He seized the armory, but seven people were killed and ten or more were injured. In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today 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. Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie. 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. He was dissatisfied with abolitionist pacifism, saying of pacifists, 'These men are all talk. īrown first gained national attention when he led anti-slavery volunteers and his own 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. : 721 He stated repeatedly that in his view, these two principles 'meant the same thing'.

Declaration of Independence, which states that 'all men are created equal'. Brown said repeatedly that in working to free the enslaved, he was following Christian ethics, including the Golden Rule, as well as the U.S. : 189 Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement, : 426 believing it was necessary to end American slavery after decades of peaceful efforts had failed. He believed that he was 'an instrument of God', : 248 raised up to strike the 'death blow' to American slavery, a 'sacred obligation'.

First reaching national prominence for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, he was eventually captured and executed for a failed incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry preceding the American Civil War.Īn evangelical Christian of strong religious convictions, Brown was profoundly influenced by the Puritan faith of his upbringing. John Brown (– December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist leader.

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