John Brown, Hero or Murderor?

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Devon Williams September, 2013 2013FA-HIST-1301-81008 Was John Brown A Hero or A Murderer? John Brown was a radical American abolitionist who believed in the violent overthrow of the slavery system and orchestrated the infamous (and unsuccessful) 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry federal arsenal which resulted in his capture and sentencing to death by hanging that same year. Historians agree that Brown’s actions greatly contributed to the start of the civil war and his raid further revealed the division between the North and South. He is often recognized as “America’s first domestic Terrorist”. Brown was born in 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut to an extremely religious and abolitionist family where he first began forming his anti-slavery views. For most of his life, Brown and his large family, he fathered twenty children, moved around the country settling in various states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York where he held several odd jobs but never became financially successful. However, his lack of funds did not impact his support for the abolitionist movement. He helped finance anti-slavery publications, gave land to fugitive slaves, participated in the Underground Railroad made famous by abolitionist and former slave Harriet Tubman and even took in black youth to raise as their own. In 1851, he also helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers. In 1847, Brown met noted abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass who, after meeting Brown, 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.” It was after this meeting that Brown had presented to Douglass his plot to lead a war to free slaves. Brown first gained attention and
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