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John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
A cultural biography of John Brown, the controversial abolitionist who used violent tactics against slavery and single-handedly changed the course of American history. Reynolds brings to life the Puritan warrior who gripped slavery by the throat and triggered the Civil War. Reynolds demonstrates that Brown’s most violent acts—including his killing of proslavery settlers in Kansas and his historic raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia--were inspired by the slave revolts, guerilla warfare, and revolutionary Christianity of the day. He shows how Brown seized public attention, polarizing the nation and fueling the tensions that led to the Civil War. Reynolds recounts how Brown permeated American culture during the Civil War and beyond, and how he planted the seeds of the civil rights movement by making a pioneering demand for complete social and political equality for America’s ethnic minorities.
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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3624 people want to read
About the author
David S. Reynolds
35 books83 followersDavid S. Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies at the City University of New York. His works include the award-winning Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, Walt Whitman's America, and John Brown, Abolitionist. He lives on Long Island in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
July 8, 2020
The postmodern critique has brought us the "cultural biography," which in this work aims to show three things: 1) how John Brown was a part of the culture he lived in; 2) how he transcended that culture; and 3) how he transformed it. This new approach may sound faddish or obstruse. But David Reynolds makes the final product an astounding account of John Brown's place in history.
I took up the book because I knew so little about Harper's Ferry, even though it had been a watershed in American history. I got much more than I was expecting. Like other readers, I'm left wondering how this study could fail to be the final word on the man.
Reynolds disposes of the canard that Brown was some sort of madman, but beyond that he draws few conclusions. He is right not to do so. John Brown’s raid poses one of the hardest moral problems. Resorting to violence or taking action likely to kill people not directly involved in the evil is a dicey act, but the moral dimension drags in with it knotty questions about utilitarianism, the inherent value of human life, and half a dozen topics for which no final court of appeal has yet been found.
To at least put us on the path toward these questions, the author takes time discussing the context in which Brown lived his life, formed his beliefs, and finally acted. I was surprised to find out how much is known about Brown and how much contemporaneous commentary Reynolds could bring to bear. Without taking sides, he recounts reactions to the raid. But it’s not necessary to take sides to see the astonishing changes roiling the United States in the wake of the raid and John Brown’s trial and hanging.
Helping the book is Reynold’s deft prose. He is, in fact, an English professor, and as he leads readers through Brown‘s life he builds a sense of drama suitable to the incredible mark on history the man would finally make. But nowhere is the author’s skill more effective than when he recounts the aftermath of the raid on Harper’s Ferry. I found myself reading that section of the book again and again, admiring in particular the way the author depicts for us today the thunderous effect on the nation of Brown's courtroom Apologia. Could a man with so little formal education have given the best speech ever delivered in American history?
I was left at the end of the book with the sense of a man whose beliefs and actions have everything to do with the kind of country the United States is now, and what it might become. People argue whether he was a freedom fighter or a terrorist. I say people. For America’s blacks there has never been a shred doubt what he was. But what’s unique about this book is that it shows beyond any doubt on anyone’s part that John Brown was a prophet -- a prophet of the American Enlightenment. Would a John Brown be possible in today’s America, Reynolds asks. The question is disturbing. For if such a man is no longer possible, something has necessarily changed for the worse. That’s not my opinion. That’s a prophecy.
I took up the book because I knew so little about Harper's Ferry, even though it had been a watershed in American history. I got much more than I was expecting. Like other readers, I'm left wondering how this study could fail to be the final word on the man.
Reynolds disposes of the canard that Brown was some sort of madman, but beyond that he draws few conclusions. He is right not to do so. John Brown’s raid poses one of the hardest moral problems. Resorting to violence or taking action likely to kill people not directly involved in the evil is a dicey act, but the moral dimension drags in with it knotty questions about utilitarianism, the inherent value of human life, and half a dozen topics for which no final court of appeal has yet been found.
To at least put us on the path toward these questions, the author takes time discussing the context in which Brown lived his life, formed his beliefs, and finally acted. I was surprised to find out how much is known about Brown and how much contemporaneous commentary Reynolds could bring to bear. Without taking sides, he recounts reactions to the raid. But it’s not necessary to take sides to see the astonishing changes roiling the United States in the wake of the raid and John Brown’s trial and hanging.
Helping the book is Reynold’s deft prose. He is, in fact, an English professor, and as he leads readers through Brown‘s life he builds a sense of drama suitable to the incredible mark on history the man would finally make. But nowhere is the author’s skill more effective than when he recounts the aftermath of the raid on Harper’s Ferry. I found myself reading that section of the book again and again, admiring in particular the way the author depicts for us today the thunderous effect on the nation of Brown's courtroom Apologia. Could a man with so little formal education have given the best speech ever delivered in American history?
I was left at the end of the book with the sense of a man whose beliefs and actions have everything to do with the kind of country the United States is now, and what it might become. People argue whether he was a freedom fighter or a terrorist. I say people. For America’s blacks there has never been a shred doubt what he was. But what’s unique about this book is that it shows beyond any doubt on anyone’s part that John Brown was a prophet -- a prophet of the American Enlightenment. Would a John Brown be possible in today’s America, Reynolds asks. The question is disturbing. For if such a man is no longer possible, something has necessarily changed for the worse. That’s not my opinion. That’s a prophecy.
July 31, 2016
Being born and raised in Kansas, it is perhaps no surprise that I've always thought the struggle for Kansas's status as a free or slave state was a significant part of what brought about the Civil War. But in an era when Confederate flag enthusiasts are suddenly insisting that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, it was high time I finally read this book my father had lent me about Brown, and the events sparking the Civil War.
(Spoiler alert: My dad isn't getting this book back.)
I loved this book. And it quickly became a refuge for me in a year of partisan election year bickering and mass shootings and too frequent news of black people being shot by the police. It was odd to me how intensely fond I became of Brown, even though I've never been a fan of Calvinism, and what religious feelings I do have urge me towards pacifism. Reynolds makes a strong case here for Brown as the first non-racist white American. To oppose slavery not just because it is happening to some poor creature, but because it was happening to your brother -- is it any wonder he ended up taking up arms?
While racism against black people is certainly the cause we most associate with Brown, his radicalism went much further. In planning for the possibility that his assault on southern slave-holding states could lead to the dissolution of the government, Brown and a council of his carefully gathered community wrote a new constitution that established the full equality of all people -- blacks, Indians, women.
I also appreciated this style of "cultural biography," which examined the cultures that shaped Brown, and then how he transcended and transformed those cultures. Like any excellent book, I am left wanting to know much more -- about the Transcendentalists, about Whitman, about Lincoln, etc., etc.
(Spoiler alert: My dad isn't getting this book back.)
I loved this book. And it quickly became a refuge for me in a year of partisan election year bickering and mass shootings and too frequent news of black people being shot by the police. It was odd to me how intensely fond I became of Brown, even though I've never been a fan of Calvinism, and what religious feelings I do have urge me towards pacifism. Reynolds makes a strong case here for Brown as the first non-racist white American. To oppose slavery not just because it is happening to some poor creature, but because it was happening to your brother -- is it any wonder he ended up taking up arms?
While racism against black people is certainly the cause we most associate with Brown, his radicalism went much further. In planning for the possibility that his assault on southern slave-holding states could lead to the dissolution of the government, Brown and a council of his carefully gathered community wrote a new constitution that established the full equality of all people -- blacks, Indians, women.
I also appreciated this style of "cultural biography," which examined the cultures that shaped Brown, and then how he transcended and transformed those cultures. Like any excellent book, I am left wanting to know much more -- about the Transcendentalists, about Whitman, about Lincoln, etc., etc.
June 20, 2022
John Brown is an American enigma. His life presents a challenge to a simple black and white interpretation of ethics, history, and even current events. A man a hundred years ahead of his time in racial ethics, he was not just opposed to slavery, but unlike almost all other abolitionist of his time, actually a believer in the equality of the races.
Ralph Waldo Emerson praised him writing that he
“believed in two articles - the golden rule and the Declaration of Independence."
Another contemporary, the black reformer Charles H. Langston wrote,
“he was a lover of mankind - not of any particular class or color, but of all men...he fully, really and actively believed in the equality and brotherhood of man. ...He is the only American citizen who has lived fully up to the Declaration of Independence."
