View source for John Brown (abolitionist)

{{short description|American abolitionist (1800–1859)}}
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name             = John Brown 
| image            = 1846-47 John Brown by Augustus Washington (without frame).jpg
| alt              =
| caption          = Brown in a photograph by [[Augustus Washington]], {{Circa|1846–1847}}
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1800|05|09}}
| birth_place      = [[Torrington, Connecticut]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1859|12|02|1800|05|09}}
| death_place      = [[Charles Town, West Virginia|Charles Town, Virginia]] (now [[West Virginia]]), U.S.
| death_cause      = [[Execution by hanging]]
| resting_place   = [[North Elba, New York]], U.S.
| resting_place_coordinates = {{coord|44.252240|-73.971799|display=inline}}
| monuments       = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|Various:}}
|Statues in [[Kansas City, Kansas]], and [[North Elba, New York]]; ''[[Tragic Prelude]]'', mural in the [[Kansas State Capitol]]; [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site]], North Elba, New York; [[John Brown Museum]] and John Brown Historic Park, [[Osawatomie, Kansas]]; [[The Summit County Historical Society of Akron, Ohio|Museum and Statue]], [[Akron, Ohio]]; [[John Brown Tannery Site]], [[Guys Mills, Pennsylvania]]}}
| known_for       = Involvement in [[Bleeding Kansas]]; [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|Raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia]].
| movement        = [[Abolitionism in the United States|Abolitionism]]
| boards          =
| criminal_charge = [[Treason laws in the United States|Treason]] against the [[Commonwealth of Virginia]]; [[Murder (United States law)|murder]]; [[Incitement|inciting]] [[slave insurrection]]
| spouse          = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Dianthe Lusk|1820|1832|reason=died}}
* {{marriage|[[Mary Ann Day Brown|Mary Ann Day]]|June 14, 1833}}
}}
| children        = 20, including [[John Brown Junior|John Jr.]], [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen]], and [[Watson Brown (abolitionist)|Watson]]
| parents         = [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1771)|Owen Brown]] (father)
| signature       = John Brown signature.svg
}}
'''John Brown''' (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American [[Evangelism|evangelist]] who was a prominent leader in the [[Abolitionism in the United States|American abolitionist movement]] in the decades preceding the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. First reaching national prominence in the 1850s for his radical abolitionism and fighting in [[Bleeding Kansas]], Brown was captured, tried, and executed by the [[Virginia|Commonwealth of Virginia]] for a [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry]] in 1859.

An [[Evangelicalism|evangelical Christian]] of strong religious convictions, Brown was profoundly influenced by the [[Puritans|Puritan faith]] of his upbringing.<ref>{{cite news
|title=A Visit to John Brown. By a lady
|author=RBS (Rebecca Buffum Spring)
|author-link=Rebecca Buffum Spring
|newspaper=[[New-York Tribune]] 
|date=December 2, 1859
|page=6
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63692913/visit-by-mrs-spring/
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=March 12, 2021
|archive-date=February 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213220041/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63692913/visit-by-mrs-spring/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|loc=Introduction }} He believed that he was "an instrument of God,"{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=248 }} raised to strike the "death blow" to [[slavery in the United States]], a "sacred obligation."<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9910190620102121 |title=The martyrdom of John Brown : the proceedings of a public meeting held in London, on the 2nd December, 1863, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of John Brown's death |date=1864 |publisher=Emancipation Society |location=London}} Within 22 page document.</ref> Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the [[abolitionism in the United States|American abolitionist movement]],{{sfn|Wyatt-Brown|1975|p=426}} believing it was necessary to end slavery after decades of peaceful efforts had failed.{{sfn|Smith|1895|p=323}}<ref>{{cite book
|title=Frederick Douglass: Selections from His Writings
|first=Philip S.
|last=Foner
|author-link=Philip S. Foner
|pages=25–26
|url=https://archive.org/details/DouglassSelectionsWritings/page/n11/mode/2up?q=John+brown
|publisher=International Publishers
|location=New York
|year=1964
|oclc=911783030}}</ref> Brown said that in working to free the enslaved, he was following [[Christian ethics]], including the [[Golden Rule#Christianity|Golden Rule]],<ref name="Herald">{{cite news
|title=The Harper's Ferry Outbreak
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/59131494/interview-of-john-brown/
|date=October 21, 1859
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428032334/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/59131494/interview-of-john-brown/
|archive-date=April 28, 2021
|url-status=live
|newspaper=[[New York Daily Herald]]
|page=1
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=September 14, 2020
}}<br />
Reprinted in ''[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]'', October 28, 1859
</ref> and the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], which states that "all men are created equal."{{sfn|Hinton|2011|p=637}} He stated that in his view, these two principles "meant the same thing."<ref>{{cite book
|first=Franklin
|last=Sanborn
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|year=c. 1900
|location=N.p.
|page=7
|title=John Brown and his friends
|series=Slavery and anti-slavery: A transnational archive
|via=[[HathiTrust]]
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yul.11368345_000_00&view=1up&seq=11
|access-date=March 11, 2022
|archive-date=March 11, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311152656/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yul.11368345_000_00&view=1up&seq=11
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

Brown first gained national attention when he led [[abolitionism in the United States|anti-slavery]] volunteers and his sons during the [[Bleeding Kansas]] crisis of the late 1850s, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a [[slave states and free states|slave state or a free state]]. He was dissatisfied with abolitionist pacifism, saying of pacifists, "These men are all talk. What we need is action{{snd}}action!" In May 1856, Brown and his sons killed five supporters of slavery in the [[Pottawatomie massacre]], a response to the [[sacking of Lawrence]] by pro-slavery forces. Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the [[Battle of Black Jack]] and the [[Battle of Osawatomie]].

In October 1859, Brown [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry|led a raid]] on the [[Harpers Ferry Armory|federal armory]] at [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia|Harpers Ferry, Virginia]] (which later became part of [[West Virginia]]), intending to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south; he had prepared a [[Provisional Constitution (John Brown)|Provisional Constitution]] for the revised, slavery-free United States that he hoped to bring about. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed and ten or more were injured. Brown intended to arm slaves with weapons from the armory, but only a few slaves joined his revolt. Those of Brown's men who had not fled were killed or captured by local [[United States Militia|militia]] and [[U.S. Marines]], the latter led by [[Robert E. Lee]]. Brown was tried for [[treason]] against the [[Commonwealth of Virginia]], the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty of all charges and was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person executed for [[Treason laws in the United States#State|treason against a U.S. state]] in the history of the United States.<ref name="Treason" />{{sfn|Loewen|2008|p=179}}

The Harpers Ferry raid and [[Virginia v. John Brown|Brown's trial]], both covered extensively in national newspapers, escalated tensions that in the next year led to the [[Secession in the United States#Confederate States of America|South's long-threatened secession]] from the United States and the [[American Civil War]]. Southerners feared that others would soon follow in Brown's footsteps, encouraging and arming slave rebellions. He was a hero and icon in the North. [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] soldiers marched to the new song "[[John Brown's Body]]" that portrayed him as a heroic [[martyr]]. Brown has been variously described as a heroic martyr and visionary, and as a madman and [[terrorist]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Osborne Perry|url=https://archive.org/details/ASPC0005194700/mode/2up?q=Phil|title=A Voice from Harper's Ferry|publisher=Published by the author|year=1861|location=Boston|pages=5–7|author-link=Osborne Perry Anderson}}</ref><ref name=Watson/><ref name=CHOWDER>Ken Chowder. "{{cite web| url = http://www.americanheritage.com/content/father-american-terrorism?page=show| title = The Father of American Terrorism| access-date = November 17, 2016| archive-date = November 7, 2018| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181107110506/http://www.americanheritage.com/content/father-american-terrorism?page=show| url-status = dead}}". ''[[American Heritage (magazine)|American Heritage]]''. February/March 2000.</ref>

==Early life and family==

===Family and childhood===
[[File:John Brown's birthplace.jpg|thumb|The house in which Brown was born, in [[Torrington, Connecticut]], was photographed in 1896 and destroyed by fire in 1918.<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown House Burns – Birthplace of Famous Kansas Abolitionist in New England, No More
|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016014/1918-07-02/ed-1/seq-8/#date1=1891&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Brown+Owen&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=8&state=&date2=1926&proxtext=%22Owen+brown%22&y=20&x=21&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=2
|newspaper=[[Topeka State Journal]]
|date=July 2, 1918
|page=8
|via=[[Chronicling America]]
|access-date=September 27, 2021
|archive-date=September 27, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927150254/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016014/1918-07-02/ed-1/seq-8/#date1=1891&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Brown+Owen&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=8&state=&date2=1926&proxtext=%22Owen+brown%22&y=20&x=21&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=2
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=Historical cottage – House in which John Brown was born at West Torrington, Conn., still in existence
|newspaper=[[Massena Observer]]
|location=[[Massena, New York]]
|date=Nov 9, 1899
|page=8
|via=NYS Historic Newspapers
|url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84031311/1899-11-09/ed-1/seq-8/
|access-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216012432/https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84031311/1899-11-09/ed-1/seq-8/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's birthplace to be preserved – 'His soul goes marching on'
|newspaper=The Argus
|location=[[Albany, New York]]
|date=August 26, 1900
|page=5
|url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83045592/1900-08-26/ed-1/seq-5/
|via=NYS Historic Newspapers
|access-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216020243/https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83045592/1900-08-26/ed-1/seq-5/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
]]
John Brown was born May 9, 1800, in [[Torrington, Connecticut]],<ref>{{cite web
|title=John Brown Birthplace Site
|author=Torrington Historical Society
|year=2017
|url=http://www.torringtonhistoricalsociety.org/the-site.html
|access-date=November 15, 2018
|archive-date=November 21, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121203857/http://www.torringtonhistoricalsociety.org/the-site.html|url-status=live}}</ref> the son of [[Owen Brown (1771)|Owen Brown]] (1771–1856){{efn|John Brown moved his grandfather's tombstone to [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site|his farm]] in [[North Elba, New York]].<ref>{{Cite book
 |last=Brown
 |first=Phil
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pp-A-K2Wru0C&pg=PT91 |page=PT91 |title=Longstreet Highroad Guide to the New York Adirondacks |date=1999
|publisher=Taylor Trade Publishing |isbn=978-1-4616-6198-6 |access-date=April 6, 2022 |archive-date=April 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220406100902/https://books.google.com/books?id=pp-A-K2Wru0C&pg=PT91 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1857, Brown stated that he descended from [[Peter Browne (Mayflower passenger)|Peter Browne]], one of the [[Pilgrim Fathers]], who landed from the [[Mayflower]] at [[Plymouth, Massachusetts]], in 1620. There are some historians that believe that his ancestor was Peter Brown, who arrived in Connecticut in 1650.<ref>{{Cite book
|last=Horn
 |first=Geoffrey M.
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uF2rcLkUVFQC&pg=PA17
|title=John Brown: Putting Actions Above Words
|date=2009
 |publisher=Crabtree Publishing Company
 |isbn=978-0-7787-4823-6
|page=17
|access-date=April 6, 2022
|archive-date=April 6, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220406100307/https://books.google.com/books?id=uF2rcLkUVFQC&pg=PA17
|url-status=live }}</ref>}} and Ruth Mills (1772–1808).{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=7}} Owen Brown's father was Capt. John Brown, of English descent, who died in the [[American Revolution|Revolutionary War]] in New York on September 3, 1776.<ref name=Early>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's early history{{snd}}Almost {{sic|A D. D.|nolink=y}}
|newspaper=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=November 25, 1859
|page=1
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66143121/john-browns-ancestry/
|access-date=December 27, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121829/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66143121/john-browns-ancestry/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
His mother, of Dutch and [[Wales|Welsh]] descent,{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=5}} was the daughter of Gideon Mills, an officer in the Revolutionary Army.<ref name=Early/>

Although Brown described his parents as "poor but respectable" at some point,{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=7}}  Owen Brown became a leading and wealthy citizen of Hudson, Ohio.<ref name="Early" /><ref name="Grant" /> He operated a tannery and employed [[Jesse Grant]], father of President [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. Jesse lived with the Brown family for some years.<ref name="Grant">{{cite web
|title=Ulysses S. Grant's Connection to John Brown
|author=National Park Service
|author-link=National Park Service
|year=2020
|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-s-connection-to-john-brown.htm
|access-date=May 13, 2021
|archive-date=May 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513142207/https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-s-connection-to-john-brown.htm
|url-status=live
}}</ref> The founder of Hudson, [[David Hudson (pioneer)|David Hudson]], with whom John's father had frequent contact, was an abolitionist and an advocate of "forcible resistance by the slaves."{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=17}}

The fourth child of Owen and Ruth,{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=7}}{{efn|Brown was said by Sanbord to have been the fourth of eight children, but it's not clear who the other children of Owen and Ruth were and if the eight children included their adopted son, Levi.{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=7}}}} Brown's other siblings included Anna Ruth (born in 1798), Salmon (born 1802), and Oliver Owen (born in 1804).<ref>{{cite news
|author=Torrington Town Clerk
|title=Letter to the editor
|newspaper=[[Litchfield Enquirer]]
|location=[[Litchfield, Connecticut]]
|date=Nov 3, 1859
|page=2
|via=[[Chronicling America]]
|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020071/1859-11-03/ed-1/seq-2/
|access-date=February 25, 2022
|archive-date=February 25, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220225161439/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020071/1859-11-03/ed-1/seq-2/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=A reminiscence of John Brown's boyhood
|newspaper=[[Sacramento Daily Union]]
|location=[[Sacramento, California]]
|date=14 October 1876
|page=8
|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18761014.2.56&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Salmon+brown%22-------1
|via=[[California Digital Newspaper Collection]]
|access-date=February 21, 2022
|archive-date=February 21, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221140451/https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18761014.2.56&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Salmon+brown%22-------1
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Frederick, identified by Owen as his sixth son, was born in 1807.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=14}}  Frederick visited Brown when he was in jail, awaiting execution.<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown Jr.
|newspaper=[[The Cleveland Leader|Cleveland Daily Leader]] (Cleveland, Ohio)
|date=26 Nov 1859
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95912238/john-brown-jr-son-frederick-brown/
|access-date=February 21, 2022
|archive-date=February 21, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221130833/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95912238/john-brown-jr-son-frederick-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He had an adopted brother, Levi Blakeslee (born some time before 1805).<ref name="Turzillo">{{Cite book |last=Turzillo |first=Jane Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HK2MpGWi-mUC&pg=PA43 |title=Hudson, Ohio |date=2002 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |isbn=978-0-7385-2004-9 |pages=43 |language=en}}</ref> Salmon became a lawyer, politician, and newspaper editor.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=14}}

While Brown was very young, his father moved the family briefly to his hometown, [[West Simsbury, Connecticut]].<ref name=Early/> In 1805, the family moved, again, to [[Hudson, Ohio]], in the [[Western Reserve]], which at the time was mostly wilderness;{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|pp=5, 7}} it became the most anti-slavery region of the country.{{sfn|Finkelman|1995|p=19}} Owen hated slavery{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=12}} and participated in Hudson's anti-slavery activity and debate, offering a [[safe house]] to [[Underground Railroad]] [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitives]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-12-20|title=The Hudson Underground Railroad|url=https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/64e714ce42e24d7083ce6eeee14a65c6|access-date=2022-02-07|website=ArcGIS StoryMaps|language=en|archive-date=February 7, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220207173103/https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/64e714ce42e24d7083ce6eeee14a65c6|url-status=live}}</ref> Owen became a supporter of [[Oberlin College]] after [[Western Reserve Academy|Western Reserve College]] would not allow a Black man to enroll in the school.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=15}} Owen was an Oberlin trustee from 1835 to 1844.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=15}} Other Brown family members were abolitionists, but John and his eccentric brother Oliver were the most active and forceful.<ref>{{cite journal
|last=Filler
|first=Louis
|title=John Brown in Ohio. An Interview with Charles S. S. Griffing
|url=https://hebronhistoricalsociety.org/images/griffing/interview_with_charles_griffing_on_john_brown.pdf
|journal=[[Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly]]
|volume=58
|number=2
|date=April 1849
|pages=213–218
|access-date=September 28, 2021
|archive-date=September 28, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210928123625/https://hebronhistoricalsociety.org/images/griffing/interview_with_charles_griffing_on_john_brown.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

John's mother Ruth died a few hours after the death of her newborn girl in December 1808.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=13–14}} In his memoir, Brown wrote that he mourned his mother for years.{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=8}}{{sfn|Wyatt-Brown|1975|p=427}} While he respected his father's new wife,{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=8}}{{sfn|Wyatt-Brown|1975|p=427}} Sallie Root,{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=14}} he never felt an emotional bond with her.{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=8}}{{sfn|Wyatt-Brown|1975|p=427}} Owen married a third time to Lucy Hinsdale, a formerly married woman.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=14}} Owen had a total of 6 daughters and 10 sons.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=14}}

With no school beyond the elementary level in Hudson at that time, Brown studied at the school of the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] Elizur Wright, father of the famous [[Elizur Wright]], in nearby [[Tallmadge, Ohio|Tallmadge]].{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=17}} In a story he told to his family, when he was 12 years old and away from home moving cattle, Brown worked for a man with a colored boy, who was beaten before him with an iron shovel. He asked the man why he was treated thus, and the answer was that he was a slave. According to Brown's son-in-law Henry Thompson, it was that moment when John Brown decided to dedicate his life to improving African Americans' condition.<ref name=Nixson/><ref name="PBS timeline" /> As a child in Hudson, John got to know local Native Americans and learned some of their language.{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=7}} He accompanied them on hunting excursions and invited them to eat in his home.{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p= }}<ref>{{cite magazine
|title=John Brown's Body. (Review of ''John Brown, Abolitionist,'' by David S. Reynolds.)
|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/04/25/john-browns-body
|first=Adam
|last=Gopnick
|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]
|author-link=Adam Gopnik
|date=April 2, 2005
|access-date=April 2, 2020
|archive-date=October 20, 2017
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020041821/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/04/25/john-browns-body
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

=== Young adulthood ===
At 16, Brown left his family for New England to acquire a liberal education and become a Gospel minister.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Letter from John Brown [to J. W. McFarland]
|last=Brown
|first=John
|author-link=John Brown (abolitionist)
|orig-date=November 23, 1859
|newspaper=[[Anti-Slavery Bugle]] ([[Lisbon, Ohio]])
|date=December 31, 1859
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78792974/letter-from-john-brown/
|access-date=June 2, 2021
|archive-date=June 2, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602215603/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78792974/letter-from-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He consulted and conferred with Jeremiah Hallock, then clergyman at [[Canton, Connecticut]], whose wife was a relative of Brown's, and as advised proceeded to [[Plainfield, Massachusetts]], where, under the instruction of Moses Hallock, he prepared for college. He would have continued at [[Amherst College]],{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=17}}{{sfn|Hinton|2011|p=13}} but he suffered from inflammation of the eyes which ultimately became chronic and precluded further studies. He returned to Ohio.<ref name=Early/>

Back in Hudson, Brown taught himself surveying from a book.{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|p=22}}{{efn|Brown eventually listed surveyor's implements in his will.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=17}}}} He worked briefly at his father's tannery before opening a successful tannery outside of town with his adopted brother Levi Blakeslee.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=17}} The two kept bachelor's quarters, and Brown was a good cook.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=17}} He had his bread baked by a widow, Mrs. Amos Lusk. As the tanning business had grown to include journeymen and apprentices, Brown persuaded her to take charge of his housekeeping. She and her daughter Dianthe moved into his log cabin. Brown married Dianthe in 1820.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=18}} There is no known picture of her,<ref>{{cite news
|title=Granddaughter of John Brown compiles album
|newspaper=[[Lake Placid News]] ([[Lake Placid, New York]])
|date=February 11, 1938
|page=9
|via=NYS Historic Newspapers
|url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033359/1938-02-11/ed-1/seq-9/
|access-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216010245/https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033359/1938-02-11/ed-1/seq-9/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> but he described Dianthe as "a remarkably plain, but neat, industrious and economical girl, of excellent character, earnest piety, and practical common sense".{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|p=10}} Their first child, [[John Brown Junior|John Jr.]], was born 13 months later. During 12 years of married life Dianthe gave birth to seven children, among them [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen]], and died from complications of childbirth in 1832.{{sfn|Villard|1910|pp=18–19}}

Brown knew the Bible thoroughly and could catch even small errors in Bible recitation. He never used tobacco nor drank tea, coffee, or alcohol. After the Bible, his favorite books were the series of [[Plutarch]]'s ''[[Parallel Lives]]'' and he enjoyed reading about [[Napoleon]] and [[Oliver Cromwell]].<ref name=Jones>{{cite news
|title=John Brown His Text
|newspaper=Kansas Agitator ([[Garnett, Kansas]])
|date=6 Jul 1900
|page=4
|first=Lloyd
|last=Jones
|author-link=Lloyd Kenyon Jones
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/96624300/sermon-on-john-brown/
|access-date=February 28, 2022
|archive-date=February 28, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220228132848/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/96624300/sermon-on-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} Also at [https://newspaperarchive.com/tags/?pc=10825&psi=41&pci=7&pt=32233&pf=john&pl=brown&ob=1/ Newspaperarchive.com]</ref> He felt that "truly successful men" were those with their own libraries.{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=86}}

===Pennsylvania===
{{See also|John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum}}
[[File:John Brown's Tannery.jpg|thumb|[[John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum|John Brown's Tannery]], in 1885]]

Brown left [[Hudson, Ohio]], where he had a successful tannery, to be better situated to operate a safe and productive [[Underground Railroad]] station.{{sfn|Miller|1952}}<ref name=Nps /> He moved to [[Richmond Township, Crawford County, Pennsylvania|Richmond Township]] in [[Crawford County, Pennsylvania]], in 1825{{sfn|Miller|1952}}<ref name=Nps />{{efn|Snodgrass said that he lived in (nearby) [[Randolph Township, Pennsylvania]].{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}}}} and lived there until 1835,{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}} longer than he did anywhere else.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=His Brothers' Keeper: John Brown, Moral Stewardship and Interracial Abolitionism
|first=W. Caleb
|last=McDaniel
|page=38
|date=2011
|journal=Slavery & Abolition. A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies
|volume=32
|issue=1
|doi=10.1080/0144039X.2011.538197
|hdl=1911/64545
|s2cid=144604307
|via=[[Taylor and Francis]]
|hdl-access=free
}} From [https://www.ebsco.com/products/research-databases/academic-search-complete Academic Research Database].</ref> He bought {{convert|200|acre|ha|abbr=off}} of land, cleared an eighth of it, and quickly built a cabin, a two-story tannery with 18 vats, and a barn; in the latter was a secret, well-ventilated room to hide escaping slaves.{{sfn|Miller|1952}}<ref name=Nps>{{cite web
|title=John Brown
|author=[[National Park Service]]
|date=2018
|url=https://www.nps.gov/people/john-brown.htm
|access-date=December 19, 2018
|archive-date=December 19, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181219182608/https://www.nps.gov/people/john-brown.htm
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He transported refugees across the state border into New York and to an important Underground Railroad connection in [[Jamestown, New York|Jamestown]],{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}} about {{convert|55|miles|km}} from Richmond Township.<ref>{{cite web|title=New Richmond Township, Pennsylvania to Jamestown, New York | url=https://www.google.com/maps/dir/41.750278,-80.016389/Jamestown,+New+York+14701/@41.9148738,-79.7157761,11z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x89d2a8e4143e8a2b:0x650f6a65c85e2b7b!2m2!1d-79.2353259!2d42.0970023!3e2?hl=en&entry=ttu | website=maps.google.com |access-date=October 8, 2023}}</ref> The escapees were hidden in the wagon he used to move the mail, hides for his tannery, and survey equipment.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}} For ten years, his farm was an important stop on the Underground Railroad,<ref name="Tannery" /> during which, it is estimated to have helped 2,500 enslaved people on their journey to Canada, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.<ref name="Tannery">{{cite web
|title=John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum
|publisher=visitPA.com (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development)
|url=https://visitpa.com/pa-museums/john-brown-farm-tannery-museum
|access-date=December 18, 2018
|archive-date=December 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181219182403/https://visitpa.com/pa-museums/john-brown-farm-tannery-museum
|url-status=live}}</ref> Brown recruited other Underground Railroad stationmasters to strengthen the network.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}}

