Why Is John Brown A Hero

Brianna Pabon
Historical Research Writing, A2
January 5th, 2015
Research Paper, Final

John Brown Raid on Harpers Ferry, A Hero or a Villain? When it comes to the topic of John Brown’s raid and if he was hero or a villain, most of us will readily agree John Brown was murderer thus making him a villain. Where as some are convinced that he was a hero for wanting to help free slaves. John Brown was indeed a hero he believed greatly for the freedom of slaves, but was using violence to fight. However, does most of the evidence provided prove conclusively with the on­going debate whether or not John
Brown was in fact a hero or a villain.
The reason Brown decided to lead northern abolitionist use violence to end slavery.
Brown’s religion was the reason he was taught to hate slavery. Brown has hated slavery from an
early age and by the age of twenty he was able to help one run away from the underground
railroad.
During the 1830s, Brown was considering different ways of helping African Americans, one of the ideas he came up with is building schools. Brown was known as one of a few white person without racial prejudice. By the Mid 1850s Brown already committed himself to overthrowing slavery by using force. The reason behind this was clear and simple in the early
1840s Brown was bankrupt and was evicted of his farm and also lost his children all in one month. Brown decided he wanted to forget the world he was already living in abandoning his farm and wife to join his sons in Kansa and giving the last of his years to overthrow the power of slavery. Now how would you consider these actions of John Brown a villain?

John Brown’s plan was simple. He wanted to rescue slaves from the south. Brown had been planning for months it was to have a major slave rebellion in the South. Since Brown had experience in from Kansa’s it had led to a significant change to his strategy for ending slavery.
He had put in all his thoughts and strategies so that he can make this raid a successful raid without any complication. His plan was to end slavery, the way he thought of it was a new
state will be a free state for the midst of the South. John Brown had a created a system of laws for the new mountain state. Since he was leader for everything he made sure things went his way and the right way.
John Brown plans were to have a successful raid and he did. In fact the beginning of
Brown’s raid were extremely successful the first hours, however it soon went downhill
afterwards.
The beginning of the downfall was when one of the watchman arrived to take the post and noticed it was unguarded and ran to go sound the alarm. A baggage handler named
Hayward Shepherd who became a antislavery raid’s first fatality when he went to go check on the situation and was shot. Than on Oct. 17th word was being passed around that an armed party,
John Brown’s Raid, had taken over the bridge. Brown wanted to talk to the conductor, however, the youngest raider had be shot. Robert E. Lee and his aide Lieutenant passed a note to John
Brown for an immediate surrender. When brown refused to surrender marines began to attack the building where John and his men were at. After a few minutes of the marines attacking the building it was all over. Ten of Brown’s men were wounded or dead and five were captured including Brown, the raid was over.
John Brown was trial you could say was unfair. John Brown was charged with treason against virginia, beginning a rebellion with the slaves in Virginia and multiple first­degree

murders. Brown’s trial was completely unfair to me. In document 1,

The Trial,
Brown’s trial started on October 25th and ended two days later. There were great efforts to delaying Brown’s hearing until his lawyer could be present but was refused because they didn’t want southerner’s to lynch him also they feared that excited abolitionist would try to help break their hero out of jail. What was also unfair about the trial was that Brown was charged with multiple first­degree murders which he never committed. Brown did not slaughter over 3,000 at Harper 's Ferry,
Brown or his people did actually shoot an innocent man that was trying to flee away but they only did this so that his plan wouldn’t be given away. However you also have to think on the side was that the Federal Government was aiding also abetting the system of human enslavement. So only killing one person was small price to pay because later on it took about 600,00 other lives just to resolve the first phase of the Emancipation of African Americans. John Brown is indeed an American hero, he is not a villain.
John Brown did not have a piece of racism inside of him. He had lived long among
African Americans in order to help them make a living in America, he wanted Blacks to be apart of the American Society. John Brown was told he could be clergyman, however he refused and said that he would rather be honored to go with a slave women and her kids. This evidence shows to prove he is a hero rather than a terrorist or a villain.
Brown played an important role when it to shaping and recreating his image. His calm personality and fierce commitment for anti­slavery help people believe he was a hero, an angel, not a villain or a murderer. There were many questions about whether or not Brown was Mentally ill. Brown showed signs of Mental abnormality which included mood swings, anger towards slavery. However, many say the
Mental abnormality at time might have been normal due to the fact that slavery was a part of

social living that the mental disability might have been necessary to realize that slavery was inhumane nature.
John Brown had always had some kind of haterage for slavery and slaveholders. Brown’s emotions can be described as aggression but also passion. In my opinion I do believe John
Brown was heron in some cases, it was just the way he did things made him an extreme man. I do believe that John was a hero in some cases, but was a very extreme man. An example of this would be in 1858 Brown and his four sons and 3 other men lead a raid in missouri where there killed a plantation owner and freed eleven slaves. Brown believed going into this kind of extreme was the only way it would end slavery. The massacre that Brown was leading was one the few steps towards the emancipation and rights towards slavery. Brown’s actions was the voices of the all slave and abolitionist communities.
John is a hero, he is just criticized for his extreme doings, He experienced many hard times in his life which deal with losing 4 children and having about 13 business failures. Because of these hard times it had lead him to find that he should help people who can’t help themselves; slaves. The word massacres is not a new word to America so why is it that we should judge one person when many other people have done the same thing and they are given notice for being hero? When you come to think about it without John Brown and his group of Abolitionists there wouldn’t have been any of the south succeeding the union or talk or idea of an emancipation
Brown is a hero, he did what other people were even scared to think of or even do. Not all heroes or saints have a clean background.

Brianna Pabon
Historical Research Writing
Bibliography
1/5/15
John Brown’s Raid Bibliography
Anderson, Osborne P.
A Voice From Harper’s Ferry.
Boston: Printed for the Author, 1861.
Reynolds, David S.
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil
War, and Seeded Civil Rights
. New York Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
Scott, John Anthony, and Robert Alan Scott.
John Brown of Harper’s Ferry
. New York: Facts on File, 1988
Warren, Robert Penn.
John Brown: The Making of a Martyr.
New York: Payson & Clarke, 1929.
Renehan, Edward. The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired With John Brown
. Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1997.