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Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America
A portrait of the controversial American abolitionist offers insight into his enigmatic personality and the political and personal factors that drove his efforts, covering such topics as his defiant friendships with African-American contemporaries, his twenty children by two wives, and his willingness to resort to extremist methods. 35,000 first printing.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published August 29, 2006
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April 27, 2016
There are times when the way we remember history is almost as interesting as the history itself. This phenomenon often occurs with regards to the American Civil War. The Civil War is as much a shared memory as it is a series of historical events. Much of its realties have been obscured by an agreed-upon myth. Every once in awhile, though, the dust gets shaken from that myth, and we are left to confront and argue about the past. Indeed, it seems we have to refight all the old battles every time some ignorant, squeaky-voiced, pimply teenager who couldn’t differentiate between General Braxton Bragg and a hole in the ground shows up to his public school with a Confederate flag emblazoned on the back of his pickup truck.
After years of careful crafting and massaging by Southern and Southern-sympathizing historians, the general consensus of the Civil War is that it was a contest or moral equals. One side fought nobly to preserve the Union; one side fought nobly to preserve local government. This equivocating makes sense, I suppose, for a country that is decidedly centrist. We’re a Goldilocks nation: we like things “just right.”
And in some very important ways, a morally relativistic view of the Civil War has certain benefits. We are one nation, rather than a north and south divided by a demilitarized zone. There was never a protracted guerilla war following the cessation of hostilities (to be sure, however, there were incidents enough of domestic terrorism, especially directed towards blacks). Unlike other countries, where civil wars have caused still-lingering wounds, if not outright rifts, we tend to celebrate our Civil War. You’ll see what I mean if you try to go to Gettysburg in July. (Isn’t that American optimism for you? We always think we’re the best at everything, even internecine warfare).
In that vein, we venerate the heroes of the Confederacy with the same vigor as the heroes of the Union. Strike that. We venerate the heroes of the Confederacy with way more vigor than the heroes of the Union. (Partially this is due to the fact that J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest were better-looking, more competent, and had better nicknames than Union commanders such as Alfred Pleasonton, Irvin McDowell, and Judson Kilpatrick). If you take a Civil War pilgrimage, you will find museums and statues and birthplaces and grave sites devoted to the Sons of the South. Strangely, you will also find federal military bases named after Confederate generals. (This has always struck me as the oddest of things: for a country to name a fort after someone who tried to destroy that country. Why not Fort Aldrich Ames? Why not Fort Julius & Ethel Rosenberg?)
Many of those Southern generals now immortalized in marble and stone shared a similar deficit of character. Specifically, despite some admirable qualities, they all found it morally and economically defensible to own another human being. Of course, no one is tearing down any statues or burning any museums on this point. These men will continue to be remembered as heroes.
And John Brown?
John Brown, who tried to free the slaves and went to the gallows without flinching? John Brown, who died to set men free?
We remember him, variously, as “fanatically prejudiced” (Allan Nevins, American Historian), “a brutal murderer” (Bruce Catton, famed Civil War historian), and “a grim, terrible man” (David Herbert Donald, noted Lincoln biographer). Today, if we think about John Brown at all, we think of a psychopath; a fanatic. We think of John Brown and call him mad.
Evan Carton’s Patriotic Treason asks you to look at John Brown in an entirely new light.
Latter-day historians, the same ones who have tarred him a crazy-eyed wacko, have done a great deal to diminish Brown’s role in history. (Historians in general prefer to ascribe the turns of history to movements, rather than individuals). However, Brown’s contemporaries saw him quite a bit differently. It was Herman Melville, for instance, who famously called Brown “the meteor of the war.”
I’ve come to think of Brown, who was devoutly religious, as a bloodstained John the Baptist, the prophet who came before the leader, a man heralding the coming cataclysm. It’s easy for us to see the Civil War as inevitable; but it wasn’t, at least not to the people living through those times. Yet John Brown saw clearly what others could not: that the issue of slavery could be decided only one way.
Carton’s book is a slim, fast-reading, sympathetic biography of Brown. The man in these pages is something of a surprise, a far cry from the photograph on the cover of a grizzled old man with an unwavering gaze. Instead of the raving, Old Testament loon I half-expected, Brown is revealed as a devoted family man, a tireless worker, and an eminently relatable human being: his life was a veritable rollercoaster of minor business triumphs and familial and economic tragedies. He failed at achieving his dream of becoming a minister; he buried one wife and many of his children; he saw his business enterprises blow up in his face; and he lived much of his life burdened by a crushing debt. To his children, he was tantalizingly elusive: partly stoic, distant, a stern disciplinarian; at other times effusive, loving, and doting, the kind of father who’d stay up all night to nurse a sick child. (Carton shows a Brown who is strikingly vulnerable in the wake of the deaths of certain of his children, to the extent that Brown even questioned his normally-unshakeable faith).
If there are any lulls in Carton’s biography, it is during these years of Brown’s life, in which he was a skilled shepherd who couldn’t catch a break. Even the lulls, however, serve a purpose. They go to show that this wasn’t a guy who was batsh*t crazy or harboring certifiable mental illnesses. He was a normal man with some strongly-held beliefs who finally, eventually, felt compelled to take action.
Those beliefs centered around Brown’s ardent abolitionism. But Brown was more than an abolitionist. He was an outlier among outliers because he believed in equal rights. Unlike many conditional abolitionists, men as good-intentioned as William Lloyd Garrison, Brown believed in equality among the races. He wasn’t in favor of freeing the slaves only to send them back to Africa. Instead, he believed in their immediate integration into American society. He lived this credo in a way that shocked his friends and neighbors. He was respectful of blacks, he dined with blacks, and he lived among blacks, all during a time when even the most liberal-hearted white harbored doubts about a black person’s innate abilities. Brown’s colorblindness is striking even today, in our allegedly more enlightened age. His solicitude and devotion allowed him to befriend such luminaries as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.
Brown’s fame, or infamy, if you prefer, came later in life. He followed several members of his family to Kansas, a territory that was enflamed in turmoil over the issue of slavery. Long story short, following the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the people of Kansas Territory were granted popular sovereignty to decide whether their state would be admitted as slave or free. This led to an extra-territorial stampede to the ballot boxes, in which the side that prevailed would be the side that voted early, voted often, and stopped as many of his opponents from voting as possible.
When Brown arrived, Kansas was controlled by pro-slavers, many of them Border Ruffians from Missouri. The pro-slavery faction voted illegally, ran-off many free-state citizens, and passed ridiculous laws restricting people from even harboring a kind thought about a black person. Following the pro-slavers’ sack of Lawrence (which would be sacked again, during the Civil War, by Quantrill, and once more, in the 80s, in the nuclear war miniseries The Day After), and Preston Brook’s brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner in the Capitol (hard to believe, but the Senate is more civil today), John Brown had enough. He took a handful of men to a pro-slavery settlement on Pottawatomie Creek and murdered (there isn’t any other word for it) five men. Brown himself did not do any actual killing, save to fire a bullet into a dead man’s skull, but he clearly was the instigator.
Carton does a good job of placing this act, utterly unredeemable in isolation, into a broader context, without getting bogged down in the complicated history of Bleeding Kansas. Brown was not simply lashing out irrationally; instead, he targeted men who’d bullied and threatened his family and neighbors in the past. His slaughter along the Pottawatomie was a retaliation of sorts for months of pro-slavery provocations that included illegal arrests, threats and intimidation, beatings, robbery, arson and, yes, murder. As Carton describes it, the reason Brown’s killings were so shocking (aside from the obvious brutality of death by broadsword) was the fact that free-state men had fought back at all. (To make a crude comparison, free-staters were the modern Democratic Party of the 19th century; it was expected that their opponents would dish it out, and that they would take it on the chin).
Following Pottawatomie Creek, Brown went on the run and became a guerilla leader. His son Frederick was murdered in retaliation, and his sons John Jr. and Jason were imprisoned. Undeterred, Brown won a well-publicized skirmish against a company of pro-slavers at the Battle of Black Jack.
Later, Brown used the notoriety he gained in Kansas to become the self-appointed leader of the militarized abolitionist movement. He tried to form, train, and equip an army; however, his “army” never numbered more than a handful, most of them his kin.
The result of this Quixotic mission, of course, was Brown’s failed raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. On October 16, 1859, Brown and 18 men took control of the arsenal and the railroad bridge leading into town. Brown hoped that his audaciousness would encourage slaves to flee their masters; he then intended to arm these slaves with the captured weapons from the arsenal. The raid was put down by enraged townspeople, with the help of U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Most of Brown’s men, including two sons, were killed; Brown was wounded and captured. The hoped-for slave revolt never materialized. Brown was tried and convicted of murder and treason (against Virginia, despite not being a citizen of that commonwealth!) and hanged on December 2, 1859.
At the time, Brown’s actions were widely repudiated. Voices in support were muted. During the Civil War, Brown finally received some acclaim, including being the subject of a song, John Brown’s Body, that was given new lyrics by Julia Ward Howe to become The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Following the War, Brown’s friend, Frederick Douglass, gave Brown the most famous eulogy, saying: “I could live for the slave – but he could die for him.”
Later still, however, history came to know John Brown as a wicked man, delusional at best, pathological at worst.
I suspect that a lot of people, even after reading Patriotic Treason, will remain uncomfortable with John Brown. He was an absolutist. He believed in good and evil and the justification of righteousness. He was a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner. His acts, in some sense, were the acts of a homegrown terrorist.
I thought about this, and my admitted support for the man, as I finished Patriotic Treason. As I pondered the quandary of John Brown, I took a moment to reflect on the book’s subtitle: John Brown and the Soul of America. As I did, I recalled a statement made by an aging Douglass, in which he said: “Whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery.”
It occurred to me that whatever else John Brown did, he fought for freedom and liberty. And not figurative “freedom” and figurative “liberty,” the words politicians use whenever they send an army to war. No, we are talking about literal freedom and literal liberty and breaking loose the chains of those who’d been enslaved two hundred years and more.
We know slavery caused the Civil War; we also know that the Union soldiers who flocked to the banner did so for a variety of reasons, and abolition was not always at the top of this list. In John Brown, though, there is no ambiguity. Aside from everything else, he is striking for the clarity of his moral vision. There is no doubting John Brown: after all these years, we know exactly where he stood; we know exactly why he took up arms; and we know exactly the cause for which he died.
Imagine there had been no John Brown. Imagine that we never knew, with any certainty, that there was even one person in America willing to die to end slavery. Imagine that we never knew, with any certainty, that there was even one person in America willing to give life to Jefferson’s lofty phrase that “all men are created equal.”
What would that uncertainty have meant to the soul of America?
After years of careful crafting and massaging by Southern and Southern-sympathizing historians, the general consensus of the Civil War is that it was a contest or moral equals. One side fought nobly to preserve the Union; one side fought nobly to preserve local government. This equivocating makes sense, I suppose, for a country that is decidedly centrist. We’re a Goldilocks nation: we like things “just right.”
And in some very important ways, a morally relativistic view of the Civil War has certain benefits. We are one nation, rather than a north and south divided by a demilitarized zone. There was never a protracted guerilla war following the cessation of hostilities (to be sure, however, there were incidents enough of domestic terrorism, especially directed towards blacks). Unlike other countries, where civil wars have caused still-lingering wounds, if not outright rifts, we tend to celebrate our Civil War. You’ll see what I mean if you try to go to Gettysburg in July. (Isn’t that American optimism for you? We always think we’re the best at everything, even internecine warfare).