Brown made money surveying new roads. He was involved in erecting a school, which first met in his home—he was its first teacher{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=85}}—, and attracting a preacher{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=23}}<ref>{{cite journal
|title=John Brown: From the Record. The Crawford County Years:1827–1835. The Young Family Man
|first=Anne W.
|last=Stewart
|journal=Journal of Erie Studies
|volume=31
|number=2
|date=Fall 2002 |page=52}}</ref> for a [[Congregational Society]] in Richmond. Their first meetings were held at the farm and tannery compound.{{sfn|Miller|1952|p=6}} He also helped to establish a post office, and in 1828 President [[John Quincy Adams]] named him the first [[postmaster]] of [[Randolph Township, Pennsylvania]]; he was reappointed by President [[Andrew Jackson]], serving until he left Pennsylvania in 1835.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=23}}<ref name=Overland>{{cite journal
|title=The Last Days of Old John Brown (second series)
|first=Lou V.
|last=Chapin
|journal=[[Overland Monthly]]
|volume=33
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wmE4AAAAIAAJ&q=Brown
|date=1899 | page=325
|access-date=October 31, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093232/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Overland_Monthly_and_Out_West_Magazine/wmE4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Brown
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He carried the mail for some years from [[Meadville, Pennsylvania]], through Randolph to [[Riceville, Pennsylvania|Riceville]], some {{convert|20|miles}}.{{sfn|Miller|1952|p=7}} He paid a fine at Meadville for declining to serve in the militia. During this period, Brown operated an interstate cattle and leather business along with a kinsman, Seth Thompson, from eastern Ohio.{{sfn|Miller|1952|p=7}} In 1829, some white families asked Brown to help them drive off Native Americans who hunted annually in the area. Calling it a mean act, Brown declined, even saying "I would sooner take my gun and help drive you out of the country."{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp=168–169}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=[John Brown, Abolitionist] |url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?186892-1/john-brown-abolitionist |access-date=2023-10-06 |website=www.c-span.org}}</ref>

[[File:Marybrown wifeofJohnBrown.jpg|right|thumb|Mary Ann Brown (née Day), wife of John Brown, married in 1833, with Annie (left) and Sarah (right) in 1851]]
In 1831, Brown's son Frederick (I) died, at the age of 4. Brown fell ill, and his businesses began to suffer, leaving him in severe debt. In mid-1832, shortly after the death of a newborn son, his wife Dianthe also died, either in childbirth or as an immediate consequence of it.{{sfn|Redpath|1860|p=35}} He was left with the children [[John Brown Junior|John Jr.]], Jason, [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen]], Ruth and Frederick (II).<ref name="NPS Wives and children" />{{efn|According to a Pennsylvania friend who visited him in jail in [[Charles Town, West Virginia|Charles Town]] just before his execution, he mentioned that [[Crawford County, Pennsylvania]], was important to him because two of his children and his wife were buried there.<ref name=Lowry/>}} On July 14, 1833, Brown married 17-year-old [[Mary Ann Day Brown|Mary Ann Day]] (1817–1884), originally from [[Washington County, New York]];<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_o8X5krq3fP8C|title=Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History |publisher=Standard Publishing Company|last=Blackmar
|first=Frank Wilson|year=1912
|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_o8X5krq3fP8C/page/n240 244]}}</ref> she was the younger sister of Brown's housekeeper at the time.{{sfn|Miller|1952|p=8}} They eventually had 13 children,<ref>{{cite web|title=John Brown's Family: A Living Legacy|date=February 2005|magazine=[[Civil War Times]]|first=Sandra|last=Weber|url=https://www.historynet.com/john-browns-family-a-living-legacy.htm|access-date=February 13, 2019|archive-date=February 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190214061259/https://www.historynet.com/john-browns-family-a-living-legacy.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title=John Brown's Raid Fifty Years Ago
|pages=315–321
|url=https://archive.org/details/magazinehistory18abbagoog/page/n372/mode/1up
|journal=[[The Magazine of American History]]
|date=December 1909
|volume=10
|number=6}}</ref> seven of whom were sons who worked with their father in the fight to abolish slavery.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Old-Time Kansas Anecdotes. No. viii – Old John Brown's Son
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|newspaper=Kansas Tribune ([[Lawrence, Kansas]])
|date=January 4, 1872
|page=2
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62307778/anecdotes-of-john-brown/
|access-date=November 1, 2020
|archive-date=April 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414223932/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62307778/anecdotes-of-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

===Back to Ohio===
In 1836, Brown moved his family from Pennsylvania to [[Franklin Mills, Ohio]], where he taught [[Sunday school]].{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=98}} He borrowed heavily to buy land in the area, including property along canals being built, and entered into a partnership with [[Marvin Kent#Relatives|Zenas Kent]] to construct a tannery along the [[Cuyahoga River]], though Brown left the partnership before the tannery was completed.<ref>{{cite web
|last=Caccamo
|first=James F.
|title=John Brown: A Brief Chronology
|url=http://www.hudsonlibrary.org/hudson%20website/Archives/Archives/john%20brown/jbhome.htm|date=2007
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071020021622/http://www.hudsonlibrary.org/hudson%20website/Archives/Archives/john%20brown/jbhome.htm|archive-date=October 20, 2007
|website=Historical Archives
|publisher=Hudson Library & Historical Society
|access-date=June 21, 2015}}</ref><ref name=pathways>{{cite news
|first= Roger
|last= Di Paol
|title= Portage Pathways: No love lost: Zenas Kent turned his back on Ravenna to build rival town
|newspaper= [[Record-Courier (Ohio)|Record-Courier]]
|date= March 30, 2008}}</ref> Brown continued to work on the Underground Railroad.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}}

Brown became a bank director and was estimated to be worth {{US$|20000|1835|about=yes}}.{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|pp=20, 39}} Like many businessmen in Ohio, he invested too heavily in credit and state bonds and suffered great financial losses in the [[Panic of 1837]]. In one episode of property loss, Brown was jailed when he attempted to retain ownership of a farm by occupying it against the claims of the new owner.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Barnes|first1=Diane L.|date=Fall 2016|title=John Brown Speaks: Letters and Statements from Charlestown (review) |first2= Louis |last2=DeCaro |journal=Ohio History|volume=123|pages=83–84|doi=10.1353/ohh.2016.0024|s2cid=151736182}}</ref> 

[[File:Lovejoyat1837AltonIllinoisRiot.JPG|thumb|right|Wood engraving of the pro-slavery mob setting fire to [[Winthrop Sargent Gilman#Career|Gilman & Godfrey]]'s warehouse, where [[Elijah Parish Lovejoy]] hid his printing press]]
In November 1837, [[Elijah Parish Lovejoy]] was murdered in [[Alton, Illinois]] for printing an abolitionist newspaper. Brown, deeply upset about the incident, became more militant in his behavior, comparable with Reverend [[Henry Highland Garnet]].{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}} Brown publicly vowed after the incident: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!"<ref name="Missouri law">{{cite web
|title=Biography of John Brown|url=http://law.missouri.edu/bowman/hatts/john_brown/biography.html
|website=War and Reconciliation: The Mid-Missouri Civil War Project
|publisher=[[University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law]]
|access-date=December 12, 2016
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220103009/http://law.missouri.edu/bowman/hatts/john_brown/biography.html|archive-date=December 20, 2016
|url-status=dead}}</ref> Brown objected to Black congregants being relegated to the balcony at his church{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}} in Franklin Mills. According to daughter Ruth Brown's husband Henry Thompson, whose brother was killed at Harpers Ferry:

{{blockquote|[H]e and his three sons, John, Jason, and Owen, were expelled from the Congregational church at Kent, then called Franklin, Ohio, for taking a colored man into their own pew; and the deacons of the church tried to persuade him to concede his error. My wife and various members of the family afterward joined the Wesley Methodists, but John Brown never connected himself with any church again.<ref name=Nixson>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Family
|newspaper=[[The Inter Ocean]] 
|location=Chicago, Illinois
|date=July 23, 1893
|page=13
|first=Una B.
|last=Nixson
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/76818707/the-brown-family-in-pasadena/
|access-date=May 3, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525051006/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/76818707/the-brown-family-in-pasadena/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>}}

For three or four years he seemed to flounder hopelessly, moving from one activity to another without plan. He tried many different business efforts attempting to get out of debt. He bred horses briefly, but gave it up when he learned that buyers were using them as race horses.<ref name=Salmon>{{cite journal
|first=Salmon
|last=Brown
|title=John Brown's Son Talks about His Father
|journal=[[The American Magazine]]
|volume=83
|date=January 1917
|pages=49–50
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015038078906&view=1up&seq=63&skin=2021
|access-date=August 4, 2021
|archive-date=August 4, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804202949/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015038078906&view=1up&seq=63&skin=2021
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He did some surveying, farming, and [[Tanning (leather)|tanning]].{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|pp=19–23}} Brown declared [[Bankruptcy in the United States|bankruptcy]] in federal court on September 28, 1842.<ref name="PBS timeline">{{Cite web |title=American Experience: Timeline of John Brown's Life |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline-john-browns-life/ |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=PBS |language=en |archive-date=April 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220406230039/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline-john-browns-life/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1843, three of his children — Charles, Peter, Austin — died of [[dysentery]].<ref name="NPS Wives and children">{{Cite web |title=The Wives and Children of John Brown |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/wives-and-children-of-john-brown.htm |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=U.S. National Park Service |language=en |archive-date=February 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213074915/https://www.nps.gov/articles/wives-and-children-of-john-brown.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

From the mid-1840s, Brown had built a reputation as an expert in fine sheep and wool. For about one year, he ran Captain Oviatt's farm,<ref name=Salmon/> and he then entered into a partnership with Colonel Simon Perkins of [[Akron, Ohio]], whose flocks and farms were managed by Brown and his sons.<ref name="SCHS">{{Cite web |title=Perkins & Brown Partnership |url=https://www.summithistory.org/perkins-brown-partnership |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=The Summit County Historical Society of Akron Ohio |archive-date=October 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019030229/https://www.summithistory.org/perkins-brown-partnership |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|Later, in 1852, Brown received five first prizes for his sheep and cattle at the Ohio State Fair.<ref name=Salmon/>}} Brown eventually moved into a home with his family across the street from the [[Perkins Stone Mansion]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Perkins Stone Mansion & John Brown House Museums |url=https://www.ohioanderiecanalway.com/plan/listings/perkins-stone-mansion-john-brown-house-museums/ |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=Ohio and Erie Canalway |language=en |archive-date=September 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929232653/http://www.ohioanderiecanalway.com/plan/listings/perkins-stone-mansion-john-brown-house-museums/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Springfield, Massachusetts===
[[File:John Brown by Augustus Washington, 1846-7.png|thumb|upright|A [[daguerreotype]] of Brown taken by African-American photographer [[Augustus Washington]] in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], {{circa|1846–1847}}. Brown is holding the hand-colored flag of ''Subterranean Pass Way'', his militant counterpart to the Underground Railroad.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cowanauctions.com/department_view_item.asp?ItemId=55248|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100624085155/http://www.cowanauctions.com/department_view_item.asp?ItemId=55248|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 24, 2010|title=Cowan's Auctions|access-date=December 5, 2010|last=Cowan|first=Wes|date=December 6, 2007}}</ref>]]
In 1846, Brown moved to [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], as an agent for Ohio [[wool]] growers in their relations with New England manufacturers of woolen goods, but "also as a means of developing his scheme of emancipation".<ref name="theatlantic.com">{{cite magazine|last=Sanborn|first=Franklin|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn|date=April 1872|title=John Brown in Massachusetts|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/1872apr/sanborn.htm|url-status=dead|magazine=The Atlantic Monthly|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170409235558/http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/1872apr/sanborn.htm|archive-date=April 9, 2017}}</ref> The white leadership there, including "the publisher of ''[[The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts)|The Republican]]'', one of the nation's most influential newspapers, were deeply involved and emotionally invested in the [[Abolitionism in the United States|anti-slavery movement]]".<ref name="masslive.com">{{cite web|author=Carvalho III|first=Joseph|date=April 6, 2010|title=Abolitionist John Brown's years in Springfield Ma. transform his anti-slavery thoughts and actions|url=http://www.masslive.com/history/index.ssf/2010/04/abolitionist_john_browns_transformation_years_in_springfield_ma.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120925221910/http://www.masslive.com/history/index.ssf/2010/04/abolitionist_john_browns_transformation_years_in_springfield_ma.html|archive-date=September 25, 2012|website=MassLive.com|publisher=MassLive Media}}</ref>

Brown made connections in Springfield that later yielded financial support he received from New England's great merchants, allowed him to hear and meet nationally famous abolitionists like Douglass and [[Sojourner Truth]], and included the foundation of the [[League of Gileadites]].<ref name="theatlantic.com"/><ref name="masslive.com"/> Brown's personal attitudes evolved in Springfield, as he observed the success of the city's Underground Railroad and made his first venture into militant, anti-slavery community organizing. In speeches, he pointed to the martyrs [[Elijah Lovejoy]] and [[Charles Turner Torrey]] as white people "ready to help blacks challenge slave-catchers".{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=124}} In Springfield, Brown found a city that shared his own anti-slavery passions, and each seemed to educate the other. Certainly, with both successes and failures, Brown's Springfield years were a transformative period of his life that catalyzed many of his later actions.<ref name="masslive.com"/>

Two years before Brown's arrival in Springfield, in 1844, the city's African-American abolitionists had founded the Sanford Street Free Church, now known as [[St. John's Congregational Church & Parsonage-Parish for Working Girls|St. John's Congregational Church]], which became one of the most prominent abolitionist platforms in the United States. From 1846 until he left Springfield in 1850, Brown was a member of the Free Church, where he witnessed abolitionist lectures by the likes of [[Frederick Douglass]] and [[Sojourner Truth]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ourpluralhistory.stcc.edu/resistingslavery/stjohns.html|title=Resisting Slavery: St. John's Congregational Church|publisher=Springfield, MA – Our Plural History|access-date=October 16, 2012|archive-date=September 7, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120907180659/http://ourpluralhistory.stcc.edu/resistingslavery/stjohns.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1847, after speaking at the Free Church, Douglass spent a night speaking with Brown, after which Douglass wrote, "From this night spent with John Brown in Springfield, Mass. [in] 1847, while I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the same less hopeful for its peaceful abolition."<ref name="masslive.com"/> 

During Brown's time in Springfield, he became deeply involved in transforming the city into a major center of abolitionism, and one of the safest and most significant stops on the Underground Railroad.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sjkb.org/discover_stjohns/history.html|title=History &#124; St. John's Congregational Church &#124; Springfield, MA|publisher=Sjkb.org|date=June 22, 2010|access-date=October 16, 2012|archive-date=April 26, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426062202/http://sjkb.org/discover_stjohns/history.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Brown contributed to the 1848 republication, by his friend [[Henry Highland Garnet]], of [[David Walker (abolitionist)|David Walker]]'s ''[[An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World]]'' (1829),<ref name="Trodd">{{Cite journal |last=Trodd |first=Zoe |date=2007 |title=Writ In Blood: John Brown's Charter of Humanity, The Tribunal of History, and the Thick Link of American Political Protest (summary) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/232579 |journal=Journal for the Study of Radicalism |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=1–29 |doi=10.1353/jsr.2008.0020 |s2cid=145626910 |issn=1930-1197 |access-date=April 6, 2022 |archive-date=June 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180603002659/http://muse.jhu.edu/article/232579 |url-status=live }}</ref> which he helped publicize.<ref>{{cite web |title=Africans in America – Abolitionism |url=http://kimeatghs.com/ushistory/abolitionism.html |date=1998–1999 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713150821/http://kimeatghs.com/ushistory/abolitionism.html |archive-date=July 13, 2011 |publisher=GHS IB History of the Americas |access-date=March 16, 2022}}</ref>

Before Brown left Springfield in 1850, the United States passed the [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850|Fugitive Slave Act]], a law mandating that authorities in free states aid in the return of escaped slaves and imposing penalties on those who aid in their escape. In response, Brown founded a militant group to prevent the recapture of fugitives, the [[League of Gileadites]],<ref name="Trodd" />{{efn|In the Bible, [[Gilead|Mount Gilead]] was the place where only the bravest of [[Israelites]] gathered to face an invading enemy. Brown founded the League with the words, "Nothing so charms the American people as personal bravery. [Blacks] would have ten times the number [of white friends than] they now have were they but half as much in earnest to secure their dearest rights as they are to ape the follies and extravagances of their white neighbors, and to indulge in idle show, in ease, and in luxury."<ref name="zikibay.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.zikibay.com/brown/prelude.html|title=John Brown: In His Own Words – Prelude|publisher=Zikibay.com|access-date=October 16, 2012|archive-date=April 26, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426062159/http://www.zikibay.com/brown/prelude.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}} operated by free Blacks—like the "strong-minded, brave, and dedicated" Eli Baptist, William Montague, and Thomas Thomas<ref name="masslive.com" />{{efn|Brown gave his rocking chair to the mother of his beloved black porter, Thomas Thomas, as a gesture of affection when he moved away from Springfield.<ref name="masslive.com" />}}—who risked being caught by slave catchers and sold into slavery.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2008|p=79}} Upon leaving Springfield in 1850, he instructed the League to act "quickly, quietly, and efficiently" to protect slaves that escaped to Springfield{{snd}}words that would foreshadow Brown's later actions preceding Harpers Ferry.<ref name="zikibay.com"/> From Brown's founding of the ''League of Gileadites'' onward, not one person was ever taken back into slavery from Springfield.<ref name="masslive.com" /> 

His daughter Amelia died in 1846, followed by Emma in 1849.<ref name="SCHS" />

===New York===
{{main|John Brown Farm State Historic Site}}
[[File:House at John Brown's Farm.jpg|thumb|[[John Brown Farm State Historic Site|John Brown's farmhouse]], [[North Elba, New York]], now a historic site and [[National Historic Landmark]]]]
In 1848, bankrupt and having lost the family's house, Brown heard of [[Gerrit Smith]]'s [[Adirondack Mountains|Adirondack]] land grants to poor black men, in so remote a location that Brown later called it [[Timbuctoo, New York|Timbuctoo]], and decided to move his family there to establish a farm where he could provide guidance and assistance to the blacks who were attempting to establish farms in the area.<ref name=Nelba>{{cite web
|title=John Brown's Farm
|date=2008
|publisher=New York History Net
|access-date=December 15, 2018
|url=http://www.nyhistory.com/gerritsmith/nelba.htm
|archive-date=October 20, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181020074541/http://www.nyhistory.com/gerritsmith/nelba.htm
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> He bought from Smith land in the town of [[North Elba, New York]] (near [[Lake Placid (New York)|Lake Placid]]), for $1 an acre ($2/ha).<ref>{{cite book
|url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofadiron02dona#page/5/mode/1up
|title=A History of the Adirondacks
|last=Donaldson
|first=Alfred Lee
|volume=2
|location=New York
|publisher=[[The Century Company|Century]]
|contribution=John Brown at North Elba|date=1921 |access-date=October 16, 2018}}</ref> It has a magnificent view<ref name=Watson>{{cite news
|title=Watson Brown's Remains
|newspaper=[[Indianapolis Journal]]
|date=October 18, 1882
|page=2
|via=[[newspaperarchive.com]]
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/indianapolis-journal-oct-18-1882-p-2/
|access-date=November 8, 2020
|archive-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116025051/https://newspaperarchive.com/indianapolis-journal-oct-18-1882-p-2/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> and has been called "the highest arable spot of land in the State."<ref>{{cite news
|title=The Burial of John Brown
|newspaper=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=December 16, 1859
|page=3
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63000537/burial-of-john-brown-in-north-elba/
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=November 11, 2020
|archive-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412104910/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63000537/burial-of-john-brown-in-north-elba/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> After living with his family about two years in a small rented house, and returning for several years to Ohio, he had the current house{{snd}}now a monument preserved by New York State{{snd}}built for his family, viewing it as a place of refuge for them while he was away. According to youngest son Salmon, "frugality was observed from a moral standpoint, but one and all we were a well-fed, well-clad lot."<ref>{{cite journal
|title=My Father, John Brown
|first=Salmon
|last=Brown
|pages=215
|journal=[[The Outlook (New York City)|The Outlook]]
|location=New York
|volume=103
|number=4
|date=January 25, 1913
|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_new-outlook_1913-01-25_103_4/page/212/mode/2up}}</ref>

After he was executed on December 2, 1859, his widow took [[John Brown's body|his body there for burial]]; the trip took five days, and he was buried on December 8. Watson's body was located and buried there in 1882. In 1899 the remains of 12 of Brown's other collaborators, including his son Oliver, were located and brought to North Elba. They could not be identified well enough for separate burials, so they are buried together in a single casket donated by the town of North Elba; there is a collective plaque there now. Since 1895, the [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site]] has been owned by New York State and is now a [[National Historic Landmark]].<ref name=Nelba/>

==Actions in Kansas==

[[Kansas Territory]] was in the midst of a state-level civil war from 1854 to 1860, referred to as the [[Bleeding Kansas]] period, between pro- and anti-slavery forces.<ref name="34th Congress - 1st Session" /> From 1854 to 1856, there had been eight killings in Kansas Territory attributable to slavery politics. There had been no organized action by abolitionists against pro-slavery forces by 1856.<ref name="Watts" /> The issue was to be decided by the voters of Kansas, but who these voters were was not clear; there was widespread voting fraud in favor of the pro-slavery forces, as a Congressional investigation confirmed.<ref name="34th Congress - 1st Session">{{Cite report
|author=U. S. House of Representatives – 34th Congress – 1st Session
|author-link=34th United States Congress
|title=Report of the Special Committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas; with the views of the minority of said Committee
|location=Washington, D.C.
|year=1856
|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=moa;cc=moa;sid=1f5114455ee8820b080a95813f091487;rgn=title;q1=troubles%20in%20kansas;firstpubl1=1800;firstpubl2=1925;view=toc;subview=detail;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=AFK4445.0001.001
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811023716/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=moa;cc=moa;sid=1f5114455ee8820b080a95813f091487;rgn=title;q1=troubles%20in%20kansas;firstpubl1=1800;firstpubl2=1925;view=toc;subview=detail;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=AFK4445.0001.001
|archive-date=August 11, 2011
|url-status=live
|access-date=March 16, 2022
}}</ref>

===Move to Kansas===
Five of Brown's sons — John Jr., Jason, Owen, Frederick, and Salmon — moved to [[Kansas Territory]] in the spring of 1855. Brown, his son Oliver, and his son-in-law Henry Thompson followed later that year<ref name="KHS" /> with a wagon loaded with weapons and ammunition.<ref name="Brit">{{Cite web |title=John Brown Biography, Harpers Ferry, & Pottawatomie Massacre |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Brown-American-abolitionist |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=Britannica |language=en |archive-date=April 7, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407060948/https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Brown-American-abolitionist |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|Brown's wife Mary refused to relocate to Kansas.{{sfn|McGlone|1989|p=1188}}}} Brown stayed with Florella (Brown) Adair and the Reverend Samuel Adair, his half-sister and her husband, who lived near [[Osawatomie, Kansas|Osawatomie]]. During that time, he rallied support to fight proslavery forces,<ref name="KHS">{{Cite web |title=John Brown |url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/john-brown/11731 |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=Kansas Historical Society |archive-date=April 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220406234901/https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/john-brown/11731 |url-status=live }}</ref> and became the leader of the antislavery forces in Kansas.<ref name="Brit" />{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=54}}

===Pottawatomie===
{{Main|Pottawatomie massacre|Bleeding Kansas}}

[[File:John Brown by Southworth & Hawes, 1856.png|thumb|John Brown, quarter-plate daguerreotype, attributed to [[Southworth & Hawes]], Winter 1856, [[Massachusetts Historical Society]]]]

Brown and the free-state settlers intended to bring [[Kansas in the American Civil War|Kansas]] into the union as a slavery-free state.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rhodes|first=James Fork|title=History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds06rhodrich|year=1892|publisher=Harper & Brothers|location=Original from Harvard University|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds06rhodrich/page/385 385]}}</ref> After the winter snows thawed in 1856, the pro-slavery activists began a campaign to seize Kansas on their own terms. Brown was particularly affected by the [[sacking of Lawrence]], the center of anti-slavery activity in Kansas, on May 21, 1856. A  [[sheriff]]-led posse from Lecompton, the center of pro-slavery activity in Kansas, destroyed two [[abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] newspapers and the [[The Eldridge Hotel|Free State Hotel]]. Only one man, a [[border ruffian]], was killed.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=162}} 

[[Preston Brooks]]'s May 22 [[Caning of Charles Sumner|caning]] of anti-slavery Senator [[Charles Sumner]] in the [[United States Senate]], news of which arrived by newswire (telegraph), also fueled Brown's anger. A pro-slavery writer, [[Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow (1816–1891)|Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow]], of the ''Squatter Sovereign'', wrote that "[pro-slavery forces] are determined to repel this Northern invasion, and make Kansas a [[slave state]]; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their victims, and the carcasses of the abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose".{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=162}} Brown was outraged by both the violence of the pro-slavery forces and what he saw as a weak and cowardly response by the antislavery partisans and the Free State settlers, whom he described as "cowards, or worse".{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp= 163–164}}

