The Republic
February 1857
The saga of John Brown
Some call him the most dangerous man in America
On the evening May 2 of last year in Kansas territory, John Brown accompanied by four of his sons, his son-in-law, and another man named James Townsley arrived at the house of James P. Doyle (a member of the pro Slavery Law and Order Party). Brown ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury, to go with them as prisoners. Doyle's 16 year old son, John, was not a member of the party and was left with his mother. The three men followed their captors out into the darkness, where Brown's sons killed them with broadswords. John Brown did not participate in the stabbing, but allegedly fired a shot into the head of the fallen James Doyle, to ensure death.
Brown and his band then traveled half a mile to the house of Allen Wilkinson and ordered him out. He was slashed and stabbed to death. From there, they crossed the Pottawatomie, and some time after midnight, forced their way into the cabin of James Harris at sword-point. Harris had three house guests: John S. Wightman, Jerome Glanville, and William Sherman, the brother of Henry Sherman ("Dutch Henry"), a militant pro-slavery activist. Glanville and Harris were taken outside for interrogation, and asked whether they had threatened Free State settlers, or aided border ruffians from Missouri, or participated in the sack of Lawrence. Satisfied with their answers, they let Glanville and Harris return to the cabin. William Sherman was led to the edge of the creek and hacked to death with the swords by Brown's sons.
This night of bloodshed was retaliation for the raid on Lawrence, Kansas in which a sheriff-led posse of pro-slavery raiders destroyed newspaper offices, a hotel, and killed two men. It was also intended to show that Free State supporters in Kansas territory were willing to spill blood for their cause as well.
Who is this self-appointed abolitionist avenger? John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800. Led by a father who was vehemently opposed to slavery, the family moved to northern Ohio when John was five, to a district that has become known for its antislavery views.
During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing family. (He has fathered twenty children). Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was finacially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He has given land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife are raising an orphaned black youth as one of their own. It is also rumored that He participated in the Underground Railroad and has been mentioned as one of the founders of the League of Gileadites, an organization that works to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.
In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery."
Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."
Things shifted drastically in May 1855 when some of Brown's sons who had moved to Kansas territory to start a new life, wrote and asked their father to send them guns to protect themselves from pro-slavery terrorism. Brown not only acquired guns, but brought them himself along with a son-in-law to the troubled Kansas territory, arriving there in October 1855. There, he remained and became the leader of antislavery guerrillas.
Follwing his raid in Pottawatomie, Brown, nine of his followers, and twenty volunteers successfully defended a Free State settlement at Prairie City, Kansas against an attack by a force of some sixty Missourians, led by Captain Henry Pate, who had participated in the raid on Lawrence. Pate who had captured Brown's oldest son, was taken prisoner along with twenty-two of his men. Brown took Pate and his men back to his camp, gave them whatever food he could find, and signed a treaty with Pate, exchanging the freedom of the prisoners for the release of his son. Brown released the prisoners to Colonel Edwin Sumner, but was furious to discover that the release of his son was delayed until September.
In August, a company of over three hundred Missouri Bushwackers under the command of Major General John W. Reid crossed into Kansas and headed towards Osawatomie, intending to destroy Free State settlements there, and then march on Topeka and Lawrence. On the morning of August 30, they shot and killed one of Brown's son and his neighbor on the outskirts of Pottawatomie. Vastly outnumbered, Brown distributed his men carefully behind natural defenses and inflicted heavy casualties on the Missourian forces before he was forced to retreat across the Marais des Cygnes River.
A week later, Brown rode to Lawrence to meet with Free State leaders and help fortify against a feared assault by proslavery militias. The feared invasion was averted when the new governor of Kansas, John W. Geary, ordered the warring parties to disarm and disband, and offered clemency to former fighters on both sides.
Currently, Brown has returned East. He has spent time traveling through New England. Although many abolitionists were initially shocked by his actions, some have started to regard him as a hero of the cause. Last month, Franklin Sanborn, secretary for the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, introduced Brown to several influential abolitionists in the Boston area. Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts said of Brown, "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature." However, many in the South fear Brown is using this tour to raise funds either for a campaign of terrorism against slave states or perhaps incite and arm a slave rebellion. The saga of John Brown continues to be written.