In that vein, we venerate the heroes of the Confederacy with the same vigor as the heroes of the Union. Strike that. We venerate the heroes of the Confederacy with way more vigor than the heroes of the Union. (Partially this is due to the fact that J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest were better-looking, more competent, and had better nicknames than Union commanders such as Alfred Pleasonton, Irvin McDowell, and Judson Kilpatrick). If you take a Civil War pilgrimage, you will find museums and statues and birthplaces and grave sites devoted to the Sons of the South. Strangely, you will also find federal military bases named after Confederate generals. (This has always struck me as the oddest of things: for a country to name a fort after someone who tried to destroy that country. Why not Fort Aldrich Ames? Why not Fort Julius & Ethel Rosenberg?)
Many of those Southern generals now immortalized in marble and stone shared a similar deficit of character. Specifically, despite some admirable qualities, they all found it morally and economically defensible to own another human being. Of course, no one is tearing down any statues or burning any museums on this point. These men will continue to be remembered as heroes.
And John Brown?
John Brown, who tried to free the slaves and went to the gallows without flinching? John Brown, who died to set men free?
We remember him, variously, as “fanatically prejudiced” (Allan Nevins, American Historian), “a brutal murderer” (Bruce Catton, famed Civil War historian), and “a grim, terrible man” (David Herbert Donald, noted Lincoln biographer). Today, if we think about John Brown at all, we think of a psychopath; a fanatic. We think of John Brown and call him mad.
Evan Carton’s Patriotic Treason asks you to look at John Brown in an entirely new light.
Latter-day historians, the same ones who have tarred him a crazy-eyed wacko, have done a great deal to diminish Brown’s role in history. (Historians in general prefer to ascribe the turns of history to movements, rather than individuals). However, Brown’s contemporaries saw him quite a bit differently. It was Herman Melville, for instance, who famously called Brown “the meteor of the war.”
I’ve come to think of Brown, who was devoutly religious, as a bloodstained John the Baptist, the prophet who came before the leader, a man heralding the coming cataclysm. It’s easy for us to see the Civil War as inevitable; but it wasn’t, at least not to the people living through those times. Yet John Brown saw clearly what others could not: that the issue of slavery could be decided only one way.
Carton’s book is a slim, fast-reading, sympathetic biography of Brown. The man in these pages is something of a surprise, a far cry from the photograph on the cover of a grizzled old man with an unwavering gaze. Instead of the raving, Old Testament loon I half-expected, Brown is revealed as a devoted family man, a tireless worker, and an eminently relatable human being: his life was a veritable rollercoaster of minor business triumphs and familial and economic tragedies. He failed at achieving his dream of becoming a minister; he buried one wife and many of his children; he saw his business enterprises blow up in his face; and he lived much of his life burdened by a crushing debt. To his children, he was tantalizingly elusive: partly stoic, distant, a stern disciplinarian; at other times effusive, loving, and doting, the kind of father who’d stay up all night to nurse a sick child. (Carton shows a Brown who is strikingly vulnerable in the wake of the deaths of certain of his children, to the extent that Brown even questioned his normally-unshakeable faith).
If there are any lulls in Carton’s biography, it is during these years of Brown’s life, in which he was a skilled shepherd who couldn’t catch a break. Even the lulls, however, serve a purpose. They go to show that this wasn’t a guy who was batsh*t crazy or harboring certifiable mental illnesses. He was a normal man with some strongly-held beliefs who finally, eventually, felt compelled to take action.
Those beliefs centered around Brown’s ardent abolitionism. But Brown was more than an abolitionist. He was an outlier among outliers because he believed in equal rights. Unlike many conditional abolitionists, men as good-intentioned as William Lloyd Garrison, Brown believed in equality among the races. He wasn’t in favor of freeing the slaves only to send them back to Africa. Instead, he believed in their immediate integration into American society. He lived this credo in a way that shocked his friends and neighbors. He was respectful of blacks, he dined with blacks, and he lived among blacks, all during a time when even the most liberal-hearted white harbored doubts about a black person’s innate abilities. Brown’s colorblindness is striking even today, in our allegedly more enlightened age. His solicitude and devotion allowed him to befriend such luminaries as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.
Brown’s fame, or infamy, if you prefer, came later in life. He followed several members of his family to Kansas, a territory that was enflamed in turmoil over the issue of slavery. Long story short, following the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the people of Kansas Territory were granted popular sovereignty to decide whether their state would be admitted as slave or free. This led to an extra-territorial stampede to the ballot boxes, in which the side that prevailed would be the side that voted early, voted often, and stopped as many of his opponents from voting as possible.
When Brown arrived, Kansas was controlled by pro-slavers, many of them Border Ruffians from Missouri. The pro-slavery faction voted illegally, ran-off many free-state citizens, and passed ridiculous laws restricting people from even harboring a kind thought about a black person. Following the pro-slavers’ sack of Lawrence (which would be sacked again, during the Civil War, by Quantrill, and once more, in the 80s, in the nuclear war miniseries The Day After), and Preston Brook’s brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner in the Capitol (hard to believe, but the Senate is more civil today), John Brown had enough. He took a handful of men to a pro-slavery settlement on Pottawatomie Creek and murdered (there isn’t any other word for it) five men. Brown himself did not do any actual killing, save to fire a bullet into a dead man’s skull, but he clearly was the instigator.
Carton does a good job of placing this act, utterly unredeemable in isolation, into a broader context, without getting bogged down in the complicated history of Bleeding Kansas. Brown was not simply lashing out irrationally; instead, he targeted men who’d bullied and threatened his family and neighbors in the past. His slaughter along the Pottawatomie was a retaliation of sorts for months of pro-slavery provocations that included illegal arrests, threats and intimidation, beatings, robbery, arson and, yes, murder. As Carton describes it, the reason Brown’s killings were so shocking (aside from the obvious brutality of death by broadsword) was the fact that free-state men had fought back at all. (To make a crude comparison, free-staters were the modern Democratic Party of the 19th century; it was expected that their opponents would dish it out, and that they would take it on the chin).
Following Pottawatomie Creek, Brown went on the run and became a guerilla leader. His son Frederick was murdered in retaliation, and his sons John Jr. and Jason were imprisoned. Undeterred, Brown won a well-publicized skirmish against a company of pro-slavers at the Battle of Black Jack.
Later, Brown used the notoriety he gained in Kansas to become the self-appointed leader of the militarized abolitionist movement. He tried to form, train, and equip an army; however, his “army” never numbered more than a handful, most of them his kin.
The result of this Quixotic mission, of course, was Brown’s failed raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. On October 16, 1859, Brown and 18 men took control of the arsenal and the railroad bridge leading into town. Brown hoped that his audaciousness would encourage slaves to flee their masters; he then intended to arm these slaves with the captured weapons from the arsenal. The raid was put down by enraged townspeople, with the help of U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Most of Brown’s men, including two sons, were killed; Brown was wounded and captured. The hoped-for slave revolt never materialized. Brown was tried and convicted of murder and treason (against Virginia, despite not being a citizen of that commonwealth!) and hanged on December 2, 1859.
At the time, Brown’s actions were widely repudiated. Voices in support were muted. During the Civil War, Brown finally received some acclaim, including being the subject of a song, John Brown’s Body, that was given new lyrics by Julia Ward Howe to become The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Following the War, Brown’s friend, Frederick Douglass, gave Brown the most famous eulogy, saying: “I could live for the slave – but he could die for him.”
Later still, however, history came to know John Brown as a wicked man, delusional at best, pathological at worst.
I suspect that a lot of people, even after reading Patriotic Treason, will remain uncomfortable with John Brown. He was an absolutist. He believed in good and evil and the justification of righteousness. He was a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner. His acts, in some sense, were the acts of a homegrown terrorist.
I thought about this, and my admitted support for the man, as I finished Patriotic Treason. As I pondered the quandary of John Brown, I took a moment to reflect on the book’s subtitle: John Brown and the Soul of America. As I did, I recalled a statement made by an aging Douglass, in which he said: “Whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery.”
It occurred to me that whatever else John Brown did, he fought for freedom and liberty. And not figurative “freedom” and figurative “liberty,” the words politicians use whenever they send an army to war. No, we are talking about literal freedom and literal liberty and breaking loose the chains of those who’d been enslaved two hundred years and more.
We know slavery caused the Civil War; we also know that the Union soldiers who flocked to the banner did so for a variety of reasons, and abolition was not always at the top of this list. In John Brown, though, there is no ambiguity. Aside from everything else, he is striking for the clarity of his moral vision. There is no doubting John Brown: after all these years, we know exactly where he stood; we know exactly why he took up arms; and we know exactly the cause for which he died.
Imagine there had been no John Brown. Imagine that we never knew, with any certainty, that there was even one person in America willing to die to end slavery. Imagine that we never knew, with any certainty, that there was even one person in America willing to give life to Jefferson’s lofty phrase that “all men are created equal.”
What would that uncertainty have meant to the soul of America?
January 15, 2025
”He was a stone — a stone eroded to a cutting edge.”
~ Stephen Vincent Benét
”Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seems to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died.”
~Henry David Thoreau
Evan Carton’s Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America is a fine biography of America’s most heroic and righteous terrorist/freedom fighter. Carton does justice to Brown’s historical significance and legacy. It illuminates his lifelong commitment to the abolitionist cause, his uniqueness even among other abolitionist, and explains the terrible logic that led Brown to violence in pursuit of justice and righteousness. It does everything a biography of the man should do, and in commendable fashion.
So why only three stars? Because, though it is a solid biography of Brown, it is neither the first, nor even the second bio that I would recommend. (First place belongs to W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1909 biography of Brown, while second goes to David Reynolds’ 2005 book John Brown, Abolitionist.) While Carton covers everything that he should, while he give Brown his proper place in American history, he fails to add anything to the impressive work that Du Bois and Reynolds did before him. This is a good book. It’s just that there are better ones
~ Stephen Vincent Benét
”Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seems to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died.”
~Henry David Thoreau
Evan Carton’s Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America is a fine biography of America’s most heroic and righteous terrorist/freedom fighter. Carton does justice to Brown’s historical significance and legacy. It illuminates his lifelong commitment to the abolitionist cause, his uniqueness even among other abolitionist, and explains the terrible logic that led Brown to violence in pursuit of justice and righteousness. It does everything a biography of the man should do, and in commendable fashion.
So why only three stars? Because, though it is a solid biography of Brown, it is neither the first, nor even the second bio that I would recommend. (First place belongs to W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1909 biography of Brown, while second goes to David Reynolds’ 2005 book John Brown, Abolitionist.) While Carton covers everything that he should, while he give Brown his proper place in American history, he fails to add anything to the impressive work that Du Bois and Reynolds did before him. This is a good book. It’s just that there are better ones
October 1, 2013
I remember John Brown from high school history class as some weird crazy, quasi-terrorist man who killed people to free the slaves. Yet it wasn't until I read the conclusion to this book that I put it all into perspective:
"Had Brown been an escaped slave or a free northern black man who acted and spoke exactly as the historical John Brown did, professional historians of the last fifty years would not have labeled him mad. Radical, militant, enraged, desperate, impatient, self-aggrandizing, perhaps--but not crazy... A man who lived, went to war, and died to help win black people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must have been black. A white man who did these things must have been deranged or fanatical."