The [[Pottawatomie massacre]] occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. Under Brown's supervision, his sons and other abolitionist settlers took from their residences and killed five "professional slave hunters and militant pro-slavery" settlers.<ref>{{cite web
|title=A Libertarian Defense of John Brown
|date=February 18, 2014
|last=Huyett
|first=Ian
|magazine=The Libertarian Republic
|url=https://thelibertarianrepublic.com/defense-john-brown/
|access-date=February 10, 2019
|archive-date=March 24, 2016
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324204848/http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/defense-john-brown/
|url-status=live}}</ref> The massacre was the match in the powderkeg that precipitated the bloodiest period in "Bleeding Kansas" history, a three-month period of retaliatory raids and battles in which 29 people died.<ref name="Watts">{{cite journal
|last=Watts
|first=Dale E.
|url=http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1995summer_watts.pdf
|title=How Bloody Was Bleeding Kansas? Political Killings in Kansas Territory, 1854–1861
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019165328/http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1995summer_watts.pdf
|archive-date=October 19, 2017
|url-status=live
|journal=[[Kansas History (journal)|Kansas History]]
|volume=18
|number=2
|date=Summer 1995
|pages=116–129}}</ref>

[[Henry Clay Pate]], who was part of the sacking of Lawrence was, either during or shortly before, commissioned as a Deputy United States Marshal.<ref name="HistKan">{{cite book | last1=Andreas |first1=A. T.|url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/cul/texts/ldpd_8627113_001/pages/ldpd_8627113_001_00000121.html |title=History of the State of Kansas |publisher=Atchison County Historical Society |orig-date=1883 | date=1976|page= 132 }}</ref> On hearing news of John Brown's actions at the [[Pottawatomie Massacre]], Pate set out with a band of thirty men to hunt Brown down.<ref name="WJB1">{{cite book
|last1=Bridgman
|first1=Edward Payson
|last2=Parsons
|first2=Luke Fisher
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lzsuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA14
|title=With John Brown in Kansas: The Battle of Osawatomie
|location=[[Madison, Wisconsin]]
|year=1914
|publisher=J. N. Davidson
|page=14}}</ref> During the hunt for Brown, two of his sons (Jason and [[John Brown Junior|John Junior]]) were captured (either by Pate or another marshal), charged with murder, and thrown in irons.<ref name="HistKan"/><ref name="WJB1"/> Brown and free-state militia gathered to confront Pate. Two of Pate's men were captured, which led to the conflict on June 2.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012 | pages=21, 36 |title=Battle of Black Jack, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form |url=https://www.kshs.org/resource/national_register/nominationsNRDB/Douglas_BlackJackBattlefieldNHL.pdf |website=National Park Service}}</ref>

===Palmyra and Osawatomie===
In the [[Battle of Black Jack]] of June 2, 1856, John Brown, nine of his followers, and 20 local men successfully defended a Free State settlement at [[Palmyra Township, Douglas County, Kansas|Palmyra, Kansas]], against an attack by [[Henry Clay Pate]]. Pate and 22 of his men were taken prisoner.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp= 180–181, 186}}

In August, a company of over 300 Missourians under the command of General [[John W. Reid]] crossed into Kansas and headed toward [[Osawatomie, Kansas|Osawatomie]], intending to destroy the Free State settlements there and then march on [[Topeka, Kansas|Topeka]] and [[Lawrence, Kansas|Lawrence]].{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p= 199}} On the morning of August 30, 1856, they shot and killed Brown's son Frederick and his neighbor David Garrison on the outskirts of Osawatomie. Brown, outnumbered more than seven to one, arranged his 38 men behind natural defenses along the road. Firing from cover, they managed to kill at least 20 of Reid's men and wounded 40 more.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp= 200–201}} Reid regrouped, ordering his men to dismount and charge into the woods. Brown's small group scattered and fled across the [[Marais des Cygnes River]]. One of Brown's men was killed during the retreat and four were captured. While Brown and his surviving men hid in the woods nearby, the Missourians plundered and burned Osawatomie. Though defeated, Brown's bravery and military shrewdness in the face of overwhelming odds brought him national attention and made him a hero to many Northern abolitionists.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp=201–202}}

On September 7, Brown entered Lawrence to meet with Free State leaders and help fortify against a feared assault. At least 2,700 pro-slavery Missourians were once again invading Kansas. On September 14, they skirmished near Lawrence. Brown prepared for battle, but serious violence 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.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp=203–204}}

Brown had become infamous and federal warrants were issued for his arrest due to his actions in Kansas. He became careful of how he travelled and whom he stayed with across the country.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=62}}

==Raid at Harpers Ferry==

{{Main|John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry}}
{{See also|List of sources for John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry}}

===Brown's plans===
[[File:John Brown portrait, 1859.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Three-quarter length portrait of John Brown, salt print, reproduction of daguerreotype attributed to [[Martin M. Lawrence]], May 1859]]
Brown's plans for a major attack on American slavery began long before the raid. According to his wife Mary, interviewed while her husband was awaiting his execution, Brown had been planning the attack for 20 years.<ref>{{cite news
|newspaper=[[Sacramento Daily Union]] ([[Sacramento, California]])
|date=19 December 1859
|via=[[California Digital Newspaper Collection]]
|title=A personal interview with John Brown's wife
|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18591219.2.3
|access-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216124626/https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18591219.2.3
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Frederick Douglass noted that he made the plans before he fought in Kansas.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Capt. John Brown Not Insane
|first=Frederick
|last=Douglass
|author-link=Frederick Douglass
|journal=[[Douglass' Monthly]]
|location=[[Rochester, New York]]
|volume=2
|page=1
|number=6
|date=November 1859
|url=https://www.accessible.com/accessible/docButton?AAWhat=builtPage&AAWhere=DOUGLASSMONTHLY.18591100_001.image&AABeanName=toc3&AANextPage=/printBrowseBuiltImagePage.jsp
|access-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-date=February 2, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210202032535/https://www.accessible.com/accessible/docButton?AAWhat=builtPage&AAWhere=DOUGLASSMONTHLY.18591100_001.image&AABeanName=toc3&AANextPage=%2FprintBrowseBuiltImagePage.jsp
|url-status=live
}}</ref> For instance, he spent the years between 1842 and 1849 settling his business affairs, moving his family to the Negro community at [[Timbuctoo, New York]], and organizing in his own mind an anti-slavery raid that would strike a significant blow against the entire slave system, running slaves off Southern plantations.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Re-evaluating John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry|first=Karen|last=Whitman|journal=West Virginia History|volume=34|number=1|date=October 1972|pages=46–84|url=http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh34-1.html|access-date=November 19, 2018|archive-date=January 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126120418/http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh34-1.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

According to his first biographer [[James Redpath]], "for thirty years, he secretly cherished the idea of being the leader of a servile insurrection: the American Moses, predestined by Omnipotence to lead the servile nations in our Southern States to freedom."<ref>{{cite news
|title=Old Brown's Work in Kansas
|newspaper=[[New York Daily Herald]]
|date=October 23, 1859
|page=1
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63027513/various-things-connected-with-john/
|access-date=November 11, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121810/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63027513/various-things-connected-with-john/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> An acquaintance said: "As Moses was raised up and chosen of God to deliver the Children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, ...he was...fully convinced in his own mind that he was to be the instrument in the hands of God to effect the emancipation of the slaves."<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown and Mr. Arny
|date=Jan 27, 1860
|last=Arny
|author-link=William Frederick Milton Arny
|newspaper=[[New York Herald]]
|first=W. F. M.
|url=https://ia803207.us.archive.org/26/items/abrahamlincolnrelrjblinc/abrahamlincolnrelrjblinc.pdf}}</ref>

Brown said that,
{{blockquote|A few men in the right, and knowing that they are right, can overturn a mighty king. Fifty men, twenty men, in the Alleghenies would break slavery to pieces in two years.{{sfn|Hinton|2011|p=426}}}}

Brown kept his plans a secret, including the care he took not to share the plans with his men, according to Jeremiah Anderson, one of the participants in the raid.{{sfn|Douglass|1882|p=358}} His son [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen]], the only one who survived of Brown's three participating sons, said in 1873 that he did not think his father wrote down the entire plan.<ref name=Atlantic>{{cite magazine
|title=Owen Brown's Escape From Harper's Ferry.
|magazine=[[Atlantic Monthly]]
|date=March 1874
|page=343
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.25763588&view=2up&seq=352
|first=Ralph
|last=Keeler
|access-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-date=November 7, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107072844/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.25763588&view=2up&seq=352
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He did discuss his plans at length, for over a day, with Frederick Douglass, trying unsuccessfully to persuade Douglass, a black leader, to accompany him to Harpers Ferry (which Douglass thought a suicidal mission that could not succeed).{{sfn|Douglass|1882|pp=350–351, 355–356}}

===Preparations===
====Financial and political backing====
To attain financial backing and political support for the raid on Harpers Ferry, Brown spent most of 1857 meeting with abolitionists in Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut.{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=240}} Initially Brown returned to Springfield, where he received contributions, and also a letter of recommendation from a prominent and wealthy merchant, George Walker. Walker was the brother-in-law of [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn]], the secretary for the [[Massachusetts State Kansas Committee]], who introduced Brown to several influential abolitionists in the Boston area in January 1857.<ref name="theatlantic.com"/>{{sfn|Sanborn|Brown|1878|p=}}
[[Amos Adams Lawrence]], a prominent Boston merchant, secretly gave Brown a large amount of cash.<ref name="test">{{cite web| url = http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2009/3/2009_3_20.shtml| title = Jason Emerson| access-date = July 20, 2010| archive-date = April 19, 2010| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100419012424/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2009/3/2009_3_20.shtml| url-status = dead}} "The Secret Six", ''American Heritage'', Fall 2009.</ref> [[William Lloyd Garrison]], [[Thomas Wentworth Higginson]], [[Theodore Parker]] and [[George Luther Stearns]], and [[Samuel Gridley Howe]] also supported Brown,<ref name="test" /> although Garrison, a pacificist, disagreed about the need to use violence to end slavery.{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=241}}

Most of the money for the raid came from the "[[Secret Six]]",{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=240}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Warch |first1=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cp12AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA11 |title=John Brown |last2=Fanton |first2=Jonathan F. |date=1973 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |isbn=978-0-13-510164-3 |page=11 |language=en}}</ref> [[Franklin B. Sanborn]], [[Samuel G. Howe]] M.D., businessman [[George L. Stearns]], real estate tycoon [[Gerrit Smith]], transcendentalist and reforming minister of the [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] church [[Theodore Parker]], and Unitarian minister [[Thomas Wentworth Higginson]].{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=240}} Recent research has also highlighted the substantial contribution of [[Mary Ellen Pleasant]], an African American entrepreneur and abolitionist, who donated $30,000 ({{inflation|US|30000|1857|fmt=eq}}) toward the cause.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carter Jackson |first=Kellie |title=Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2019 |page=113}}</ref>

In Boston, he met [[Henry David Thoreau]] and [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]].{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=241}} Even with the Secret Six and other contributors, Brown had not collected all money needed to fund the raid. He wrote an appeal, ''Old Browns Farewell'', to abolitionists in the east with some success.{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=241}}

In December 1857, an anti-slavery Mock Legislature, organized by Brown, met in [[Springdale, Iowa]].{{sfn|Smith|1895|pp=231–232}} On several of Brown's trips across Iowa he preached at [[Reverend George B. Hitchcock House|Hitchcock House]], an Underground Railroad stop in [[Lewis, Iowa]].<ref>{{citation|title=Hitchcock House|url=https://www.thehistorylist.com/sites/hitchcock-house-lewis-iowa/the-underground-railroad-a-historic-america-road-trip|website=www.thehistorylist.com|access-date=May 25, 2021|archive-date=January 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125162210/https://www.thehistorylist.com/sites/hitchcock-house-lewis-iowa/the-underground-railroad-a-historic-america-road-trip|url-status=live}}</ref>

===="Virginia scheme"====
[[File:Maxon house springdale iowa.jpg|thumb|William Maxon's house, near [[Springdale, Iowa]], where John Brown's associates lived and trained, 1857–1859. Brown lived at the home of [[John Hunt Painter]], less than a mile away.]]
With a free-state victory in the October elections, Kansas was quiet. Brown made his men return to Iowa, where he told them tidbits of his Virginia scheme.<ref>Jones, Louis Thomas (1914). ''The Quakers of Iowa''. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa. p. 193: <br />"A little over a year after his first visit to the Springdale neighborhood, Brown reappeared late in December, 1857{{snd}}this time with some ten companions and for purposes which he seemed not anxious to have known. The men were lodged with a Quaker, William Maxon, about three miles northeast of the village of Springdale, Brown agreeing to give in exchange for their keep such of his teams or wagons as might seem just and fair. Brown was taken into the home of John H. Painter, about a half-mile away; and all were welcomed with that unfeigned hospitality for which the Friends have always been known."</ref> In January 1858, Brown left his men in [[Springdale, Iowa]], and set off to visit [[Frederick Douglass]] in [[Rochester, New York]]. There he discussed his plans with Douglass, and reconsidered Forbes' criticisms.<ref>Morel, Lucas E. {{cite web| url = http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24657| title = In Pursuit of Freedom| access-date = June 30, 2011| archive-date = October 7, 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111007222911/http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24657| url-status = dead}}." {{cite web| url = http://www.teachinghistory.org/| title = Teachinghistory.org| access-date = June 12, 2021| archive-date = November 28, 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171128145619/http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24411| url-status = dead}}; retrieved June 30, 2011.</ref> Brown wrote a [[Provisional Constitution (John Brown)|Provisional Constitution]] that would create a government for a new state in the region of his invasion. He then traveled to [[Peterboro, New York]], and Boston to discuss matters with the Secret Six. In letters to them, he indicated that, along with recruits, he would go into the South equipped with weapons to do "Kansas work".{{sfn|Sanborn|1891|p=519}} While in Boston making secret preparations for his operation on Harper's Ferry, he was raising money for weapons that were manufactured in Connecticut.  Abolitionist Chaplain [[Photius Fisk]] gave him a sizable donation and obtained his autograph which he later gave to the [[Kansas Historical Society]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Hodge |first= Lyman F. |author-link= |date= 1891 |title= Photius Fisk A Biography |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=X-l_AdfbROMC&dq=Photius+Fisk+biography+john+brown&pg=PA117 |location= Boston, Mass |publisher= Lyman F. Hodge |pages= 116–117 |isbn= |access-date= June 6, 2021 |archive-date= July 21, 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121819/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Photius_Fisk/X-l_AdfbROMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Photius+Fisk+biography+john+brown&pg=PA117&printsec=frontcover |url-status= live }}</ref>

Brown started to wear a beard, "to change his usual appearance".<ref>{{cite news
|title=With Old John Brown. Recollections of Colonel R. J. Hinton, dating from 1856
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82029197/with-john-brown-in-kansas-what/
|date=June 30, 1895
|orig-date=April 21, 1895
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723164803/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82029197/with-john-brown-in-kansas-what/
|archive-date=July 23, 2021
|url-status=live
|newspaper=[[Democrat and Chronicle]] ([[Rochester, New York]])
|page=11
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=March 16, 2022
}}<br />
First published in the ''[[Brooklyn Daily Eagle]]''
</ref>

====Weapons====
The Massachusetts Committee pledged to provide 200 [[Sharps Rifle]]s and ammunition, which were being stored at [[Tabor, Iowa]]. The rifles were originally intended for use by free-staters in Kansas. After negotiation between the officers of the Massachusetts Kansas Committee and the National Committee, the rifles were transferred to the Massachusetts Committee for use in the Harpers Ferry raid.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Isely |first=W. H. |date=1907 |title=The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1832405 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=561 |doi=10.2307/1832405 |jstor=1832405 |hdl=10057/12535 |issn=0002-8762|hdl-access=free }}</ref> Horatio N. Rust, a friend of Brown's, helped acquire for 1,000 [[Pike (weapon)|pikes]] for the intended slave rebellion.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scharff |first=Virginia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-4gkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 |title=Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West |date=2015-04-09 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-28126-4 |pages=181 |language=en}}</ref>

Weapons were purchased and sent to [[Kennedy Farmhouse]] in [[Sharpsburg, Maryland]], where they were stored.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=91–93}} Brown's plan was to make use of weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment stored at the armory, arsenal, and the rifle factory in Harpers Ferry.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=47, 75, 88}} There were an estimated 100,000 muskets and rifles at the armory and arsenal complex at the time.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/peopleevents/pande09.html|title=The Harpers Ferry Raid|publisher=pbs.org|access-date=2014-12-09|archive-date=January 9, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170109033610/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/peopleevents/pande09.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The more sophisticated weapons, like Sharps rifles and pistols, were to be used by Black and White officers. The remaining fighters would use spear-like pikes, [[shotgun]]s, and [[musket]]s.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=67}}

====Constitutional convention in Ontario====
Brown and 12 of his followers, including his son [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen]], traveled to [[Chatham-Kent, Ontario|Chatham]], Ontario, where he convened on May 10 a [[constitutional convention (political meeting)|Constitutional Convention]].<ref>{{cite web|title=John Brown's Convention 1858|url=http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=71386|website=Historical Marker Database|access-date=September 24, 2015|archive-date=September 25, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925103347/http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=71386|url-status=live}}</ref> The convention, with several dozen delegates including his friend [[James Madison Bell]], was put together with the help of Dr. [[Martin Delany]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/chathamdelegates.html|title=Chatham Convention Delegates|website=www.wvculture.org|access-date=April 17, 2016|archive-date=May 30, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150530005001/http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/chathamdelegates.html|url-status=live}}</ref> One-third of Chatham's 6,000 residents were fugitive slaves, and it was here that Brown was introduced to [[Harriet Tubman]], who helped him recruit.{{sfn|Finkelman|1995|p=99}} The convention's 34 blacks and 12 whites adopted Brown's [[Provisional Constitution (John Brown)|Provisional Constitution]]. Brown had long used the terminology of the Subterranean Pass Way from the late 1840s, so it is possible that Delany conflated Brown's statements over the years. Regardless, Brown was elected commander-in-chief and named [[John Henrie Kagi]] his "Secretary of War". [[Richard Realf]] was named "Secretary of State". Elder Monroe, a black minister, was to act as president until another was chosen. A. M. Chapman was the acting vice president; Delany, the corresponding secretary. In 1859, "A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America" was written.<ref>{{cite magazine
|url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/john-brown-the-abolitionist-s-declaration-of-liberty-written-by-owen-brown-in-scroll-form.html
|magazine=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]
|title=John Brown's Passionate 'Declaration of Liberty,' Written on a Lengthy Scroll
|first=Rebecca
|last=Onion
|date=December 2, 2013
|access-date=February 5, 2021
|archive-date=February 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213020758/https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/john-brown-the-abolitionist-s-declaration-of-liberty-written-by-owen-brown-in-scroll-form.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
|series=Preserving American Freedom : The Evolution of American Liberties in Fifty Documents
|publisher=[[Historical Society of Pennsylvania]]
|date=July 4, 1859
|first=John
|last=Brown
|author-link=John Brown (abolitionist)
|url=http://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/doc/declaration-liberty-representatives-slave-population-united-states-america-july-4-1859
|title=A Declaration of Liberty By the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America
|access-date=February 5, 2021
|archive-date=April 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413200515/http://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/doc/declaration-liberty-representatives-slave-population-united-states-america-july-4-1859
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

====Crisis====
While in New York City, Brown was introduced to Hugh Forbes, an English mercenary, who had experience as a military tactician fighting with [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]]. Concerned about Brown's strategy, Forbes undermined and delayed the plans for the raid.{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=244}}

Although nearly all of the delegates signed the constitution, few volunteered to join Brown's forces, although it will never be clear how many Canadian expatriates actually intended to join Brown because of a subsequent "security leak" that threw off plans for the raid, creating a hiatus in which Brown lost contact with many of the Canadian leaders. This crisis occurred when Hugh Forbes, Brown's mercenary, tried to expose the plans to Massachusetts Senator [[Henry Wilson]] and others. The Secret Six feared their names would be made public. Howe and Higginson wanted no delays in Brown's progress, while Parker, Stearns, Smith and Sanborn insisted on postponement. Stearns and Smith were the major sources of funds, and their words carried more weight. To throw Forbes off the trail and invalidate his assertions, Brown returned to Kansas in June, and remained in that vicinity for six months. There he joined forces with [[James Montgomery (colonel)|James Montgomery]], who was leading raids into Missouri.

====Continue to organize funds and forces====
[[File:Ole Peter Hansen Balling - John Brown - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Portrait of John Brown, by [[Ole Peter Hansen Balling]], 1872, National Portrait Gallery]]
On December 20, Brown [[Battle of the Spurs (Kansas)|led his own raid]], in which he liberated 11 slaves, took captive two white men, and looted horses and wagons. The Governor of Missouri announced a reward of $3,000 ({{inflation|US|3000|1859|fmt=eq}}) for his capture. On January 20, 1859, he embarked on a lengthy journey to take the liberated slaves to Detroit and then on a ferry to Canada. While passing through Chicago, Brown met with abolitionists [[Allan Pinkerton]], [[John Jones (abolitionist)|John Jones]], and [[Henry O. Wagoner]] who arranged and raised the fare for the passage to Detroit<ref>''The History of Johnson County, Iowa'', 1883, pp. 475–77</ref> and purchased supplies for Brown. Jones's wife and fellow abolitionist, [[Mary Jane Richardson Jones]], provided new clothes for Brown and his men, including the garb Brown [[Virginia v. John Brown#Execution|was hanged in]] six months later.<ref>Junger, Richard, "Thinking Men and Women who Desire to Improve our Condition": Henry O. Wagoner, ''Civil Rights, and Black Economic Opportunity in Frontier Chicago and Denver, 1846–1887''. in Alexander, William H., Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander, and Charles H. Ford, eds. ''Voices from within the Veil: African Americans and the Experience of Democracy''. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. p. 154</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite journal |last=Junger |first=Richard |date=2008 |title='God and man helped those who helped themselves': John and Mary Jones and the Culture of African American Self-Sufficiency in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Chicago |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000125384218 |url-status=live |journal=Journal of Illinois History |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=111–132 |oclc=40045726 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512024034/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000125384218 |archive-date=May 12, 2021 |access-date=May 10, 2021 |via=[[HathiTrust Digital Library]] |hdl=2027/inu.30000125384218}}</ref> On March 12, 1859, Brown met with [[Frederick Douglass]] and Detroit abolitionists [[George DeBaptiste]], William Lambert, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation.<ref>Underground Railroad, US Department of Interior, National Park Service, Denver Service Center. Duane Publishing, February 1, 1995, p. 168</ref> DeBaptiste proposed that conspirators blow up some of the South's largest churches. The suggestion was opposed by Brown, who felt humanity precluded such unnecessary bloodshed.<ref>Toledo, Gregory. The Hanging of Old Brown: A Story of Slaves, Statesmen, and Redemption. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. p. 75</ref>

Over the course of the next few months, he traveled again through Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts to drum up more support for the cause. On May 9, he delivered a lecture in [[Concord, Massachusetts]], that [[Amos Bronson Alcott]], Emerson, and Thoreau attended. Brown reconnoitered with the Secret Six.<ref name="whilbr" /> 

[[File:HWFireHouseBrown.jpg|thumb|''[[Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper|Leslie's]]'' illustration of U.S. Marines attacking John Brown's "Fort"]]
As he began recruiting supporters for an attack on slaveholders, Brown was joined by [[Harriet Tubman]], "General Tubman", as he called her.{{sfn|Clinton|2004|p=129}} Her knowledge of support networks and resources in the border states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware was invaluable to Brown and his planners.{{sfn|Clinton|2004|pp=126–28}} She also raised funds for Brown.<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Brown meets with Harriet Tubman in Canada  |url=https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/14694 |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu}}</ref>

Some abolitionists, including [[Frederick Douglass]] and [[William Lloyd Garrison]], opposed his tactics, but Brown dreamed of fighting to create a new state for freed slaves and made preparations for military action. After he began the first battle, he believed, slaves would rise up and carry out a rebellion across the South.{{sfn|Clinton|2004|pp=126–28}}

===Brown's forces===
{{main|John Brown's raiders}}

The men that fought with Brown in Kansas gathered at [[Springdale, Iowa]], a Quaker settlement, about January 1858, to prepare to execute Brown's Virginia scheme.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=70}}