Yet this man who was passionately dedicated to racial justice also directed the cold blooded murders of five pro-slavery men in Kansas. He ripped them from their families in the middle of the night and hacked them to death with broadswords, apparently without qualms or regrets. He chillingly stated that:
"it is better that a whole generation of men, women, and children should be swept away than that this crime of slavery should exist one day longer."
Reynolds's biography is sympathetic without attempting to mitigate Brown's troubling actions. Other abolitionist never questioned the racism of their time despite opposing slavery — Brown was a firm believer in racial equality. Brown favored equal rights for women and humane treatment of American Indians. Brown was a fervent Calvinist who worked closely with those who did not share his faith, including Jews and agnostics. Reynolds shows us a man not a typical fanatic, but one who believed fanatically in one basic principle - the literal interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and the Golden Rule.
John Brown's life is a testimony to one man's uncompromising commitment to his ideals, and to the ethical morass that can result from an unrelenting pursuit of those ideals. It makes us question how far one can justifiably go in an attempt to right societal wrongs, and if violence can ever be considered a righteous answer to entrenched evil. Reynolds' book doesn’t answer all of these questions, but it effectively poses them for our consideration. It is an outstanding biography of a crucially important figure in American history, and a practical study of the consequence of principled violent action against authority.
Ralph Waldo Emerson praised him writing that he
“believed in two articles - the golden rule and the Declaration of Independence."
Another contemporary, the black reformer Charles H. Langston wrote,
“he was a lover of mankind - not of any particular class or color, but of all men...he fully, really and actively believed in the equality and brotherhood of man. ...He is the only American citizen who has lived fully up to the Declaration of Independence."
Yet this man who was passionately dedicated to racial justice also directed the cold blooded murders of five pro-slavery men in Kansas. He ripped them from their families in the middle of the night and hacked them to death with broadswords, apparently without qualms or regrets. He chillingly stated that:
"it is better that a whole generation of men, women, and children should be swept away than that this crime of slavery should exist one day longer."
Reynolds's biography is sympathetic without attempting to mitigate Brown's troubling actions. Other abolitionist never questioned the racism of their time despite opposing slavery — Brown was a firm believer in racial equality. Brown favored equal rights for women and humane treatment of American Indians. Brown was a fervent Calvinist who worked closely with those who did not share his faith, including Jews and agnostics. Reynolds shows us a man not a typical fanatic, but one who believed fanatically in one basic principle - the literal interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and the Golden Rule.
John Brown's life is a testimony to one man's uncompromising commitment to his ideals, and to the ethical morass that can result from an unrelenting pursuit of those ideals. It makes us question how far one can justifiably go in an attempt to right societal wrongs, and if violence can ever be considered a righteous answer to entrenched evil. Reynolds' book doesn’t answer all of these questions, but it effectively poses them for our consideration. It is an outstanding biography of a crucially important figure in American history, and a practical study of the consequence of principled violent action against authority.
June 15, 2020
John Brown’s one of those guys everybody’s heard of but doesn’t necessarily know much about. If they know more than just the name (or the catchy song) they’ll say he was the crazy person who tried to take over Harpers Ferry and start a slave revolt right before the Civil War.
In Reynolds’ view, John Brown was just about the only nonracist white man in antebellum America. Having read this book, John Brown strikes me as very much a man out of his time. This is not entirely in keeping with the book’s argument. In fact it is very much contrary to the book’s main claim: that John Brown can only be understood as a man of his time and one formed through the social currents he lived through. Yet it’s amazing to me that he seems an odd fusion of a 17th century Puritan with a 21st century antiracism activist. Or put another way, he was a modern antiracism activist who spoke in the outdated language of Puritanism.
For a fanatical Calvinist, Brown was impressively open-minded. Puritans aren’t exactly known for their tolerance, and Brown was so strict in his practices he refused to allow swearing in his presence and once feuded with his in-laws because they came visiting on the Lord’s Day. Yet somehow he became a leading voice for multiculturalism. His band was formed of mainstream Protestants, Jews, and agnostics and didn’t discriminate on race (African-Americans played a key role at Harpers Ferry as did Native Americans in Kansas). His drafted Constitution was basically the US one rewritten to guarantee the rights of all minorities and women (yes, he was a feminist too!). In short, the man was astoundingly progressive for the time period.
The book is able to make this argument because it’s not a straight biography per se, but a cultural biography. What this means is that it’s about the man, but also about his time. Every chapter is filled with details about views from his peers, which shows very well how exceptional he was. Every step of the way, Brown seems to have been several years ahead of everyone else. He had understood since childhood that racial prejudice was nonsense, a position abolitionists, despite their agitation against slavery, didn’t really agree on until late in the war. He also saw that slavery was not dying a natural death but intensifying and that it could never be ended except through violence. This again ran counter to abolitionist theories, but they ended up there after years of violence.
The cultural context is also the basis for Reynold’s discussion of John Brown as a terrorist, a label he accepts even as he tries to justify it. Basically, John Brown murdered five proslavery advocates in Kansas, cold-bloodedly and without remorse. The discussion is not without nuance. The crime is never treated without uneasiness, but the context of proslavery forces and their use of terrorism against Free State settlers to win Kansas as a slave state makes the act at least understandable. Brown’s opinion was that all the antislavery groups were cowards while the proslavery gangs were at least fighting men.
He also goes into detail about Brown’s plans for Harpers Ferry, making clear that the raid was inspired by slave revolts rather than any white campaigns. Harpers Ferry has always seemed insane to me. Capture a town and then just hope for slaves to rise up and form your army? But apparently the plan was to steal guns and equipment from the armory, liberate a mass of slaves, and then retreat to the Allegheny Mountains where they could use their inferior numbers to best advantage and hold off government retaliation while expanding themselves through surprise raids all along the Appalachians. The slave powers would be so terrified of revolt they’d free the slaves just to eliminate the threat. It’s a far-fetched plan, but honestly a possible one. Slave revolts built around guerrilla warfare have succeeded before. And if he had succeeded in the first stage he may have drawn further financial support from Northern abolitionists. Long odds of course, but what more can one man do?
That said, I’m not completely satisfied with the explanation of Harpers Ferry. It still doesn’t make sense. Why did he try to seize the town instead of conducting a quick raid and fleeing? Why wasn’t his Appalachian base set up and filled with supplies before the raid? Why did he refuse to feel out the local slave communities? And why did he leave all those documents behind incriminating his backers? There doesn’t seem to me to be any explanation other than that he wasn’t being entirely honest about his plan. Did he perhaps plan to get caught, knowing the effect he’d have and his lack of resources? I feel at the least that he must have been trying to force his backers to openly support or deny him. As a backup plan if nothing else. But there’s nothing like this in the book, which just sort of takes him at his word.
I’m also not very impressed with his counterfactual arguments. Counterfactual arguments are, by definition, unprovable. And some of his later chapters are filled with rampant speculation that I don’t always find very plausible. This is all tied into his idea that John Brown basically started the war. I’m not entirely in disagreement about that, especially not the nuanced take he gives. Basically, the Brown raid terrified the South but met with a muted reaction in the North. But the small number of supporters was blown out of proportion by Southern radicals and people terrified of a community disorder. And the growing sense of respect for Brown’s character if not his actions really helped Southern secessionists sell the idea that Brown was the first of a new wave of Northern aggressors. But he does rather oversell the case. Specifically, he doesn’t mention that the first Republican attempt to win the presidency was defeated largely because of Southern threats to secede. If Brown intensified this concern, I think a Lincoln presidency would have brought civil war regardless. Best case scenario would have been that border states like Virginia may have stayed in the Union. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Another aspect that gets a lot of attention are the Transcendentalists. Some of this focus makes sense. They were the first to really speak out in support of Brown after he was captured. Basically alone in fact. So as we watch the opinion shift it makes sense that we follow their viewpoint. But they definitely get too much attention. Why speculate on Emily Dickinson’s views, for example, when she never actually expressed them and therefore never helped spread them? Judging by his publications, Reynolds is primarily a literature specialist, and the Transcendentalists and Concord circle in general are vital components of that kind of history. But it’s not necessary here.