And the author is right. John Brown is not exactly a white knight, but history must label him a crazy weirdo because why would anyone be willing to die for the rights of a different group of people?
I think humanity is becoming more empathetic as the generations progress. John Brown, a white man, fought and died for the rights of black people to become free. After men supporting the second and third waves of feminism, whites marching on Selma in the 1960s, and heterosexuals supporting gay marriage initiatives in record numbers these days, it's becoming abundantly clear that one doesn't need to belong to a specific class to fight for the rights of that class. Because as Solomon Burke said, if one of us is chained, none of us are free.
This book does a great job putting John Brown into full perspective and should be required reading for high school history/sociology classes.
"Had Brown been an escaped slave or a free northern black man who acted and spoke exactly as the historical John Brown did, professional historians of the last fifty years would not have labeled him mad. Radical, militant, enraged, desperate, impatient, self-aggrandizing, perhaps--but not crazy... A man who lived, went to war, and died to help win black people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must have been black. A white man who did these things must have been deranged or fanatical."
And the author is right. John Brown is not exactly a white knight, but history must label him a crazy weirdo because why would anyone be willing to die for the rights of a different group of people?
I think humanity is becoming more empathetic as the generations progress. John Brown, a white man, fought and died for the rights of black people to become free. After men supporting the second and third waves of feminism, whites marching on Selma in the 1960s, and heterosexuals supporting gay marriage initiatives in record numbers these days, it's becoming abundantly clear that one doesn't need to belong to a specific class to fight for the rights of that class. Because as Solomon Burke said, if one of us is chained, none of us are free.
This book does a great job putting John Brown into full perspective and should be required reading for high school history/sociology classes.
January 6, 2024
This is a book, first and foremost, about families. The author chronicles the family of John Brown, from its very beginnings at Plymouth Rock in 1630 all the way through to the Harper's Ferry raid in 1859. We are presented with a man on a mission; Brown's sole pursuit in the developing national strife is to act out against the monstrosity of slavery. Along the way, the author introduces various characters tangential to the main story and subject matter. A great starting point for anyone interested in this time period, this book was well worth the time spent reading it.
September 15, 2020
This is a well researched, extremely readable and slightly white supremacist apologist biography of John Brown.
The author does an excellent job of presenting most white Abolitionists as white supremacists and racists. The vast majority of white abolitionists mostly cared about the impact that owning human beings had on the souls of white folks. They recognized that unlimited power breeds unlimited corruption and they were legitimately afraid that generations unchecked of this behavior in white folks would lead to a lessening of their race. They were afraid that this would result in a character much like our current president: the least of the white race leading the nation to ruin.
The author tends to not be completely honest about the struggles Black folks faced in this time period. He presents Chatham, Ontario as a Black Escaped Enslaved-folks Haven but basically presents it as segregated. To the extent that Black folks needed their own firehouse. He neglects to offer why this was necessary or speculate what this means for the actual power and social position of Black folks in Canada. This is crucial because the author is somewhat disparaging of how Black free and enslaved folks handled their oppression. If you wanna offer opinions you have to explore the entire situation, not just as it relates to white folks.
The author continually struggles with seeing Black folks realistically in their time and place. He holds John Brown's white supremacist view that white men can't respect Black folks freedom if they don't 'earn it' by freeing themselves. This view ignores that Black folks had been rising to free themselves since before the first slave ship left West Africa. (If this is new info for you be sure to check out Fighting the Slave Trade by Sylviane A. Diouf)
None of the US uprisings: Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, etc , much less Haiti, was treated with 'respect' by white people. In fact all of these uprisings were heavily criticized and sabotaged, if not outright thwarted by white people. It was frustrating and disrespectful as fuck to have the author continually act like Black folks were too frightened to rise up against white men.
The author also fails to write about the aftermath of the rebellions/uprisings on the Black Community. Black folks who did not live anywhere near the uprisings were murdered out of white fears. White people formed roving gangs and took out their angst and anger on Black folks in general all over the south. I find it hard to believe the author doesn't know this. Uprisings don't just impact the Black folks who participated.
John Brown knew his actions would never put his wife or kids not involved at risk. That wasn't true for Black people. Our entire community would pay for our actions and so the cost is considerably higher. We still paid it and had uprisings but this is crucial as to why Brown doesn't get more support from Black folks. Yet the author only mentions once why Black folks joining John Brown was considerably more risky for them than white folks. He mentions repeatedly, more than 10 times, that Black folks can't be respected without fighting for themselves. He uses Black folks voices alive at the time who had swallowed white supremacy to give this theory energy. It's racist and white supremacist thinking. The author needed to shut this shit down immediately rather than tease it out for 75% of the book.
The other issue I have is the author presenting John Brown as antiracist. The author knows this to be untrue because he sites John Brown's Sambo story in the text. He quickly tries to point out that the Black folks alive at the time weren't upset by this story but he is only able to name a few Black folks. He has no idea how the larger community felt or if the community at large knew Brown wrote that clearly racist story. Instead the author tries to use Black folks alive at the times non-reaction as a way to neutralize the racism of a story called Sambo written by a white man.
There's no cleansing that story of racism. Not by any standard.
That story stands as proof that despite his later actions John Brown was racist.
A John Brown Reader by Louis Ruchames can be found here on archive.org, the Sambo story starts on page 60: https://archive.org/details/johnbrown...
I posted screenshots of the story on Twitter if you just want to read the story:
https://twitter.com/Laileanah/status/...
The author primarily focuses on why Black folks didn't join or trust John Brown. He neglects to tie this to Brown's own agenda or racism. Brown very much believed that he and other white men were needed to plan and lead Black folks in a rebellion. The author ignores, much like Brown did, that Haiti was 100% planned and carried out successfully by Black folks. In fact Haiti is the 2nd nation to break away from a European overlord, the USA being the first. No whites needed at any stage of the rebellion.
Why didn't John Brown focus on leading other white men in a strike against slavery? The whiteness of Brown is why Harper's Ferry is a big deal. Imagine if he'd focused on a whole army of white men who's responsibility it was to stamp out an evil created and perpetuated by those like them. The author doesn't want to own that chattel slavery is 100% white people's fault much like John Brown didn't want to. There aren't 'good people on both sides', white people are a fucking nightmare full stop. It's not ok to try to dissipate responsibility for this by pointing at the victims. Black folks didn't need to be better victims, this bullshit is firmly on white folks shoulders.
It's clear that it more important to John Brown that white enslavers not be harmed AT ALL than it was that Black folks be free. Brown spends most of the raid explaining himself, his views and resulting actions to his white slave oppressing captives. Freeing Black Enslaved folks is secondary.
Brown deliberately outted the involvement of Frederick Douglass, and other conspirators, which caused him to barely escape with his life and hide out in Europe for years. Brown gives zero fucks about Black life.
Before Harper's Ferry in 1858/1859 Brown and his men assist Black families to escape from slavery. Jim Daniels is an enslaved man who approaches Brown's group to assist with a planned escape of several families from surrounding farms in Kansas. The author makes it clear that the plan was entirely Jim Daniel's and the other Black folks involved who had clearly been planning this for sometime before approaching Brown's group. Yet, the author gives Brown complete credit for 'saving' this family when clearly these Black folks saved themselves. They approached Brown. Furthermore this was a workable and sustainable model for freeing actual Black enslaved folks and giving them the tools to start a new life in Canada. If Brown had expsnded and stuck to this model he'd have done more good while still stressed the system enough to spark the civil war. This plan didn't hold enough glory for Brown though.
Brown was a racist tool. He planned poorly and only becomes militantly active in antislavery activities AFTER he mismanages his businesses, looses everything including his land and steals from his friends & business associates.
He always intended to both die and let his companions die at Harper's Ferry. He wanted to be martyred. He needed to be important and remembered as such.
While he did believe slavery was wrong and he was far thinking for a white man of his time period, he was also a racist white supremacist and so is the author for this fuckery🤷🏾♀️
The author does an excellent job of presenting most white Abolitionists as white supremacists and racists. The vast majority of white abolitionists mostly cared about the impact that owning human beings had on the souls of white folks. They recognized that unlimited power breeds unlimited corruption and they were legitimately afraid that generations unchecked of this behavior in white folks would lead to a lessening of their race. They were afraid that this would result in a character much like our current president: the least of the white race leading the nation to ruin.
The author tends to not be completely honest about the struggles Black folks faced in this time period. He presents Chatham, Ontario as a Black Escaped Enslaved-folks Haven but basically presents it as segregated. To the extent that Black folks needed their own firehouse. He neglects to offer why this was necessary or speculate what this means for the actual power and social position of Black folks in Canada. This is crucial because the author is somewhat disparaging of how Black free and enslaved folks handled their oppression. If you wanna offer opinions you have to explore the entire situation, not just as it relates to white folks.
The author continually struggles with seeing Black folks realistically in their time and place. He holds John Brown's white supremacist view that white men can't respect Black folks freedom if they don't 'earn it' by freeing themselves. This view ignores that Black folks had been rising to free themselves since before the first slave ship left West Africa. (If this is new info for you be sure to check out Fighting the Slave Trade by Sylviane A. Diouf)
None of the US uprisings: Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, etc , much less Haiti, was treated with 'respect' by white people. In fact all of these uprisings were heavily criticized and sabotaged, if not outright thwarted by white people. It was frustrating and disrespectful as fuck to have the author continually act like Black folks were too frightened to rise up against white men.
The author also fails to write about the aftermath of the rebellions/uprisings on the Black Community. Black folks who did not live anywhere near the uprisings were murdered out of white fears. White people formed roving gangs and took out their angst and anger on Black folks in general all over the south. I find it hard to believe the author doesn't know this. Uprisings don't just impact the Black folks who participated.
John Brown knew his actions would never put his wife or kids not involved at risk. That wasn't true for Black people. Our entire community would pay for our actions and so the cost is considerably higher. We still paid it and had uprisings but this is crucial as to why Brown doesn't get more support from Black folks. Yet the author only mentions once why Black folks joining John Brown was considerably more risky for them than white folks. He mentions repeatedly, more than 10 times, that Black folks can't be respected without fighting for themselves. He uses Black folks voices alive at the time who had swallowed white supremacy to give this theory energy. It's racist and white supremacist thinking. The author needed to shut this shit down immediately rather than tease it out for 75% of the book.
The other issue I have is the author presenting John Brown as antiracist. The author knows this to be untrue because he sites John Brown's Sambo story in the text. He quickly tries to point out that the Black folks alive at the time weren't upset by this story but he is only able to name a few Black folks. He has no idea how the larger community felt or if the community at large knew Brown wrote that clearly racist story. Instead the author tries to use Black folks alive at the times non-reaction as a way to neutralize the racism of a story called Sambo written by a white man.
There's no cleansing that story of racism. Not by any standard.
That story stands as proof that despite his later actions John Brown was racist.
A John Brown Reader by Louis Ruchames can be found here on archive.org, the Sambo story starts on page 60: https://archive.org/details/johnbrown...
I posted screenshots of the story on Twitter if you just want to read the story:
https://twitter.com/Laileanah/status/...