In June, Brown paid his last visit to his family in North Elba before departing for Harpers Ferry. He stayed one night en route in [[Hagerstown, Maryland]], at the Washington House, on West Washington Street. On June 30, 1859, the hotel had at least 25 guests, including I. Smith and Sons, Oliver Smith and Owen Smith, and Jeremiah Anderson, all from New York. From papers found in the Kennedy Farmhouse after the raid, it is known that Brown wrote to Kagi that he would sign into a hotel as I. Smith and Sons.<ref name="whilbr">{{cite web| url = http://www.whilbr.org/JohnBrownWashingtonCounty/index.aspx| title = John Brown in Washington County| access-date = July 13, 2010| archive-date = July 28, 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110728175435/http://www.whilbr.org/JohnBrownWashingtonCounty/index.aspx| url-status = dead}}, whilbr.org; accessed August 29, 2015.</ref>

The men who prepared for the raid at Kennedy Farmhouse and participated in the raid with Brown included two groups of men:

:A group that fought with him in Kansas and gathered at Springdale, Iowa, to prepare and drill for the raid,{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=70–71, 101–104}}
:* [[Jeremiah Anderson (abolitionist)|Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson]], 26, born in Indiana, served with Brown in Kansas, killed in the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 101, 123}}
:* [[Oliver Brown (abolitionist)|Oliver Brown]], 20, John Brown's son, served in Kansas. He was mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=101, 123}}
:* [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen Brown]], about 35, John Brown's son, fought in Kansas. He escaped the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 102}}
:* John E. Cook, 29, reformer and former soldier, attended [[Oberlin College]], he initially escaped capture, but was found and hanged.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 102}}
:* [[Albert Hazlett]], 23, fought in Kansas, escaped following the raid, but was captured and hanged.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=103}}
:* [[John Henry Kagi]], about 24, a teacher, became Brown's second in command. Before the raid he printed copies of Brown's constitution in a printing shop he established in [[Hamilton, Ontario]]. He was mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 79, 103, 123}}
:* William H. Leeman, 20, fought with the free-staters in Kansas for three years, beginning at the age of 17. He died during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 103}}
:* [[Aaron Dwight Stevens]], about 28, was a former soldier and fighter in Kansas, who gave the men military training and drills. He was wounded during the raid, after which he was executed.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 104}}
:* Charles Plummer Tidd, 25, fought in Kansas. He escaped the raid and later served during the Civil War.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 104}}

:Men he met when rounding up recruits for the raid:{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=70–71, 101–104}}
:* [[Watson Brown (abolitionist)|Watson Brown]], son of John Brown, mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=123}}
:* [[John Anthony Copeland Jr.]] was a free black man who joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. He was captured during the raid and was executed.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=99, 102}}
:* [[Barclay and Edwin Coppock|Barclay Coppoc]], 19, escaped capture following the raid. He fought in the Civil War.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=72}}
:* [[Barclay and Edwin Coppock|Edwin Coppoc]], 24, captured and hanged.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=72, 102}}
:* [[Shields Green]], about 23, escaped slavery, captured and hanged.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=103}}
:* [[Lewis Sheridan Leary]], a harness maker freed by his white father, mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=103, 123}}
:* [[Francis Jackson Meriam]], 22, grandson of [[Francis Jackson (abolitionist)|Francis Jackson]] who was a leader of Antislavery Societies. Meriam was an aristocrat. He escaped during the raid. Meriam led an African American infantry group during the Civil War.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=103}}
:* [[Dangerfield Newby]], 44, born a slave, escaped slavery, returned to Virginia to fight in the raid, where he was killed.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 94, 104}}
:* Stewart Taylor, 23, a wagonmaker from Canada, mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=104, 123}}
:* Dauphin Thompson, 21, married to Ruth Brown, John Brown's daughter, mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=104, 123}}
:* William Thompson, 26, mortally wounded during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=104, 123}}

[[File:The Kennedy Farmhouse, 1902.jpg|thumb|[[Kennedy Farmhouse]], depicting Brown in his favorite spot in the yard, made posthumously in 1902]]
They were at [[Kennedy Farmhouse]], four to five miles away from Harpers Ferry. Brown's daughter and daughter-in-law, Anne and Martha, Oliver's wife, prepared food and kept the house for the men from August and throughout the month of September.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=91–93}}

===The raid===
{{main|John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry#Timeline of the raid}}

Brown led his forces for Harper Ferry on the night of October 16, 1859.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=105–106}} The objective was to take the armory, the arsenal, the town, and then the rifle factory. Then, they wanted to free all the slaves in Harpers Ferry.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=106}} After that, they would move south with those newly freed people wanted to join the fight to free other enslaved people.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=108–112}} Brown told his men to take prisoners who disobeyed them and to fight only in self-defense.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=106–108}} 

Initially, they met no resistance entering the town. [[John Brown's raiders]] cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including [[Colonel Lewis Washington]], great-grandnephew of [[George Washington]]. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://www.wvculture.org/History/jnobrown.html
| title = John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid
| access-date = January 11, 2008
| archive-date = January 11, 2008
| publisher=[[West Virginia Archives and History]]
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080111050237/http://www.wvculture.org/History/jnobrown.html
| url-status = dead}}, wvculture.org; accessed August 29, 2015.</ref>

When an eastbound [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad]] train approached the town, Brown held it and then inexplicably allowed it to continue on its way. At the next station where the telegraph still worked, the conductor sent a telegram to B&O headquarters in [[Baltimore]]. The railroad sent telegrams to President Buchanan and Virginia Governor [[Henry A. Wise]].<ref name=Maryland>{{cite book
|title=Correspondence relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859
|year=1860
|publisher=[[Senate of Maryland]]
|location=[[Annapolis, Maryland]]
|page=5
|url=https://archive.org/details/correspinsurrecti1860mult/page/n1/mode/2up}}</ref>

[[File:John brown interior engine house.jpg|thumb|Illustration of the interior of the Fort immediately before the door is broken down. Note hostages on the left.]]
By the morning of October 18 the engine house, later known as [[John Brown's Fort]], was surrounded by a company of [[United States Marine Corps|U.S. Marines]] under the command of First Lieutenant [[Israel Greene]], USMC, with Colonel [[Robert E. Lee]] of the United States Army in overall command.<ref>Hoffman, Colonel Jon T., ''USMC: A Complete History'', Marine Corps Association, Quantico, VA, (2002), p. 84.</ref>

Army First Lieutenant [[J. E. B. Stuart]] approached the engine-house to apprehend Brown and told the raiders their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, "No, I prefer to die here." Stuart then gave a signal and the Marines used sledgehammers and a makeshift battering ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives.{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|pp=167–169}}

Altogether, Brown's men killed four townspeople and one Marine. Ten people were wounded, one of whom was a Marine.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=59}} Four of Brown's men were not captured, the rest died during the raid or were captured and executed.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=70–71, 101–104}} Among the raiders killed were [[John Henry Kagi]], [[Lewis Sheridan Leary]], and [[Dangerfield Newby]]; those hanged besides Brown included [[John Anthony Copeland, Jr.|John Copeland]], [[Barclay and Edwin Coppock|Edwin Coppock]], [[Aaron Dwight Stevens|Aaron Stevens]], and [[Shields Green]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/people.html
|title= John Brown: The Conspirators |publisher= virginia.edu
|access-date= October 16, 2012 |archive-date= November 1, 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121101062954/http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/people.html |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|last1=Meyer
|first1=Eugene L.
|title=Five black men raided Harpers Ferry with John Brown. They've been forgotten.
|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/10/13/five-black-men-raided-harpers-ferry-with-john-brown-theyve-been-forgotten/
|newspaper=[[Washington Post]]
|date=Oct 19, 2019
|access-date=February 18, 2020 |language=en |archive-date=February 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217211217/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/10/13/five-black-men-raided-harpers-ferry-with-john-brown-theyve-been-forgotten/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Most of the enslaved people were returned to their slaveholders, and some were able to escape capture. A man named Phil was captured with Brown, and a man named Jim drowned in the Shenandoah.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=57}}

Brown and the others captured were held in the office of the armory. On October 18, 1859, Virginia Governor [[Henry A. Wise]], Virginia Senator [[James M. Mason]], and Representative [[Clement Vallandigham]] of Ohio arrived in Harpers Ferry. Brown conceded that he did not receive the support he expected from White and Black people. The questioning lasted several hours.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|pp=58–62}}

==The trial==
{{Main|Virginia v. John Brown}}
[[File:John Brown being interrogated.jpg|thumb|Brown has just been captured and is interrogated by Virginia Gov. [[Henry A. Wise]] and others, October 18, 1859.]]

[[File:John Brown - Treason broadside, 1859.png|thumb|right]]
[[File:The old Court House at Charlestown, Jefferson County, Virginia, where John Brown was tried; it stands diagonal across the street from the jail (1906).jpg|thumb|The old Court House at Charles Town, Jefferson County, Virginia, where John Brown was tried; it stands diagonally across the street from the jail ({{circa|1906|lk=no}}).]]
[[File:Old Jail at Charlestown, Jefferson County, Virginia, where John Brown was imprisoned.jpg|thumb|right|Two houses in Charles Town. The one on the right was the Jefferson County Jail, where John Brown was imprisoned during and after his trial. It has been torn down and is now the site of the Charles Town post office.]]

Brown was charged with treason and tried in a Virginia state court at Governor Wise's request. Accordingly, the charge was treason against Virginia.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|pp=12–13}} President Buchanan did not object.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|pp=12–14}}

{{blockquote|The answer provided in 1859 was more political ~ than legal. The president of the United States and the governor of Virginia decided that Brown would be tried in Virginia for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that is where he was tried.  This decision thrust Virginia rather than the United States into the role of the offended sovereign and contributed incalculably to the widening abyss between North and South. John Brown was condemned not as an enemy of the American people but as an enemy of Virginia and, by logical extension, of Southern slaveholders.|Brian McGinty, author of ''John Brown's Trial''{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=14}}}}

Brown was tried with his men who had lived through the raid and had not escaped — Copeland, Coppoc, Green, and Stevens — on charges of murder, "conspiracy to foment a slave insurrection", and treason, as of October 26.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=85}}

On November 2, after a week-long trial in Charles Town, the county seat of Jefferson County,{{sfn|McGinty|2009|pp=58, 95}}{{sfn|Redpath|1860|pp=340–342}} and 45 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Brown guilty on all three counts.{{sfn|Redpath|1860|pp=340–342}} He was sentenced to be hanged in public on December 2.{{sfn|Redpath|1860|pp=340–342}}
He was the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.<ref name="Treason">{{cite news
|title=Treason in the United States
|newspaper=[[Elizabethtown Post]] ([[Elizabethtown, New York]])
|date=December 3, 1859
|page=2
|via=NYS Historic Newspapers
|url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83030973/1859-12-03/ed-1/seq-2/
|access-date=March 18, 2022
|archive-date=April 13, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220413135927/https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83030973/1859-12-03/ed-1/seq-2/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>{{sfn|Loewen|2008|p=179}}

The trial attracted reporters who were able to send their articles via the new [[electrical telegraph|telegraph]]. They were reprinted in numerous papers. It was the first trial in the U.S. to be nationally reported.{{sfn|McGlone|1989|p=291}}

===November 2 to December 2, 1859===
Before his conviction, reporters were not allowed access to Brown, as the judge and Andrew Hunter feared that his statements, if quickly published, would exacerbate tensions, especially among the enslaved. This was much to Brown's frustration, as he stated that he wanted to make a full statement of his motives and intentions through the press.{{sfn|Redpath|1860|p=212}} Once he had been convicted, the restriction was lifted, and, glad for the publicity, he talked with reporters and anyone else who wanted to see him, except pro-slavery clergy.<ref name=Lowry>{{cite news
|title=Visit to John Brown by an old neighbor
|newspaper=[[Western Home Journal]] ([[Lawrence, Kansas]])
|last=Lowry
|first=M. B.
|orig-date=November 25, 1859
|date=December 15, 1859
|page=2
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78853788/a-visit-to-john-brown-by-an-old-friend/
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=June 3, 2021
|archive-date=June 3, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603101550/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78853788/a-visit-to-john-brown-by-an-old-friend/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Brown received more letters than he ever had in his life. He wrote replies constantly, hundreds of eloquent letters, often published in newspapers.{{sfn|Finkelman|1995|p=43}}

===Rescue and Victor Hugo's pardon plans===
There were well-documented and specific plans to rescue Brown, as Virginia Governor [[Henry A. Wise]] wrote to [[President Buchanan]]. Throughout the weeks Brown and six of his collaborators were in the Jefferson County Jail in Charles Town, the town was filled with various types of troops and militia, hundreds and sometimes thousands of them. Brown's trips from the jail to the courthouse and back, and especially the short trip from the jail to the gallows, were heavily guarded. Wise halted all non-military transportation on the [[Winchester and Potomac Railroad]] (from Maryland south through Harpers Ferry to Charles Town and Winchester), from the day before through the day after the execution. Jefferson County was under [[martial law]],<ref>{{cite news
|title=Visit to John Brown by an old neighbor
|last=Lowry
|first=J.B.
|newspaper=[[The Anglo-African|Weekly Anglo-African]]
|date=December 3, 1859
|page=2
|via=[[Portal to Texas History]]}}</ref> and the military orders in Charles Town for the execution day had 14 points.<ref>{{cite news
|title=The following orders were issued last night
|newspaper=[[Daily Exchange]] ([[Baltimore, Maryland]])
|date=December 3, 1859
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63369403/john-browns-execution/
|access-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093235/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63369403/john-browns-execution/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

However, Brown said several times that he did not want to be rescued. He refused the assistance of [[Silas Soule]], a friend from Kansas who infiltrated the Jefferson County Jail one day by getting himself arrested for drunken brawling and offered to break him out during the night and flee northward to New York State and possibly Canada. Brown told Silas that, aged 59, he was too old to live a life on the run from the federal authorities as a fugitive and wanted to accept his execution as a martyr for the abolitionist cause. As Brown wrote his wife and children from jail, he believed that his "blood will do vastly more towards advancing the cause I have earnestly endeavoured to promote, than all I have done in my life before."<ref>{{cite news
|first=John
|last=Brown
|title=Brown's letter to his wife
|author-link=John Brown (abolitionist)
|orig-date=November 8, 1859
|newspaper=[[United States Police Gazette]]
|volume=2
|page=2
|number=82
|date=December 10, 1859
|url=https://archive.org/details/unitedstatespoli1018cave/mode/1up}}</ref> "I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose."<ref>{{cite magazine
|magazine=[[The Atlantic Monthly]]
|date=November 1922
|first=Gemaliel
|last=Bradford
|title=John Brown
|author-link=Gamaliel Bradford (biographer)
|volume=130
|number=5
|pages=646–656
|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/22nov/bradford.htm
|access-date=December 8, 2020
|archive-date=November 23, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201123225513/https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/22nov/bradford.htm
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

[[Victor Hugo]], from exile on [[Guernsey]], tried to obtain a [[Clemency|pardon]] for John Brown: he sent an [[open letter]] that was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. This text, written at [[Hauteville House]] on December 2, 1859, warned of a possible civil war:

{{blockquote|Politically speaking, the murder of John Brown would be an uncorrectable sin. It would create in the Union a latent fissure that would in the long run dislocate it. Brown's agony might perhaps consolidate slavery in Virginia, but it would certainly shake the whole American democracy. You save your shame, but you kill your glory. Morally speaking, it seems a part of the human light would put itself out, that the very notion of justice and injustice would hide itself in darkness, on that day where one would see the assassination of Emancipation by Liberty itself.}}

The letter was initially published in the ''London News''{{dubious|London News|date=October 2023}} and was widely reprinted. After Brown's execution, Hugo wrote a number of additional letters about Brown and the abolitionist cause.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp=408–410}}

Abolitionists in the United States saw Hugo's writings as evidence of international support for the anti-slavery cause. The most widely publicized commentary on Brown to reach America from Europe was an 1861 pamphlet, ''John Brown par Victor Hugo'', that included a brief biography and reprinted two letters by Hugo, including that of December 9, 1859. The pamphlet's frontispiece was an engraving of a hanged man by Hugo that became widely associated with the execution.{{sfn|Finkelman|1995|p=254}}

==Last words, death and aftermath==
On December 1, 1859, Mary Ann Brown, who had stayed away from the prison due to Brown's concern for her safety, visited her husband for several hours with permission from Governor Wise.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=256}}

On the day of his execution, December 2,<ref name="Quarles" /> Brown read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife, which included the will he had written the previous day,<ref name="Carton" />{{sfn|McGinty| 2009|p=256}}<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Will
|newspaper=[[Buffalo Courier-Express|Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express]] ([[Buffalo, New York]])
|date=December 7, 1859
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80724453/john-browns-will/
|access-date=July 3, 2021
|archive-date=July 9, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709183129/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80724453/john-browns-will/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> as [[Virginia v. John Brown#Meetings|large meetings]] were held in many cities in the Northeast. In many of the cases, "Negroes were the chief actors in creating excitement".<ref name="Quarles" />

[[File:T-john-brown-last-prophecy.jpg|thumb|John Brown's last words, passed to a jailer on his way to the gallows. From an [[albumen photograph|albumen print]]; location of the original is unknown.]]
Brown was well read and knew that the last words of prominent people are valued. That morning, Brown wrote and gave to his jailor Avis the words he wanted to be remembered by:

<blockquote>I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.<ref name="Territorial Kansas Online">{{cite web| url = http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=bio_sketches%2Fbrown_john| title = Territorial Kansas Online: ''John Brown (1800–1859)''| access-date = September 1, 2020| archive-date = November 2, 2018| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181102024600/http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=bio_sketches%2Fbrown_john| url-status = dead}}, territorialkansasonline.org; accessed August 29, 2015.</ref></blockquote>

[[File:John Brown on his way to be executed.jpg|thumb|Brown sits on his coffin on his way to the gallows. Soldiers line up on both sides, to avoid a rescue.]]
At 11:00&nbsp;a.m. Brown rode, sitting on his coffin in a furniture wagon, from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers to a small field a few blocks away, where the gallows were.<ref name="Carton" /> The military, prepared for an attack, lined the square where Brown was to be hanged, with "the greatest array of disciplined forces ever seen in Virginia", according to Major Preston.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=256}} Among the soldiers in the crowd were future Confederate general [[Stonewall Jackson]], and [[John Wilkes Booth]] (the latter borrowing a militia uniform to gain admission to the execution).<ref name="Carton">Evan Carton, ''Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America'' (2006), pp. 332–33.</ref>

Brown, who did not want to have a minister with him, displayed "the most complete fearlessness of & insensibility to danger & death" as he walked to the gallows.{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=256}} Brown was hanged at 11:15&nbsp;a.m. and was pronounced dead 35 minutes later by the coroner.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mackey |first=Thomas C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uenAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA220 |title=A Documentary History of the American Civil War Era: Volume 3, Judicial Decisions, 1857-1866 |date=2014-01-05 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |isbn=978-1-62190-023-8 |pages=220 |language=en}}</ref>

The poet [[Walt Whitman]], in ''Year of Meteors'', described viewing the execution.<ref>{{Citation |title=Year of Meteors |year=1859–1860 |work=The Walt Whitman Archive |url=https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1867/poems/187 |access-date=2023-10-04}}</ref>

{{See also|John Brown's last speech}}

===Funeral and burial===
{{Main|John Brown's body}}
[[File:FMIB 43086 John Brown's Grave.jpeg|thumb|Brown's grave, 1896]]
[[File:John Brown's Tombstone.jpg|thumb|Brown's tombstone, North Elba, New York]]

Brown's desire, as told to the jailor in Charles Town, was that his body be burned, "the ashes urned", and his dead sons disinterred and treated likewise.<ref>{{cite news
|title=The Execution of Brown
|newspaper=[[Daily Exchange]] ([[Baltimore, Maryland]])
|date=December 3, 1859
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63369403/john-browns-execution/
|access-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093235/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63369403/john-browns-execution/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=Brown's Last Conversation
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|date=December 5, 1859
|page=8
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1859/12/05/issue.html
|access-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093226/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1859/12/05/issue.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He wanted his epitaph to be:
{{blockquote|
:::I have fought a good fight.
:::I have finished my course.
:::I have kept the faith. [{{Bible|2 Timothy|4:7}}]<ref>{{cite news
|title=Where John Brown's Body Lies
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|date=October 20, 1929
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/10/20/issue.html
|page=147 (''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'', p. 23)
|access-date=May 8, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121811/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/10/20/issue.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref>}}

However, according to the sheriff of Jefferson County, Virginia law did not allow the burning of bodies, and Mrs. Brown did not want it. Brown's body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck, and the coffin was then put on a train to take it away from Virginia to [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site|his family homestead]] in [[North Elba, New York]] for burial.<ref>{{cite news
|title=The Remains of John Brown. Their Passage through Philadelphia
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|date=December 5, 1859
|page=8
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1859/12/05/issue.html
|access-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093226/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1859/12/05/issue.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

His body needed to be prepared for burial; this was supposed to take place in Philadelphia. There were many Southern pro-slavery medical students and faculty in Philadelphia, and as a direct result, they left the city ''en masse'' on December 21, 1859, for Southern medical schools, never to return. When Mary and her husband's body arrived on December 3, Philadelphia Mayor [[Alexander Henry (Philadelphia)|Alexander Henry]] met the train, with many policemen, and said public order could not be maintained if the casket remained in Philadelphia. In fact he "made a fake casket, covered with flowers and flags[,] which was carefully lifted from the coach"; the crowd followed the sham casket. The genuine casket was immediately sent onwards.<ref>{{cite web
|title='John Brown's Body', 1859: Philadelphia's Medical Schools['] Rebellion Against Its Presence in the City
|date=July 18, 2011
|publisher=[[Historical Society of Pennsylvania]]
|access-date=November 1, 2018
|url=https://hsp.org/blogs/hidden-histories/john-browns-body-1859-philadelphias-medical-schools-rebellion-against-its-presence-in-the-city
|archive-date=November 13, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181113165912/https://hsp.org/blogs/hidden-histories/john-browns-body-1859-philadelphias-medical-schools-rebellion-against-its-presence-in-the-city
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's body in Philadelphia
|newspaper=[[United States Police Gazette]]
|volume=2
|page=2
|number=82
|date=December 10, 1859
|url=https://archive.org/details/unitedstatespoli1018cave/mode/1up}}</ref> It was transported through places special to Brown during his life. His corpse was transported via [[Troy, New York]], [[Rutland (city), Vermont|Rutland, Vermont]], and across [[Lake Champlain]] by boat. His corpse arrived at the Brown farm at North Elba, New York.<ref name="Burial" /> Brown's body was washed, dressed, and placed, with difficulty, in a {{convert|5|ft|10|in|adj=on}} walnut coffin, in New York.<ref>{{citation
|date=December 4, 1859
|title=Statement and receipt for undertaker expenses
|url=http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/bbsms12-0054.html
|author=J. M. Hopper, General Furnishing Undertaker
|publisher=J. M. Hopper, undertaker
|location=Brooklyn, New York
|access-date=May 28, 2021
|archive-date=April 27, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427175252/http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/bbsms12-0054.html
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> He was buried on December 8, 1859.<ref name="Funeral">{{Cite news |date=1859-12-15 |title=The Funeral of John Brown at North Elba |pages=2 |work=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-the-funeral-of-john-brow/132766171/ |access-date=2023-10-02}}</ref> Abolitionist Rev. [[Joshua Young]] gave a prayer, and [[James Miller McKim]] and [[Wendell Phillips]] spoke.<ref name="Burial">{{Cite news |date=1859-12-16 |title=Burial of John Brown in North Elba |pages=3 |work=The Liberator |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-liberator-burial-of-john-brown-in-no/63000537/ |access-date=2023-10-02}}</ref><ref name="Funeral" />

In the North, large memorial meetings took place, church bells rang, minute guns were fired, and famous writers such as [[Ralph Waldo Emerson|Emerson]] and [[A Plea for Captain John Brown|Thoreau]] joined many Northerners in praising Brown.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beck |first=Janet Kemper |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VmwGptftI-4C&pg=PA169|title=Creating the John Brown Legend: Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, Child and Higginson in Defense of the Raid on Harpers Ferry |date=2009-04-07 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-3345-2 |page=169 |language=en}}</ref>

