Show Me the Family Tree of Abolitionist John Brown

John Brown was a leading figure in the abolitionist move in the pre-Civil War United States. Unlike many anti-slavery activists, he was not a pacifist and believed in aggressive activity against slaveholders and any government officials who enabled them. An entrepreneur who ran tannery and cattle trading businesses prior to the economical crisis of 1839, Dark-brown became involved in the abolitionist move following the cruel murder of Presbyterian minister and anti-slavery activist Elijah P. Lovejoy in 1837. He said at the time, "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!"

Early Life

Brown was built-in on May nine, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut, the son of Owen and Ruth Mills Brown. His father, who was in the tannery concern, relocated the family unit to Ohio, where the abolitionist spent almost of his childhood.

The Brown family unit'due south new home of Hudson, Ohio, happened to exist a key stop on the Surreptitious Railroad, and Owen Chocolate-brown became agile in the attempt to bring former enslaved people to freedom. The family home before long became a prophylactic firm for fugitive enslaved people.

The younger Brown left his family unit at 16 for Massachusetts and so Connecticut, where he attended school and was ordained a Congregational government minister. By 1819, though, he had returned to Hudson and opened a tannery of his own, on the opposite side of town from his father. He too married and started a family during that time.

Family and Fiscal Problems

Initially, Brown'south business ventures were very successful, just by the 1830s his finances took a turn for the worse. Information technology didn't help that he lost his wife and 2 of his children to affliction at the fourth dimension.

He relocated the family unit business and his 4 surviving children to present-solar day Kent, Ohio. Nonetheless, Chocolate-brown's fiscal losses connected to mount, although he did remarry in 1833.

With a new business partner, Chocolate-brown ready shop in Springfield, Massachusetts, hoping to reverse his fortunes. In addition to finding some business organization success, Brown quickly became immersed in the city'south influential abolitionist community.

He also became more than familiar with the then-called mercantile class of wealthy entrepreneurs and their often ruthless business organization practices. Information technology is in Springfield that many historians believe Brown became a radical abolitionist.

Timbuctoo

Past 1850, he had relocated his family unit again, this fourth dimension to the Timbuctoo farming customs in the Adirondack region of New York State. Abolitionist leader Gerrit Smith was providing country in the area to Black farmers — at that time, owning land or a house enabled African Americans to vote.

Brown bought a subcontract at that place himself, near Lake Placid, New York, where he not but worked the land but could advise and aid members of the Black communities in the region.

Haemorrhage Kansas

Brown'due south starting time militant actions every bit part of the abolitionist movement didn't occur until 1855. By then, two of his sons had started families of their own, in the western territory that eventually became the state of Kansas.

His sons were involved in the abolitionist movement in the territory, and they summoned their father, fearing attack from pro-slavery settlers. Confident he and his family could bring Kansas into the Matrimony equally a "gratis" country for Black people, Chocolate-brown went west to join his sons.

After pro-slavery activists attacked at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1856, Brown and other abolitionists mounted a counterattack. They targeted a group of pro-slavery settlers called the Pottawatomie Rifles.

What became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre occurred on May 25, 1856, and resulted in the deaths of five pro-slavery settlers.

These and other events surrounding Kansas' hard transition to statehood, made fifty-fifty more than complicated past the effect of slavery, became known equally Bleeding Kansas. But John Brown's fable every bit a militant abolitionist was only simply beginning.

Over the next several years, Chocolate-brown'southward efforts in Kansas continued, and two of his sons were captured — and a tertiary was killed — by pro-slavery settlers.

The abolitionist was undaunted, however, and Brownish still advocated for the movement, traveling all over the country to raise money and obtain weapons for the cause. In the meantime, Kansas held elections and voted to be a free state in 1858.

Harpers Ferry

Past early 1859, Brown was leading raids to costless enslaved people in areas where forced labor was still in practice, primarily in the present-twenty-four hour period Midwest. At this time, he too met Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, activists and abolitionists both, and they became important people in Brown's life, reinforcing much of his ideology.

With Tubman, whom he chosen "Full general Tubman," Brown began planning an attack on slaveholders, also as a United States military armory, at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now Westward Virginia), using armed freed enslaved people. He hoped the attack would help lay the groundwork for a revolt, and historians have called the raid a clothes rehearsal for the Civil War.