The author primarily focuses on why Black folks didn't join or trust John Brown. He neglects to tie this to Brown's own agenda or racism. Brown very much believed that he and other white men were needed to plan and lead Black folks in a rebellion. The author ignores, much like Brown did, that Haiti was 100% planned and carried out successfully by Black folks. In fact Haiti is the 2nd nation to break away from a European overlord, the USA being the first. No whites needed at any stage of the rebellion.
Why didn't John Brown focus on leading other white men in a strike against slavery? The whiteness of Brown is why Harper's Ferry is a big deal. Imagine if he'd focused on a whole army of white men who's responsibility it was to stamp out an evil created and perpetuated by those like them. The author doesn't want to own that chattel slavery is 100% white people's fault much like John Brown didn't want to. There aren't 'good people on both sides', white people are a fucking nightmare full stop. It's not ok to try to dissipate responsibility for this by pointing at the victims. Black folks didn't need to be better victims, this bullshit is firmly on white folks shoulders.
It's clear that it more important to John Brown that white enslavers not be harmed AT ALL than it was that Black folks be free. Brown spends most of the raid explaining himself, his views and resulting actions to his white slave oppressing captives. Freeing Black Enslaved folks is secondary.
Brown deliberately outted the involvement of Frederick Douglass, and other conspirators, which caused him to barely escape with his life and hide out in Europe for years. Brown gives zero fucks about Black life.
Before Harper's Ferry in 1858/1859 Brown and his men assist Black families to escape from slavery. Jim Daniels is an enslaved man who approaches Brown's group to assist with a planned escape of several families from surrounding farms in Kansas. The author makes it clear that the plan was entirely Jim Daniel's and the other Black folks involved who had clearly been planning this for sometime before approaching Brown's group. Yet, the author gives Brown complete credit for 'saving' this family when clearly these Black folks saved themselves. They approached Brown. Furthermore this was a workable and sustainable model for freeing actual Black enslaved folks and giving them the tools to start a new life in Canada. If Brown had expsnded and stuck to this model he'd have done more good while still stressed the system enough to spark the civil war. This plan didn't hold enough glory for Brown though.
Brown was a racist tool. He planned poorly and only becomes militantly active in antislavery activities AFTER he mismanages his businesses, looses everything including his land and steals from his friends & business associates.
He always intended to both die and let his companions die at Harper's Ferry. He wanted to be martyred. He needed to be important and remembered as such.
While he did believe slavery was wrong and he was far thinking for a white man of his time period, he was also a racist white supremacist and so is the author for this fuckery🤷🏾♀️
August 13, 2021
John Brown. The John Brown Gun Clubs. He was controversial, hated by many, admired by some, likely a hero to many victims. A political/historical lightning rod. Some would agree he was a humanitarian and race patriot while possibly disagreeing with some of his methods and actions. Others will hate him and his legacy for eternity. I found his upbringing, strong convictions and willingness to do virtually anything and risk everything in order to do what he felt was not only right, but likely ethically and morally necessary. Yet while I agree with his views on the issues he faced and attacked, I remain bothered by one thing. He grew up in a very historically traditional Euro-American puritanical household, much like me in a stringent Calvinist family, much like many Americans historically. For these people, there is nothing but black/white, hot/cold, "right/wrong," heaven/hell. In other words, no gray areas, no moderation, no compromise, and a total refusal to consider anyone else's interpretation of their Christian religious beliefs (historically Calvinist or Calvin/Knox-influenced) could possibly be right when THEY are the only ones right. We're talking many millions of Americans over the past 400 years up to today's evangelicals/fundies. So while I think racism/slavery and his moral objections were right, the fact remains that Southern "Christians" used the very same holy book, the Christian Bible, to justify slavery and even argue Jesus/God demanded it -- and like it or not (and I do not), Jesus (I think) and certainly Paul essentially condoned if not encouraged slavery in the letters, sermons, teachings, etc., attributed to them. So if John Brown was using the Bible as his moral compass for what ultimately started/resulted in the Civil War, he actually technically would likely have been very wrong! Which begs the question, if he (or anyone like him) were that fervent in America (like many other monotheists in other countries and cultures) to take one or more issues from their holy books and make it their live's obsession to the point of murders and even war, would anti-racists and progressives still support and praise him? Because then what would be the difference between them and "radical" Islamist jihadists? They're referred to as extremists, but aren't they possibly (because I'm not entirely sure) acting the most accurately of that faith in following through on their holy book's teachings? Despite their methods and actions, which the rest of the world does not condone and for which they are termed terrorists? Wouldn't US evangelicals, who took extreme views (and too many do) possibly using their holy book (too many of them don't since virtually ALL of them cherry pick the hell out of anything and EVERYTHING they assert is required or banned by God while they conveniently ignore their god's words and commands on many things they don't like or agree with, proving them to be the worst of hypocrites) as justification to become a type of American Taliban? I mean, what's the damn difference? So my concern with John Brown -- and I'm EXTREMELY anti-racist/antifascist and I support the John Brown Gun Clubs -- is that if he had chosen to focus on a different issue to the extremes that he did using the Christian bible as his justification, what if for example he had theoretically decided it was NECESSARY to practice a form of genocide on ALL known or suspected gay/lesbians in America, as well as any other issue he felt personally strongly about, strong enough to become a mass murderer while hero to many?
(And just to drive that example in harder to make my point while also being 100% accurate in my descriptions of most influential US Christians today, what if he felt so strongly about "The [Jewish] Law" -- because Jesus is quoted as stating he came to [earth] to abide by and follow The Law, a fact that is conveniently glossed over by nearly every Christian alive as they tell everyone that while the assertions that homosexuality is an "abominable sin" a seen in the Sodom story -- in the Old Testament ("the JEWISH Bible") -- and some are willing to kill over that (as well as abortion, a) neither of which Jesus ever mentioned while instructing his followers to care for the old, sick and poor over 160 times in the Gospels and b) I'll probably get shot for writing this, but the majority of practicing Jews are pro-choice and they are because they are largely convinced that the Judaeo-Christian god is NOT opposed to it and hence it (essentially) pro--choice himself (sorry f0r the male pronoun). Before you firebomb my house, I know you Christians violently disagree, and for over 50 years one major reason I've heard my whole life is that it's "Murder" (and millions of babies have been murdered because of it) ... why? Because naturally life begins at conception, and of course God certainly made it that way, so we need to harass women who may be seeking one and kill doctors who perform them. Right? Uh, no. And you don't know why because Christians not only don't read their holy book, the Bible (they read convenient little devotionals with a couple of verses instead), but they sure as hell don't read the Old Testament because it's obsolete and doesn't count cause it's the "Jewish Bible" and the "angry" god of the OT changed to the Jesus/God of love and peace in the New Testament (which is an entirely different topic, but they're wrong about that too, per his own words, but since they don't read their bibles, they don't know that).
Well, let's address several things so I can return to John Brown. 1) If the Old Testament no longer counts (and I've heard that from hundreds to thousands of conservative Christians around the world -- it is not a minority belief), then why fight to the death over OT homosexuality and perceived OT abortion issues? Why not fight to the death about shrimp if you're going to be consistent? Or facial hair? It's the epitome of cherry picking and it's so hypocritical it's almost beyond comprehension of any reasonably intelligent person. 2) The second point is Christians are wrong about the OT's current lack of relevance besides anything but a history text. It's THEIR bible and their god and you know why? Jews do. YOUR god states pretty damn strongly that he is the LORD God and HE DOES NOT CHANGE! Not then, not in the first century (CE), not today. So morons, just because you think Jesus is a better, different version of God, you're wrong on two counts because your god states unequivocally he does NOT change and Jesus (God) was NOT about peace and love, but he stated he came [to earth] bringing a sword as he intended to destroy the family unit and turn family member against family member while also instructing his disciples to go out and buy swords. That wasn't for catching fish. 3) Your god does NOT say life begins at conception and using that entity and the holy book you don't read as justification for that assertion and the evil acts you do is dead wrong. I don't have time to look the OT passage up (it may be in Isiah, but it's been months since I read it -- on my 18th reading of the entire bible from front to back), but you can look it up yourselves. Many/most traditional/orthodox Jews are pro-choice because there is a passage in "their" OT bible where God is attributed with instructing the chosen people that Life Begins At Birth -- NOT conception! Doubt me? Upon birth, God breathes the Breath of Life into a newborn. Not in the womb, not in some magical holding place where spirits wait to get little bodies one day. You don't like what you just read? Not my problem, not my fault. It's YOUR god, your religion, your holy book -- not mine. Many believe the Bible is the "inherent word of God" (and seeing their theologian apologists twist hard to explain the millions of contradictions top meet that standard is hilarious; one quick example is asking which creation story/myth do you believe and why? What, I'm the fool who thinks there's more than one? Um, read the first two chapters of Genesis and you'll find two different creation myths, so WHICH IS IT if the bible is the "inherent word of God?")
Ok, almost back to the book except I still haven't made my extreme theoretical point I mentioned long ago to drive that example in harder about Brown's reliance on the Christian Bible for his moral code to justify his belief and actions regarding slavery. What if he were as devout as is claimed but instead of slavery (or the homosexual example I provided), he felt just as strongly about the Old Testament commandment that children are to obey and honor their parents so that if they somehow fail, all families (Abrahemic monotheists -- such as Christians) are instructed to take them out and stone them to death? What, crazy? Don't believe me? Read the damn Bible, the OT, cause that's in there! And yes, it's a crazy example, but that was my intent.)
So if John Brown, relying on his Puritanical religious background and belief system did not decide to take on slavery but instead felt just as strongly about the previous example commandment, we wouldn't have clubs and erect statues in his honor then if he had gone around stoning kids to death for back talking their parents! Thus while I essentially admire and support his conviction and legacy, if not his actions, it's because I believe them to be morally correct. But I fear that if he had chosen a different controversial issue to engage in the same type of actions and outcomes using his religion to justify everything, I would seriously hate his guts and any legacy he left, because he could have become a Christian Hitler -- basically what most current American evangelicals want out of Donald Trump and his fascist, white christian nationalist ilk as they proudly scream publicly that they intend to "exterminate" all minorities, immigrants (despite ALL of them coming from immigrants themselves), people of color, non-"Christians" (as if they know a damn thing about their religion, as I've repeatedly proven within a minute of talking to any of them), and most especially Democrats, progressives, liberals, etc., or simply everyone not like them. Do you see my point? He did the right thing, but he justified it with the wrong source, because that same source was used to justify the very reason he basically went to war, as well as millions of other historic atrocities in general, so he could simply have used that same source and "moral code" allegedly arising from it to justify any violent actions to and against anyone for any reason. And that has always bothered me about any such person and a legacy I otherwise admire as I, too, call him a true patriot. Thank goodness he actually acted more as a humanist -- dare I say secular humanist? -- than a stereotypical monotheistic religionist, because then he might have become a historical monster just as Hitler did as he (and Mussolini) made deals with the Pope to protect the Pope's constituents provided the Pope supported, or at least remained silent, about what they were freaking doing. Oh, and I think I recall that Hitler grew up Catholic while many of the soldiers in the German Wehrmacht were devout Lutherans. Under the belief they were acting on behalf of Christianity and the Christian god while becoming devils (metaphorically) in the process.