On July 4, 1860, family and admirers of Brown gathered [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site|at his farm]] for a memorial. This was the last time that the surviving members of Brown's family gathered together. The farm was sold, except for the burial plot. By 1882, [[John Brown Junior|John Jr.]], [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen]], Jason, and Ruth, widow of Henry Thompson, lived in Ohio; his wife and their two unmarried daughters in California.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Old John Brown. Something about the Surviving Members of His Family
|newspaper=[[Topeka Daily Capital]] ([[Topeka, Kansas]])
|date=August 10, 1882
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69324628/topeka-daily-capital-10aug1882p2-jb/
|access-date=April 17, 2021
|archive-date=April 17, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417100827/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69324628/topeka-daily-capital-10aug1882p2-jb/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> By 1886, Owen, Jason, and Ruth were living near [[Pasadena, California]], where they were honored in a parade.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Ossawatomie Brown's children
|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]
|date=August 19, 1886
|page=3
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78449953/the-browns-honored-in-parade-of-grand/
|access-date=May 28, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121811/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78449953/the-browns-honored-in-parade-of-grand/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

===Senate investigation===

On December 14, 1859, the [[U.S. Senate]] appointed a bipartisan committee to investigate the Harpers Ferry raid and to determine whether any citizens contributed arms, ammunition or money to John Brown's men. The Democrats attempted to implicate the Republicans in the raid; the Republicans tried to disassociate themselves from Brown and his acts.<ref>{{Cite news |date=December 22, 1859 |title=The National Era |language=en |pages=3 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/339104218/ |access-date=2023-10-02}}</ref><ref name="Senate select" />

The Senate committee heard testimony from 32 witnesses, including Liam Dodson, one of the surviving abolitionists. The report, authored by chairman [[James Murray Mason]], a pro-slavery Democrat from Virginia, was published in June 1860. It found no direct evidence of a conspiracy, but implied that the raid was a result of Republican doctrines.<ref name="Senate select">{{cite web |title=Senate Select Committee Report on the Harper's Ferry Invasion |url=http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/masonreport.html |date=June 15, 1860 |website=West Virginia Division of Culture and History |access-date=July 25, 2016 |archive-date=July 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160710135118/http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/masonreport.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The two committee Republicans published a [[Dissenting opinion|minority report]], but were apparently more concerned about denying Northern culpability than clarifying the nature of Brown's efforts. Republicans such as [[Abraham Lincoln]] rejected any connection with the raid, calling Brown "insane".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Donald |first=David Herbert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fuTY3mxs9awC&q=239 |title=Lincoln |date=1995 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-684-82535-9 |page=239 |language=en}}</ref>

The investigation was performed in a tense environment in both houses of Congress. One senator wrote to his wife that "The members on both sides are mostly armed with deadly weapons and it is said that the friends of each are armed in the galleries." After a heated exchange of insults, a Mississippian attacked [[Thaddeus Stevens]] of Pennsylvania with a [[Bowie knife]] in the House of Representatives. Stevens' friends prevented a fight.<ref name="Oates">{{cite book | title=To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown  | first1=Stephen B. |last1=Oates |author-link=Stephen B. Oates|year=1984 | pages=359–360 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press| isbn=0-87023-458-7}}</ref>

The Senate committee was very cautious in its questions of two of Brown's backers, [[Samuel Gridley Howe|Samuel Howe]] and [[George Luther Stearns|George Stearns]], out of fear of stoking violence. Howe and Stearns later said that the questions were asked in a manner that permitted them to give honest answers without implicating themselves.<ref name="Oates" /> Civil War historian [[James M. McPherson]] stated that "A historian reading their testimony, however, will be convinced that they told several falsehoods."<ref>[[James M. McPherson]]. ''[[Battle Cry of Freedom (book)|Battle Cry of Freedom]]''. New York: Oxford University Press (1988), p. 207.</ref>

===Aftermath of the raid===
[[File:Old John Brown's Career.jpg|thumb|Old John Brown's Career, 1860 poster]]
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was among the last in a series of events that led to the [[American Civil War]].<ref>{{cite book|first1=David M.|last1=Potter| author-link1=David M. Potter |title=The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 |year=1976|editor=Fehrenbacher, Don Edward |publisher=Harper & Row|pages=356–384 |isbn=0-06-131929-5}}</ref> Southern slaveowners, hearing initial reports that hundreds of abolitionists were involved, were relieved the effort was so small, but feared other abolitionists would emulate Brown and attempt to lead slave rebellions.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=6}} Future Confederate President [[Jefferson Davis]] feared "thousands of John Browns".<ref name=Horwitz>{{cite journal
|last=Horwitz
|first=Tony
|author-link=Tony Horwitz
|title=Why John Brown still scares us: 150 years after the start of the Civil War, we wonder if he may have been right
|journal=[[American History]]
|volume=46
|number=5
|date=December 2011
|page=38
|via=[[Gale Academic OneFile]]
}}</ref> Therefore, the South reorganized the decrepit militia system. These militias, well-established by 1861, became a ready-made [[Confederate States|Confederate]] army, making the South better prepared for war.<ref name="Crofts">Daniel W. Crofts, ''Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis'' (1989), pp. 70 ff</ref>

Southern Democrats charged that Brown's raid was an inevitable consequence of the political platform of what they invariably called "the Black Republican Party". In light of the upcoming elections in November 1860, the Republicans tried to distance themselves as much as possible from Brown, condemning the raid and dismissing its leader as an insane fanatic. As one historian explains, Brown was successful in polarizing politics: "Brown's raid succeeded brilliantly. It drove a wedge through the already tentative and fragile Opposition–Republican coalition and helped to intensify the sectional polarization that soon tore the Democratic party and the Union apart."<ref name="Crofts"/>

Many abolitionists in the North viewed Brown as a martyr, sacrificed for the sins of the nation. Immediately after the raid, [[William Lloyd Garrison]] published a column in ''[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]'', judging Brown's raid "well-intended but sadly misguided" and "wild and futile".<ref>{{cite news
|last=Garrison
|first=William Lloyd
|author-link=William Lloyd Garrison
|title=The Tragedy at Harper's Ferry
|url=http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1859/10/28/the-tragedy-at-harpers-ferry
|date=October 28, 1859
|newspaper=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|page=2
|via=Fair-use.org
|access-date=March 9, 2022
|archive-date=February 18, 2006
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060218064443/http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1859/10/28/the-tragedy-at-harpers-ferry
|url-status=live
}}</ref> However, he defended Brown's character from detractors in the Northern and Southern press and argued that those who supported the principles of the [[American Revolution]] could not consistently oppose Brown's raid. On the day Brown was hanged, Garrison reiterated the point in Boston: "whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections".<ref>{{cite news
|title=Speech of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, At the Meeting in Tremont Temple
|newspaper=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=December 16, 1859
|page=2
|first=Wm. Lloyd
|last=Garrison
|author-link=William Lloyd Garrison
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62929987/william-lloyd-garrison-on-john-browns/
|access-date=November 10, 2020
|archive-date=November 10, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201110122119/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62929987/william-lloyd-garrison-on-john-browns/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

[[Frederick Douglass]] believed that Brown's "zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine{{snd}}it was as the burning sun to my taper light{{snd}}mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him."<ref name=Storer>{{cite book
|first=Frederick
|last=Douglass
|author-link=Frederick Douglass
|title=John Brown. An Address at the Fourteenth Anniversary of Storer College, May 30, 1881
|url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownaddress00doug/page/8/mode/2up
|year=1881
|page=9
|location=[[Dover, New Hampshire]]
|publisher=Dover, N. H., Morning Star job printing house
|access-date=March 9, 2022
}}<br />
'''Or''': {{cite web
|title=John Brown. An address by Frederick Douglass....
|url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownaddress00doug/page/8/mode/2up
|page=9
|website=Project Gutenberg
|year=1881
|access-date=March 9, 2022
}}</ref>

==Viewpoints==
===Contemporaries===
{{see also|Virginia v. John Brown#Aftermath}}
Between 1859 and [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln's assassination]] in 1865, Brown was the most famous American: [[emblem]] to the North, as [[Wendell Phillips]] put it,<ref>{{cite book
|title=Speeches, lectures, and letters
|first=Wendell
|last=Phillips
|author-link=Wendell Phillips
|chapter=Burial of John Brown
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XUUIAAAAQAAJ
|year=1863
|via=[[Google Books]]
|page=292
|publisher=Lee and Shepard
|isbn=978-0608406626
|access-date=August 22, 2021
|archive-date=August 27, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827091233/https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/XUUIAAAAQAAJ
|url-status=live
}}</ref> and traitor to the South. According to [[Frederick Douglass]], "He was with the troops during that war, he was seen in every camp fire, and our boys pressed onward to victory and freedom, timing their feet to the [[John Brown's Body|stately stepping of Old John Brown]] as his soul went marching on."<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown
|newspaper=[[Democrat and Chronicle]] ([[Rochester, New York]])
|date=January 27, 1874
|page=4
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22594248/democrat/
|access-date=January 21, 2021
|archive-date=January 29, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129152433/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22594248/democrat/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Douglass called him "a brave and glorious old man. ...History has no better illustration of pure, disinterested benevolence."{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=254}}

Other black leaders of the time{{em dash}}[[Martin Delany]], [[Henry Highland Garnet]], [[Harriet Tubman]]{{em dash}}also knew and respected Brown. "Tubman thought Brown was the greatest white man who ever lived",<ref>{{cite journal|title=John Brown's Day of Reckoning|first=Fergus M.|last=Bordewich|journal=[[Smithsonian Magazine]]|date=October 2009|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-browns-day-of-reckoning-139165084/|access-date=August 16, 2020|archive-date=April 28, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180428093448/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-browns-day-of-reckoning-139165084/|url-status=live}}</ref> and she said later he did more for American blacks than Lincoln did.{{sfn|Finkelman|1995|p=98}}

Black businesses across the North closed on the day of his execution.{{sfn|Loewen|2008|p=180}} Church bells tolled across the North.{{sfn|Loewen|2008|p=179}} In response to the death sentence, [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] remarked that "[John Brown] will make the gallows glorious like the Cross."<ref>{{cite news
|title="He Knew How to Die": John Brown on the Gallows, December 2, 1859
|first=David W.
|last=Blight
|author-link=David W. Blight
|publisher=[[History News Network]]
|url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/120730
|access-date=June 2, 2021
|archive-date=June 3, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603010320/https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/120730
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In 1863, [[Julia Ward Howe]] wrote the popular hymn the ''[[Battle Hymn of the Republic]]'' to the tune of ''John Brown's body'', which included a line "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free", comparing Brown's sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ.{{sfn|Loewen|2008|p=179}}

Lincoln thought Brown had “shown great courage, rare unselfishness.” But, with most Americans of the day, Lincoln believed Brown had gone too far. “Old John Brown has just been executed for treason against the state. We cannot object,” Lincoln reasoned, “even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong.

According to [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] in his 1909 biography, ''[[John Brown (biography)|John Brown]]''. Brown's raid stood as "a great white light{{snd}}an unwavering, unflickering brightness, blinding by its all-seeing brilliance, making the whole world simply a light and a darkness{{snd}}a right and a wrong."<ref>{{cite journal|title='To Bear our Righteous Testimonies against All Evil': Virginia Quakers' Response to John Brown|first=A. Glenn|last=Crothers|journal=Quaker History|date=Fall 2011|volume=100|number=2|pages=1–16 | doi=10.1353/qkh.2011.0011|jstor=41947713|s2cid=161273093}}</ref>

According to his friend and financier, the rich abolitionist [[Gerrit Smith]], "If I were asked to point out the man in all this world I think most truly a Christian, I would point to John Brown."{{sfn|Sanborn|1891|p=467}}<ref>{{cite journal|last=Harlow
|first=Ralph Volney|title=Gerrit Smith and the John Brown Raid|journal=[[American Historical Review]]|volume=38|number=1|year=1932|pages=32–60|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1838063|doi=10.2307/1838063|jstor=1388063|access-date=April 25, 2022|archive-date=December 30, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211230034914/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1838063|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Historians and other writers===
Writers continue to vigorously debate Brown's personality, sanity, motivations, morality, and relation to abolitionism.<ref name="CHOWDER"/> Once the [[Reconstruction era]] had ended, with the country distancing itself from the anti-slavery cause, and [[martial law]] imposed in the South, the historical view of Brown changed.  Historian [[James Loewen]] surveyed American history textbooks prior to 1995 and noted that until about 1890, historians considered Brown perfectly sane, but from about 1890 until 1970, he was generally portrayed as insane.{{sfn|Loewen|2008|p=173–203}} [[Oswald Garrison Villard]], the grandson of abolitionist [[William Lloyd Garrison]], wrote a favorable 1910 biography of Brown, though it also  added fuel to the anti-Brown fire by criticizing him as a muddled, pugnacious, bumbling, and homicidal madman.<ref name=CHOWDER/><ref>{{cite journal|first1=Frederick J. |last1=Blue |title=No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics | location=Baton Rouge |publisher= Louisiana State University Press |date= April 2006 | journal=The American Historical Review | volume= 111 | issue=2 |pages=482–483 |doi=10.1086/ahr.111.2.482 }}</ref> Villard himself was a pacifist and admired Brown in many respects, but his interpretation of the facts provided a paradigm for later anti-Brown writers. Similarly, a 1923 textbook stated, "The farther we getaway from the excitement of 1859 the more we are disposed to consider this extraordinary man the victim of mental delusions."<ref>{{cite book|first=John Spencer|last=Bassett|author-link=John Spencer Bassett|title=A Short History of the United States|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]|year=1923|page=502}}</ref> In 1978, NYU historian Albert Fried concluded that historians who portrayed Brown as a dysfunctional figure are "really informing me of their predilections, their judgment of the historical event, their identification with the moderates and opposition to the 'extremists.'"<ref>{{cite book | first1=Albert |last1=Fried | title=John Brown's Journey: Notes & Reflections on His America & Mine | location=Garden City, New York | publisher= Anchor/Doubleday |year=1978 |page=272 }}</ref> This view of Brown has come to prevail in academic writing and in journalism. Biographer Louis DeCaro Jr. wrote in 2007, "there is no consensus of fairness with respect to Brown in either the academy or the media."<ref>Louis A. DeCaro Jr., ''John Brown – The Cost of Freedom: Selections from His Life & Letters'' (New York: International Publishers, 2007), pp. 16–17,</ref> Biographer [[Stephen B. Oates]] has described Brown as "maligned as a demented dreamer ... (but) in fact one of the most perceptive human beings of his generation".<ref>{{cite web |title=Dr. Stephen B. Oates on John Brown (transcript) |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/jbrown/oates-text.htm |date=June 2, 2005 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070426012632/http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/jbrown/oates-text.htm |archive-date=April 26, 2007 |publisher=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=March 9, 2022}}</ref>
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?186892-1/john-brown-abolitionist Presentation by Reynolds on ''John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights'', May 12, 2005], [[C-SPAN]]}}

Some writers describe Brown as a monomaniacal zealot, others as a hero. In 1931, the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] and [[Sons of Confederate Veterans]] erected a counter-monument, to [[Heyward Shepherd]], a free black man who was the first fatality of the Harpers Ferry raid, claiming without evidence that he was a "representative of Negroes of the neighborhood, who would not take part".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh56-1.html|title=An "Ever Present Bone of Contention": The Heyward Shepherd Memorial|website=www.wvculture.org|access-date=January 9, 2018|archive-date=May 26, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080526082653/http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/journal_wvh/wvh56-1.html|url-status=live}}</ref> By the mid-20th century, some scholars were fairly convinced that Brown was a fanatic and killer, while some African Americans sustained a positive view of him.<ref>{{cite book| first1=Louis A. Jr. |last1=DeCaro |year=2005b |chapter=Black People's Ally, White People's Bogeyman: A John Brown Story |editor1= Taylor, Andrew |editor2= Herrington, Eldrid |title=The Afterlife of John Brown |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan | location=New York | doi=10.1007/978-1-4039-7846-2_2 |pages=11–26|doi-broken-date=November 1, 2024 }}</ref> According to [[Stephen Oates]], "unlike most Americans at his time, he had no racism. He treated blacks equally. ...He was a success, a tremendous success because he was a catalyst of the Civil War. He didn't cause it but he set fire to the fuse that led to the blow up."<ref>{{citation
|first=Stephen
|last=Oates
|author-link=Stephen B. Oates
|title=Dr. Stephen B. Oates on John Brown
|publisher=[[National Park Service]], [[Harpers Ferry National Historical Park]]
|url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/jbrown/oates-text.htm
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090510102805/http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/jbrown/oates-text.htm
|archive-date=May 10, 2009 }}</ref> Journalist [[Richard Owen Boyer]] considered Brown "an American who gave his life that millions of other Americans might be free", and others held similarly positive views.<ref>{{cite journal
|first=Russell
|last=Blake
|title=Review of Peterson, Merrill D., John Brown: The Legend Revisite
|journal=H-CivWar
|date=December 2006
|url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12597 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170113092412/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12597 |archive-date=January 13, 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Timothy Patrick McCarthy|author2=John Stauffer|title=Prophets Of Protest: Reconsidering The History Of American Abolitionism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UM4AAAAQBAJ&pg=PR29|year=2012|publisher=New Press|page=29|isbn=978-1595588548}}</ref><ref>See also: {{cite book| author=Connie A. Miller Sr. |title=Frederick Douglass American Hero: and International Icon of The Nineteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ykO8sKDE30C&pg=PA166|year=2008|publisher=Xlibris |page=166|isbn=978-1441576491}} and {{cite book|author=Lori McManus|title=Key People of the Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1V9pV_Ljg0C&pg=PA15|year=2011|publisher=Capstone PressInc|page=15|isbn=978-1432939199}}</ref>

Some historians, such as [[Paul Finkelman]], compare Brown to contemporary terrorists such as [[Osama bin Laden]] and [[Timothy McVeigh]],<ref name=CHOWDER/><ref>{{cite journal |first=Paul |last=Finkelman |url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html |date=Spring 2011 |volume=43 |issue=1 |title=John Brown: America's First Terrorist? |pages=16–27 |journal=Prologue Magazine  |quote=says "no" |access-date=June 9, 2016 |archive-date=June 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623023130/http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Gilpin2011">{{cite book|author=R. Blakeslee Gilpin|title=John Brown Still Lives!: America's Long Reckoning With Violence, Equality, & Change|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qpVoPV6cAuoC&pg=PA198|year=2011|publisher=U. of North Carolina Press|page=198|isbn=978-0807869277|access-date=November 22, 2015|archive-date=June 9, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160609194220/https://books.google.com/books?id=qpVoPV6cAuoC&pg=PA198|url-status=live}}</ref> Finkelman calling him "simply part of a very violent world" and further stating that Brown "is a bad tactician, a bad strategist, he's a bad planner, he's not a very good general{{snd}}but he's not crazy".<ref name=CHOWDER/> Historian James Gilbert labels Brown a terrorist by 21st-century criteria.<ref>{{cite book
|first1=Teresa S.
|last1=Moyer
|first2=Paul A.
|last2=Shackel
|author-link2=Paul A. Shackel
|title=The Making of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park: A Devil, Two Rivers, and a Dream
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j4kkQAA0jqMC&pg=PA101
|year=2008
|publisher=[[AltaMira Press]]
|isbn=978-0759110663
|access-date=November 22, 2015
|archive-date=May 3, 2016
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503154049/https://books.google.com/books?id=j4kkQAA0jqMC&pg=PA101
|url-status=live|page=101}}</ref> Gilbert writes: "Brown's deeds conform to contemporary definitions of terrorism, and his psychological predispositions are consistent with the terrorist model."<ref>{{cite book
|first=James N.
|last=Gilbert
|contribution=A Behavioral Analysis of John Brown: Martyr or Terrorist?
|editor-first1=Peggy A.
|editor-last1=Russo
|editor-first2=Paul
|editor-last2=Finkelman
|editor-link2=Paul Finkelman
|title=Terrible Swift Sword. The Legacy of John Brown
|page=112
|location=[[Athens, Ohio]]
|publisher=[[Ohio University Press]]
|year=2005
|isbn=0821416308}}</ref> In contrast, biographer [[David S. Reynolds]] gives Brown credit for starting the Civil War or "killing slavery", and cautions others against identifying Brown with terrorism.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=}} Reynolds saw Brown as inspiring the [[Civil Rights Movement]] a century later, adding "it is misleading to identify Brown with modern terrorists."{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=}}<ref>For historiography see Merrill D. Peterson, ''John Brown: The Legend Revisited'' (2002) and review by Aimee Lee Cheek, ''Journal of Southern History'' 70:2 (2004) pp. 435–436.</ref> [[Malcolm X]] said that white people could not join his [[Black nationalism|black nationalist]] [[Organization of Afro-American Unity]], but "if John Brown were still alive, we might accept him".<ref name="Massaquoi">{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JaT6tBKGK3sC&pg=PA40|title=Mystery of Malcolm X|first=Hans J.|last=Massaquoi|magazine=[[Ebony (magazine)|Ebony]]|year=1964|page=40|access-date=February 23, 2010|archive-date=July 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140707074911/http://books.google.com/books?id=JaT6tBKGK3sC&pg=PA40|url-status=live}}</ref>

In his posthumous ''[[The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861]]'' (1976), [[David M. Potter|David Potter]] argued that the emotional effect of Brown's raid exceeded the philosophical effect of the [[Lincoln–Douglas debates]], and reaffirmed a deep division between North and South.<ref name="Massaquoi" /> Biographer Louis A. DeCaro Jr., who has debunked many historical allegations about Brown's early life and public career, concludes that although he "was hardly the only abolitionist to equate slavery with sin, his struggle against slavery was far more personal and religious than it was for many abolitionists, just as his respect and affection for black people was far more personal and religious than it was for most enemies of slavery".{{sfn|DeCaro|2005a|p=6}} Historian and Brown documentary scholar Louis Ruchames wrote: "Brown's action was one of great idealism and placed him in the company of the great liberators of mankind."<ref>Louis Ruchames, ''A John Brown Reader'' (New York: Abelard & Schuman, 1959), p. 12</ref>

Several 21st-century works about Brown are notable for the absence of hostility that characterized similar works a century earlier (when Lincoln's anti-slavery views were de-emphasized).{{sfn|Loewen|2008|pp=181–89}} Journalist and documentary writer Ken Chowder considers Brown "stubborn ... egoistical, self-righteous, and sometimes deceitful; yet ... at certain times, a great man" and argues that Brown has been adopted by both the left and right, and his actions "spun" to fit the world view of the spinner at various times in American history.<ref name=CHOWDER/> The shift to an appreciative perspective moves many white historians toward the view long held by black scholars such as [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], [[Benjamin Quarles]], and [[Lerone Bennett, Jr.]]<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Quarles|editor-first=Benjamin|title=Blacks on John Brown|url=https://archive.org/details/blacksonjohnbrow00quar|url-access=registration|date=1972|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana|isbn=978-0252002458}}</ref>

==Influences==
The connection between John Brown's life and many of the slave uprisings in the Caribbean was clear from the outset. Brown was born during the period of the [[Haitian Revolution]], which saw Haitian slaves revolting against the French. The role the revolution played in helping formulate Brown's abolitionist views directly is not clear; however, the revolution had an obvious effect on the general view toward slavery in the northern United States, and in the Southern states, it was a warning of horror (as they viewed it) possibly to come. As [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] notes, the involvement of slaves in the American Revolutions, and the "upheaval in Hayti, and the new enthusiasm for human rights, led to a wave of emancipation which started in Vermont during the Revolution and swept through New England and Pennsylvania, ending finally in New York and New Jersey".{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|p=36}}

The 1839 slave insurrection aboard the Spanish ship ''[[La Amistad]]'', off the coast of Cuba, provides a poignant example of John Brown's support and appeal toward Caribbean slave revolts. On ''La Amistad'', [[Joseph Cinqué]] and approximately 50 other slaves captured the ship, slated to transport them from [[Havana]] to [[Camagüey|Puerto Príncipe]], Cuba, in July 1839, and attempted to return to Africa. However, through trickery, the ship ended up in the United States, where Cinque and his men stood trial. Ultimately, the courts acquitted the men because at the time, the international slave trade was illegal in the United States.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=54}} According to Brown's daughter, "[[Nat Turner|Turner]] and Cinque stood first in esteem" among Brown's black heroes. Furthermore, she noted Brown's "admiration of Cinques' character and management in carrying his points with so little bloodshed!"{{sfn|Redpath|1860|p=46}} In 1850, Brown would refer affectionately to the revolt, in saying "Nothing so charms the American people as personal bravery. Witness the case of Cinques, of everlasting memory, on board the ''Amistad''."{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|pp=54-55}}