So I liked this book a great deal, even if I suspect it overstates its case somewhat. A cultural history of John Brown does make sense since arguably the most important thing he did was die. It does lead to a rather odd division of the book. 1/5 the book covers the first 11/12 of his life, 3/5 the remaining 12th, and the last 1/5 his shifting reputation. I’m pleased to discover he was a very impressive man. His birthplace is just down the street from me so I have a personal interest in learning about him. But he seems to have been a fascinating and often misunderstood man regardless of personal attachment. An interesting read.
In Reynolds’ view, John Brown was just about the only nonracist white man in antebellum America. Having read this book, John Brown strikes me as very much a man out of his time. This is not entirely in keeping with the book’s argument. In fact it is very much contrary to the book’s main claim: that John Brown can only be understood as a man of his time and one formed through the social currents he lived through. Yet it’s amazing to me that he seems an odd fusion of a 17th century Puritan with a 21st century antiracism activist. Or put another way, he was a modern antiracism activist who spoke in the outdated language of Puritanism.
For a fanatical Calvinist, Brown was impressively open-minded. Puritans aren’t exactly known for their tolerance, and Brown was so strict in his practices he refused to allow swearing in his presence and once feuded with his in-laws because they came visiting on the Lord’s Day. Yet somehow he became a leading voice for multiculturalism. His band was formed of mainstream Protestants, Jews, and agnostics and didn’t discriminate on race (African-Americans played a key role at Harpers Ferry as did Native Americans in Kansas). His drafted Constitution was basically the US one rewritten to guarantee the rights of all minorities and women (yes, he was a feminist too!). In short, the man was astoundingly progressive for the time period.
The book is able to make this argument because it’s not a straight biography per se, but a cultural biography. What this means is that it’s about the man, but also about his time. Every chapter is filled with details about views from his peers, which shows very well how exceptional he was. Every step of the way, Brown seems to have been several years ahead of everyone else. He had understood since childhood that racial prejudice was nonsense, a position abolitionists, despite their agitation against slavery, didn’t really agree on until late in the war. He also saw that slavery was not dying a natural death but intensifying and that it could never be ended except through violence. This again ran counter to abolitionist theories, but they ended up there after years of violence.
The cultural context is also the basis for Reynold’s discussion of John Brown as a terrorist, a label he accepts even as he tries to justify it. Basically, John Brown murdered five proslavery advocates in Kansas, cold-bloodedly and without remorse. The discussion is not without nuance. The crime is never treated without uneasiness, but the context of proslavery forces and their use of terrorism against Free State settlers to win Kansas as a slave state makes the act at least understandable. Brown’s opinion was that all the antislavery groups were cowards while the proslavery gangs were at least fighting men.
He also goes into detail about Brown’s plans for Harpers Ferry, making clear that the raid was inspired by slave revolts rather than any white campaigns. Harpers Ferry has always seemed insane to me. Capture a town and then just hope for slaves to rise up and form your army? But apparently the plan was to steal guns and equipment from the armory, liberate a mass of slaves, and then retreat to the Allegheny Mountains where they could use their inferior numbers to best advantage and hold off government retaliation while expanding themselves through surprise raids all along the Appalachians. The slave powers would be so terrified of revolt they’d free the slaves just to eliminate the threat. It’s a far-fetched plan, but honestly a possible one. Slave revolts built around guerrilla warfare have succeeded before. And if he had succeeded in the first stage he may have drawn further financial support from Northern abolitionists. Long odds of course, but what more can one man do?
That said, I’m not completely satisfied with the explanation of Harpers Ferry. It still doesn’t make sense. Why did he try to seize the town instead of conducting a quick raid and fleeing? Why wasn’t his Appalachian base set up and filled with supplies before the raid? Why did he refuse to feel out the local slave communities? And why did he leave all those documents behind incriminating his backers? There doesn’t seem to me to be any explanation other than that he wasn’t being entirely honest about his plan. Did he perhaps plan to get caught, knowing the effect he’d have and his lack of resources? I feel at the least that he must have been trying to force his backers to openly support or deny him. As a backup plan if nothing else. But there’s nothing like this in the book, which just sort of takes him at his word.
I’m also not very impressed with his counterfactual arguments. Counterfactual arguments are, by definition, unprovable. And some of his later chapters are filled with rampant speculation that I don’t always find very plausible. This is all tied into his idea that John Brown basically started the war. I’m not entirely in disagreement about that, especially not the nuanced take he gives. Basically, the Brown raid terrified the South but met with a muted reaction in the North. But the small number of supporters was blown out of proportion by Southern radicals and people terrified of a community disorder. And the growing sense of respect for Brown’s character if not his actions really helped Southern secessionists sell the idea that Brown was the first of a new wave of Northern aggressors. But he does rather oversell the case. Specifically, he doesn’t mention that the first Republican attempt to win the presidency was defeated largely because of Southern threats to secede. If Brown intensified this concern, I think a Lincoln presidency would have brought civil war regardless. Best case scenario would have been that border states like Virginia may have stayed in the Union. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Another aspect that gets a lot of attention are the Transcendentalists. Some of this focus makes sense. They were the first to really speak out in support of Brown after he was captured. Basically alone in fact. So as we watch the opinion shift it makes sense that we follow their viewpoint. But they definitely get too much attention. Why speculate on Emily Dickinson’s views, for example, when she never actually expressed them and therefore never helped spread them? Judging by his publications, Reynolds is primarily a literature specialist, and the Transcendentalists and Concord circle in general are vital components of that kind of history. But it’s not necessary here.
So I liked this book a great deal, even if I suspect it overstates its case somewhat. A cultural history of John Brown does make sense since arguably the most important thing he did was die. It does lead to a rather odd division of the book. 1/5 the book covers the first 11/12 of his life, 3/5 the remaining 12th, and the last 1/5 his shifting reputation. I’m pleased to discover he was a very impressive man. His birthplace is just down the street from me so I have a personal interest in learning about him. But he seems to have been a fascinating and often misunderstood man regardless of personal attachment. An interesting read.
September 29, 2020
I would not advise reading this book.
I'd advise reading Patriotic Treason by Evan Carton & Five for Freedom by Eugene L. Meyer. Both texts are flawed but considerably less biased then this book.
The author treats Black Americans in a racist and dismissive manner, blaming us for our own captivity in tone. For not fighting our fight in the struggle against slavery.
This ignores that abolitionism as a concept isn't created by white folks in Western countries. Black West Africans organized and fought against chattel slavery starting in West Africa in the 1400's.
They fought in both North and South America as well as on every island in between. They used a variety of methods from outright rebellion, to uprisings, to murder, to running away, suing in local court systems, developing the Underground Railroad.
Black folks always fought and were beaten but not passive.
Ending slavery in the US was the job of it's creators and those that profited from it. It was never our job or moral responsibility to stop evil white enslavers, that was always the job of white people.
Much like the responsibility for today's proud boys and racist militias fall at the feet of today's white americans. Those are your people and the responsibility both for the evil they perpetuate and the duty to stop said evil falls on them.
Ending chattel slavery was always a debt white folks owed. They sacrificed their kids to it and I'm sick that any Black folks died for that.
Nah, die for your own sins.
The author's theories about why Black folks don't join Brown are based in white supremacy and I found them deeply offensive and ahistoritcal.
That ain't got shit to do with us.
Also the author strangely rewrites white abolitionists such as Walt Whitman as believing in racial equality when in in fact Whitman referred to Black people as 'baboons & wild brutes'.
Most white Abolitionists were white supremacists. They didn't believe Black folks were the same as or equal to them. They mostly didn't want Black folks enslaved because it caused white men to become so evil and endangered their eternal souls.
They really didn't care about Black folks.
In fact Brown himself was a white supremacist. As evidenced by a 'sambo' story he wrote. The story is printed in it's entirety in A John Brown Reader by Louis Ruchames which can be found at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/johnbrown...
I believe that John Brown believed that Black folks had the potential to be equal to white folks but needed guidance.
I think this author pulls a lot of good research together but is ultimately unable to get past his own internal white supremacy.
It's unfortunate.
I'd advise reading Patriotic Treason by Evan Carton & Five for Freedom by Eugene L. Meyer. Both texts are flawed but considerably less biased then this book.
The author treats Black Americans in a racist and dismissive manner, blaming us for our own captivity in tone. For not fighting our fight in the struggle against slavery.
