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Was John Brown A Terrorist

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Terrorists, there are multiple different types. You can have terrorists that effect people, the environment, and more so now technological systems. A terrorist is a title that many people or groups of people receive easily from their extreme level of illegal acts. A man named John Brown got the title of a terrorist through many others opinions. Between the little actions he took and the big actions, he was seen as a terrorist. Though due to the complicated nature of terrorism, John Brown’s actions at Pottawatomie Creek and Harpers Ferry can more so be justified as an act of a pure freedom fighter.
Words like acceptable and forbidden have very obvious differences that would allow you to place something into one or the other. As for a terrorist …show more content…

Brown was raised in a Calvinist Christian home where his parents strongly disliked slavery. He was taught by his religion of only a right and a wrong and the wrong John Brown saw was slavery and the acts of the slave owners. It is obvious that not everyone shares the same religion in society and some times that can cause varied opinions on how a person is viewed. As John Brown grew older he had a sense of destiny or duty he had to perform in order to be suitable for the acceptance into Heaven. However, some say that he was made crazy by his dedication to the goal and that he was just like any other terrorist because of it. They saw John Brown as a reckless exception to the opinionated nation on anti and pro slavery, which was usual to them. Therefore that would give him an impression as a terrorist to the people because he was isolated to an extreme way of abolishing slavery that no one else dared to do. Nonetheless, if you clearly look at the surrounding events at that time, people who helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad did so said “extreme” acts that some didn’t dare to do either. Concluding that John Brown was only acting like others in his way for pleasing God not to scare others to change the …show more content…

Proving that John Brown was a freedom fighter is a difficult task, though there is another major factor other than fear that will support that claim. After John Brown was executed the realization of a solution towards ending slavery was right in the faces of the people because of John Brown. Even though his raid caused damage and fatalities that resulted in a traumatizing event, the people started to realize the type of action that needed to be done. A terrorist, by the definition of one who thrives to make change through fear, would not have died as openly as John Brown did. John Brown didn’t mind to die the day of his execution because, as said, he knew he made the impact on the people about what needed to be done. Whether or not they accepted it, the people finally saw the type of force that Brown had been trying to show others all along, and with that new sense of their position, the Civil War began. Some may argue that even though John Brown is said to have created the Civil War which stopped slavery, he still should be considered a terrorist for his history. Understanding the history of Brown’s actions, you can see that they were not the best way to help the slaves, but if John Brown didn’t do what he did or die how he did, would the War have even happened? Even if it did occur, it most likely would have taken longer for it to happen leading to more

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