The specific knowledge John Brown gained from the tactics employed in the Haitian Revolution, and other Caribbean revolts, was of paramount importance when Brown turned his sights to the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. As Brown's cohort [[Richard Realf]] explained to a committee of the 36th Congress, "he had posted himself in relation to the wars of Toussaint L'Ouverture;<ref>{{cite journal
|title=A second Haitian revolution: John Brown, Toussaint Louverture, and the making of the American Civil War
|first=Matthew
|last=Clavin
|date=June 2008
|journal=[[Civil War History]]
|volume=54
|issue=2
|pages=117–145
|doi=10.1353/cwh.0.0001
|s2cid=144628697
|via=[[Gale Academic Onefile]]
|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A180861432/AONE?u=wikipedia&sid=AONE&xid=e4ef98b1
|access-date=December 11, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121813/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=wikipedia&id=GALE%7CA180861432&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=e4ef98b1
|url-status=live
}}</ref> he had become thoroughly acquainted with the wars in Hayti and the islands round about."{{sfn|Du Bois|2015|p=107}} By studying the slave revolts of the Caribbean region, Brown learned a great deal about how to properly conduct guerilla warfare. A key element to the prolonged success of this warfare was the establishment of [[Maroon (people)|maroon]] communities, which are essentially colonies of runaway slaves. As a contemporary article notes, Brown would use these establishments to "retreat from and evade attacks he could not overcome. He would maintain and prolong a guerilla war, of which ... Haiti afforded" an example.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=106}}

The idea of creating maroon communities was the impetus for the creation of John Brown's "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States", which helped to detail how such communities would be governed. However, the idea of maroon colonies of slaves is not an idea exclusive to the Caribbean region. In fact, maroon communities riddled the southern United States between the mid-1600s and 1864, especially in the [[Great Dismal Swamp]] region of Virginia and North Carolina. Similar to the Haitian Revolution, the [[Seminole Wars]], fought in modern-day Florida, saw the involvement of maroon communities, which although outnumbered by native allies were more effective fighters.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=106}}

Although the maroon colonies of North America undoubtedly had an effect on John Brown's plan, their impact paled in comparison to that of the maroon communities in places like Haiti, Jamaica, and Surinam. Accounts by Brown's friends and cohorts prove this idea. Richard Realf, a cohort of Brown in Kansas, noted that Brown not only studied the slave revolts in the Caribbean, but focused more specifically on the maroons of Jamaica and those involved in Haiti's liberation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Realf|first=Richard|title=Report of the Select Committee of the Senate Appointed to Inquire in the Late Invasion and Seizure of the Public Property at Harper's Ferry|year=1860|publisher=Select Committee of the Senate |location=Washington D.C.|page=96}}</ref> Brown's friend Richard Hinton similarly noted that Brown knew "by heart" the occurrences in Jamaica and Haiti.{{sfn|Reynolds|2005|p=107}} [[Thomas Wentworth Higginson]], a cohort of Brown's and a member of the [[Secret Six]], stated that Brown's plan involved getting "together bands and families of fugitive slaves" and "establish them permanently in those [mountain] fastnesses, like the Maroons of Jamaica and Surinam".<ref>{{cite book|last=Meyer|first=Howard N.|title=The Magnificent Activist: The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911)|year=2000|publisher=Da Capo Press|location=New York|page=119}}</ref>

==Legacy==
{{See also|Virginia v. John Brown#Aftermath}}

Of all the major figures associated with the [[American Civil War]] Brown is one of the most studied and pondered.<ref>{{cite journal
|pages=196–202
|volume=1
|year=1897
|first=Thomas
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nc01.ark:/13960/t50g5xn6g&view=1up&seq=206
|last=Featherstonhaugh
|title=A Bibliography of John Brown
|journal=Publications of the Southern History Association
|access-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121813/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nc01.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft50g5xn6g&view=1up&seq=206
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title=Bibliography of John Brown Part II
|pages=302–306
|first=Thomas
|last=Featherstonhaugh
|volume=3
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001175616&view=1up&seq=310&q1=Winchester
|journal=Publications of the Southern History Association
|year=1899
|access-date=October 2, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121815/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001175616&view=1up&seq=310&q1=Winchester
|url-status=live
}}</ref> "As a nation, we are unable to get over John Brown."<ref name=Faust>{{cite journal
|pages=82–89
|title=The Men Who Started the War
|first=Drew Gilpin
|last=Faust
|authorlink=Drew Gilpin Faust
|journal=[[The Atlantic]]
|date=December 2023}}</ref>{{rp|89}} [[Kate Field]] raised money to give to the State of New York for what was to be, in her words, "John Brown's Grave and Farm" (now [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site]]).<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Grave and Farm
|newspaper=[[Kate Field|Kate Field's Washington]]
|volume=5
|number=2
|last=Field
|first=Kate
|author-link=Kate Field
|date=January 13, 1892
|pages=17–18
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3PYVAAAAIAAJ
|access-date=May 16, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121814/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Kate_Field_s_Washington/3PYVAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
|url-status=live
}}</ref> At the centenary of the raid in 1959, a "sanitized" play about him was produced at Harper's Ferry.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Five for Freedom. The African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army
|first=Eugene L.
|last=Meyer
|location=Chicago
|publisher=Lawrence Hill Books ([[Chicago Review Press]])
|year=2018
|isbn=978-1613735725|page=200}}</ref>

[[File:John Brown statue at Quindaro Township.jpg|thumb|A life-sized white marble statue of John Brown is on the former campus of the [[Western University (Kansas)|Western University]] at the [[Quindaro Townsite]] in [[Kansas City, Kansas]].]]
[[File:Western University Kansas.jpg|thumb|The Western University campus hosted the John Brown statue.]]
In 2007 Brown was inducted into the [[National Abolition Hall of Fame]], in [[Peterboro, New York]].

===John Brown Day===
* May 1: In 1999, John Brown Day was celebrated on [[International Workers' Day|May 1]].<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown Day set for May 1
|newspaper=[[Adirondack Daily Enterprise]] ([[Saranac Lake, New York]])=
|date=April 15, 1999
|page=3
|via=NYS Historic Newspapers
|url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033360/1999-04-15/ed-1/seq-3/
|access-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-date=February 16, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216021434/https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86033360/1999-04-15/ed-1/seq-3/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* May 7: In 2016, John Brown Lives! Friends of Freedom celebrated May 7 as John Brown Day.<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://www.ptny.org/newsandmedia/e-news-1/2016/06/celebrating-juneteenth-and-history-timbuctoo
|title=Celebrating Juneteenth and Timbuctoo
|publisher=[[Parks & Trails New York]]
|date=June 6, 2016
|access-date=December 3, 2020
|archive-date=October 23, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023195441/https://www.ptny.org/newsandmedia/e-news-1/2016/06/celebrating-juneteenth-and-history-timbuctoo
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In 2018, it was May 5. Spirit of John Brown Freedom Awards were given to environmentalist Jen Kretser, poet [[Martín Espada]], and to [[Soffiyah Elijah]], attorney and executive director of the Alliance of Families for Justice, which advocates for prison reform.<ref>{{cite journal
|date=April 30, 2018
|page=1
|url=https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/john-brown-celebration-at-the-farmstead
|journal=Adirondack Explorer
|title=John Brown celebration at the farmstead
|first=Michael
|last=Virtanen
|access-date=March 16, 2022
|archive-date=April 13, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220413135952/https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/john-brown-celebration-at-the-farmstead
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In 2022, the day chosen was May 14.<ref>{{cite web
|title=John Brown Day 2022
|author=John Brown Lives!
|url=https://johnbrownlives.org/about-jbl-events/johnbrownday/
|access-date=March 2, 2022
|archive-date=March 4, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220304213131/https://johnbrownlives.org/about-jbl-events/johnbrownday/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* May 9: The [[John Brown Tannery Site|John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum]], in [[Guys Mills, Pennsylvania]], holds community celebrations on John Brown's birthday, May 9.<ref>{{cite web
|title=John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum
|publisher=Visit Pennsylvania
|year=2019
|url=https://www.visitpa.com/region/john-brown-farm-tannery-museum
|access-date=April 25, 2021
|archive-date=May 2, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210502092027/https://www.visitpa.com/region/john-brown-farm-tannery-museum
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* August 17: In 1906, the [[Niagara Movement]], predecessor of the [[NAACP]], celebrated John Brown Day on August 17.
* October 16: In 2017, the Vermont Legislature designated October 16, the date of the raid, as John Brown Day.<ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown Day to honor violent abolitionists legacy
|first=Lisa
|last=Rathke
|newspaper=[[LNP (newspaper)|LNP Always Lancaster]] ([[Lancaster, Pennsylvania]])
|date=October 7, 2017
|page=9
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/64512897/john-brown-day-in-vermont/
|access-date=December 3, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121813/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/64512897/john-brown-day-in-vermont/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown Day will honor controversial abolitionist in Vt.
|first=Lisa
|last=Rathke
|newspaper=[[Pensacola News Journal]] ([[Pensacola, Florida]])
|date=October 8, 2017
|page=5
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/64513319/john-brown-day-in-vermont/
|access-date=December 3, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121816/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/64513319/john-brown-day-in-vermont/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

===Meetings in honor of John Brown===
In 1946, the John Brown Memorial Association held its 24th annual pilgrimage to the grave in North Elba, where there were memorial services.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Pilgrimage will honor John Brown
|newspaper=[[Syracuse Herald Journal]] ([[Syracuse, New York]])
|date=May 7, 1946
|via=[[newspaperarchive.com]]
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/crime-clipping-may-07-1946-2297525/
|access-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412075545/https://newspaperarchive.com/crime-clipping-may-07-1946-2297525/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

At the 150th anniversary of the raid In 2009, a two-day symposium, "John Brown Comes Home", was held, on the influence of Brown's raid, using facilities in adjacent Lake Placid. Speakers included [[Bernadine Dohrn]] and a great-great-great-granddaughter of Brown.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Studying What John Brown Hath Wrought In The U.S.
|newspaper=[[Hartford Courant]] ([[Hartford, Connecticut]])
|date=December 2009
|page=B06
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74239183/john-bbrown-program-in-north-elba/
|access-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412075542/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74239183/john-bbrown-program-in-north-elba/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=Ex-Weatherman to speak at John Brown event
|newspaper=[[Burlington Free Press]] ([[Burlington, Vermont]])
|date=November 6, 2009
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74250450/john-brown-program-lake-placid/
|access-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-date=April 12, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412075554/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74250450/john-brown-program-lake-placid/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

===Museums===
[[File:Statue of John Brown (cropped).jpg|thumb|A statue of Brown is in front of the [[John Brown Museum]] in [[Osawatomie, Kansas]].]]
* John Brown Museum, [[Harpers Ferry National Historical Park]], [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia]]<ref name="NPS-BrownMuseum">{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/places/000/john-brown-museum.htm |title=John Brown Museum |publisher=National Park Service |access-date=2021-07-25 |archive-date=July 25, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210725154454/https://www.nps.gov/places/000/john-brown-museum.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site]], [[North Elba, New York]]
* [[John Brown Tannery Site|John Brown Farm, Tannery, and Museum]], [[Guys Mills, Pennsylvania]]<ref name="nris">{{Cite web|title=Search: John Brown Tannery Site|url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/database-research.htm|access-date=May 12, 2021|website=National Register of Historic Places, U.S. National Park Service|language=en}}</ref>
* [[John Brown House (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)]]
* [[John Brown Museum]], [[Osawatomie, Kansas]]
* [[Kennedy Farm|John Brown Raid Headquarters (Kennedy Farm)]], [[Samples Manor, Maryland]]

All of these museums except the one in Harpers Ferry are places Brown lived or stayed.
* [[Barnum's American Museum]] in New York, destroyed by fire in 1868, contained according to a November 7, 1859, advertisement "a full-length Wax Figure of OSAWATOMIE BROWN, taken from life, and a KNIFE found on the body of his son, at Harper's Ferry".<ref>{{cite news|date=November 7, 1859|title=Barnum's American Museum|page=2
|newspaper=[[New-York Tribune]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71754795/barnums-american-museum/|via=[[newspapers.com]]|access-date=February 22, 2021|archive-date=May 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516154800/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71754795/barnums-american-museum/|url-status=live}}</ref> An agent of Barnum traveled to Harpers Ferry in November, saw Brown, and offered him $100 ({{inflation|US|100|1859|fmt=eq}}) for "his clothes and pike, and his certificate of their genuineness."<ref>{{cite news
|title=The Harper's Ferry Rebellion
|newspaper=[[The Baltimore Sun]] ([[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]])
|date=30 Nov 1859
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94503332/barnum-in-charlestown-buying-john-brown/
|access-date=February 8, 2022
|archive-date=February 8, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220208155325/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94503332/barnum-in-charlestown-buying-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> By December 7 the exhibits included "his {{smallcaps|autograph}} Commission to a Lieutenancy as well as TWO PIKES or spears taken at Harper's Ferry".<ref>{{cite news
|date=December 7, 1859
|title=Barnum's Museum{{snd}}Second Week
|page=2|newspaper=[[New-York Tribune]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71754699/barnum-american-museum/|via=[[newspapers.com]]|access-date=February 22, 2021
|archive-date=May 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516154759/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71754699/barnum-american-museum/|url-status=live}}</ref> On December 16 the Museum added, with document vouching for its authenticity,  "the link of the shackles that Cook and Coppock cut in two...that consequently permitted them to escape."<ref>{{cite news
|title=Barnum's Museum
|newspaper=[[New York Daily Herald]]
|date=20 Dec 1859
|page=9
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/102889545/barnums-museum/
|access-date=May 31, 2022
|archive-date=May 31, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531105210/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/102889545/barnums-museum/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Also exhibited were the [[Augustus Washington]] 1847 [[daguerrotype]] of Brown (see [[#Springfield, Massachusetts|above]]) and the now-lost painting by Louis Ransom of the famous, apocryphal incident of Brown kissing a black baby on his way to the gallows, reproduced in an [[Currier & Ives]] print (see [[#Paintings|Paintings]]). The latter was only exhibited for two months in 1863; Barnum withdrew it to save the building from destruction during the anti-Negro riot that broke out shortly.<ref name=Quarles>{{cite book
|title=Allies for Freedom. Blacks and John Brown
|first=Benjamin
|last=Quarles
|author-link=Benjamin Arthur Quarles
|location=New York
|year=1974
|lccn=73-90372
|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|page=123}}</ref>

=== Statues ===
* Nothing came of the proposal that Kansas send a statue of Brown as one of its two representatives honored in the U.S. Capitol.
* The first statue of Brown, and the only one not at one of his residences, is that located on the (new) John Brown Memorial Plaza, on the former campus of the closed black [[Western University (Kansas)|Western University]], site of a [[Freedmen's Bureau#Education|freedmen's school]] founded in 1865, the first black school west of the Mississippi River. The statue is the one surviving structure of the entire [[Quindaro Townsite]], a ghost town today part of [[Kansas City, Kansas]] (27th Street and Sewell Avenue), a major Underground Railroad station, a key port on the [[Missouri River]] for [[fugitive slaves]] and [[Contraband (American Civil War)|contraband]]s escaping from the [[slave states and free states|slave state]] of Missouri. The pillar and the life-sized statue of Brown were erected by descendants of slaves in 1911, at a cost of $2,000 ({{inflation|US|2000|1911|fmt=eq}}).<ref>{{citation|last=Gordon|first=Elana|title=Abolitionist's Monument Central To Town's Pride|newspaper=NPR|date=August 14, 2011|url=https://www.npr.org/2011/08/14/139620282/abolitionists-monument-stands-in-heart-of-towns-pride|series=[[KCUR]]|publisher=NPR ([[National Public Radio]]). Weekend Edition|access-date=January 24, 2021|archive-date=January 30, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210130065528/https://www.npr.org/2011/08/14/139620282/abolitionists-monument-stands-in-heart-of-towns-pride|url-status=live}}</ref> Lettering reads: "Erected to the Memory of John Brown by a Grateful People". There is a bronze plaque. In March 2018, the statue was defaced with [[swastika]]s and "Hail Satan".<ref>{{cite news|author=Kansas City Star Editorial Board|date=March 19, 2018|title=Vandals may have defaced John Brown statue, but they can't scar Quindaro's significance|newspaper=[[Kansas City Star]]|url=https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article205909209.html|url-status=live|access-date=November 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181115153703/https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article205909209.html|archive-date=November 15, 2018}}</ref>
** At the [[John Brown Farm State Historic Site]], near [[Lake Placid, New York]], there is a 1935 statue of Brown escorting a black child to freedom. The artist was [[Joseph Pollia]]. The cost of the statue and pedestal "was contributed in small sums by Negroes of the United States".<ref name="Flick">{{cite journal|last=Flick|first=Alexander C.|date=July 1935|title=John Brown Memorial Statue|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23135025|journal=[[New York History]]|volume=16|pages=329–332|jstor=23135025|number=3|access-date=April 12, 2021|archive-date=April 12, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412102944/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23135025|url-status=live}}</ref>
** A statue (1933) is at the [[John Brown Museum]], Brown's home in [[Osawatomie, Kansas]]. It was sponsored by the [[Women's Relief Corps]], Department of Kansas.<ref>{{cite news|date=May 10, 1935|title=In John Brown's Honor|page=3|newspaper=[[Kansas City Times]] ([[Kansas City, Missouri]])|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73528846/dedication-of-john-brown-statue/|via=[[newspapers.com]]|access-date=April 12, 2021|archive-date=April 12, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412135341/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73528846/dedication-of-john-brown-statue/|url-status=live}}</ref>
** The only other sculptures of Brown are two busts: the first by black sculptor [[Edmonia Lewis]],<ref>{{citation|last=Hall|first=Stephen G.|title=History as a Communal Act. History of Black History Month|date=February 2, 2017|url=https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/tag/edmonia-lewis/|website=ordinaryphilosophy.com|access-date=June 1, 2021|archive-date=June 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602215534/https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/tag/edmonia-lewis/|url-status=live}}</ref> which she presented to [[Henry Highland Garnet]]; and the other, at [[Tufts University]], by [[Edward Brackett]].<ref>{{cite news
|title=Brackett's Bust of John Brown
|url=https://ia803207.us.archive.org/26/items/abrahamlincolnrelrjblinc/abrahamlincolnrelrjblinc.pdf
|newspaper=[[New York Daily Tribune]]
|date=Feb 11, 1860
|first=L. Maria
|last=Child
|author-link=Lydia Maria Child}}</ref>

=== Streets ===
* Only one major street in the world honors Brown, the Avenue John Brown in [[Port-au-Prince, Haiti]], near an avenue honoring abolitionist Senator [[Charles Sumner]].
** A rural John Brown Road is near [[Torrington, Connecticut]], his birthplace. Small roads near museums in [[North Elba, New York]], and [[Guys Mills, Pennsylvania]], are named for Brown. There is a Harpers Ferry Street in [[Davie, Florida]], and in [[Ellwood City, Pennsylvania|Ellwood City]] and [[Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania]], in [[Northwest Pennsylvania]] near the Ohio border, near the route [[Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)|Owen Brown]] took seeking refuge after the raid in his brother [[John Brown Junior|John Jr.]]'s house in [[Ashtabula County, Ohio]], there is a Harpers Ferry Road, and intersecting with it, a smaller John Brown Road. In [[Osawatomie, Kansas]] is John Brown Highway.

=== Storer College ===
* [[Storer College]] began as the first graded school for blacks in West Virginia. Its location in Harpers Ferry was because of the importance of Brown and his raid. The Arsenal engine house, renamed [[John Brown's Fort]], was moved to the Storer [[campus]] in 1909.<ref>{{cite book|last=Burke|first=Dawne Raines|title=An American Phoenix: A History of Storer College from Slavery to Desegregation, 1865–1955|publisher=Storer College Books, an imprint of [[West Virginia University Press]]|year=2015|isbn=978-1940425771|location=[[Morgantown, West Virginia]]|page=xxxi}}</ref> It was used as the college museum.
** A plaque honoring Brown was attached to the Fort in 1918, while it was on the Storer campus.

[[File:John Brown's Fort plaque.jpg|thumb|A plaque is on John Brown's Fort which says "That this nation might have; new birth of freedom that slavery should be removed forever from American soil John Brown and his 21 men gave their lives to commemorate their heroism this tablet is placed on this building which has since been known as John Brown's fort by the alumni of storer college 1918".]]
::In 1931, after years of controversy, [[Heyward Shepherd memorial|a tablet was erected]] in Harpers Ferry by the [[Sons of Confederate Veterans]] and the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]], honoring the key "[[Lost Cause of the Confederacy|Lost Cause]]" belief that their slaves were happy and neither wanted freedom nor supported John Brown. (See [[Heyward Shepherd monument]].) The president of Storer participated in the dedication. In response, [[W. E. B. DuBois]], co-founder of the [[NAACP]], wrote text for a new plaque in 1932. The Storer College administration would not allow it to be put it up, nor did the National Park Service after becoming owner of the Fort. In 2006, it was placed at the site on the former Storer campus where the Fort had been located.

===Other John Brown sites===
* [[John Brown's Fort]], [[Harpers Ferry National Historical Park]].
* [[Summit County Historical Society of Akron, Ohio|The John Brown House]], where he lived from 1844 to 1854, and John Brown Memorial,<ref name=Ashworth>{{cite news
|title=Hikers call secluded memorial to abolitionist John Brown 'hidden treasure'
|first=Alan
|last=Ashworth
|date=September 5, 2020
|newspaper=[[Akron Beacon Journal]] ([[Akron, Ohio]])
|url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hikers-call-secluded-memorial-to-abolitionist-john-brown-hidden-treasure/ar-BB18Kd8m
|access-date=January 24, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525051003/https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hikers-call-secluded-memorial-to-abolitionist-john-brown-hidden-treasure/ar-BB18Kd8m
|url-status=live
}}</ref> the latter of which is located in the Perkins Park area of the [[Akron Zoo]]. The memorial was not erected within the zoo; the zoo incorporated the land where it is. It is not well marked and is not normally open to the public.<ref>{{cite web
|title=Zoo Facts
|author=Akron Zoo
|url=https://www.akronzoo.org/zoo-rules-faqs
|access-date=January 15, 2021
|archive-date=January 31, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210131063513/https://www.akronzoo.org/zoo-rules-faqs
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=Monuments Mark the Sites
|newspaper=[[Akron Beacon Journal]] ([[Akron, Ohio]])
|date=September 8, 1997
|page=6
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68328250/complete-on-john-brown-monument-dont/
|access-date=January 23, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525050956/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68328250/complete-on-john-brown-monument-dont/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|title=John Brown Memorial – Akron, Ohio
|website=www.waymarking.com
|year=2011
|url=https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMAEEP_John_Brown_Memorial_Akron_Ohio
|access-date=October 30, 2020
|archive-date=January 26, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126120416/https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMAEEP_John_Brown_Memorial_Akron_Ohio
|url-status=live
}}</ref> When the monument was erected in 1910, 8,000 people attended<ref name=Ashworth/> and Jason Brown, at the time John Brown's oldest living child, spoke.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Shaft To John Brown Dedicated At Akron Under Auspices of Ohio German Americans
|newspaper=[[The Cincinnati Enquirer]] (Cincinnati, Ohio)
|date=22 Aug 1910
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82990771/monument-to-john-brown/
|access-date=August 7, 2021
|archive-date=August 7, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210807205412/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82990771/monument-to-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* The wagon that carried Brown from jail to his execution is preserved by the [[Jefferson County, West Virginia]], Museum in Charles Town.<ref name=Focus>{{cite web
|title=Historical Markers Database
|work=Focus of Action – Jefferson County in the Civil War
|last=Coughlin
|first=Bill
|date=2011
|url=https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=41671
|access-date=November 20, 2018
|archive-date=November 21, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121021838/https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=41671
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* A wagon used by Brown when transporting freed slaves from Missouri across Iowa is preserved at the [[Iowa Historical Society]]<ref name=Call>{{cite news
|title=The Grave of Old John Brown's Son
|newspaper=[[San Francisco Call]]
|date=21 Jun 1896
|page=24
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5369067/james-townsend-john-brown/
|first=Mary E.
|last=Wright
|access-date=September 25, 2021
|archive-date=September 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210925182112/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5369067/james-townsend-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* An approximate replica of the firehouse was built in 2012 at the [[Discovery Park of America]] museum park in [[Union City, Tennessee]]. There is a marker explaining the link with John Brown's raid.<ref>{{cite web
|title=Fire Station House at Discovery Park Of America
|url=https://www.dreamstime.com/editorial-photography-fire-station-house-discovery-park-america-people-visit-discfire-union-city-tennessee-image42677402
|access-date=November 15, 2018
|publisher=Dreamstime
|year=2013
|archive-date=November 21, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121115948/https://www.dreamstime.com/editorial-photography-fire-station-house-discovery-park-america-people-visit-discfire-union-city-tennessee-image42677402
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=DPA firehouse based on historical building
|date=March 29, 2013
|first=Glenda
|last=Caudle
|newspaper=[[Union City Daily Messenger]]
|url=http://discoveryparkofamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NWTN_march29.pdf
|access-date=November 20, 2018
|archive-date=November 21, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121021948/http://discoveryparkofamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NWTN_march29.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|work=The Firehouse
|title=Historical Markers Database
|url=https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=106065
|first=Sandra
|last=Hughes
|year=2017
|access-date=November 20, 2018
|archive-date=November 21, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121022019/https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=106065
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* Iowa has set up the John Brown Freedom Trail, marking his journey across Iowa leaving Kansas, en route to [[Chatham, Ontario]].<ref>{{cite web
|title=Iowa and the Underground Railroad
|author=Iowa Department of Historical Affairs and State Historical Society of Iowa
|access-date=November 15, 2018
|url=https://iowaculture.gov/sites/default/files/History%20-%20Education%20-%20Lifelong%20Learning%20-%20Iowa%20Underground%20Railroad%20%28PDF%29.pdf
|archive-date=November 19, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119173628/https://iowaculture.gov/sites/default/files/History%20-%20Education%20-%20Lifelong%20Learning%20-%20Iowa%20Underground%20Railroad%20%28PDF%29.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
** [[Lewis, Iowa]]: "Fighting Slavery – Aiding Runaways. John Brown Freedom Trail – December 20, 1858 – March 12, 1859."
* [[Jordan House (West Des Moines, Iowa)|Jordan House]], [[West Des Moines, Iowa]].
* "Because of the impossibility of colored boys entering work shops where useful trades are taught", a John Brown Industrial College was planned at [[Bonner Springs, Kansas]], a suburb of Kansas City, and {{convert|80|acres}} purchased.<ref>{{cite news
|title=The John Brown Industrial College
|newspaper=[[Leavenworth Times]] ([[Leavenworth, Kansas]])
|date=26 Dec 1895
|page=4
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98010968/john-brown-industrial-college/
|access-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220320172407/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98010968/john-brown-industrial-college/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=State news
|newspaper=[[Gaylord Herald]] ([[Gaylord, Kansas]])
|date=12 Sep 1895
|page=2
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98011985/john-brown-industrial-college/
|access-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220320174320/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98011985/john-brown-industrial-college/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title=The Colored Man's Need
|first=Kate
|last=Field
|author-link=Kate Field
|journal=[[Kate Field's Washington]]
|volume=11
|number=2
|page=18
|date=January 12, 1895
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=29
|access-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220320175106/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=29
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

