John Brown
Born in Torrington, Connecticut on May 9, 1800, was the
son of a wandering New Englander. Brown spent much of his youth in
Ohio, where he was taught in local schools to resent compulsory
education and by his parents to revere the Bible and hate slavery. As a
boy he herded cattle for General William Hull�s army during the war of
1812; later he served as foreman of his family�s tannery. In 1820 he
married Dianthe Lusk, who bore him seven children; five years later they
moved to Pennsylvania to operate a tannery of their own. Within a year
after Dianthe�s death in 1831, Brown wed sixteen year old Mary Anne
Day, by whom he fathered thirteen more children.
During the next ...
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a militant abolitionist, a
"conductor" on the Underground Railroad, and the organizer of a
self-protection league for free blacks and fugitive slaves.
By the time he was fifty, Brown was entranced by visions of slave
uprisings, during which racists paid horribly for their sins, and he came
to regard himself as commissioned by God to make that vision a reality.
In August 1885 he followed five of his sons to Kansas to help make the
state a haven for anti-slavery settlers. The following year, his hostility
toward slave-staters exploded after they burned and pillaged the
free-state community of Lawrence. Having organized a militia unit
within his Osawatomie River colony, Brown led it on a mission of
revenge. On the evening of May twenty-third, 1856, he and six
followers, including four of his sons, visited the homes of pro-slavery
men along Pottawatomie Creek, dragged their unarmed inhabitants into
the night, and hacked them to death with long-edged ...
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John Brown. (2004, September 30). Retrieved January 12, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/John-Brown/15168
"John Brown." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 30 Sep. 2004. Web. 12 Jan. 2025. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/John-Brown/15168>
"John Brown." Essayworld.com. September 30, 2004. Accessed January 12, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/John-Brown/15168.
"John Brown." Essayworld.com. September 30, 2004. Accessed January 12, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/John-Brown/15168.
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