This ignores that abolitionism as a concept isn't created by white folks in Western countries. Black West Africans organized and fought against chattel slavery starting in West Africa in the 1400's.
They fought in both North and South America as well as on every island in between. They used a variety of methods from outright rebellion, to uprisings, to murder, to running away, suing in local court systems, developing the Underground Railroad.
Black folks always fought and were beaten but not passive.
Ending slavery in the US was the job of it's creators and those that profited from it. It was never our job or moral responsibility to stop evil white enslavers, that was always the job of white people.
Much like the responsibility for today's proud boys and racist militias fall at the feet of today's white americans. Those are your people and the responsibility both for the evil they perpetuate and the duty to stop said evil falls on them.
Ending chattel slavery was always a debt white folks owed. They sacrificed their kids to it and I'm sick that any Black folks died for that.
Nah, die for your own sins.
The author's theories about why Black folks don't join Brown are based in white supremacy and I found them deeply offensive and ahistoritcal.
That ain't got shit to do with us.
Also the author strangely rewrites white abolitionists such as Walt Whitman as believing in racial equality when in in fact Whitman referred to Black people as 'baboons & wild brutes'.
Most white Abolitionists were white supremacists. They didn't believe Black folks were the same as or equal to them. They mostly didn't want Black folks enslaved because it caused white men to become so evil and endangered their eternal souls.
They really didn't care about Black folks.
In fact Brown himself was a white supremacist. As evidenced by a 'sambo' story he wrote. The story is printed in it's entirety in A John Brown Reader by Louis Ruchames which can be found at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/johnbrown...
I believe that John Brown believed that Black folks had the potential to be equal to white folks but needed guidance.
I think this author pulls a lot of good research together but is ultimately unable to get past his own internal white supremacy.
It's unfortunate.
January 5, 2025
If you’re looking for a primary source driven narrative this is not the book for you. The author inserts his own commentary quite a bit. Still, many good sources to pull from for further study. Tends towards the neoabolitionist perspective but does not hide critical facts that make Brown appear less than noble.
Want to read
September 8, 2019******************
Related.
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz
Related.
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz
June 3, 2010
John Brown was the most famous, and polarizing, figure to emerge in America in the 1850's, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln. Brown came to personalize the violence which was overcoming the national dialogue over slavery at the time. Many interpretations of Brown have been presented by critics and historians since he died in 1859. Depending on your point of view, he was a villain who incited the North and South to open warfare; to others, he was the avenging angel of abolition. David Reynolds avoids these kinds of knee-jerk reactions. He does not try to categorize Brown as a mad man but at the same time does not shirk from detailing his criminal involvement in the murders of pro-slavery enemies in Kansas and the violent seizure of the U.S. Army arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Reynolds presents his subject as a man greatly affected by the consuming issue of his times, whose actions propelled him to a position in which he in turn greatly affected changes occurring in his country.
The popular imagination contains images of this man as the hatchet-faced, Moses-bearded Bible-spouting extremist who ratcheted up America's race toward Civil War. Movies have helped to present the prevailing visual image. One of the best, from strictly an entertainment value, was "The Santa Fe Trail", a 1940 Warner Brothers swashbuckler vehicle for Errol Flynn. The highly contrived plot has Flynn, as Jeb Stuart (future Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart) graduating from West Point in 1854 with, incorrectly, just about every future Civil War general in his class. Included in this cast of characters was his best friend, future Union Civil War General George Custer, played by Flynn's buddy Ronald Reagan. One of the more laughable historical errors of this movie is that Custer, class of 1862, had graduated actually in 1861 due to wartime needs for officers and could not have participated in any of these events. Anyway, best friends who never were, Stuart and Custer get posted to Fort Leavenworth in the middle of the raging hostilities of Bleeding Kansas, where pro- and anti- slavers were trying to take control of the future state in order to have it entered into the Union as either a slave state or (slave) free state. They run into a desperado who is fomenting, it seems, the most violence, John Brown, portrayed by the great Raymond Massey. Massey presents the visage of a wild-eyed, bearded cold-hearted murderer (Massey actually portrayed Brown as a much more nuanced character in another film several years later).
A fictional confrontation between the reasonable Stuart and the unbending Brown about the need to take action against slavery leads to Stuart's declaration that the northern and southern states will have to work out this problem on their own in time. Actually, the real Stuart owned several slaves and would not have been reasonable for one second in the company of Brown.
Osawatomie Brown, Captain Brown, Old Man Brown was born in Connecticut and raised in Ohio. His father owned a tannery and sent John to an academy to learn to be a minister. The Brown family were deeply religious Calvinists from Puritan stock. John did not stay in academy, marrying and settling in Pennsylvania in order to raise cattle and run his own tannery. His wife Dianthe died after delivering the last of seven children. In 1833, Brown, age 33, married sixteen-year-old May Ann Day, who bore him thirteen more children (typical of the child mortality of the time, a total of eleven of Brown's children lived to adulthood). The early 1840's were especially hard on the family. Brown was totally bankrupt by 1842; in 1843, he and Mary Ann lost four children to dysentery. The family moved to Ohio. During this time period Brown became an expert sheep and wool farmer; he went into a livestock partnership and tried to organize a commission to represent sheep farmers who were being fleeced financially by the textile industry, but was again bankrupted.
This agrarian American attempt at success led Brown to homesteading in New York in 1848. He settled in an area where poor black farmers were given land grants, near North Elba. He may have been the only white farmer in the country who would live among fellow farmers who were black, and treat them as equals. He had been greatly affected by the example of his father Owen, a follower of the highly influential minister and philosopher Jonathan Edwards, and the Englishman George Whitefield, who together shaped a huge religious movement known as the "First Great Awakening" in 1740's America. Owen passed on to John the Puritan rejection of traditional notions of social stratification. Brown didn't just believe that the Bible taught the doctrine of all men being created equal, and that moral behavior trumped class as a determiner of a man's value in society; he directed his life to literally following these principles.
Brown had been radicalized toward slavery in 1837 when the abolutionist journalist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois. From now on, Brown promised to devote his life to abolishing slavery. In 1855, he followed sons who had moved to Kansas, collecting money along the way from abolitionists and delivering weapons to use in the civil unrest there. Free-staters congregated in several towns, including Pottawatomie, where they were subject to intimidation and assault from "Ruffians" who crossed the border from Missouri. This is where Reynolds shows that the classic view of Puritans as passive observers at that point in history was wrong. Brown became the modern example of Oliver Cromwell ( the Puritan who rose to power in the English Civil Wars after supporting the trial and execution of King Charles I in 1649). Adopting Cromwell's adage that it was his destiny to engage in any work required by the Lord, he did not shirk in becoming involved in violent acts. This became clear when he retaliated for the earlier attack on Lawrence, Kansas by directing the abduction of five pro-slave settlers at Ossawatamie in May, 1856, and hacking them to death with broadswords.
A group of 300 Missourians came after Brown and his much smaller band of followers in August to avenge the earlier crime. Brown directed the necessary retreat and salvation of most of his followers with military skill (his son Frederick was killed there), further enhancing his reputation in the North as a skilled warrior in the anti-slavery fight. Based on this reputation, he was able to obtain the support, emotional and financial, of leading abolutionists, especially in New England, over the next several years.
His abolutionist friends included Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These Transcendentalist non-conformists believed in a personal discipline of self-education and development of the individual, and a philosophy of taking firm stands toward social and political reforms. They were generally denounced by pro-slavers as cowards who fought their battles intellectually. They would embrace Brown, whose reputation for physical bravery and strength of his convictions made him a hero in their eyes.
Brown started to put a plan together for freeing the slaves during this post-Kansas phase. He continued to collect funds and to purchase Sharps rifles and pikes (yes, pikes). He was able to think clearly when making action plans. A primary example was his successful scheme, which came to fruition in October, 1859, to stealthily move himself and a group of about 20 followers into the Harpers Ferry Armory during the night and occupy it, for the purpose of confiscating the tens of thousands of weapons there to arm his rebellion. These weapons, and those he had already purchased, were to defend his supporters and freed slaves from attack; Southern detractors have seen this weapon stockpiling as evidence of a planned insurrection. His thinking became more muddled when he made assumptions for the amount of motivation others would share for his plots. Sure, his sons would dutifully follow him anywhere, but his schemes by this time needed the assistance of far more than his family and some friends could provide. He was aiming for no less than to be a beacon for thousands of escaped slaves to join him in a new state-within-a-state. Starting with the seizure of the armory, when word would quickly go out for slaves to walk off their Virginia plantations and come to him for arms, the Brown army would move into the Appalachians and rapidly grow in strength, Spartacus style, while Virginia, and then other Southern states' were bled dry of slaves.