===Media===
Two notable screen portrayals of Brown were given by actor [[Raymond Massey]]. The 1940 film ''[[Santa Fe Trail (film)|Santa Fe Trail]]'', starring [[Errol Flynn]] and [[Olivia de Havilland]], depicted Brown completely unsympathetically as a villainous madman and Massey plays him with a constant, wild-eyed stare. The film gave the impression that he did not oppose slavery, even to the point of having a black "[[Mammy archetype|mammy]]" character say, after an especially fierce battle, "Mr. Brown done promised us freedom, but ... if this is freedom, I don't want no part of it". Massey portrayed Brown again in the little-known, low-budget ''[[Seven Angry Men]]'', in which he was not only the main character, but depicted in a much more restrained, sympathetic way.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Andrew Taylor|author2=Eldrid Herrington|title=The Afterlife of John Brown|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HebFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA22|year=2005|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|pages=22–23|isbn=978-1403978462|access-date=November 22, 2015|archive-date=June 10, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610110645/https://books.google.com/books?id=HebFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA22|url-status=live}}</ref> Massey, along with [[Tyrone Power]] and [[Judith Anderson]], starred in the acclaimed 1953 dramatic reading of [[Stephen Vincent Benét]]'s epic [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry|Pulitzer Prize]]-winning poem ''[[John Brown's Body (poem)|John Brown's Body]]'' (1928).<ref>{{cite book
|author=William T. Leonard
|title=Once Was Enough
|year=1986|publisher=[[Scarecrow Press]]
|url=https://archive.org/details/oncewasenough00leon/page/126
|page=126
|isbn=978-0810819092}}</ref>

Numerous American poets have written poems about him, including [[John Greenleaf Whittier]], [[Louisa May Alcott]], and [[Walt Whitman]].{{sfn|McGinty|2009|p=289}} The Polish poet [[Cyprian Kamil Norwid]] wrote two poems praising Brown: "John Brown" and the better known "Do obywatela Johna Brown" ("To Citizen John Brown").<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kliger|first1=George|last2=Albrecht|first2=Robert C.|year=1963|title=A Polish poet on John Brown|journal=The Polish Review|volume=8|issue=3|pages=80–85|jstor=25776494}}</ref> ''[[Marching Song (play)|Marching Song]]'' (1932) is an unpublished play about the legend of John Brown by [[Orson Welles]].<ref>{{cite book|last=McGilligan|first=Patrick|author-link=Patrick McGilligan (biographer)|date=2015|title=Young Orson|location=New York|publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper]]|isbn=978-0-06-211248-4|pages=222–226}}</ref> [[Russell Banks]]'s 1998 [[biographical novel]] about Brown, ''[[Cloudsplitter]]'', was a [[Pulitzer Prize]] finalist. It is narrated by Brown's surviving son Owen.<ref>Banks, Russell. ''Cloudsplitter''. New York: Harper Flamingo, 1998.</ref> [[James McBride (writer)|James McBride]]'s 2013 novel ''[[The Good Lord Bird]]'' tells Brown's story through the eyes of a young slave, Henry Shackleford, who accompanies Brown to Harpers Ferry. The novel won the 2013 [[National Book Award]] for Fiction.<ref>{{cite news |title=James McBride wins National Book Award for fiction |author=Minzesheimer, Bob |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/11/20/national-book-awards/3652957/ |newspaper=USA Today |date=November 21, 2013 |access-date=December 2, 2013 |archive-date=October 19, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019164959/https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/11/20/national-book-awards/3652957/ |url-status=live }}</ref> A [[The Good Lord Bird (miniseries)|limited episode series]] based on the book was released starring [[Ethan Hawke]] as John Brown.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.darkhorizons.com/diggs-russell-join-hawkes-good-lord-bird/|website=darkhorizons.com|title=Diggs, Russell Join Hawke's "Good Lord Bird"|author=Garth Franklin|date=August 3, 2019|access-date=August 5, 2019|archive-date=August 4, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804141356/http://www.darkhorizons.com/diggs-russell-join-hawkes-good-lord-bird/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Paintings===
[[File:John Brown on his way to his execution.jpg|thumb|In a [[Currier and Ives]] print from 1863, John Brown is depicted as Christ-like, en route to his execution, with a black mother and [[Children of the plantation|her mulatto child]]. Above his head is the flag of Virginia, and its motto, ''[[Sic semper tyrannis]]''.]]  
A well-known image of Brown in the later 19th century is a [[Currier and Ives]] print, based on a lost painting by Louis Ransom.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Ransom's John Brown Painting
|first=Robert S.
|last=Fletcher
|journal=Kansas History
|date=November 1940
|volume=9
|number=4
|pages=343–346
|url=https://www.kshs.org/p/ransom-s-john-brown-painting/12845
|access-date=April 3, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525051000/https://www.kshs.org/p/ransom-s-john-brown-painting/12845
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title='No Mortal Eye Can Penetrate' : Louis Ransom's Portrait of John Brown
|first=Warren F.
|last=Broderick
|journal=[[Hudson River Valley Institute|Hudson River Valley Journal]]
|url=https://www.hudsonrivervalley.org/documents/401021/1608258/HRVR+29.1+full+text/50b5b141-990f-4163-b206-814be15204a7
|pages=27–53
|volume=29
|number=1
|date=Autumn 2012
|access-date=April 13, 2022
|archive-date=December 20, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211220222754/https://www.hudsonrivervalley.org/documents/401021/1608258/HRVR+29.1+full+text/50b5b141-990f-4163-b206-814be15204a7
|url-status=live
}}</ref> It portrays Brown as a Christ-like figure. The "Virgin and Child" typically depicted with Christ are here a black mother and [[Children of the plantation|mulatto child]]. Legend says that Brown kissed the mythical baby but virtually all scholars agree that this did not in fact happen.{{sfn|Finkelman|1995|p=50}} Above Brown's head, like a halo, is the flag of Virginia and its motto, ''[[Sic semper tyrannis]]'' ("Thus always to [[tyrant]]s"). [[John Brown's last speech#Reactions to Brown's speech|According to Brown's supporters]], the government of Virginia was tyrannical and according to fugitive slaves, it "is as well the black man's, as the white man's motto".<ref>{{cite news
|title=A Letter to the American Slaves from those who have fled from American Slavery
|newspaper=[[The North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)|The North Star]]
|location=[[Rochester, New York]]
|date=September 5, 1850
|pages=2–3
|url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84026365/1850-09-05/ed-1/?sp=3
|access-date=April 15, 2022
|archive-date=April 15, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220415132757/https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84026365/1850-09-05/ed-1/?sp=3
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

[[File:The Tragic Prelude John Brown.jpg|thumb|Brown is in ''[[Tragic Prelude]]'', a mural in the [[Kansas State Capitol]]. He carries in one hand a Bible and in the other a [[Beecher's Bible]] rifle. Union and Confederate forces are fighting, with casualties. A tornado approaches in the background, as does a [[wildfire|prairie fire]], both common in Kansas.]]
In 1938, Kansas painter [[John Steuart Curry]] was commissioned to prepare murals for the [[Kansas State Capitol]] in [[Topeka, Kansas]]. He chose as his subject the Kansan John Brown, seen by many as the most important man in Kansas history. In the resulting mural, ''[[Tragic Prelude]]'', Brown holds a Bible in one hand and a [[Beecher's Bible]] rifle in the other. Behind him are [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] and Confederate troops, with dead soldiers; a reference to the [[Bleeding Kansas]] period, which Brown was at the center of, and which was commonly seen to have been a [[dress rehearsal]] or a tragic prelude to the increasingly inevitable [[American Civil War|Civil War]].<ref>{{cite news
|title=At Museum Of History – Exhibit Of Art by Curry Examines Controversy
|first=Matt
|last=Truel
|newspaper=Council Grove Republican ([[Council Grove, Kansas]])
|date=July 29, 1994
|page=6
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31834623/criticism_of_curry_portrait_of_john/
|access-date=May 23, 2019
|archive-date=September 1, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901103342/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31834623/criticism-of-curry-portrait-of-john/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

[[File:Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry - NARA - 559102.jpg|thumb|''Frederick Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry'' is a painting by [[Jacob Lawrence]].]]
In 1941, [[Jacob Lawrence]] illustrated Brown's life in ''The Legend of John Brown'', a series of 22 [[gouache]] paintings. By 1977, these were in such fragile condition that they could not be displayed, and the [[Detroit Institute of Arts]] had to commission Lawrence to recreate the series as [[silkscreen]] prints. The result was a limited-edition portfolio of 22 hand-screened prints, published with a poem, ''John Brown'', by [[Robert Hayden]], commissioned specifically for the project. Though Brown had been a popular topic for many painters, ''The Legend of John Brown'' was the first series to explore his legacy from an African-American perspective.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Andrew Taylor|author2=and Eldrid Herrington|title=The Afterlife of John Brown|year=2005|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|pages=127–28}}</ref>

Paintings such as [[Thomas Hovenden]]'s ''[[The Last Moments of John Brown]]'' immortalize an apocryphal story in which a black woman offers the condemned Brown her baby to kiss on his way to the gallows. The tale was probably invented by journalist [[James Redpath]].<ref>{{cite book|author-link1=J.C. Furnas|last1=Furnas |first1=J. C.|title=The Road to Harpers Ferry |location= New York |publisher= William Sloane Associates | year= 1959 | page=45 }}</ref>

===Historical markers===
* According to the [[Historical Marker Database]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hmdb.org/|title=The Historical Marker Database|website=www.hmdb.org|access-date=November 20, 2018|archive-date=November 23, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123235015/https://www.hmdb.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> Brown is mentioned on the following [[historical marker]]s:
** At his birthplace in [[Torrington, Connecticut]], on John Brown Road.
** [[Baldwin City, Kansas]]: "[[Battle of Black Jack|Battle of black Jack]]"
** [[Franklin County, Kansas]]: At the site of the [[Pottawatomie massacre]].
** [[Lawrence, Kansas]]: "John Brown and the [[Sacking of Lawrence|Siege of Lawrence]], September 14–15, 1856"
** Near [[Netawaka, Kansas]]: [[Battle of the Spurs (Kansas)|Battle of the Spurs]]
** [[Osawatomie, Kansas]]:
*** At the site of the [[Battle of Osawatomie]], in John Brown Memorial Park.
*** "Soldiers' Monument". Commemorating the 5 persons killed, including one of Brown's sons. "This inscription is also in commemoration of the heroism of Capt. John Brown who commanded at the Battle of Osawatomie August 30, 1856; who died and conquered American slavery on the scaffold at Charlestown Va. Dec. 2, 1859."
*** 1935 plaque by The Woman's Relief Corps, Department of Kansas
*** Old Stone Church Marker. "Built by Rev. Samuel Adair brother-in-law of John Brown" (1861).
** [[Topeka, Kansas]]: "Capital of Kansas" ("In the late 1850s negroes bound north on the 'underground railway' were hidden here by John Brown.")
** Near [[Trading Post, Kansas]]:
*** "[[Marais des Cygnes Massacre]]" – site of a "fort" built by Brown after the massacre
*** "Murder on the Marais des Cygnes"
** [[Hagerstown, Maryland]]: at the site of the Washington House Hotel, where Brown stayed on his way to Harpers Ferry.
** [[Hyattsville, Maryland]]: [[Osborne Perry Anderson]], who fought with Brown.
** [[Sharpsburg, Maryland]]: at the site of the [[Kennedy Farm]].
** [[Marlborough, Massachusetts]]: at the [[John Brown Bell]], once in Harpers Ferry, since 1892 on display in Marlborough. The second-most-famous American bell, after the [[Liberty Bell]].
** [[Detroit, Michigan]]: at the house of William Webb, site of the "Frederick Douglass – John Brown meeting".
** [[Hudson, Ohio]]:
*** At his boyhood home.<ref>{{citation
|title=Boyhood home of John Brown
|date=1985
|author=Hudson Quester chapters
|publisher=[[Historical Marker Database]]
|url=https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=41270
|access-date=October 23, 2020
|archive-date=October 18, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201018230220/https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=41270
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
*** First Congregational Church in Hudson: "At a November 1837 prayer meeting, church member and anti-slavery leader John Brown made his first public vow to destroy slavery." Another marker mentions Brown at the former site of the church.
** [[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania]]: "Abolitionist John Brown Boards in Chambersburg"
** In rural [[Crawford County, Pennsylvania]], there is a John Brown Road, and on it two historical markers at the site of Brown's house and tannery.
** [[Indiana, Pennsylvania]]: marker for [[Albert Hazlett]], a member of Brown's party who was also hanged at Charles Town (in 1860)
** [[King of Prussia, Pennsylvania]] ([[Valley Forge National Historic Park]]): "Knox's Quarters – John Brown Farm".
** [[Kent, Ohio]]: marker for Underground Railroad stops mentions John Brown's residence in Kent (then called Franklin Mills) during the 1830s.
** [[Mont Alto, Pennsylvania]]: "John Brown Raid", where John Cooke, one of Brown's followers, was captured. (Two markers.)
** Near [[Amissville, Virginia]]: [[Dangerfield Newby]] marker.
** [[Winchester, Virginia]]: "A 'Malicious Design' – Burning the Winchester Medical College". The body of John Brown's son Watson was brought there for dissection by medical students.
** [[Charles Town, West Virginia]]:
*** "[[Jefferson County Courthouse (Charles Town, West Virginia)|Jefferson County Courthouse]] – Where John Brown Was Tried"
*** "Two Treason Trials". (The other had nothing to do with Brown.)
*** "Hanging Site of John Brown. Creation of a Martyr. Prelude to War."
*** "Site of the execution of John Brown"
*** "Edge Hill Cemetery – John Brown Raid Victims"
*** Beallair, home of Colonel [[Lewis Washington]], held hostage by Brown.
*** Focus of Action – Jefferson County in the Civil War
** [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia]]:
*** "Pilgrimage." Marks the site of an 1896 visit by the [[National League of Colored Women]].
*** "Holy Ground". Marks 1906 visit by members of the [[Niagara Movement]], predecessor of the [[NAACP]], on what they called John Brown Day, August 17.
*** "John Brown", plaque erected in 1918 by the alumni of [[Storer College]].
*** "John Brown", plaque erected in 1932 by the [[NAACP]].
*** "John Brown Fort."
*** "A Nation's Armory"
*** "Arsenal Square"
*** "'for the deposit of arms{{'"}}
*** "John Brown Monument", on the site of the original location of "John Brown's Fort"
*** "John Brown's Last Stand", at the same location.
*** "[[Allstadt House and Ordinary|Allstadt House]] – John Brown's Hostages – Prelude to War"
*** "The John Brown Raiders", all those who participated in the raid.
*** "In Honor of Private Luke Quinn" – killed during the capture of John Brown
*** "The Murphy Farm", location of [[John Brown's Fort]] between 1895 and 1910.
*** "[[Heyward Shepherd|Hayward Shepard]] – Another Perspective"
*** "Heyward Shepherd"
** [[Chatham, Ontario]]: "John Brown's Convention 1858".

==Archival material==
===Court material and related documents===
The indictments, summons, sentences, bills of exception, and similar documents for Brown and his raiders are held by the Jefferson County Circuit Clerk, and have been digitized by West Virginia Archives and History.<ref>{{cite web
|title=John Brown Papers held by the Jefferson County Circuit Clerk's Office
|publisher=[[West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History]]
|year=2021
|access-date=May 15, 2022
|url=https://archive.wvculture.org/history/johnbrown/jbjeffcc.html
|archive-date=May 18, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220518183743/https://archive.wvculture.org/history/johnbrown/jbjeffcc.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Two separate collections of relevant letters were published. The first is the messages, mostly telegrams, sent and received by Governor Wise.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Appendix to Message 1. Documents related to the Harpers Ferry Invasion
|first=Henry A.
|last=Wise
|author-link=Henry A. Wise
|year=1860
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t4cn76w33&view=thumb&seq=1
|location=Richmond, Virginia
|publisher=Virginia government (Henry A. Wise, governor)
|access-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-date=July 9, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709190408/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft4cn76w33&view=thumb&seq=1
|url-status=live
}}</ref> The Senate of Maryland published the many internal telegrams of the  [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad]].<ref name=Maryland/>

Much material is missing. The order book, which had the minutes of John Brown's trial,<ref name=Hunter2>{{cite news
|first=Richard
|last=Parker
|author-link=Richard Parker (congressman)
|title=The Trial of John Brown. Its Secret History Revealed for the First Time by the Judge (pt. 2)
|newspaper=[[St. Louis Globe-Democrat]] ([[St. Louis, Missouri]])
|date=April 8, 1888
|page=27
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73986239/richard-parrker-john-browns-judge/
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525050953/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73986239/richard-parrker-john-browns-judge/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> was evidently possessed by Brown's judge [[Richard Parker (congressman)|Richard Parker]] in 1888.<ref name="Quincy" /> {{As of|2022}}, its location is unknown. Among the missing material used at his trial as evidence of sedition were bundles of printed copies of his [[John Brown's Provisional Constitution|Provisional Constitution]], prepared for the "state" Brown intended to set up in the [[Appalachian Mountains]]. Even less known is Brown's "Declaration of Liberty", imitating the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]].{{sfn|Tsai|2010|pp=162–163}}

According to Prosecutor [[Andrew Hunter (lawyer)|Andrew Hunter]],

{{blockquote|John Brown had with him when captured at Harpers Ferry a carpet-bag in which were his constitution for a provisional government and other papers. He had placed it in one corner of the engine house, and there it was found when the marines charged and captured the survivors. Mr. Hunter took possession of the carpet-bag and carried it to Charlestown. He kept it and its contents. He added to the papers the letters which were forwarded to the prisoners and not delivered to them. Ordinary letters were allowed to pass to the prisoners after Mr. Hunter had examined them. But those letters which seemed to contain information bearing upon the organization in the North, Mr. Hunter confiscated and kept. He had between seventy and eighty of these letters, and he placed them in John Brown's carpet-bag. Other important documents bearing upon the secret history of the case went into the same receptacle, and much of the matter nobody but Mr. Hunter saw.<ref name=Hunter>{{cite news
|title=Andrew Hunter. A Talk with the Man who Prosecuted the Liberators.{{snd}}The Story of the Hidden Carpet-Bag
|newspaper=[[St. Louis Globe-Democrat]] ([[St. Louis, Missouri]])
|date=April 8, 1888
|page=27
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66365784/andrew-hunter-interview/
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=May 16, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516224722/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66365784/andrew-hunter-interview/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>}}

There was correspondence from [[Frederick Douglass]] and [[Gerrit Smith]], among many others. Hugh Forbes said that the carpet-bag may have contained "an abundant supply of my correspondence".<ref>{{cite news
|title=Origin and history of the plot. Letter from Col. Forbes
|orig-date=October 29, 1859
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|date=November 1, 1859
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1859/11/01/issue.html
|page=1
|first=H[ugh]
|last=Forbes
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121907/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1859/11/01/issue.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=The Harper's Ferry Outbreak{{snd}}Arraignment of Old Brown and His Companions on Charges of Conipiracy, Treason and Murder
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75277822/news-from-harpers-ferry-john-brown/
|newspaper=[[New York Daily Herald]]
|date=October 27, 1859
|page=3
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=April 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413200632/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75277822/news-from-harpers-ferry-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> (After Brown's arrest, Smith, Douglass, and future biographer and friend [[Franklin Sanborn]] began destroying correspondence and other documents because they feared criminal charges for aiding Brown.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=The Secret Six and John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry: Two Letters
|first1=William T.
|last1=La Moy
|first2=F. B.
|last2=Sanborn
|author-link2=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|journal=[[New England Quarterly]]
|volume=88
|number=1
|date=March 2015
|pages=141–148
|doi=10.1162/TNEQ_a_00439
|jstor=24718206
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24718206
|access-date=September 9, 2021
|archive-date=September 9, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210909104041/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24718206
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name=Sanborn2>{{cite book
|pages=187–188, 238
|volume=1
|title=Recollections of Seventy Years
|year=1909
|url=https://archive.org/details/recollectionsse01sanbgoog/page/n224/mode/2up
|last=Sanborn
|first=F. B.
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|location=Boston
|publisher=Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press}}</ref>)

The carpet-bag also contained maps of Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia that showed the locations of State arsenals with proposed routes for attacks and retreats.<ref name=Herald/><ref name=Hunter/><ref>{{cite news
|title=The Harper's Ferry Insurrection
|newspaper=[[Daily Exchange]] ([[Baltimore, Maryland]])
|date=October 21, 1859
|page=1
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77150798/more-on-harpers-ferry/
|access-date=May 6, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525051008/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77150798/more-on-harpers-ferry/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

Hunter personally took the carpet-bag to Richmond, because he thought it would be safer there. He was at the time a member of the Virginia State Senate. In 1865, when Lee advised that he could no longer defend Richmond, Hunter did not want the "Yankees" to find the carpetbag. He thought that the Capitol was as safe a place as any in Richmond, and he asked Commonwealth Secretary [[George Wythe Munford]] if he could hide it in the Capitol. "Munford told me that he has taken the carpet-bag up to the cock-loft of the Capitol and had let down the bag between the wall and the plastering, and I believe those papers are there yet."<ref name=Hunter/>

Wise sent attorney Henry Hudnall to Charles Town to put in order Hunter's documents. In a letter to Wise of November 17, he refers to "a large quantity of matter", including "nearly a half [[bushel]] of letters" just of Tidd alone.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Appendix to Document 1
|first=Henry
|last=Hudnall
|date=1860
|pages=68–71
|url=https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/AppendixtoMessageI_10551253
|isbn=978-1-334-11446-5
|orig-date=November 17, 1859
|chapter=Letter to Gov. Wise
|publisher=Fb&c Limited
|access-date=May 4, 2021
|archive-date=May 4, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210504151214/https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/AppendixtoMessageI_10551253
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