I feel John Brown did the right thing and I admire him, and I admire his absolute commitment and the moral code he had in order to do what I and many others view as "the right thing" in fighting against slavery and freeing slaves. Yet I worry a part of me will always be bothered that his Calvinistic religious beliefs could instead have been twisted, much like many claim Islamic jihadists have, while showing the same level of commitment to other religious commandments as he chose to interpret them... Anyway, this book? It's one of the better books on Brown that I've read. Definitely recommended.
(And just to drive that example in harder to make my point while also being 100% accurate in my descriptions of most influential US Christians today, what if he felt so strongly about "The [Jewish] Law" -- because Jesus is quoted as stating he came to [earth] to abide by and follow The Law, a fact that is conveniently glossed over by nearly every Christian alive as they tell everyone that while the assertions that homosexuality is an "abominable sin" a seen in the Sodom story -- in the Old Testament ("the JEWISH Bible") -- and some are willing to kill over that (as well as abortion, a) neither of which Jesus ever mentioned while instructing his followers to care for the old, sick and poor over 160 times in the Gospels and b) I'll probably get shot for writing this, but the majority of practicing Jews are pro-choice and they are because they are largely convinced that the Judaeo-Christian god is NOT opposed to it and hence it (essentially) pro--choice himself (sorry f0r the male pronoun). Before you firebomb my house, I know you Christians violently disagree, and for over 50 years one major reason I've heard my whole life is that it's "Murder" (and millions of babies have been murdered because of it) ... why? Because naturally life begins at conception, and of course God certainly made it that way, so we need to harass women who may be seeking one and kill doctors who perform them. Right? Uh, no. And you don't know why because Christians not only don't read their holy book, the Bible (they read convenient little devotionals with a couple of verses instead), but they sure as hell don't read the Old Testament because it's obsolete and doesn't count cause it's the "Jewish Bible" and the "angry" god of the OT changed to the Jesus/God of love and peace in the New Testament (which is an entirely different topic, but they're wrong about that too, per his own words, but since they don't read their bibles, they don't know that).
Well, let's address several things so I can return to John Brown. 1) If the Old Testament no longer counts (and I've heard that from hundreds to thousands of conservative Christians around the world -- it is not a minority belief), then why fight to the death over OT homosexuality and perceived OT abortion issues? Why not fight to the death about shrimp if you're going to be consistent? Or facial hair? It's the epitome of cherry picking and it's so hypocritical it's almost beyond comprehension of any reasonably intelligent person. 2) The second point is Christians are wrong about the OT's current lack of relevance besides anything but a history text. It's THEIR bible and their god and you know why? Jews do. YOUR god states pretty damn strongly that he is the LORD God and HE DOES NOT CHANGE! Not then, not in the first century (CE), not today. So morons, just because you think Jesus is a better, different version of God, you're wrong on two counts because your god states unequivocally he does NOT change and Jesus (God) was NOT about peace and love, but he stated he came [to earth] bringing a sword as he intended to destroy the family unit and turn family member against family member while also instructing his disciples to go out and buy swords. That wasn't for catching fish. 3) Your god does NOT say life begins at conception and using that entity and the holy book you don't read as justification for that assertion and the evil acts you do is dead wrong. I don't have time to look the OT passage up (it may be in Isiah, but it's been months since I read it -- on my 18th reading of the entire bible from front to back), but you can look it up yourselves. Many/most traditional/orthodox Jews are pro-choice because there is a passage in "their" OT bible where God is attributed with instructing the chosen people that Life Begins At Birth -- NOT conception! Doubt me? Upon birth, God breathes the Breath of Life into a newborn. Not in the womb, not in some magical holding place where spirits wait to get little bodies one day. You don't like what you just read? Not my problem, not my fault. It's YOUR god, your religion, your holy book -- not mine. Many believe the Bible is the "inherent word of God" (and seeing their theologian apologists twist hard to explain the millions of contradictions top meet that standard is hilarious; one quick example is asking which creation story/myth do you believe and why? What, I'm the fool who thinks there's more than one? Um, read the first two chapters of Genesis and you'll find two different creation myths, so WHICH IS IT if the bible is the "inherent word of God?")
Ok, almost back to the book except I still haven't made my extreme theoretical point I mentioned long ago to drive that example in harder about Brown's reliance on the Christian Bible for his moral code to justify his belief and actions regarding slavery. What if he were as devout as is claimed but instead of slavery (or the homosexual example I provided), he felt just as strongly about the Old Testament commandment that children are to obey and honor their parents so that if they somehow fail, all families (Abrahemic monotheists -- such as Christians) are instructed to take them out and stone them to death? What, crazy? Don't believe me? Read the damn Bible, the OT, cause that's in there! And yes, it's a crazy example, but that was my intent.)
So if John Brown, relying on his Puritanical religious background and belief system did not decide to take on slavery but instead felt just as strongly about the previous example commandment, we wouldn't have clubs and erect statues in his honor then if he had gone around stoning kids to death for back talking their parents! Thus while I essentially admire and support his conviction and legacy, if not his actions, it's because I believe them to be morally correct. But I fear that if he had chosen a different controversial issue to engage in the same type of actions and outcomes using his religion to justify everything, I would seriously hate his guts and any legacy he left, because he could have become a Christian Hitler -- basically what most current American evangelicals want out of Donald Trump and his fascist, white christian nationalist ilk as they proudly scream publicly that they intend to "exterminate" all minorities, immigrants (despite ALL of them coming from immigrants themselves), people of color, non-"Christians" (as if they know a damn thing about their religion, as I've repeatedly proven within a minute of talking to any of them), and most especially Democrats, progressives, liberals, etc., or simply everyone not like them. Do you see my point? He did the right thing, but he justified it with the wrong source, because that same source was used to justify the very reason he basically went to war, as well as millions of other historic atrocities in general, so he could simply have used that same source and "moral code" allegedly arising from it to justify any violent actions to and against anyone for any reason. And that has always bothered me about any such person and a legacy I otherwise admire as I, too, call him a true patriot. Thank goodness he actually acted more as a humanist -- dare I say secular humanist? -- than a stereotypical monotheistic religionist, because then he might have become a historical monster just as Hitler did as he (and Mussolini) made deals with the Pope to protect the Pope's constituents provided the Pope supported, or at least remained silent, about what they were freaking doing. Oh, and I think I recall that Hitler grew up Catholic while many of the soldiers in the German Wehrmacht were devout Lutherans. Under the belief they were acting on behalf of Christianity and the Christian god while becoming devils (metaphorically) in the process.
I feel John Brown did the right thing and I admire him, and I admire his absolute commitment and the moral code he had in order to do what I and many others view as "the right thing" in fighting against slavery and freeing slaves. Yet I worry a part of me will always be bothered that his Calvinistic religious beliefs could instead have been twisted, much like many claim Islamic jihadists have, while showing the same level of commitment to other religious commandments as he chose to interpret them... Anyway, this book? It's one of the better books on Brown that I've read. Definitely recommended.
April 2, 2010
I saw this book sitting on the "new" shelf at the public library and picked it up on a whim. I knew very little about John Brown prior to reading this book - so little, in fact, that I thought his ill-fated raid at Harper's Ferry was a one-off. Boy, was I in for a surprise!
This is definitely one of my top reads so far this year. Carton does an amazing job of bringing John Brown to life in the pages of this book. Brown was a radical abolitionist for most of his life - from his early teenage years on. For most of his life, his home was a station on the Underground Railroad. He earned the respect of many of the leading abolitionist of the time - including the ones who were of color, who were generally wary of any white person. He also fought hard (and dirty) in the battle for Kansas - determined to ensure that it would enter the country as a non-slavery state.
The thing I found most touching was how deeply rooted Brown's abolitionist views were in his strong religious faith. He did not patronize the slaves as many abolitionists did. He truly saw them as equals and viewed their enslavement as a crime against all humanity. I think the world could use more people like that.
One story in particular has stayed with me since I read it weeks ago. As a young boy, one of Brown's sons was misbehaving frequently. Father and son sat down, had a discussion, and determined what an appropriate number of lashes would be for the boy's punishment. They cut a sapling and Brown administered the lashings - but only half. The other half, he insisted, were for himself. As the father, he said, some of the fault was his own for not raising a better child. And so, his son had to give him the rest of the lashes. The boy never misbehaved again.
Ultimately, I think that Brown was somewhat misguided, and his hands were certainly not clean. He was flawed, like anyone. He left a trail of debts throughout the country, and both killed people and lead people - including his own sons - into situations where they would be killed.
The raid on Harper's Ferry was probably destined to fail no matter what. But Carton makes a good case that Brown probably knew this, and proceeded with the raid in the hopes that the subsequent commotion it stirred up would bring the abolition argument. If this was indeed his intention, he was successful, because it wasn't much longer after that that the Civil War began.
This book is surprisingly easy to read for such a heavy topic.
This is definitely one of my top reads so far this year. Carton does an amazing job of bringing John Brown to life in the pages of this book. Brown was a radical abolitionist for most of his life - from his early teenage years on. For most of his life, his home was a station on the Underground Railroad. He earned the respect of many of the leading abolitionist of the time - including the ones who were of color, who were generally wary of any white person. He also fought hard (and dirty) in the battle for Kansas - determined to ensure that it would enter the country as a non-slavery state.
The thing I found most touching was how deeply rooted Brown's abolitionist views were in his strong religious faith. He did not patronize the slaves as many abolitionists did. He truly saw them as equals and viewed their enslavement as a crime against all humanity. I think the world could use more people like that.
One story in particular has stayed with me since I read it weeks ago. As a young boy, one of Brown's sons was misbehaving frequently. Father and son sat down, had a discussion, and determined what an appropriate number of lashes would be for the boy's punishment. They cut a sapling and Brown administered the lashings - but only half. The other half, he insisted, were for himself. As the father, he said, some of the fault was his own for not raising a better child. And so, his son had to give him the rest of the lashes. The boy never misbehaved again.
Ultimately, I think that Brown was somewhat misguided, and his hands were certainly not clean. He was flawed, like anyone. He left a trail of debts throughout the country, and both killed people and lead people - including his own sons - into situations where they would be killed.
The raid on Harper's Ferry was probably destined to fail no matter what. But Carton makes a good case that Brown probably knew this, and proceeded with the raid in the hopes that the subsequent commotion it stirred up would bring the abolition argument. If this was indeed his intention, he was successful, because it wasn't much longer after that that the Civil War began.
This book is surprisingly easy to read for such a heavy topic.
June 10, 2017
Nice history, even if a little boring. You only hear casual mentions of John Brown, even when you go to Harpers Ferry. "And here is where John Brown tried to raid the United States arsenal in 1859." Um, excuse me, what?
But there was a lot more to it than that, of course. Just like Brown's actions could be considered one of the events that set the Civil War in motion, there was a lot of other events that led him to that point. I found the details of his life and his passion to abolish slavery, as well as his many business interests and travels pretty fascinating. From Kansas to Ohio twice in a year was no small feat back in the day. It did get a little slow in parts, but of course picked up towards the end. Interesting to learn he considered Frederick Douglass a friend, and that he had 18 children with two wives!
But there was a lot more to it than that, of course. Just like Brown's actions could be considered one of the events that set the Civil War in motion, there was a lot of other events that led him to that point. I found the details of his life and his passion to abolish slavery, as well as his many business interests and travels pretty fascinating. From Kansas to Ohio twice in a year was no small feat back in the day. It did get a little slow in parts, but of course picked up towards the end. Interesting to learn he considered Frederick Douglass a friend, and that he had 18 children with two wives!