Trouble was, the plan didn't work. Brown and his men ended up barricaded in the Engine House, which was stormed by a company of Marines led by U.S. Army Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown was captured while ten of his men, including sons Watson and Oliver, died. At trial in Jefferson County, Virginia, Brown was found guilty of treason against the state, and he was hanged on December 2, 1859. Even in defeat he refused to be persuaded that he had done anything wrong. His predestination religious beliefs allowed him to accept his outcome, because God willed it. The calmness with which he accepted death brought rapturous praise from Transcendental friends, who immediately began the process of canonizing his image.
In the South, of course, the reaction was different. Nothing put everyone there on edge like even the hint of slave rebellion, and Brown became the specter of the hate and destruction that they were convinced were intended by the Northern states. The spread of Brown paranoia following his death intensified until the ultimate President-elect for 1861 became identified as his chief conspirator. Lincoln's views of national policy toward slavery at the time of the 1860 election was similar to that of the Warner Brothers' fictional Jeb Stuart, that it could not be allowed to continue indefinitely but something needed to be worked out peacefully to change the economic and social slave model. His famous Cooper-Union pre-election speech, according to Reynolds, addressed the issue of Brown head-on. Lincoln denied that any Republican had ever been a friend or follower of Brown, and he labeled Brown's actions as the result of a criminal mad man. Never mind, increasing numbers of Southerners saw no difference between Brown and Lincoln; his election touched off events that would escalate to the American Civil War. In about a year-and-a-half after Brown's hanging, Union soldiers were marching South while singing the tune to "John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the ground ..."
The popular imagination contains images of this man as the hatchet-faced, Moses-bearded Bible-spouting extremist who ratcheted up America's race toward Civil War. Movies have helped to present the prevailing visual image. One of the best, from strictly an entertainment value, was "The Santa Fe Trail", a 1940 Warner Brothers swashbuckler vehicle for Errol Flynn. The highly contrived plot has Flynn, as Jeb Stuart (future Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart) graduating from West Point in 1854 with, incorrectly, just about every future Civil War general in his class. Included in this cast of characters was his best friend, future Union Civil War General George Custer, played by Flynn's buddy Ronald Reagan. One of the more laughable historical errors of this movie is that Custer, class of 1862, had graduated actually in 1861 due to wartime needs for officers and could not have participated in any of these events. Anyway, best friends who never were, Stuart and Custer get posted to Fort Leavenworth in the middle of the raging hostilities of Bleeding Kansas, where pro- and anti- slavers were trying to take control of the future state in order to have it entered into the Union as either a slave state or (slave) free state. They run into a desperado who is fomenting, it seems, the most violence, John Brown, portrayed by the great Raymond Massey. Massey presents the visage of a wild-eyed, bearded cold-hearted murderer (Massey actually portrayed Brown as a much more nuanced character in another film several years later).
A fictional confrontation between the reasonable Stuart and the unbending Brown about the need to take action against slavery leads to Stuart's declaration that the northern and southern states will have to work out this problem on their own in time. Actually, the real Stuart owned several slaves and would not have been reasonable for one second in the company of Brown.
Osawatomie Brown, Captain Brown, Old Man Brown was born in Connecticut and raised in Ohio. His father owned a tannery and sent John to an academy to learn to be a minister. The Brown family were deeply religious Calvinists from Puritan stock. John did not stay in academy, marrying and settling in Pennsylvania in order to raise cattle and run his own tannery. His wife Dianthe died after delivering the last of seven children. In 1833, Brown, age 33, married sixteen-year-old May Ann Day, who bore him thirteen more children (typical of the child mortality of the time, a total of eleven of Brown's children lived to adulthood). The early 1840's were especially hard on the family. Brown was totally bankrupt by 1842; in 1843, he and Mary Ann lost four children to dysentery. The family moved to Ohio. During this time period Brown became an expert sheep and wool farmer; he went into a livestock partnership and tried to organize a commission to represent sheep farmers who were being fleeced financially by the textile industry, but was again bankrupted.
This agrarian American attempt at success led Brown to homesteading in New York in 1848. He settled in an area where poor black farmers were given land grants, near North Elba. He may have been the only white farmer in the country who would live among fellow farmers who were black, and treat them as equals. He had been greatly affected by the example of his father Owen, a follower of the highly influential minister and philosopher Jonathan Edwards, and the Englishman George Whitefield, who together shaped a huge religious movement known as the "First Great Awakening" in 1740's America. Owen passed on to John the Puritan rejection of traditional notions of social stratification. Brown didn't just believe that the Bible taught the doctrine of all men being created equal, and that moral behavior trumped class as a determiner of a man's value in society; he directed his life to literally following these principles.
Brown had been radicalized toward slavery in 1837 when the abolutionist journalist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois. From now on, Brown promised to devote his life to abolishing slavery. In 1855, he followed sons who had moved to Kansas, collecting money along the way from abolitionists and delivering weapons to use in the civil unrest there. Free-staters congregated in several towns, including Pottawatomie, where they were subject to intimidation and assault from "Ruffians" who crossed the border from Missouri. This is where Reynolds shows that the classic view of Puritans as passive observers at that point in history was wrong. Brown became the modern example of Oliver Cromwell ( the Puritan who rose to power in the English Civil Wars after supporting the trial and execution of King Charles I in 1649). Adopting Cromwell's adage that it was his destiny to engage in any work required by the Lord, he did not shirk in becoming involved in violent acts. This became clear when he retaliated for the earlier attack on Lawrence, Kansas by directing the abduction of five pro-slave settlers at Ossawatamie in May, 1856, and hacking them to death with broadswords.
A group of 300 Missourians came after Brown and his much smaller band of followers in August to avenge the earlier crime. Brown directed the necessary retreat and salvation of most of his followers with military skill (his son Frederick was killed there), further enhancing his reputation in the North as a skilled warrior in the anti-slavery fight. Based on this reputation, he was able to obtain the support, emotional and financial, of leading abolutionists, especially in New England, over the next several years.
His abolutionist friends included Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These Transcendentalist non-conformists believed in a personal discipline of self-education and development of the individual, and a philosophy of taking firm stands toward social and political reforms. They were generally denounced by pro-slavers as cowards who fought their battles intellectually. They would embrace Brown, whose reputation for physical bravery and strength of his convictions made him a hero in their eyes.
Brown started to put a plan together for freeing the slaves during this post-Kansas phase. He continued to collect funds and to purchase Sharps rifles and pikes (yes, pikes). He was able to think clearly when making action plans. A primary example was his successful scheme, which came to fruition in October, 1859, to stealthily move himself and a group of about 20 followers into the Harpers Ferry Armory during the night and occupy it, for the purpose of confiscating the tens of thousands of weapons there to arm his rebellion. These weapons, and those he had already purchased, were to defend his supporters and freed slaves from attack; Southern detractors have seen this weapon stockpiling as evidence of a planned insurrection. His thinking became more muddled when he made assumptions for the amount of motivation others would share for his plots. Sure, his sons would dutifully follow him anywhere, but his schemes by this time needed the assistance of far more than his family and some friends could provide. He was aiming for no less than to be a beacon for thousands of escaped slaves to join him in a new state-within-a-state. Starting with the seizure of the armory, when word would quickly go out for slaves to walk off their Virginia plantations and come to him for arms, the Brown army would move into the Appalachians and rapidly grow in strength, Spartacus style, while Virginia, and then other Southern states' were bled dry of slaves.
Trouble was, the plan didn't work. Brown and his men ended up barricaded in the Engine House, which was stormed by a company of Marines led by U.S. Army Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown was captured while ten of his men, including sons Watson and Oliver, died. At trial in Jefferson County, Virginia, Brown was found guilty of treason against the state, and he was hanged on December 2, 1859. Even in defeat he refused to be persuaded that he had done anything wrong. His predestination religious beliefs allowed him to accept his outcome, because God willed it. The calmness with which he accepted death brought rapturous praise from Transcendental friends, who immediately began the process of canonizing his image.
