John Brown

My first introduction to the historical figure, John Brown, was from the 1940 Hollywood western, Santa Fe Trail, directed by Michael Curtiz, screenplay written by Robert Buckner, and which starred Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey (as Brown), and Ronald Reagan (yes, the future president of the United States).  John Brown, as portrayed by Massey, as directed by Curtiz, and as written by Buckner, comes across on the silver screen (and on my TV set) as a ruthless lunatic.  I do not recommend doing your historical research by watching a Hollywood movie.  Beware of the statement, “based on a true story.”  Is that 90% true or only 10%.

John Brown (a white man) was born in Connecticut in 1800.  In 1837, as a result of the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, a minister, journalist, and  abolitionist by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, Brown vowed, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”  In 1846, he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts and became deeply involved in the abolitionist movement there.  In 1847, Brown met with Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, who became a social reformer, writer, orator, abolitionist and friend of Abraham Lincoln.  In 1850, in response to the federal Fugitive Slave Act (permitted southern slave owners to travel to northern states, where slavery was illegal, to find, capture and return runaway slaves to their southern slave masters), Brown founded a militant group to prevent the capture of runaway slaves in his community. 

In 1854, the US Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which enacted “popular sovereignty,” mandating the residents of those territories to determine whether they would come into the Union as free or slave states.  This led to violent clashes in Kansas between pro-slavery groups and anti-slavery “free soil” forces.  In 1855, believing that his adult sons in Kansas needed his help, Brown moved there to confront pro-slavery gangs.  In 1856, those who supported slavery “began a campaign to seize Kansas on their own terms.” 

“Sometime after 10:00 PM on May 24, 1856, members of Brown’s militant group took five pro-slavery settlers from their cabins on Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas and hacked them to death with broadswords.”  This was in retaliation for some eight killings attributed to pro-slavery elements in the previous two years.  Later, a Missouri (slave state) group destroyed the Brown homestead and then sacked the city of Lawrence, Kansas.  One of Brown’s son was murdered near Osawatomie.  Also, near there, Brown and his supporters, although outnumbered, engaged in a fierce battle with a Missouri group which earned Brown a positive reputation with Abolitionists.  Events such as these are known today as “Bloody Kansas.”  Eventually, Kansas entered the Union as a free state.

By the end of 1856, Brown headed east and spent the next two years raising funds for his abolitionist cause.  By 1859, Brown started planning for an attack on slave owners.  He collaborated with Harriet Tubman (who will be on the $20 bill in the future), a former slave who assisted others to escape slavery via the “Underground Railroad.”  In order to secure guns and ammunition for the attack, Brown planned to break into the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. 

On October 16, 1859, 157 years ago today, John Brown and 18 of his men easily captured the armory which contained 100,000 muskets and rifles with which he planned to arm local slaves.  The plan was to then head south freeing slaves as they went and arming them for attacks that would hopefully completely destroy slavery.  However, soon after Brown’s attack began, local townspeople pinned his group down with gunfire preventing them from escaping with their loot.  Two days later, a company of United States Marines, commanded by Col. Robert E. Lee, ended the battle, capturing Brown alive. 

Brown was tried in a Virginia state court on charges of treason, murder, and conspiring with slaves to rebel.  He was convicted on all counts and was sentenced to hang.  On the day of his execution, Brown wrote, “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”  He was correct.

“The raid on Harpers Ferry is generally thought to have done much to set the nation on a course toward civil war.”  Slave owners, fearing more such from Abolitionists, started upgrading their state militias, which eventually became the Confederate Army.  Northern Abolitionists saw Brown as a martyr to their cause.

In regard to the movie, Sante Fe Trail, the producers, Warner Bros. Pictures,

“express(ed) a desire to reconcile the nation's dispute over slavery which brought about the American Civil War and appeal to moviegoers in both the southern and northern United States. The American Civil War and abolition of slavery (were) presented (in the film) as an unnecessary tragedy caused by an anarchic madman (Brown).”

After my initial impression of him from the above movie, I did more research and I now see John Brown as a man who fought for a great cause (the end of slavery), but who sought to take the law into his own hands in support of that cause, which can never be acceptable.  However, he wasn’t mad.  John Brown was angry.