John Brown came from a line of men who were passionate about their convictions. In 1620, Peter Brown, a passenger aboard the Mayflower and signer of the Mayflower Compact, began the Brown legacy in America (Weiser). John Brown’s grandfather, his namesake, was a captain in the Revolutionary War when he lost his life to dysentery while fighting for his beliefs in 1776. He left behind his wife and ten children, including his five year old son, Owen Brown.
When his father died, Owen Brown’s family suffered. Without any help, the family’s crops failed that year, and they were forced to sell their cattle. The family tried to maintain their farm, but the fierce winter the next year made things even more difficult; most of their remaining
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Owen Brown continued this pattern, but once he turned nineteen, he met Ruth Mills, a reverend’s daughter. Their biggest similarity was the importance of religion in their lives; they were both devout Calvinists. Calvinism is a division of Protestantism. Calvinists believe that people are naturally selfish and unwilling to follow God. They also believe in predestination, or that God has already chosen who is going to be saved, and there is nothing one can do to alter that decision. This focus on religion was passed down to the couple’s children, and would prove a defining factor in John Brown’s life.
Another event that shaped Owen Brown’s views on slavery occurred in the 1790’s. In the 1770’s, a minister had traveled to Connecticut, and he had brought his slaves with him. The man returned to the South for a while, leaving his slaves behind. When he returned to retrieve his slaves, they would not return with him. This act of defiance led to a public hearing where the minister defended the act of slavery. Brown found his arguments unsettling, and became an abolitionist (Horn, 18). In 1793, Owen Brown and Ruth Mills were married and they remained in Norfolk, Connecticut. They then had a son, Salmon, who died before he turned two. After this disappointment, the two moved to Torrington, Connecticut and had their second son. In his autobiography, Owen Brown wrote, “In 1800, May 9, John was
The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan conveys the story of farmers who decided to prosper on the plains during the 1800s, in places such as Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. They decided to make living, and some stayed during the worst droughts in the United States in 1930s. High temperatures and dust storms destroyed the area, killing animals and humans. This competently book reveals the prosperity for many, later revealing the time of the skinny cows. The story is based on the testimonies of the survivors or through their diaries/journals and on historical research. The author describes the struggles of the nesters, in which Egan clearly blames these catastrophic events on the settler’s hubris.
“In the early 1850s, as anger over slavery began to boiled up all over the North, the frustrated and humiliated Brown was going from courtroom to courtroom embroiled in his own private miseries.” (Chowder 334) Later, Brown would officially begin his embroilment in the antislavery
“Every villain is a hero in his own mind,” quoted Tom Hiddleston, an English actor best known for playing Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From this quote it is understood that every person perceives “right” and “wrong” differently and will act according to their perception. People consider a person as either a hero or villain by looking at their actions. John Brown, was a white American abolitionist who believed that armed rebellion was the only way to overthrow slavery in the United States. With the evidence provided with different resources, such as the article John Brown: Villain or Hero? by Steven Mintz, it can be seen that John Brown is a villain.
Referred to as a “antislavery zealot” by some and as a “heroic hand” by others, John Brown was certainly one who stained history with blood. John Brown’s conduction of anti-slavery raids to fight “fire with fire”, triggered by his radical ways to fight the tyranny that was slavery,Brown impacted the whole country. During this time most anti-slavery supporters were peaceful and only tried to fight slavery “morally”, however John Brown lead many anti slavery raids his most famous and the one which he would have to pay with his life being, the Harpers Ferry Raid. The seizing of federal armory and arsenal with a group of men with just a mere hope of the local slave population helping him in order to reach success and create a nation wide effect failed miserably when the slavery population frightened did not join his raid. Captured, John Brown delivered one of the most enticing and alluring speech during his trial, his last speech, his address to the court in which he admits his actions in his “crusade” to fight slavery as well as patronizingly accepts his punishment without regret or remorse. In his speech he address one objection, being that if he was fighting on behalf of the rich, high class and those who supported and benefited from the tyrant slavery system,he would have been rewarded and praised instead of punished, proving that once again the tyrant, oppresing, racist and discriminating federal government was being run by bias men who aimed to keep the inhuman hierarchy
Throughout history John Brown has been described as a terrorist, mentally ill, and a failure among other things. Because he stood strongly for what he believed in, and his goal was eventually achieved he can be seen for the most part as a hero. Brown was described as “an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans be free” (Chowder,6). Brown was a headstrong abolitionist who claimed that he was told by God to end slavery causing him to see himself as “a latter-day Moses” (Chowder, 6). With this, he stopped at nothing to fulfill these expectations. Brown’s heroism is displayed through how he was recounted by others during and after his lifetime, the actions though drastic he took when fighting for what he believed in, and