In the South, of course, the reaction was different. Nothing put everyone there on edge like even the hint of slave rebellion, and Brown became the specter of the hate and destruction that they were convinced were intended by the Northern states. The spread of Brown paranoia following his death intensified until the ultimate President-elect for 1861 became identified as his chief conspirator. Lincoln's views of national policy toward slavery at the time of the 1860 election was similar to that of the Warner Brothers' fictional Jeb Stuart, that it could not be allowed to continue indefinitely but something needed to be worked out peacefully to change the economic and social slave model. His famous Cooper-Union pre-election speech, according to Reynolds, addressed the issue of Brown head-on. Lincoln denied that any Republican had ever been a friend or follower of Brown, and he labeled Brown's actions as the result of a criminal mad man. Never mind, increasing numbers of Southerners saw no difference between Brown and Lincoln; his election touched off events that would escalate to the American Civil War. In about a year-and-a-half after Brown's hanging, Union soldiers were marching South while singing the tune to "John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the ground ..."
May 7, 2017
John Brown was unique.
A "cultural biography," this book places John Brown within the context of the society he was living in at the time. Through that lens, we see just how much he differed from his contemporaries. He wasn't just a free-stater, wanting to stop the spread of slavery. And he wasn't just an abolitionist, wanting to eradicate slavery where it currently existed. Unlike both groups, John Brown believed in racial equality. While most abolitionists of his day believed blacks were inferior to whites and as such should be kept separate from them, John Brown believed that all people, regardless of race--and sex, for he was also a feminist--were equal. He wanted a fully integrated society. When he attended church with black friends and saw that they had to sit in the back, he gave them his pew in the front and took the back pew for himself--and continued to do so every week, much to the outrage of the church officials. Strange to think that he was doing this in 1836, some 120+ years before the civil rights movement.
He dedicated his life to abolitionist activities, and the Harper's Ferry raid was but one of them. He should also be remembered for his work on the Underground Railroad, and for his act of freeing eleven slaves and escorting them 1,100 miles north to freedom on an eight-month journey. He was not violent for the sake of violence; he just believed it was the only way to end slavery (which, as the Civil War proved, it was).
It is also interesting to learn just how much the Transcendentalists supported him. Transcendentalists have been criticized for having their head in the clouds throughout the tumultuous pre-Civil War era, but that's not the case. The Secret Six who funded John Brown's raid all had connections to the transcendentalist circle that Emerson, Thoreau, and others were part of. Furthermore, two weeks after the Harper's Ferry raid, when even antislavery activists were denouncing John Brown, Henry David Thoreau was the first to express admiration for him in his speech "A Plea for Captain John Brown." Emerson and others would soon follow in this regard.
This book shows that, controversial though John Brown may have been, there was a lot to admire. It's no wonder that black activists like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. du Bois, Harriet Tubman, and Malcolm X, praised him in ways that they would not praise other white people. As his friend Frederick Douglass said, "His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine."
A "cultural biography," this book places John Brown within the context of the society he was living in at the time. Through that lens, we see just how much he differed from his contemporaries. He wasn't just a free-stater, wanting to stop the spread of slavery. And he wasn't just an abolitionist, wanting to eradicate slavery where it currently existed. Unlike both groups, John Brown believed in racial equality. While most abolitionists of his day believed blacks were inferior to whites and as such should be kept separate from them, John Brown believed that all people, regardless of race--and sex, for he was also a feminist--were equal. He wanted a fully integrated society. When he attended church with black friends and saw that they had to sit in the back, he gave them his pew in the front and took the back pew for himself--and continued to do so every week, much to the outrage of the church officials. Strange to think that he was doing this in 1836, some 120+ years before the civil rights movement.
He dedicated his life to abolitionist activities, and the Harper's Ferry raid was but one of them. He should also be remembered for his work on the Underground Railroad, and for his act of freeing eleven slaves and escorting them 1,100 miles north to freedom on an eight-month journey. He was not violent for the sake of violence; he just believed it was the only way to end slavery (which, as the Civil War proved, it was).
It is also interesting to learn just how much the Transcendentalists supported him. Transcendentalists have been criticized for having their head in the clouds throughout the tumultuous pre-Civil War era, but that's not the case. The Secret Six who funded John Brown's raid all had connections to the transcendentalist circle that Emerson, Thoreau, and others were part of. Furthermore, two weeks after the Harper's Ferry raid, when even antislavery activists were denouncing John Brown, Henry David Thoreau was the first to express admiration for him in his speech "A Plea for Captain John Brown." Emerson and others would soon follow in this regard.
This book shows that, controversial though John Brown may have been, there was a lot to admire. It's no wonder that black activists like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. du Bois, Harriet Tubman, and Malcolm X, praised him in ways that they would not praise other white people. As his friend Frederick Douglass said, "His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine."
July 29, 2008
David Reynolds sympathetic yet critical and probing treatment of John Brown -- once among the most polarizing figures in America history -- is an amazing and thought-provoking book. I use John Brown, and the events surrounding the Kansas "civil war" ("Bleeding Kansas," 1856), along with the events of the raid on Harper's Ferry (October 1859), as part of my freshman seminar on social criticism at the University of Michigan. Brown is an excellent figure to include in such a course for two reasons.
First, Brown's religious background gives us an opportunity to think through the ways in which a religious orientation can inform a radical social critique of an injustice such as slavery. Reynolds is very good on the details of Brown's Puritan heritage and his Calvinist beliefs. Ahead of his time in so many ways, Brown also had an ecumenical streak and was willing to work with people of other faiths, including Jews. Slavery was for him a grave offense to God and its overthrow involved not only uprooting the vile practice but an affirmation of black humanity (as children of God) as well. Brown also, by the way, supported rights for women and advocated humane treatment of Native Americans.
Reynolds biography goes a long way toward supporting an argument (that I've long made) about the centrality of religious opposition to slavery which, I think, was more central than Enlightenment principles. OK, so Brown was inspired both by the dictates of God and by the Declaration of Independence but his clarity on the issue -- what some would and have called his crazed zealotry -- seems more divinely inspired. What lead Brown to kill in the name of justice -- Faith or Reason?
The other great question that John Brown helps to raise is whether it is morally permissible to kill in defense of justice, or, is violence an acceptable form of social critique? This is the question that made Brown such a polarizing figure, both before and after the Civil War. Henry David Thoreau does a beautiful defense, William Lloyd Garrison denounces him and historians and others are still divided on the issues posed by this "Calvinist terrorist."
I'm just nearing the end of the book now. I've enjoyed it so much that I'm not looking forward to finishing it.
First, Brown's religious background gives us an opportunity to think through the ways in which a religious orientation can inform a radical social critique of an injustice such as slavery. Reynolds is very good on the details of Brown's Puritan heritage and his Calvinist beliefs. Ahead of his time in so many ways, Brown also had an ecumenical streak and was willing to work with people of other faiths, including Jews. Slavery was for him a grave offense to God and its overthrow involved not only uprooting the vile practice but an affirmation of black humanity (as children of God) as well. Brown also, by the way, supported rights for women and advocated humane treatment of Native Americans.
Reynolds biography goes a long way toward supporting an argument (that I've long made) about the centrality of religious opposition to slavery which, I think, was more central than Enlightenment principles. OK, so Brown was inspired both by the dictates of God and by the Declaration of Independence but his clarity on the issue -- what some would and have called his crazed zealotry -- seems more divinely inspired. What lead Brown to kill in the name of justice -- Faith or Reason?
The other great question that John Brown helps to raise is whether it is morally permissible to kill in defense of justice, or, is violence an acceptable form of social critique? This is the question that made Brown such a polarizing figure, both before and after the Civil War. Henry David Thoreau does a beautiful defense, William Lloyd Garrison denounces him and historians and others are still divided on the issues posed by this "Calvinist terrorist."
I'm just nearing the end of the book now. I've enjoyed it so much that I'm not looking forward to finishing it.
October 7, 2019
There is an old adage, “Show, don’t tell.”
Basically, the idea is that in good writing that it is better to for the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description. Set the scene and let the reader reach their own conclusions. Show, don’t tell.