November 28, 2018
I know there are some historians that take issue with the selectivity of the authors framing of John Browns life in a more or less positive light. However, I really enjoyed this book as it gave a very good picture of the whole life of a man that most of us have only been told was "the crazy guy that started the Civil War by attacking an army base". Clearly there was more to his story and the tableau that lead our country to that great conflict, and this book does a great job of showing both.
June 15, 2014
First, I liked this book. It was a good book. It had new information and good presentation and occasional moments of insight. It discusses Brown's time in Kansas, which no other book seems to, and spares no effort to examine his motivations and get inside his head.
But. I hate to say it, this book contains actual mistakes. For example, the first person killed in the raid was not Shepherd Heyward. It was Heyward Shepherd. It may not sound important, but when you realize that his death is probably the single piece of bad fortune that doomed the raid it is actually a little bit more important. Heyward Shepherd died as a sacrifice to the gods of Murphy, to prove that we live in a world where nothing perfect is allowed and nothing may occur without error. So why shouldn't Carton get his name backwards? No reason, except that it proves he didn't edit his own book closely. There are a lot of other odd oversights in this book; the way he has John Cook in many places at once comes to mind.
On the other hand, this book takes the most logical and natural path, and it's a path that most other authors seemed to have missed. John Brown has been described as one of the most representative men of the 19th century. Heck, he was even born in 1800. His life weaved through all the major events of the early 19th century in America, from the terrible winter of 1816 to the Jackson years, the Panic of 1837, the Mexican War, and finally the Dred Scott Decision and the Sumner Caning. It makes perfect sense to start on Brown's birthday and follow through until his death immediately before the Civil War. Why don't more authors do that?
Curiously, Brown had personal interactions with three presidents, and the one who first put a price on his head was the same one who had saved his lieutenant from execution. I guess the Presidents lived closer to the citizens back then.
Carton gets closer to explaining what Brown accomplished than most, and he also does better at showing at least part of the strategic misstep that led Brown to his doom. Why *did* Brown linger and fight after taking the weapons? Why didn't the slaves rise to help him?
Well, one reason was that they accidentally shot Heyward Shepherd.
But. I hate to say it, this book contains actual mistakes. For example, the first person killed in the raid was not Shepherd Heyward. It was Heyward Shepherd. It may not sound important, but when you realize that his death is probably the single piece of bad fortune that doomed the raid it is actually a little bit more important. Heyward Shepherd died as a sacrifice to the gods of Murphy, to prove that we live in a world where nothing perfect is allowed and nothing may occur without error. So why shouldn't Carton get his name backwards? No reason, except that it proves he didn't edit his own book closely. There are a lot of other odd oversights in this book; the way he has John Cook in many places at once comes to mind.
On the other hand, this book takes the most logical and natural path, and it's a path that most other authors seemed to have missed. John Brown has been described as one of the most representative men of the 19th century. Heck, he was even born in 1800. His life weaved through all the major events of the early 19th century in America, from the terrible winter of 1816 to the Jackson years, the Panic of 1837, the Mexican War, and finally the Dred Scott Decision and the Sumner Caning. It makes perfect sense to start on Brown's birthday and follow through until his death immediately before the Civil War. Why don't more authors do that?
Curiously, Brown had personal interactions with three presidents, and the one who first put a price on his head was the same one who had saved his lieutenant from execution. I guess the Presidents lived closer to the citizens back then.
Carton gets closer to explaining what Brown accomplished than most, and he also does better at showing at least part of the strategic misstep that led Brown to his doom. Why *did* Brown linger and fight after taking the weapons? Why didn't the slaves rise to help him?
Well, one reason was that they accidentally shot Heyward Shepherd.
Read
July 12, 2024A thought-provoking book on the life of the man who may have sparked the American Civil War. It's easy to assume John Brown must have been some lawless ruffian or perhaps a madman with a cult following. Here, Brown is portrayed as thoughtful and intelligent, passionate about Christ and the Bible, a capable businessman, a loving husband, a caring father, and someone who eventually felt compelled to live out his ideals--in his words, that of loving his neighbor and standing up for the oppressed.
It turns out there was a lot more to John Brown than the events at Harper's Ferry, including his early involvement in the Underground Railroad, his relationships with abolitionist heroes like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, and his endeavors to make Kansas a free state. His plan to free the South may have been foolhardy, but the man himself ought not be easily dismissed.
It turns out there was a lot more to John Brown than the events at Harper's Ferry, including his early involvement in the Underground Railroad, his relationships with abolitionist heroes like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, and his endeavors to make Kansas a free state. His plan to free the South may have been foolhardy, but the man himself ought not be easily dismissed.
August 8, 2015
A mural of John Brown graces my blog, mostly because, well, he has a heck of a beard. But I've long viewed Brown as something of a psychopath--a glazed eye zealot who happened to mis-serve the right cause. I remember this from high school history, and a few ventures onto wikipedia.
This excellent, highly readable, and well-documented historical narrative of his life shifted my viewpoint. It humanizes Brown, giving real insights into his character through contemporary records and Brown's own writing. It's fascinating, particularly in light of America's recent rediscovery of the problem of race, for a range of reasons. First and foremost, it highlights a peculiar truth about John Brown. The reason he acted as he did was quite simply that he did not see race as a valid category. It meant nothing to him. "Black" and "white" meant not a thing to him, and seeing other human beings systematically enslaved and degraded stirred him to act in ways that were often not rational, but always principled.
Had Brown viewed truth as relative or culturally mediated, he would never have put his life on the line for those who were different.
It's a solid, carefully researched book, well worth reading.
This excellent, highly readable, and well-documented historical narrative of his life shifted my viewpoint. It humanizes Brown, giving real insights into his character through contemporary records and Brown's own writing. It's fascinating, particularly in light of America's recent rediscovery of the problem of race, for a range of reasons. First and foremost, it highlights a peculiar truth about John Brown. The reason he acted as he did was quite simply that he did not see race as a valid category. It meant nothing to him. "Black" and "white" meant not a thing to him, and seeing other human beings systematically enslaved and degraded stirred him to act in ways that were often not rational, but always principled.
Had Brown viewed truth as relative or culturally mediated, he would never have put his life on the line for those who were different.
It's a solid, carefully researched book, well worth reading.
May 7, 2012
Very interesting read. This story would make a great movie. Truly truth is stranger than fiction which is why I really enjoy non-fiction.
I realize this is one person's interpretation of the events surrounding Harpers Ferry and John Brown, but he makes a strong case for this episode from the past being a major driver towards the Civil War. And he drove it there deliberately, believing there was no alternative.
In thinking about it, this seemed to be the 19th century version of 9/11 - very loosely - because of the impact it had on the way people saw some major issues.
Today's people either do not know John Brown, or think he was black, or think he was mentally ill. Just hearing the facts of his story would make you think he was unbalanced, which was the high level view I had before. But this good read fleshed out the man, made him understandable and very admirable.
I realize this is one person's interpretation of the events surrounding Harpers Ferry and John Brown, but he makes a strong case for this episode from the past being a major driver towards the Civil War. And he drove it there deliberately, believing there was no alternative.
In thinking about it, this seemed to be the 19th century version of 9/11 - very loosely - because of the impact it had on the way people saw some major issues.
Today's people either do not know John Brown, or think he was black, or think he was mentally ill. Just hearing the facts of his story would make you think he was unbalanced, which was the high level view I had before. But this good read fleshed out the man, made him understandable and very admirable.
September 24, 2014
While there is no possible way to gloss over his brutally violent history in Kansas, John Brown is one of those polarizing characters that has been largely vindicated by history. This book is an amazingly detailed and intimate retelling of his life. It provided insight into the political and moral arguments over slavery and African-Americans in the 1850s, much beyond what is usually presented in historical texts (which tend to either be oversimplified or focus on the economic aspects). The raid on Harper's Ferry is actually a relatively minor portion of the book, which tends more to focus on the life and ideas of John Brown, including his relationship with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. There is also an immense focus on the Brown's interpretation and implementation of Christianity, which was a key part of his ideology and shared by almost no one at the time.
February 1, 2010
This is a hard read and a hard subject - but I learned a lot about abolition not as lived by Washington insiders, but as lived by a white man driven to right the injustice of slavery. His religious life is very offputting 150 years later, but he was thoughtful and intentional in trying to right what he saw as the wost wrong a society could have - putting production above right treaetment of other people. In the book it mentions that he was the only white man in America who treated blacks as equal and was treated the same by them. He was truely friends with Frederic Douglas, which is not true of any other emancipation figures. A lightning rod of a personality whose actions changed America more than any non-elected person in our history.
October 4, 2011
This is an exceptional look at the life of John Brown. Carton's book is well-researched, paying special attention to the Brown family's correspondence, giving a slightly different, more personal feel to the subject.
The narrative is like the best thrillers. I kept turning pages, wanting to know more--even though I knew how the story ended.
If you are interested in the life of John Brown--one of the most intriguing, controversial, and complex figures in American history--I highly recommend PATRIOTIC TREASON.
The narrative is like the best thrillers. I kept turning pages, wanting to know more--even though I knew how the story ended.
If you are interested in the life of John Brown--one of the most intriguing, controversial, and complex figures in American history--I highly recommend PATRIOTIC TREASON.
July 4, 2018
This is an excellent biography of John Brown that does an excellent job of helping the reader to understand the man not as a lunatic, religious fanatic, or fool but as the complicated and in many ways exemplary individual that he was. In reading this book, I felt that I learned a great deal about Brown and the times in which he lived and yet the book has also prompted me to learn still more about Brown from other sources. Highly recommended.
August 28, 2017
Evan Carton provides an intricate and exploratory biographical sketch of an abolitionist, who played a key role in the anti-slavery movement. Patriotic Treason weaves through the life of John Brown and compels the reader to fully examine his humanity through his life story that marked his course of action to assist in the abolishment of a crime inflicted upon the African race. Carton's narrative style provides an intimate view into John Brown's lens of patriotism.
February 14, 2008
A biography of the historical John Brown. The author does a fantastic job of getting to the soul of the famous abolitionist radical; showing that he was no more terrorist than many of this country's founding fathers, while, not glossing over his crimes and eccentricities. John Brown is most definitely my favorite historical figure.
May 11, 2012
Really enjoyed this one. I'd say it's a 4.5er. Carton did a wonderful job providing a fair and objective look at John Brown. In school, I learned that he was a crazy killer. He was definitely more Malcolm X than MLK Jr., but he was a loving person that just wanted to do his part to free slaves.
January 15, 2015
An awesome biography of a man who humbly marched through life's failures until he quietly became the match that lit the powder keg of the Civil War. John Brown was no mad man, but an American driven by the essence of patriotism and a man with a moral and wholly mortal destiny.
July 29, 2016
This is probably one of the best biographies I've ever read, and I've read a lot of biographies. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, it truly does its subject justice.
May 20, 2015
What are we to make of John Brown and his impact on the tensions between North and South that led to secession and war? The conceptions of him held by historians are far from alike. Was he a madman whose fanaticism on the issue of slavery culminated in his ill-conceived, suicidal raid on the Harper’s Ferry Armory? Was his belief that the raid would spark a general uprising of slaves completely delusional? In light of the growing rancor between the North and the South was Brown and his action just a bizarre footnote to the major events of the time? Or, was he a calculating strategist who knew that no matter how the raid turned out its consequences would bring the continuation of slavery to the boiling point? Did his plan, whether he intended it or not, actually hasten the South to the brink of dissolving the union?