Brown was born the son of Owen Brown, a tanner, in the town of Torrington, Connecticut. The Browns were conventional evangelicals, and John went to school in Massachusetts to become a Congregationalist minister. Unfortunately he ran out of money and returned to his family and opened his own tannery with his brother. He soon started a family and his tannery was growing to a very successful business. A few years came to pass, and tragedy struck his family. One of his sons died, Brown became very sick, he incurred a tremendous amount of debt, and his wife passed shortly after the death of a newborn son. A year later he would marry 16 year old Mary Ann, and have 13 children, creating a total of 20 children of which only 11 would survive into adulthood. After moving his family to the town of Franklin Mills, Ohio, he opened a new tannery but soon fell victim to the Panic of 1837, leaving him in more debt. He took up horse and sheep breeding, as well as many other efforts to relieve himself of his debts. Brown was even
Henry Wise, governor of Virginia is faced with an impossible choice. Now that the courts have condemned John Brown to death for his charges of” “treason, murder and inciting a slave insurrection,” (Davidson 148) he is torn between condemning the violence, granting a pardon to prevent more violence, or thirdly, granting a pardon on the account of his insanity. Many citizens of Virginia feared that Mr Brown was a precursor to the imminent onslaught of northern abolitionist “fanatics” and threatened to lynch Brown if he was freed. Other northern abolitionists threatened to assemble an army to free Brown from the prison; in the words of Fernando Wood, mayor of New York City, his death would create a “martyr whose execution would only deepen passions
John Brown was a misguided fanatic. He was admired by many abolitionists for standing up for the rights. However, was seen outrageous in the eyes of many Southerners. He has went far beyond outrageous and carried out a killing spree in order to prove slavery was wrong. He had a plan, however stirred in a lot of problems along with it gained him the name a “misguided fanatic”.
Brown had a great faith in God. Success had eluded him up to this point. He had sired 20 children and had gone through two wives, but he still felt unfulfilled. In 1846, Brown was working as a wool merchant but nothing ever came of it. Before 1855, Brown had gone through a series of lawsuits and bankruptcies that halted his success. Gerrit Smith, a philanthropist friend of Brown's, was persuaded into giving a portion of the 120,000 acres of land he owned in upstate New York to Brown. This land would be open to refugee negroes. Brown lived on this land as a farmer for some time before realizing that people were just taking advantage of him.
There are two crucial facts that must be remembered, John Brown’s parents were insane just take a look and you will find out that being insane was a hereditary thing in his family (he and a lot of his other family members/ relatives were admitted into a mental asylum for insane and/or crazy people). And finally, the last reason for some people thinking of John Brown as a hero is the fact that he believed that he was God’s chosen ‘’warrior” and that God himself had chosen him (John Brown) to lead the slaves to freedom and to end slavery in America
Thesis: John Brown was a man full of honor and passion when it came to the abolishment of slavery. Not only that, but he was a man who believed that his actions were justified by his beliefs and social standpoint. Even though, he was a strong willed man; capable of standing up for his philosophies on life, he was a man who acted upon his emotions, and killed, interrogated, and terrorized towns and people. Your beliefs and morality do not justify the amount of terror that you cause, and it does not justify the amount of blood you spill; John Brown was a terrorist.
John Brown grew up with Calvinist roots that were very similar to the seventeenth century puritan. These puritans believed that a man’s life was meant to serve God. John’s father Owen did everything in his power to teach his children to fear God. Owen also taught his children that slavery was a sin. When the time came for Brown to have his own family, he made sure to raise his children with “a rod in one hand and the Bible in the other.”(Earle, pg.5) This signifies that Brown brought up his children the same way he was raised: with discipline, and an extreme respect and fear for God.
John Brown was an African American slave abolitionist who caused much conflict with his radical views to overthrow slavery. One of his many defeats where he tried to defeat slavery with violence was the armed slave rebellion on Harper’s Ferry. “In a speech to the court before his sentencing, Brown stated his actions to be just and God-sanctioned.” Brown lived a life full of dispute; yet it was not until after Harper Ferry where his madness was confirmed. “Brown soon became a hero in the eyes of Northern extremists and was quick to capitalize on his growing reputation.” Brown’s radical abolitionist movements and wicked violent actions on slavery promoted his reputation in the north and were the cherry on the sundae to validate his insanity.
Brown has lost faith in the religious and the people that he had held in the highest religious regard. He is clinging on to the last sliver of faith that he has remaining. This is what I think is truly the cornerstone of his faith. I trust that his strength comes from his wife, Faith. He regularly mentions her to his travel companion that he must end their journey because he needs to go home with
Aldous Rolfe was an old, simple, and amiable miller who made his living off grinding grain to make flour. Piers Rolfe, his obedient and dutiful son, did all to please and help his father. Aldous’ mill had burned down unfortunately in a fire several months ago leaving him without a way to support his family. His wife was ailing from a disease and needed medicine quickly or she would die, so he decided to take their one donkey to the nearest town and sell him for money. The journey to the town was an exhausting ten miles away and the sun beat down on them as they laboriously trudged the distance. As they approached a village, they spotted a group of peasants who looked critically on at the miller and his son.