Chocolate-brown recruited 22 men in all, including his sons Owen and Watson, and several freed enslaved people. The group received military training in advance of the raid from experts within the abolitionist motility.

John Brown's Raid

The operation began on Oct 16, 1859, with the planned capture of Colonel Lewis Washington, a distant relative of George Washington, at the old's manor. The Washington family unit continued to own enslaved people.

A group of men, led by Owen Dark-brown, was able to kidnap Washington, while the rest of the men, with John Brown at the lead, began a raid on Harpers Ferry to seize both weapons and pro-slavery leaders in the town. Key to the raid'southward success was accomplishing the objective — namely the seizure of the armory — before officials in Washington, D.C., could be informed and ship in reinforcements.

To that terminate, John Brown'south men stopped a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train headed for the nation's capital. All the same, Dark-brown opted to let the train continue, and the conductor ultimately notified authorities in Washington well-nigh what was happening at Harpers Ferry.

It was during the efforts to stop the train that the commencement casualty of the raid on Harpers Ferry occurred. A baggage handler at the town's train station was shot in the dorsum and killed when he refused the orders of Brown's men. The victim was a free Black human being — ane of the very people the abolitionist move sought to aid.

John Brown's Fort

Brown'due south men were able to capture several local slave-owners but, by the finish of the twenty-four hours on the 16, local townspeople began to fight dorsum. Early the next morning, they raised a local militia, which captured a bridge crossing the Potomac River, effectively cut off an important escape route for Brown and his compatriots.

Although Chocolate-brown and his men were able to take the Harpers Ferry armory during the forenoon of the 17, the local militia soon had the facility surrounded, and the two sides traded gunfire.

At that place were casualties on both sides, with 4 Harpers Ferry citizens killed, including the town'south mayor. A militia made upwardly of men from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad arrived in town and assisted local residents in countering Brown'south attack.

Dark-brown was forced to move his remaining men and their captives to the arsenal's engine house, a smaller building that later became known equally John Brown'due south Fort. They effectively barricaded themselves inside.

The militia assault was able to free several of Dark-brown's captives, although 8 of the railroad men died in the fighting. With no escape road and nether heavy burn, Brown sent his son Watson out to surrender. Withal, the younger Dark-brown was shot by the militia and mortally wounded.

Robert Due east. Lee and the Marines

Late in the afternoon of October 17, 1859, President James Buchanan ordered a company of Marines nether the command of Brevet Colonel (and future Confederate Full general) Robert East. Lee to march into Harpers Ferry.

The next morning, Lee attempted to go Brownish to surrender, but the latter refused. Ordering the Marines under his command to attack, the military men stormed John Brown'due south Fort, taking all of the abolitionist fighters and their captives alive.

In the cease, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry ended in failure.

John Brown's Torso

Lee and his men arrested Chocolate-brown and transported him to the courthouse in nearby Charles Town, where he was imprisoned until he could be tried. In November, a jury found Brown guilty of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Brown was hanged on Dec ii, 1859, at the age of 59. Among the witnesses to his execution were Lee and the thespian and pro-slavery activist John Wilkes Booth. (Booth would later assassinate President Abraham Lincoln over the latter's decision to effect the Emancipation Proclamation.)

Later on he was executed, his married woman, Mary Ann (Twenty-four hours) took John Brown's body to the family unit subcontract in upstate New York for burial. The farm and gravesite are endemic by New York State and operated every bit the John Brown Farm State Historic Site, a National Celebrated Landmark.

Slavery would ultimately come to an finish in the United States in 1865, 6 years after Brown's death, following the Spousal relationship'southward defeat of the Confederate States in the Civil War. Although Brown's actions didn't bring an end to slavery, they did spur those opposed to it to more than aggressive action, possibly fueling the encarmine conflict that finally ended slavery in America.

Sources

American Battlefield Trust. "John Dark-brown's Harpers Ferry Raid." Battlefields.org.
Bordewich, F.M. (2009). "John Brown's Day of Reckoning." Smithsonianmag.com.
"John Brown." PBS.org.
Extract from Edward Dark-brown'due south Recollections on John Brownish. WVculture.org.
John Chocolate-brown'south Early on Years. Albany.edu.

heisevichimen.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.history.com/topics/abolitionist-movement/john-brown

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