elijah Lovejoy and Charles Turner Torrey as white people "ready to help blacks challenge slave-catchers".

In Springfield, Brown found a city that shared his own anti-slavery passions, and each seemed to educate the other. Two years before Brown's arrival in Springfield, in 1844, the city's African-American abolitionists had founded the Sanford Street Free Church, now known as St. John's Congregational Church, which became one of the most prominent abolitionist platforms in the United States. From 1846 until he left Springfield in 1850, Brown was a member of the Free Church, where he witnessed abolitionist lectures by the likes of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. In 1847, after speaking at the Free Church, Douglass spent a night speaking with Brown.

Move to North Elba and Support for Black Farmers

In 1848, bankrupt and having lost the family's house, Brown heard of Gerrit Smith's Adirondack land grants to poor black men, and decided to move his family there to establish a farm where he could provide guidance and assistance to the blacks who were attempting to establish farms in the area. He bought from Smith land in the town of North Elba, New York (near Lake Placid), for $1 an acre. It has a magnificent view and has been called "the highest arable spot of land in the State." After living with his family about two years in a small rented house, and returning for several years to Ohio, he had the current house - now a monument preserved by New York State - built for his family, viewing it as a place of refuge for them while he was away. After he was executed on December 2, 1859, his widow took his body there for burial; the trip took five days, and he was buried on December 8.

Bleeding Kansas and the Pottawatomie Massacre

Kansas Territory was in the midst of a state-level civil war from 1854 to 1860, referred to as the Bleeding Kansas period, between pro- and anti-slavery forces. From 1854 to 1856, there had been eight killings in Kansas Territory attributable to slavery politics. Five of Brown's sons-John Jr., Jason, Owen, Frederick, and Salmon-moved to Kansas Territory in the spring of 1855. Brown, his son Oliver, and his son-in-law Henry Thompson followed later that year with a wagon loaded with weapons and ammunition. Brown stayed with Florella (Brown) Adair and the Reverend Samuel Adair, his half-sister and her husband, who lived near Osawatomie. Brown and the free-state settlers intended to bring Kansas into the union as a slavery-free state.

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After the winter snows thawed in 1856, the pro-slavery activists began a campaign to seize Kansas on their own terms. Brown was particularly affected by the sacking of Lawrence, the center of anti-slavery activity in Kansas, on May 21, 1856. Preston Brooks's May 22 caning of anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner in the United States Senate, news of which arrived by newswire (telegraph), also fueled Brown's anger.

The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. Brown's band killed five pro-slavery settlers near Pottawatomie Creek. By all accounts, Brown directed the gruesome killings but did not carry them out himself. When confronted the following day by his son Jason who called the murders an “uncalled for, wicked act,” Brown answered: “God is my judge. We were justified under the circumstances.” These events and other brutal murders of Free Soil settlers combined to convince Brown that an institution as inherently violent as slavery could only be overthrown by violence.

The Raid on Harpers Ferry

Since at least 1847, well before his time in Kansas, Brown had been devising a bold plan for liberating slaves throughout the South. To attain financial backing and political support for the raid on Harpers Ferry, Brown spent most of 1857 meeting with abolitionists in Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut. Most of the money for the raid came from the "Secret Six", Franklin B. Sanborn, Samuel G. Howe M.D., businessman George L. Stearns, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker, and Gerrit Smith. In Boston, he met Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In January 1858, Brown left his men in Springdale, Iowa, and set off to visit Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York. There he discussed his plans with Douglass, and reconsidered Forbes' criticisms. Brown wrote a Provisional Constitution that would create a government for a new state in the region of his invasion. He then traveled to Peterboro, New York, and Boston to discuss matters with the Secret Six.

On October 16, 1859, Brown led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured.

Trial and Execution

Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where he was tried and convicted of treason, Before hearing his sentence, Brown was allowed make an address to the court. Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many Northerners began to speak favorably of the militant abolitionist.

Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. 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.

Legacy

John Brown's actions leading up to and including the raid on Harpers Ferry were pivotal in setting the stage for the Civil War. He was a figure of great controversy and remains so today. Some view him as a heroic martyr for the cause of abolition, while others consider him a violent extremist.

John Brown's prophetic truth was that slavery could not be purged from America except with blood. John Brown's story underscores the power of individual conviction in shaping historical events and driving societal change. His radical stand against slavery, though controversial, highlights the importance of steadfastly opposing systemic injustices.

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