We have all seen examples in movies, TV, or books wherein a character is introduced and from their first appearance on screen you know if the character is a bad ass or just an ass. We have also seen times where a character tells us how great or bad another character is, only to have the introduction of the character fail to align with the description.
David Reynolds spent too much time telling us why we should admire John Brown and not enough time showing us. Now a lot of the time that he was telling us, he was quoting contemporaries, but simply quoting people admiring Brown does not convince.
Especially, when the book is highly repetitive. If you do not know who Oliver Cromwell is, you will hear his story numerous times and understand that John Brown could not have become a 19th century icon had Cromwell not paved the path first.
Reynolds seems to idolize John Brown. The words chosen and phrases clearly showed the authors admiration, but again---show don’t tell.
I listened to over 14 hours before giving up on this book. I doubt the author once quoted a person who did not think Brown walked on water. Did you know that John Brown was the most perfect example of racial tolerance and acceptance in 19th century America? If you do not, Reynolds will quote people who will tell you that he was.
I wanted to like this book. I really did. But I cannot. Show, don't tell.
And this does not even begin to cover the repetitiveness of the writing.
Basically, the idea is that in good writing that it is better to for the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description. Set the scene and let the reader reach their own conclusions. Show, don’t tell.
We have all seen examples in movies, TV, or books wherein a character is introduced and from their first appearance on screen you know if the character is a bad ass or just an ass. We have also seen times where a character tells us how great or bad another character is, only to have the introduction of the character fail to align with the description.
David Reynolds spent too much time telling us why we should admire John Brown and not enough time showing us. Now a lot of the time that he was telling us, he was quoting contemporaries, but simply quoting people admiring Brown does not convince.
Especially, when the book is highly repetitive. If you do not know who Oliver Cromwell is, you will hear his story numerous times and understand that John Brown could not have become a 19th century icon had Cromwell not paved the path first.
Reynolds seems to idolize John Brown. The words chosen and phrases clearly showed the authors admiration, but again---show don’t tell.
I listened to over 14 hours before giving up on this book. I doubt the author once quoted a person who did not think Brown walked on water. Did you know that John Brown was the most perfect example of racial tolerance and acceptance in 19th century America? If you do not, Reynolds will quote people who will tell you that he was.
I wanted to like this book. I really did. But I cannot. Show, don't tell.
And this does not even begin to cover the repetitiveness of the writing.
March 29, 2025
For the most part, David Reynolds’s John Brown, Abolitionist is relatively well written, and there is a consistent voice throughout. However, it does take some meandering turns. In my opinion, the overall thrust of the book is not one of the natural chaos of a life like Brown's, nor of a biographical account set straight.
I very much appreciated the even-handed approach to the man and his legacy. He makes a compelling argument for the importance of John Brown in the lead-up to the Civil War and beyond, while building the cultural and political context that surrounded him and his actions.
In the final pages he takes a very strange step into the modern political landscape, by turns awkwardly hedged and unhinged. In doing so, he takes the subtle power of the message left by John Brown the man and legend, and spanks the reader with it. There is unattractive desperation in this move, as though Reynolds, in a panic, has suddenly realized that his book needs an explicit lesson. In this case, it feels unearned.
3.5, rounded up.
I very much appreciated the even-handed approach to the man and his legacy. He makes a compelling argument for the importance of John Brown in the lead-up to the Civil War and beyond, while building the cultural and political context that surrounded him and his actions.
In the final pages he takes a very strange step into the modern political landscape, by turns awkwardly hedged and unhinged. In doing so, he takes the subtle power of the message left by John Brown the man and legend, and spanks the reader with it. There is unattractive desperation in this move, as though Reynolds, in a panic, has suddenly realized that his book needs an explicit lesson. In this case, it feels unearned.
3.5, rounded up.
Read
November 20, 2020A couple of small quibbles of mine notwithstanding, this is a tremendous, passionate, eloquent, and thought-provoking biography of a man whose life and work are as relevant as ever.
November 23, 2020
Excellent. Best of several books I've read on Brown. It shows his roots as a follower of Oliver Cromwell, and his ties with the Transcendentalists. While the Haper's Ferry raid failed, it might not have. In any case, it shows how Brown in jail and at trial won the battle of ideas.
August 20, 2012
"Bones in a grave,
Cover them as they will with choking earth,
May shout the truth to men who put them there,
More than all orators."
- Edwin Arlington Robinson, John Brown.
This is the first book that I've read on John Brown, so I really do not have a whole lot of previous knowledge to compare it to. Nevertheless, it seems to me that David S. Reynolds' treatment of John Brown is well-crafted. Reynolds does a good job of shredding the repeated contention that John Brown was a madman. He also does very well in his portrayals of John Brown's religious and moral motivations, his unflagging egalitarianism, and the American cultural landscape he worked within.
As an expert in literature, Reynolds brings a unique perspective on the mutual influence that the Transcendentalists and John Brown had on one another. In fact, Reynolds presents a very strong case that if it were not for Ralph Waldo Emerson and company, John Brown's legacy might have never been anything but anathema to the vast majority of white America.
Where Reynolds can be criticized is the occasional repetition of information, his somewhat clumsy justification of the Pottawattamie killings, and his tendency towards infatuation with the character of John Brown. I didn't mind the repetition of information, my memory being what it is. And in the cases where information was repeated, it was often in order to give additional background or insight relating to the theme of each chapter.
Reynolds' treatment of the Pottawattamie killings is also not as bad as it could have been. He has a sense of the nuances and he never argues outright that what Old Brown did was right - he just presents the context in which the killings were committed in. The targets were not arbitrary, the violence was not disconnected from the reality of the time, and the participants did not all feel comfortable about what they had done.
As for Reynolds' infatuation with John Brown, I can understand it perfectly. Here was a man who did not allow society to dictate to him what was right and what was wrong. In a time of rampant misogyny, racism, and classism, John Brown was a feminist, an anti-racist and an egalitarian. He answered to a higher law and held to the Golden Rule. Even on the precipice, facing his impending execution, he held his head high and spoke with an astounding boldness and power. He showed the weak moral foundations of the pro-slavery south, and he shook them to their very core. The southern slaver, the supposed gentleman, was shown to be a weak-willed bully and a coward. He was a man who loved his fellow man so much that he laid down his very life for them.
"He will make the gallows as glorious as the cross." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cover them as they will with choking earth,
May shout the truth to men who put them there,
More than all orators."
- Edwin Arlington Robinson, John Brown.
This is the first book that I've read on John Brown, so I really do not have a whole lot of previous knowledge to compare it to. Nevertheless, it seems to me that David S. Reynolds' treatment of John Brown is well-crafted. Reynolds does a good job of shredding the repeated contention that John Brown was a madman. He also does very well in his portrayals of John Brown's religious and moral motivations, his unflagging egalitarianism, and the American cultural landscape he worked within.
As an expert in literature, Reynolds brings a unique perspective on the mutual influence that the Transcendentalists and John Brown had on one another. In fact, Reynolds presents a very strong case that if it were not for Ralph Waldo Emerson and company, John Brown's legacy might have never been anything but anathema to the vast majority of white America.
Where Reynolds can be criticized is the occasional repetition of information, his somewhat clumsy justification of the Pottawattamie killings, and his tendency towards infatuation with the character of John Brown. I didn't mind the repetition of information, my memory being what it is. And in the cases where information was repeated, it was often in order to give additional background or insight relating to the theme of each chapter.
Reynolds' treatment of the Pottawattamie killings is also not as bad as it could have been. He has a sense of the nuances and he never argues outright that what Old Brown did was right - he just presents the context in which the killings were committed in. The targets were not arbitrary, the violence was not disconnected from the reality of the time, and the participants did not all feel comfortable about what they had done.
As for Reynolds' infatuation with John Brown, I can understand it perfectly. Here was a man who did not allow society to dictate to him what was right and what was wrong. In a time of rampant misogyny, racism, and classism, John Brown was a feminist, an anti-racist and an egalitarian. He answered to a higher law and held to the Golden Rule. Even on the precipice, facing his impending execution, he held his head high and spoke with an astounding boldness and power. He showed the weak moral foundations of the pro-slavery south, and he shook them to their very core. The southern slaver, the supposed gentleman, was shown to be a weak-willed bully and a coward. He was a man who loved his fellow man so much that he laid down his very life for them.