In 1907–08, there appeared in print a varied collection of letters and other documents a Union soldier from Massachusetts took from Hunter's office in the Charles Town courthouse in 1862, when it was being used as a Union barracks.<ref name="Quincy">{{cite journal
|title=The Execution of John Brown
|first=Josiah P.
|last=Quincy
|journal=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
|series=3rd
|volume=1
|date=1908
|pages=326–331
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079946
|jstor=25079946
|access-date=August 24, 2021
|archive-date=October 13, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201013173504/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079946
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title=Letter to A. Hunter
|first=Henry A.
|last=Wise
|author-link=Henry A. Wise
|journal=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
|series=3rd
|volume=1
|date=May 1907
|pages=93–94
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079848
|jstor=25079848
|access-date=April 29, 2021
|archive-date=April 30, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430224056/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079848
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title=The Harper's Ferry Affair
|journal=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
|date=February 1908
|pages=326–331
|last=Quincy
|first=Josiah P.
|jstor=25079946
|url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-25079946/page/n11/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
|title=Papers relating to the execution of John Brown and the Harper's Ferry Affair of October 1859
|journal=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
|date=June 1908
|pages=509–518
|last=Rogers
|first=Mrs. William B.
|jstor=25079950
|url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-25079950/page/n1/mode/2up}}</ref>

===Correspondence and other archival material===
The West Virginia Archives and History owns the largest single collection on Brown, the Boyd B. Stutler Collection. A negative microfilm of the material is held by the [[Ohio Historical Society]].<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.wvculture.org/history/johnbrown/johnbrown.html| title = John Brown | website= www.wvculture.org| access-date = February 5, 2021| archive-date = May 7, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210507042901/http://www.wvculture.org/history/johnbrown/johnbrown.html| url-status = dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
|chapter=Appendix II: Brief inventory of the microfilm of the Boyd B. Stutler Collection of the John Brown Papers
|url=https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/28302/images/dvm_LocHist012264-00032-0?ssrc=&backlabel=Return
|access-date=July 20, 2021
|publisher=[[ancestry.com]]
|author=[[Ohio Historical Society]]
|title=Inventory and calendar of the John Brown, Jr., papers, 1830–1932
|pages=26–31
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121906/https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/28302/images/dvm_LocHist012264-00032-0?ssrc=&backlabel=Return
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

The Hudson Library and Historical Society of [[Hudson, Ohio]], Brown's home town, prepared annotated listings of Brown's many ancestors, siblings, and children.<ref>{{cite web
|year=2021
|title=John Brown Resources
|publisher=Hudson Library and Historical Society
|url=https://www.hudsonlibrary.org/historical-society/john-brown-resources/
|access-date=February 4, 2021
|archive-date=March 4, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304213039/https://www.hudsonlibrary.org/historical-society/john-brown-resources/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>  Since John Brown moved around a lot, had a large family, and had a lot to say, he carried on a voluminous correspondence, including letters to editors,{{sfn|Tsai|2010|p=167}} and was repeatedly interviewed by reporters, as he made himself available. Archival material on him and his circle is therefore abundant, and widely scattered. There has never been a complete edition of his extant correspondence; the one scholarly attempt, from 1885, produced a book of 645 pages. Editor [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn|F. B. Sanborn]] stated that he had enough letters for another book.{{sfn|Sanborn|1891|p=vi}} A 2015 book was published just of the letters Brown wrote in the last month of his life, from jail.<ref>{{cite book
|editor-last=DeCaro
|editor-first=Louis A. Jr.
|editor-link=Louis DeCaro Jr.
|title=John Brown Speaks: Letters and Statements from Charlestown
|first=John
|last=Brown
|author-link=John Brown (abolitionist)
|location=[[Lanham, Maryland]]
|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]]
|year=2015}}</ref> Additional letters were found and published in the 20th century.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Finds Last Letter from John Brown
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|date=February 13, 1929
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/02/13/91754747.html?pageNumber=15
|access-date=May 7, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121910/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/02/13/91754747.html?pageNumber=15
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Letter
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|date=March 17, 1929
|url=https://nyti.ms/3trXVyx
|page=64 (Section 3 (Editorial), p. 5)
|first=Newton B.
|last=Hobart
|access-date=May 8, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121954/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/03/17/91763301.html?zoom=14.58
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name=Galbreath>{{cite journal
|title=John Brown
|first=C. B.
|last=Galbreath
|author-link=Charles Burleigh Galbreath
|journal=Iowa Historical Journal
|page=284
|url=https://resources.ohiohistory.org/ohj/search/display.php?page=50&searchterm=shakers&vol=30&pages=184-289
|access-date=September 15, 2021
|volume=30
|archive-date=September 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210925182029/https://resources.ohiohistory.org/ohj/search/display.php?page=50&searchterm=shakers&vol=30&pages=184-289
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Archival material concerning John Brown's time in [[Crawford County, Pennsylvania]], including his tannery, is held by the Pelletier Library, [[Allegheny College]], [[Meadville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>{{citation
|author=John Brown Memorial Association
|title=Papers, 1826–1958
|publisher=Pelletier Library, Allegheny College
|oclc=44935229}}</ref> [[Clark Atlanta University]] holds a small collection.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/resources/6| title = John Brown collection |work= Archives Research Center| access-date = April 29, 2021| archive-date = April 29, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210429155035/http://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/resources/6| url-status = live}}</ref>

Brown biographer [[Oswald Garrison Villard]] surveys the manuscript collections in his 1910 biography.{{sfn|Villard|1910|p=}} The archive of Villard is in the [[Columbia University Library]]. Kansas Memory has a collection of materials regarding Brown's activities in Kansas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/locate.php?categories=1245-4645&|title=Kansas Memory|website=www.kansasmemory.org|access-date=February 5, 2021|archive-date=February 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225142321/https://www.kansasmemory.org/locate.php?categories=1245-4645&|url-status=live}} Kansas Memory, Kansas State Historical Society, holds John Brown letters and photos.</ref> A project of the [[Kansas Historical Society]], it holds the collection of Brown biographer Richard J. Hinton.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Richard Josiah Hinton papers |url=https://www.kshs.org/archives/40384 |access-date=2022-04-06 |website=Kansas Historical Society |archive-date=April 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220406175513/https://www.kshs.org/archives/40384 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Bibliography of the American Civil War]]
* [[List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States]]
* [[Origins of the American Civil War]]
* [[Radical Republicans]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{Cite book |last=Clinton |first=Catherine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1riMlV2rtbwC&q=%2522General%2520Tubman%2522 |title=Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom |date=2004 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-7595-0977-1 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=DeCaro |first=Louis A. Jr. |title=Fire From the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |year=2005a |isbn=978-0814719220 |quote=<small>Introduction: As an evangelical Christian, he not only read the Bible as God's word, he read the Bible as God's word to John Brown. He believed that the scriptures continued to speak to life situations, radiating fresh truth and directives without obscuring its original and primary meaning. For him, God was speaking afresh on the enslavement of the African, and this was the ongoing theme of his devotional life. It guided his actions, guided his values, and gave him strength. His piety was inseparable from his deeply felt call to destroy slavery.</small>}}
* {{cite book
|title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself
|first=Frederick
|last=Douglass
|author-link=Frederick Douglass
|year=1882
|location=[[Hartford, Connecticut]]
|publisher=Park Publishing Co.
|url=https://archive.org/details/lifetimesoffrede1882doug/page/358/mode/2up}}
* {{Cite book 
|last=Du Bois 
|first=W. E. B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wPPqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA168 
|title=John Brown 
|date=2015
|orig-date=1909
|publisher=Routledge 
|isbn=978-1-317-46679-6 
|language=en}}
* {{cite book
|title=His Soul Goes Marching On. Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid
|editor-first=Paul
|editor-last=Finkelman
|editor-link=Paul Finkelman
|location=[[Charlottesville, Virginia]]
|publisher=[[University Press of Virginia]]
|year=1995
|isbn=0813915368
|first=Paul
|last=Finkelman
|author-link=Paul Finkelman
|chapter=Manufacturing Martyrdom: The Antislavery Response to John Brown's Raid
|pages=41–66}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hinton |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7851ys2NXBwC&q=%2522I%2520John%2520Brown%2522 |title=John Brown and His Men |date=2011 |orig-date=1894 |publisher=Applewood Books |isbn=978-1-4585-0106-6 |language=en}}
* {{cite book|first=James W.|last=Loewen|author-link=James Loewen|title=[[Lies My Teacher Told Me]]: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong|location=New York|publisher=[[The New Press]]|year=2008
|edition=Revised and updated|isbn=978-1595583260}}
* {{Cite book |last=Graham |first=Lorenz B. |url=http://archive.org/details/johnbrowncryforf0000grah |title=John Brown, A Cry for Freedom |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell |location=New York|date=1980 |isbn=978-0-690-04023-4}}
* {{cite book
|last1=McGinty
|first1=Brian
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=aZQxEsFJV-IC&q=john+brown%27s+trial
|title=John Brown's Trial 
|date=2009
|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]
|isbn=978-0-674-03517-1}} [https://www.fedbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bookreviewsoct09-pdf-1.pdf review]
* {{cite journal
|title=Rescripting a Troubled Past: John Brown's Family and the Harpers Ferry Conspiracy
|first=Robert E.
|last=McGlone
|journal=[[Journal of American History]]
|volume=75
|number=4
|date=March 1989
|pages=1179–1200
|doi=10.2307/1908635
|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/1908635
|jstor=19908635
|access-date=May 25, 2022
|archive-date=May 31, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531105212/https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/?next_url=/ezproxy/r/ezp.2aHR0cHM6Ly9kb2kub3JnLzEwLjIzMDcvMTkwODYzNQ--
|url-status=live
}}
* {{cite book
|title=John Brown Pennsylvania Citizen. The story of John Brown's ten years in northwestern Pennsylvania
|first=Ernest C.
|last=Miller
|location=[[Warren, Pennsylvania]]
|publisher=The Penn State Press
|year=1952
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Redpath
|first=James
|title=The Public Life of Captain John Brown
|url=https://archive.org/details/publiclifeofcapt00redprich
|year=1860|publisher=[[Thayer and Eldridge]]
|location=Boston}}
* {{cite book|first=David S.|last=Reynolds
|author-link= David S. Reynolds
|date=2005|title=John Brown, Abolitionist. The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights|publisher=[[Vintage Books]]
|isbn=0375726152}}
* {{cite book |last= Sanborn |first= Franklin Benjamin |author-link= |date= 1891 |title= The Life and Letters of John Brown: Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=fekDAAAAYAAJ&q=john+brown+boston&pg=PA515 |location= [[Boston, Massachusetts]] |publisher= Roberts Brothers |isbn= |access-date= July 7, 2021 |archive-date= July 21, 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121810/https://books.google.com/books?id=fekDAAAAYAAJ&q=john+brown+boston&pg=PA515 |url-status= live }}
* {{cite book 
|title=Memoirs of John Brown, written for Rev. Samuel Orcutt's History of Torrington, Ct., by F. B. Sanborn, with memorial verses by William Ellery Channing
|location=[[Concord, Massachusetts]]
|date=1878
|first1=F[ranklin] B[enjamin]
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|last1=Sanborn
|first2=John
|last2=Brown
|publisher=Printed by J. Munsell
|author-link2=John Brown (abolitionist)
|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009833098
|access-date=March 26, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525050953/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009833098
|url-status=live
}}
* {{cite journal 
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iIesXhfvOL4C&q=John%20brown|first=Narcissa Macy|last=Smith|pages=323, 231–236|volume=4|number=3|date=September 1895|journal=The Midland Monthly|title=Reminiscences of John Brown|access-date=October 22, 2020|archive-date=July 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121906/https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Midland_Monthly_Magazine/iIesXhfvOL4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=John+brown|url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Snodgrass |first=Mary Ellen |url=http://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr0000snod |title=The Underground Railroad : an encyclopedia of people, places, and operations |date=2008 |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |isbn=978-0-7656-8093-8 |location=Armonk, New York}}
* {{cite journal
|journal=[[Boston College Law Review]]
|volume=51
|number=1
|title=John Brown's Constitution
|first=Robert L.
|last=Tsai
|url=https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3106&context=bclr
|date=January 2010
|pages=162–163
|access-date=March 20, 2021
|archive-date=May 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525051011/https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3106&context=bclr
|url-status=live
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Villard
|first=Oswald Garrison
|author-link=Oswald Garrison Villard
|title=John Brown 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After
|publisher=Houghton Mifflin
|year=1910
|url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownabiogr02villgoog}}
* {{cite journal
|title=John Brown, Weathermen, and the Psychology of Antinomian Violence
|first=Bertram
|last=Wyatt-Brown
|journal=[[Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal]]
|volume=58
|number=4
|date=Winter 1975
|pages=417–440
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41177972
|jstor=41177972
|access-date=September 14, 2021
|archive-date=September 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210914130149/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41177972
|url-status=live
}}

==Further reading==
{{see also|List of sources for John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry}}

===Bibliographies===
* {{cite journal
|pages=196–202
|volume=1
|year=1897
|first=Thomas
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nc01.ark:/13960/t50g5xn6g&view=1up&seq=206
|last=Featherstonhaugh
|title=A Bibliography of John Brown
|journal=Publications of the [[Southern History Association]]}}
* {{cite journal
|title=Bibliography of John Brown Part II
|pages=302–306
|first=Thomas
|last=Featherstonhaugh
|volume=3
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001175616&view=1up&seq=310&q1=Winchester
|journal=Publications of the [[Southern History Association]]
|year=1899}}
* {{cite book
|title=John Brown's family in California
|editor-first=Jean
|editor-last=Libby
|year=2006
|isbn=0-9773638-2-1
|publisher=Allies for Freedom
|location=[[Palo Alto, California]]}}
** "Records pertaining to John Brown at the National Archives and Records Administration", pp.&nbsp;20–23, by John M. Lawlor
** "Finding the Carpetbag: Documents in the Dreer Collection at the [[Historical Society of Pennsylvania]], pp. 24–31, by [[Eric Ledell Smith]]
** "The John Brown and Brown Family papers in the [[Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History|Gilder Lehrman]] Collection at the [[New York Historical Society]]", pp.&nbsp;32–33, by Louis A. DeCaro, Jr.
** "Bibliography of Mary Day Brown", pp.&nbsp;18–19, by Jean Libby

===Primary sources===
* [https://archive.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/jbprimarydocuments.html Primary documents, West Virginia Archives & History]
* {{cite book
|pages=28–31
|title=John Brown's family in California. A journey by funeral train, covered wagon, through archives, to the Valley of Heart's Delight, including the years 1833–1926, and honoring descendants of the Woman Abolitionists of Santa Clara County, now known as Silicon Valley
|chapter=A list of the contents of the John Brown scrapbook in the Dreer Collection, [[Historical Society of Pennsylvania]], 1300 [[Locust Street]], [[Philadelphia]]
|first=Eric Ledell
|last=Smith
|year=2006
|publisher=Allies for Freedom
|author-link=Eric Ledell Smith
|isbn=}}
* {{cite book
|pages=32–33
|title=John Brown's family in California. A journey by funeral train, covered wagon, through archives, to the Valley of Heart's Delight, including the years 1833–1926, and honoring descendants of the Woman Abolitionists of Santa Clara County, now known as Silicon Valley
|first=John M.
|last=Lawler
|year=2006
|publisher=Allies for Freedom
|isbn=0-9773638-2-1}}
* [[Frederick Douglass]] (May 1886). "John Brown's Heroic Character", Speech given at Clinton Street Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. In [[Theodore Hamm|Hamm, Theodore]], ed., [https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/frederick-douglass-in-brooklyn/ ''Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn'']. Brooklyn, New York: [[Akashic Books]], 2017.
* [[Andrew Johnson]] (1859). [https://web.archive.org/web/20051103073709/http://www.adena.com/adena/usa/cw/cw234.htm ''What John Brown Did in Kansas''] (December 12, 1859): a speech to the [[United States House of Representatives]], December 12, 1859. Originally published in ''The Congressional Globe, The Official Proceedings of Congress'', Published by John C. Rives, Washington, D.C. Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1st Session, New Series ... No. 7, Tuesday, December 13, 1859, pp.&nbsp;105–106. 
* [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn]], ed. (1891). [https://archive.org/details/DKC0110 ''The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia'']
* [[John Stauffer (professor)|John Stauffer]] and Zoe Trodd, eds. ''The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid'', Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012. [https://www.fedbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/bookrev-jul13-pdf-1.pdf Review by Paul Finkelman] [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/03/07/terrorist-or-martyr/ Review by Christopher Benfey]
* [[Henry David Thoreau]] (1859). ''[[s:A Plea for Captain John Brown|A Plea for Captain John Brown]]''.

===Secondary sources===
* Barney, William L. "Brown, John". ''The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion.'' New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2001.
* DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. ''Freedom's Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia.'' Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
* {{cite book |first=Robert M. |last=De Witt |title=The Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, Known as "Old Brown of Ossawatomie" |year=1859 |publisher=Robert M. De Witt |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/lifetrialandexe00cogoog/page/n6/mode/2up}}
* {{cite wikisource |title=John Brown |wslink=John Brown (1909) |last=DuBois |first=W. E. B. |author-link=W. E. B. DuBois |date=1909 |publisher= |location= |page= |pages= |scan=Index:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu}}
* [[Paul Finkelman|Finkelman, Paul]], ed. ''His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid'' (1995).
* Goodrich, Thomas ''War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861'' (1998).
* [[Tony Horwitz|Horwitz, Tony]]. ''Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War''. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2011.
* Hotchkiss, Jed. "John Brown's Raid." The Confederate Military History. October 27, 2009. [http://civilwarhome.com/johnbrown.htm%20 John Brown's Raid] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100310152643/http://www.civilwarhome.com/johnbrown.htm |date=March 10, 2010 }}
* {{cite news
|title=John Brown — A Reunion of his Surviving Associates
|newspaper=[[Topeka Daily Capital]]
|location=Topeka, Kansas
|date=24 Oct 1882
|page=4
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26312178/brown-john-1882-10-24/}}
* Laughlin-Schultz, Bonnie. ''The Tie that Bound Us: The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism.'' Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Long |first=Roderick |title=Brown, John (1800–1859) |author-link=|editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi= 10.4135/9781412965811.n26|isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages= 39–40 }}
* Malin, James. ''John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six'' (1942) ({{ISBN|0-8383-1021-4}})
* McGlone, Robert E. ''John Brown's War Against Slavery''. Cambridge, CUP, 2009.
* [[Allan Nevins|Nevins, Allan]]. ''[[Ordeal of the Union]]''. 2 vols. (1947)
* [[Roy Franklin Nichols|Nichols, Roy F.]] "The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography." ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'' 43 (September 1956): 187–212. [https://www.jstor.org/pss/1902683 in JSTOR]
* Nudelman, Franny. ''John Brown's Body: Slavery, Violence, and the Culture of War'' (2004).
* [[Stephen B. Oates|Oates, Stephen B.]] ''Our Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, and the Civil War Era'' (1979).
* Peterson, Merrill D. (2002). ''John Brown: The Legend Revisited'' ({{ISBN|0-8139-2132-5}})
* Poland Jr., Charles P. (2020). ''America's Good Terrorist: John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid'' ({{ISBN|978-1-61200-925-4}})
* Renehan, Edward J. ''The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown''. 1995.
* Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion''. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.
* {{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/14/AR2009101402520.html |title=150 Years Later, John Brown's Failed Slave Revolt Marches On |author=Ruane, Michael E. |date=October 14, 2009 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}
* [[Otto Scott|Scott, Otto]]. ''The Secret Six: John Brown and The Abolitionist Movement'' (1979).
* {{cite journal|last1=SenGupta|first1=Gunja|title=Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay|journal=Kansas History|date=Winter 2001|issue=24|pages=318–341|url=http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/2001winter_sengupta.pdf}}
* Smith, Ted A. ''Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.
* {{cite book |last= Von Holst |first=Hermann |title=John Brown |publisher=Boston, Cupples and Hurd |year=1889 |url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrown00vonh}}

===Historical fiction===
* [[Russell Banks|Banks, Russell]]. ''[[Cloudsplitter]]'' (1998).
* [[Terry Bisson|Bisson, Terry]]. ''[[Fire on the Mountain (1988 novel)|Fire on the Mountain]]'' (1988)
* [[Geraldine Brooks (writer)|Brooks, Geraldine]]. ''March: A Love Story in a Time of War'' (2006)
* [[Michelle Cliff|Cliff, Michelle]]. ''Free Enterprise''. (1993)
* Ehrlich, Leonard. ''God's Angry Man'' (1932).
* [[Eric Flint|Flint, Eric]]. ''[[1824: The Arkansas War]]'' (2006)
* [[George MacDonald Fraser|Fraser, George Macdonald]]. ''[[Flashman and the Angel of the Lord]]'' (1994)
* [[James McBride (writer)|McBride, James]]. ''[[The Good Lord Bird]]'' (2013). In 2020 [[The Good Lord Bird (miniseries)]] was presented by [[Showtime (TV network)|Showtime]].
* Olds, Bruce. ''Raising Holy Hell'' (1995).
* [[Ann Rinaldi|Rinaldi, Ann]]. ''Mine Eyes Have Seen''. (1997)
* Summers, Kevin G. "His Soul Goes Marching On" in ''Tales of Moreauvia'', Issue One (2008).

===Movie===
* ''[[The Good Lord Bird (miniseries)]]'' (2020)
* ''[[Santa Fe Trail (film)|Santa Fe Trail]]'' (1940)

===Opera===
* {{citation
|title=John Brown
|first=Kirke
|last=Mechem
|author-link=Kirke Mechem
|url=https://www.kirkemechem.com/johnbrown.html
|access-date=May 15, 2022
|archive-date=January 1, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220101171853/https://www.kirkemechem.com/johnbrown.html
|url-status=live
}} 
* Based on the opera is ''Songs of the Slave'', 1994. "Dear husband", an aria sung by [[Dangerfield Newby|Harriet Newby]], with words taken from her letters, has been separately performed. {{citation
|title='Dear husband': The life and words of Harriet Newby
|first=Kirke
|last=Mechem
|author-link=Kirke Mechem
|url=http://www.alliesforfreedom.org/files/DearHusbandProgramInside.pdf
|access-date=May 15, 2022
|archive-date=January 28, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128195451/http://www.alliesforfreedom.org/files/DearHusbandProgramInside.pdf
|url-status=live
}}

===Plays===
* ''Gallows Glorious'' (1933), by [[Ronald Gow]]
* ''In Splendid Error'' by [[William B. Branch]] {{cite web |last1=Burgess |first1=Michael |title=LibGuides: John Brown: In Splendid Error |url=https://researchguides.plattsburgh.edu/c.php?g=262170&p=1752037 |website=researchguides.plattsburgh.edu |language=en |access-date=July 15, 2021 |archive-date=July 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715002616/https://researchguides.plattsburgh.edu/c.php?g=262170&p=1752037 |url-status=live }}
* ''The Prophet'', by Edwin Wallace Dace, was presented at the 1959 centenary of John Brown's raid.{{cite news
|title=Harper's Ferry To Reenact Raid
|newspaper=[[Raleigh Register]] ([[Beckley, West Virginia]])
|date=October 9, 1959
|page=1
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80469180/centenary-of-john-browns-raid-play/
|access-date=June 29, 2021
|archive-date=June 29, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210629094103/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80469180/centenary-of-john-browns-raid-play/
|url-status=live
}}

===Poetry===
* {{cite web
|url=http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700461.txt
|via=[[Project Gutenberg]]
|title=John Brown's Body (1928)
|first=Stephen Vincent
|author-link=Stephen Vincent Benét
|last=Benét
|others=Introduction by [[Leonard Bacon]]
|access-date=October 14, 2008
|archive-date=August 13, 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813193535/http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700461.txt
|url-status=live
}} [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]], 1929.
* [http://www.bartleby.com/233/711.html John Brown, by Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1921]
* [[Cyprian Kamil Norwid]], ''Do obywatela Johna Brown (To Citizen John Brown)'', 1859 (in Polish)

===Further online resources===
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* [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45903/the-portent The Portent] by [[Herman Melville]].
* [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/dec/03/john-brown-anniversary "John Brown, the good 'fanatic'" by Clinton Cox (2009)].
* [http://abolitionist-john-brown.blogspot.com/ Louis DeCaro: "John Brown the Abolitionist" -- a blog.] Many links to Brown materials.
* [http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/master.html John Brown and the Valley of the Shadow"]. John Brown home page at the University of Virginia 

==External links==
{{sister project links|display=John Brown|d=y|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|wikt=no|species=no|s=Author:John Brown (1800–1859)|c=John Brown}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Brown |birth=1800 |death=1859 |sopt=t}}
* [http://www.famous-trials.com/johnbrown/614-browconstitution Collection of primary materials on John Brown], Douglas O. Linder

{{John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry}}
{{American Civil War|Origins}}
{{Underground Railroad}}

{{Authority control}}

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