The acrimonious sectional issues confronting the free and slave states were manifold and complex. It would be a mistake, I think, to consider Brown’s actions to be the spark that lit the tinder of discord. But it would be equally wrong to consider him a half-crazed fanatic whose wild schemes, which were largely viewed with disdain both North and South, had inconsequential impact on pushing the sides further apart.
Carton’s excellent history of John Brown – aptly subtitled “John Brown and the Soul of America” – gives insights into these questions. Brown’s views on slavery stemmed from his deeply held religious sensibility that human bondage was morally corrupt and completely contrary to biblical and Christian principles. Brown believed that the only proper solution to slavery was its complete abolition and the immediate freeing of those held in it. Brown knew all the leading lights of the abolitionist movement. Most of them shared with Brown that abolition was morally imperative for the nation (and that dissolving the union if this did not occur was warranted), but Brown held the view that action – even violent action – was the justifiable, and only possibly effective, path to take. Brown had little sympathy for the notion that moral reprobation could ever bring about the end of slavery. Brown was respected by abolitionist leaders, if somewhat uneasy about his advocacy of extreme action. One characteristic of Brown not always shared his contemporaries opposed to slavery was his genuine belief in the equality of the races; many who wished slavery to end were quite racist in their social attitudes toward blacks (e.g. Abraham Lincoln, for one).
In the years leading up to Harper’s Ferry, Brown took actions that affirmed his approach to freeing the slaves. He established and supported an inter-racial community in the Adirondack Mountains where blacks and whites cooperated in farming ventures. He had many meetings and interactions with abolitionist leaders in Massachusetts and New York, including Frederick Douglass, Franklin Sanborn and Gerrit Smith. He was active in the Underground Railroad, aiding many runaway slaves on the route to Canada. He organized free blacks into a defense league to protect escaped slaves from the bounty hunters that came into being after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
It was in the Kansas Territory where Brown gained national notoriety. Kansas was a hotbed of Free State and pro-slavery contention among its settlers. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 stipulated, in repeal of the provisions of the Missouri compromise of 1820, that the settlers of federal territories could decide through popular vote whether a newly-admitted state would be slave or free. This brought on a bitter and bloody fight between the factions, including frequent violent incursion from pro-slavery “ruffians” from neighboring Missouri. Brown followed several of his sons who had moved to Kansas and soon became a leader in counter attacks against the ruffians and pro-slavery settlers. He gained wide attention after a midnight raid where he and his sons slaughtered several of their pro-slavery neighbors. He also gained press attention for his defense of Free State settlements, earning the sobriquet “Osawatomie Brown” and a reputation for fierceness. Incredibly, despite being a wanted man for his acts in Kansas he continued to move about the country without being apprehended, often making public appearances, giving lectures and meeting with abolitionist leaders.
There are several important aspects of his Kansas experience that inform thinking about his later actions. He was largely successful in his use of violence to thwart proponents of slavery; in other words, he found that this tactic worked. He gained public attention that helped raise funds for subsequent endeavors against slavery. While in Kansas and Missouri he freed a number of slaves through force and spirited them to freedom in the North. All this reinforced his sense that violent action could successfully end slavery, that the slave holders would capitulate when confronted with more than words.
Brown concluded that slaves were willing, even eager, to rise up against their masters. He had seen that violence could break slavery’s proponents so he concluded that slaves would march to this cause given the occasion and leadership to do so. For this to happen he determined to take the fight to the heart of slavery – the slave states, not territorial peripheries like Kansas. While he was able to raise a moderate amount of money to support a campaign (he was vague about what and where) he was largely unsuccessful in recruiting a significant number of adherents. A recruiting foray into free black communities in Canada produced no results. He attempted to recruit Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman into active participation, but both demurred.
The seizure of the armory was over within hours, its failure hastened by significant tactical mistakes and stimulating no uprising of slaves in the region.
How do all of these events suggest interpretation of the ultimate impact of Brown on the North-South rift? In my view his insurrection created reverberations that inflamed the simmering hostility of the South and advanced the budding notion that disunion was an attractive solution. The South had been moving ever stronger to the idea that there were powerful elements in the North determined to interfere with or eliminate slavery, despite its Constitutional protections. The political bickering over the expansion of slavery into the territories suggested to Southerners that the North was intent on strangling slavery in its existing states. Moreover, despite the slave owners’ paternalistic portrayal of slaves content with their lot, the specter of slave revolt was a deep fear among slave holders. The 1831 uprising of Nat Turner when dozens of whites were slaughtered lingered long in Southern memory. The successful slave rebellion in Haiti evoked fear that the same could happen in the United States.
Into this atmosphere of hypersensitivity stepped John Brown whose intention, and action, to incite a slave revolt confirmed Southerners’ fears. In the inquiry that followed the failed raid documents revealed that Brown had written a constitution that would establish a new and free country within the South as an autonomous entity. He clearly was linked to abolitionists whose avowed aim was to deprive Southerners of their lawful property. Brown used the period of his incarceration and trial to make public impassioned statements of the immorality of slavery and its demise being achievable only through violence. It is clear from his statements that he believed that attention to the anti-slavery cause was greatly enhanced by his raid on Harper’s Ferry even though the raid utterly failed. The notoriety of the event certainly reinforced Southern notions that the impingement of the North on their institutions was malevolent and inevitable, that political reconciliation was unlikely. There was widespread public condemnation of Brown’s insurrection throughout the country, but the sense that slavery’s continued existence was the root cause and only its elimination would resolve the conflict took hold, especially in the thinking of Southern leaders.
I think it is fair to conclude John Brown gave the ball already rolling down the slope toward disunion a shove that increased its speed.
The acrimonious sectional issues confronting the free and slave states were manifold and complex. It would be a mistake, I think, to consider Brown’s actions to be the spark that lit the tinder of discord. But it would be equally wrong to consider him a half-crazed fanatic whose wild schemes, which were largely viewed with disdain both North and South, had inconsequential impact on pushing the sides further apart.
Carton’s excellent history of John Brown – aptly subtitled “John Brown and the Soul of America” – gives insights into these questions. Brown’s views on slavery stemmed from his deeply held religious sensibility that human bondage was morally corrupt and completely contrary to biblical and Christian principles. Brown believed that the only proper solution to slavery was its complete abolition and the immediate freeing of those held in it. Brown knew all the leading lights of the abolitionist movement. Most of them shared with Brown that abolition was morally imperative for the nation (and that dissolving the union if this did not occur was warranted), but Brown held the view that action – even violent action – was the justifiable, and only possibly effective, path to take. Brown had little sympathy for the notion that moral reprobation could ever bring about the end of slavery. Brown was respected by abolitionist leaders, if somewhat uneasy about his advocacy of extreme action. One characteristic of Brown not always shared his contemporaries opposed to slavery was his genuine belief in the equality of the races; many who wished slavery to end were quite racist in their social attitudes toward blacks (e.g. Abraham Lincoln, for one).
In the years leading up to Harper’s Ferry, Brown took actions that affirmed his approach to freeing the slaves. He established and supported an inter-racial community in the Adirondack Mountains where blacks and whites cooperated in farming ventures. He had many meetings and interactions with abolitionist leaders in Massachusetts and New York, including Frederick Douglass, Franklin Sanborn and Gerrit Smith. He was active in the Underground Railroad, aiding many runaway slaves on the route to Canada. He organized free blacks into a defense league to protect escaped slaves from the bounty hunters that came into being after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
It was in the Kansas Territory where Brown gained national notoriety. Kansas was a hotbed of Free State and pro-slavery contention among its settlers. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 stipulated, in repeal of the provisions of the Missouri compromise of 1820, that the settlers of federal territories could decide through popular vote whether a newly-admitted state would be slave or free. This brought on a bitter and bloody fight between the factions, including frequent violent incursion from pro-slavery “ruffians” from neighboring Missouri. Brown followed several of his sons who had moved to Kansas and soon became a leader in counter attacks against the ruffians and pro-slavery settlers. He gained wide attention after a midnight raid where he and his sons slaughtered several of their pro-slavery neighbors. He also gained press attention for his defense of Free State settlements, earning the sobriquet “Osawatomie Brown” and a reputation for fierceness. Incredibly, despite being a wanted man for his acts in Kansas he continued to move about the country without being apprehended, often making public appearances, giving lectures and meeting with abolitionist leaders.
There are several important aspects of his Kansas experience that inform thinking about his later actions. He was largely successful in his use of violence to thwart proponents of slavery; in other words, he found that this tactic worked. He gained public attention that helped raise funds for subsequent endeavors against slavery. While in Kansas and Missouri he freed a number of slaves through force and spirited them to freedom in the North. All this reinforced his sense that violent action could successfully end slavery, that the slave holders would capitulate when confronted with more than words.
Brown concluded that slaves were willing, even eager, to rise up against their masters. He had seen that violence could break slavery’s proponents so he concluded that slaves would march to this cause given the occasion and leadership to do so. For this to happen he determined to take the fight to the heart of slavery – the slave states, not territorial peripheries like Kansas. While he was able to raise a moderate amount of money to support a campaign (he was vague about what and where) he was largely unsuccessful in recruiting a significant number of adherents. A recruiting foray into free black communities in Canada produced no results. He attempted to recruit Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman into active participation, but both demurred.
The seizure of the armory was over within hours, its failure hastened by significant tactical mistakes and stimulating no uprising of slaves in the region.
How do all of these events suggest interpretation of the ultimate impact of Brown on the North-South rift? In my view his insurrection created reverberations that inflamed the simmering hostility of the South and advanced the budding notion that disunion was an attractive solution. The South had been moving ever stronger to the idea that there were powerful elements in the North determined to interfere with or eliminate slavery, despite its Constitutional protections. The political bickering over the expansion of slavery into the territories suggested to Southerners that the North was intent on strangling slavery in its existing states. Moreover, despite the slave owners’ paternalistic portrayal of slaves content with their lot, the specter of slave revolt was a deep fear among slave holders. The 1831 uprising of Nat Turner when dozens of whites were slaughtered lingered long in Southern memory. The successful slave rebellion in Haiti evoked fear that the same could happen in the United States.
Into this atmosphere of hypersensitivity stepped John Brown whose intention, and action, to incite a slave revolt confirmed Southerners’ fears. In the inquiry that followed the failed raid documents revealed that Brown had written a constitution that would establish a new and free country within the South as an autonomous entity. He clearly was linked to abolitionists whose avowed aim was to deprive Southerners of their lawful property. Brown used the period of his incarceration and trial to make public impassioned statements of the immorality of slavery and its demise being achievable only through violence. It is clear from his statements that he believed that attention to the anti-slavery cause was greatly enhanced by his raid on Harper’s Ferry even though the raid utterly failed. The notoriety of the event certainly reinforced Southern notions that the impingement of the North on their institutions was malevolent and inevitable, that political reconciliation was unlikely. There was widespread public condemnation of Brown’s insurrection throughout the country, but the sense that slavery’s continued existence was the root cause and only its elimination would resolve the conflict took hold, especially in the thinking of Southern leaders.
I think it is fair to conclude John Brown gave the ball already rolling down the slope toward disunion a shove that increased its speed.