"He will make the gallows as glorious as the cross." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
August 17, 2011
I turned to this book as I was reading Cloudsplitter a novel about John Brown by Russell Banks. The novel provided an interesting perspective on the life and family of Brown, but ultimately left me wanting more. Thus to my unexpected relief this enlightened and enlightening cultural biography was able to impress me in several ways, filling in some missing details about John Brown. In it Reynolds thoroughly explores the connection between the leading Transcendentalists of New England and John Brown. He analyzes in-depth the violence on both sides in Kansas and provides a basis for attempting to understand the complexity of this man. He also provided an informative cultural background highlighting the activities in areas where Brown lived and raised his family. Well-written, the book was a good read and rival to the excellent biography of John Brown by Stephen Oates.
June 29, 2021
A remarkable book about a remarkable man. Reynolds convincingly argues for Brown's outsized influence over later developments during the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconstruction. His cultural history approach is very interesting and helps us understand Brown's choices, which were a lot more rational than his detractors cared to admit. Reynolds demonstrates that Brown's speeches and letters were just as important as his violence, and shows how the Transcendentalists were pivotal in creating his legend. The book could have been a bit shorter; I didn't need to know so much about Brown's financial woes, about the mundane details of his final days, or about all the many songs and poems written about him. But the core of the book is very well-written, well-researched and well-argued. Highly recommended.
January 6, 2009
I read the Arthur Penn Waren John Brown book and came away thinking of the man as crazy, this book is much better and has totally changed my view. Brown is certainly intense, but not crazy. During his trial a constitution he wrote for his proposed new community was entered into evidence to prove he was crazy. The constitution called for equality of all people blacks, Indians and women. A certain sign of insanity.
It may be that reading this today in the day of Obama is different than thinking of Brown with the background of Leonard Bernstein's cocktail party for the Black Panthers. Brown seemed to have believed in equality even though Whitman and Thoreau (the Leonard Bernsteins of their day) probably did not. Brown is a truly interesting guy, not an historical oddity.
It may be that reading this today in the day of Obama is different than thinking of Brown with the background of Leonard Bernstein's cocktail party for the Black Panthers. Brown seemed to have believed in equality even though Whitman and Thoreau (the Leonard Bernsteins of their day) probably did not. Brown is a truly interesting guy, not an historical oddity.
May 27, 2021
Dear future Matt,
You read this in May 2021. You felt it was very indepth and at the time that it was a difficult read because of that.
You were not familiar with a lot of the religious sects and mostly glossed over that stuff. Some of the words were big and fancy and what did they even mean?
But the core message of this book you liked. John Brown was a complicated human, as all of them are. The author does a good job exploring the good and bad angles of Brown while also giving historical context. You have a better understanding of the Civil War, but there's always more to learn.
The book was long and tough for you but you finished it and it helped solidify ideas you've believed all your life.
You read this in May 2021. You felt it was very indepth and at the time that it was a difficult read because of that.
You were not familiar with a lot of the religious sects and mostly glossed over that stuff. Some of the words were big and fancy and what did they even mean?
But the core message of this book you liked. John Brown was a complicated human, as all of them are. The author does a good job exploring the good and bad angles of Brown while also giving historical context. You have a better understanding of the Civil War, but there's always more to learn.
The book was long and tough for you but you finished it and it helped solidify ideas you've believed all your life.
October 29, 2018
absolutely tremendous.
August 19, 2025
“There must be modern Americans who identify with the oppressed with such passion that they are willing to die for them, as Brown did. And America must be large enough to allow for meaningful protest, instead of remaining satisfied with patriotic bromides and a capitalist mass culture that fosters homogenized complacency. Unless America is ready at every moment to see its own failings, it is one step closer to becoming the tyrannical monster it pretends not to be.” ~ David S. Reynolds John Brown, Abolitionist (2006).
David S. Reynolds has written one of the finest books I have ever read. John Brown, Abolitionist is essential for anyone interested in American history or the roots of social justice movements. With remarkable detail, Reynolds explores not only Brown’s life and vision, but also his lasting impact on American culture and literature, where Transcendentalists, Black writers, and later social justice activists celebrated and carried forward his heroic legacy.
As a Kansan, I am especially grateful for Brown’s history in my home state and for having learned about his role in American history from a young age—an appreciation this book has only deepened. For further perspective, I also recommend W.E.B. Du Bois’ John Brown (1909), which pairs powerfully with Reynolds’s work.
This is an inspiring, important, and unforgettable book. I cannot recommend it highly enough—please read it.
David S. Reynolds has written one of the finest books I have ever read. John Brown, Abolitionist is essential for anyone interested in American history or the roots of social justice movements. With remarkable detail, Reynolds explores not only Brown’s life and vision, but also his lasting impact on American culture and literature, where Transcendentalists, Black writers, and later social justice activists celebrated and carried forward his heroic legacy.
As a Kansan, I am especially grateful for Brown’s history in my home state and for having learned about his role in American history from a young age—an appreciation this book has only deepened. For further perspective, I also recommend W.E.B. Du Bois’ John Brown (1909), which pairs powerfully with Reynolds’s work.
This is an inspiring, important, and unforgettable book. I cannot recommend it highly enough—please read it.
April 26, 2022
Epic survey of an American institution. The author is a bit enamored with his subject, but overall does a great job setting up the history and delivering strong interpretations. The introduction and afterword which express strong political opinion are a bit heavy handed but overall I am very glad I read this.
Excellent companion to Burn's Civil War. Good details. Excellent pacing and structure within the work. Does not get overly mired in background or "setting the stage". Does fawn a bit at the transcendentalists which it appears everyone who studies this period does--weird anti-Catholic tone a few times for no real reason.
Overall, I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in history or the civil war. it is a good book.
Excellent companion to Burn's Civil War. Good details. Excellent pacing and structure within the work. Does not get overly mired in background or "setting the stage". Does fawn a bit at the transcendentalists which it appears everyone who studies this period does--weird anti-Catholic tone a few times for no real reason.
Overall, I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in history or the civil war. it is a good book.
February 10, 2020
A top notch cultural biography of one of the 19th century's most controversial figures. The author explores all the varying aspects of John Brown's life and times, including the attempted insurrection at Harper's Ferry. The author makes a very strong case that without John Brown's appearance on history's stage at just that time, the Civil War may have been delayed or not have happened at all. Overall, a very strong entry to the labyrinth of books about John Brown and in my opinion, one of the better biographies I've read in recent years.
April 23, 2017
It only took me two months and three library renewals to get through this one, with a myocardial infarction occurring within the first couple of days. Reading it was worth the effort, though. Not light entertainment, this one, for sure. It has given me much to ponder. Brown was a complicated, multi-dimensional man -- but singularly courageous and ahead of his time, especially in terms of racial attitudes. The depth of the author's research is astounding as well.
June 26, 2024
This book has helped put into perspective my reading since the Summer of George Floyd. Powerful read. A trenchant quote that sums up where we are as a country: "And America must be large enough for meaningful protest, instead of remaining satisfied with patriotic bromides that fosters homogenized complacency. Unless America is ready at every moment to see its own failings, it is one step closer to becoming the tyrannical monster it pretends not to be."
'Nuff said.
'Nuff said.
July 24, 2021
Excellent part of United States history we baby boomers did not learn in public school.
The United States was built on slave labor, and we ignore this fact at our own peril.
We should learn all we can about the antibellum
The United States was built on slave labor, and we ignore this fact at our own peril.
We should learn all we can about the antibellum
February 17, 2024
LOVED THIS BOOK, I’m a HUGE John Brown fan and this was beyond informative and highly recommend especially if your wanting to know just how much he helped speed up the events that lead to the Civil War.
February 25, 2019
Unfinished.* Suffers from a professorial need to tell you everything he knows. What should be exciting is boring.
*2 stars meaning I gave up.
*2 stars meaning I gave up.
November 14, 2020
This book is a must read for history folks. It is by far the best work on jphn brown I've read. I'm saying that as someone with a tremendous fondness for Tony Horwitz and Midnight Rising.
May 7, 2022
Probably the most challenging book I've read. Also, probably my favorite. Of all time. What a great work of history David S. Reynolds compiled. I'm grateful to him.
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