February 26, 2024
In a story where truth is stranger than fiction, this book does an incredible job of telling the amazing tale of a man before his time. John Brown believed that the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence meant the same thing, and that all people were equal, regardless of race or gender. His father, Owen Brown, was active in the abolitionist community. John Brown followed suit; he, his wife and children were active in the Underground Railroad for years, using the nature of his work to actively transport and hide escaping slaves. The laws of the land became increasing pro-slavery, with the President of the United States Franklin Pierce making it treason to be anti-slavery. When John Brown’s sons moved to Kansas, they discovered that mercenaries from Missouri were using violent means to try to prevent people with anti-slavery sentiment from entering the state, and/or staying there, and committing massive voter fraud to ensure that Kansas would be a pro-slavery state. They wrote to their dad for help. John Brown went to Kansas (he had a half-sister in Osawatomie, which is how he became known as Osawatomie Brown). Although by this time most of his children no longer believed in God, the entire family was still united in their belief that it was their duty to fight slavery, “the sum of all villainies”. He and several of his sons killed the 5 most abusive pro-slavers, which put a bounty on his head, but also changed the dynamic because for the first time the anti-slavery side employed the same tactics as the pro-slavers. The fighting went on for several years and the state was dubbed “Bleeding Kansas.” Feeling that they needed to bring an end to slavery, John Brown, several of his sons, sons-in-law and a few others staged a raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in 1859, with the hope that they could arm the slaves to participate in their own emancipation. Everyone in the raid died (either at Harper’s Ferry or subsequently executed for treason). The last note that John Brown wrote, which he handed to one of his guards on the way to his execution December 2, 1859, read: “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.” It’s believed that the Harper’s Ferry raid led to the decision by the South to vote in 1861 to secede despite Lincoln saying that he felt he neither had the right nor the interest to end slavery. Many people erroneously believe that John Brown was either Black or crazy. Rather, John Brown and his entire family were willing to sacrifice everything to help end slavery because they felt it was their duty to do so (“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2017
John Brown is too complex a figure in American history to ever be deified in a way that, for example, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, or Abraham Lincoln were. All used violence as a means to free a people. But it seems the difference between Brown and other "American heroes" is that Brown worked without the benediction and carte blanche that a position in the government/military provides. In a nation that claims to cherish its freedom and yet at the same time adheres to rules and regulations as tightly as any on earth, this is just too much to bear for history textbook authors and Civil War documentary commentators. It's one thing to shed blood in the most vicious ways to free an enslaved people or begin a new nation when you have a badge or a medal on your chest. It's quite another to do so with mere faith in God and moral conviction. In addition, it's way too much for people to believe (even in this day and age) that a white man would go to war nearly by himself to free black people in the United States solely because it was the right thing to do. To paraphrase Malcolm X, speaking about Brown, "You'd have to be nuts!"
Carton's book gives context to a man who at most is usually a paragraph in our history books. When he examines and explains the man, Brown and his allies do not seem like madmen or religious zealots. Harper's Ferry may be the climax of a long journey, but Patriotic Treason traces the evolution of principles and action Brown went through far earlier than that. Carton leaves the reader realizing that Brown is a man to be admired and there are few people similarly situated that would have the courage to do what he did. Imagine for example, that you knew a group of people being enslaved around you (as of this writing in May 2013, the nation was unfortunate enough to learn just that, when three young women were discovered to have been held in chains in a Cleveland, Ohio basement for nearly a decade). Wouldn't it be only rational to use force and violence to free those people? In fact, wouldn't it be your duty to do so? As Carton tells it, this sense of duty was a primary force in the whole Brown family's opposition to slavery. For Brown, it was only that the timing was off. The actions of a single man to free slaves in 1859 was considered outrageous treason. Two years later, the actions of an entire army to free slaves was considered a cornerstone in the story we proudly tell about ourselves, a nation where all men are equal.
Hopefully in time American historians will view John Brown as one of our greatest heroes.
Carton's book gives context to a man who at most is usually a paragraph in our history books. When he examines and explains the man, Brown and his allies do not seem like madmen or religious zealots. Harper's Ferry may be the climax of a long journey, but Patriotic Treason traces the evolution of principles and action Brown went through far earlier than that. Carton leaves the reader realizing that Brown is a man to be admired and there are few people similarly situated that would have the courage to do what he did. Imagine for example, that you knew a group of people being enslaved around you (as of this writing in May 2013, the nation was unfortunate enough to learn just that, when three young women were discovered to have been held in chains in a Cleveland, Ohio basement for nearly a decade). Wouldn't it be only rational to use force and violence to free those people? In fact, wouldn't it be your duty to do so? As Carton tells it, this sense of duty was a primary force in the whole Brown family's opposition to slavery. For Brown, it was only that the timing was off. The actions of a single man to free slaves in 1859 was considered outrageous treason. Two years later, the actions of an entire army to free slaves was considered a cornerstone in the story we proudly tell about ourselves, a nation where all men are equal.
Hopefully in time American historians will view John Brown as one of our greatest heroes.
March 12, 2025
"Governor, I have, from all appearances, not more than fifteen or twenty years the start of you in the journey to that eternity of which you so kindly warn me; and whether my tenure here shall be fifteen months, or fifteen days, or fifteen hours, I am equally prepared to go.
There is an eternity behind, and an eternity before, and the little speck in the center, however long, is but comparatively a minute. The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling and I want to therefore tell you to be prepared. I am prepared. You all have a heavy responsibil-ity, and it behooves you to prepare more than it does me."
I fear the man ate with this one 💅
To find this book comforting feels a bit morbid and tone deaf, but to be reading it during a trump and Elon regime was a good reminder that America’s sins are not new to her.
Northerners only opposing (generous term) slavery because it “took jobs away from them” only to later rejoice because those same states supplied cheap resources while they industrialized, lawmakers allowing townspeople to collect tax money to create private schools so their kids didn’t have to go to school with black people in “free states,” men feeling insecure because their fathers “founded democracy on new land” so mocked intellectuals, and made wealth production the great marker of American duty for a man !!!!! The list goes ON and ON.
Did Brown walk so Luigi could fly?!
There is an eternity behind, and an eternity before, and the little speck in the center, however long, is but comparatively a minute. The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling and I want to therefore tell you to be prepared. I am prepared. You all have a heavy responsibil-ity, and it behooves you to prepare more than it does me."
I fear the man ate with this one 💅
To find this book comforting feels a bit morbid and tone deaf, but to be reading it during a trump and Elon regime was a good reminder that America’s sins are not new to her.
Northerners only opposing (generous term) slavery because it “took jobs away from them” only to later rejoice because those same states supplied cheap resources while they industrialized, lawmakers allowing townspeople to collect tax money to create private schools so their kids didn’t have to go to school with black people in “free states,” men feeling insecure because their fathers “founded democracy on new land” so mocked intellectuals, and made wealth production the great marker of American duty for a man !!!!! The list goes ON and ON.
Did Brown walk so Luigi could fly?!
May 2, 2020
I learned a great deal about John Brown from this book, so it was definitely worth reading. I had only associated Brown with the raid at Harper’s Ferry, so I didn’t realize he had a highly successful previous career, fighting off the pro-slavery forces when Kansas was just forming as a state. He also did an enormous amount of planning and preparation, including seeking input from all the influential Black leaders of the day, such as Douglass, Still and Tubman. And he lost so much, including many of his children.
The style of writing is clear, plain, analytical, and thorough. Sometimes – not often - I found it a little tedious, but I can understand that the political background was a major part of John Brown’s story. I basically appreciated all this context. Mostly the book focuses on John Brown, his family, and the people who shared his vision, and this is always interesting. Brown’s strong personality comes through very definitely, especially as we learn more about his formative influences.
The style of writing is clear, plain, analytical, and thorough. Sometimes – not often - I found it a little tedious, but I can understand that the political background was a major part of John Brown’s story. I basically appreciated all this context. Mostly the book focuses on John Brown, his family, and the people who shared his vision, and this is always interesting. Brown’s strong personality comes through very definitely, especially as we learn more about his formative influences.
February 1, 2025
I have had an interest in the story of John Brown ever since I read The Good Lord Bird, which turned out to be my favorite book. This work, a chronological biography, paints a clear picture of who Brown was and why he did the things he did. Brown is a controversial figure in American history because he was one of a very few white men to actively fight against the slavery system and work to help slaves achieve their freedom. Many historians call him crazy or deranged because of this fact, but really he was just a God-fearing man who saw the oppression of fellow humans and actually fought against it. While his methods of murder and conspiracy brought him to his death as a traitor to the Union, I see him as a true Patriot, the kind of which we don’t see much of in our nation’s history. His is a story we should hear of more.
January 19, 2021
"I, John Brown, before God and in the presence of these witnesses, dedicate my life to the destruction of the institution of slavery."
John Brown has been a controversial figure in American history since the day he oversaw the murder of five pro-slavery men in the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856. Heralded as "the meteor of the [civil] war" by Herman Melville, Brown is a complex and complicated figure who has polarized politicians, historians, philosophers, and theologists for over 160 years. In "Patriotic Treason," Evan Carton tackles the myths and misconceptions of John Brown: rationalizing - but not excusing - the brutal violence which characterized the man.
In these pages, Carton brings Brown to life: a flawed, tragic religious zealot with an unshakable conviction that slavery was the sin of sins: the source of God's wrath and judgement upon humanity. Seeing himself as an instrument of that judgement, he does as he swore he would: he gave his life to bring down slavery, hastening the coming of the Civil War - and thus of the abolition of slavery in the United States via the 13th Amendment.
John Brown has been a controversial figure in American history since the day he oversaw the murder of five pro-slavery men in the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856. Heralded as "the meteor of the [civil] war" by Herman Melville, Brown is a complex and complicated figure who has polarized politicians, historians, philosophers, and theologists for over 160 years. In "Patriotic Treason," Evan Carton tackles the myths and misconceptions of John Brown: rationalizing - but not excusing - the brutal violence which characterized the man.
In these pages, Carton brings Brown to life: a flawed, tragic religious zealot with an unshakable conviction that slavery was the sin of sins: the source of God's wrath and judgement upon humanity. Seeing himself as an instrument of that judgement, he does as he swore he would: he gave his life to bring down slavery, hastening the coming of the Civil War - and thus of the abolition of slavery in the United States via the 13th Amendment.
June 8, 2019
Both of the books I listened to on John Brown were good.
John Brown was born in 1800, 5 months after the death of George Washington and on the same day as Nat Turner. His father, Owen was a Calvinist who was influenced by Jonathan Edwards Jr. to become an Abolitionist. He lost his mother as a young boy and grieved for her the rest of his life. His first wife was mentally ill as were some of his sons (one of them castrated himself). Most of his sons abandoned his faith and yet remained loyal to him as radical Abolitionists.
In his day it cost about $15 a year to employee a slave and each slave would produce about $300 a year.
John Brown was born in 1800, 5 months after the death of George Washington and on the same day as Nat Turner. His father, Owen was a Calvinist who was influenced by Jonathan Edwards Jr. to become an Abolitionist. He lost his mother as a young boy and grieved for her the rest of his life. His first wife was mentally ill as were some of his sons (one of them castrated himself). Most of his sons abandoned his faith and yet remained loyal to him as radical Abolitionists.
In his day it cost about $15 a year to employee a slave and each slave would produce about $300 a year.
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