Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed revolt of enslaved people and destroy the institution of slavery.

John Brown, (born May 9, 1800, Torrington, Connecticut, U.S.—died December 2, 1859, Charles Town, Virginia [now in West Virginia]), militant American abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), in 1859 made him a martyr to the antislavery cause and was instrumental …

John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him—until he died on the gallows. Frederick Douglass, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847, through a testy but important relationship in the late 1850s, had long viewed the visionary abolitionist with a combination of admiration and ambivalence.

John Brown summary: John Brown was a radical abolitionist whose fervent hatred of slavery led him to seize the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry in October 1859. Hanged for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, Brown quickly became a martyr among those seeking to end slavery in America.

The Harpers Ferry ‘Rising’ That Hastened Civil War On the evening Oct. 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid he hoped would ignite a nationwide uprising against slavery. Tony Horwitz tells the story of how Brown’s defeat helped spark the Civil War, in Midnight Rising.

Upon his return to tlie east, Forbes found himself short of funds. In early winter he began a series of abusive and, finally, threatening letters to John Brown and friends of his cause. Brown, he alleged, had defrauded him out of six months’ pay.

He was charged with treason, murder, and conspiring with slaves to rebel. He was convicted on November 2 and sentenced to death. Before his sentencing, Brown told the court that his actions against slavery were consistent with God’s commandments.

He was consumed by his work; he had no hobbies, no romance. He gave orders, said a younger brother, like “a King against whom there is no rising up.” But Brown’s inflexibility — exacerbated by poor judgment and bad luck – would lead to a lifetime of business failures and broken dreams.

Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, at the age of 59. Among the witnesses to his execution were Lee and the actor and pro-slavery activist John Wilkes Booth. (Booth would later assassinate President Abraham Lincoln over the latter’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.)

Brown’s party of 22 was defeated by a company of U.S. Marines, led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene. 10 of the raiders were killed during the raid, 7 were tried and executed afterwards, and 5 escaped.

Brown also left a note, his final written words: “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood. I had… vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.” — John Brown.

Tubman met John Brown in 1858, and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy.

Tubman helped John Brown plan his 1859 raid of a Harpers Ferry arsenal, one of the major events that led to the Civil War. Tubman later said of Brown, “He done more in dying than 100 men would in living.”

In May 1858, Brown held a secret anti-slavery convention in Canada. About 50 black and white supporters adopted Brown’s anti-slavery constitution. In December, Brown moved beyond talk and plans. He led a daring raid from Kansas across the border into Missouri, where he killed one slave owner and freed 11 slaves.

Onion from The Good Lord Bird isn’t based on a real person, though his surroundings are steeped in history. The series is based on the historical fiction novel of the same name by author James McBride, which is framed as the memoirs of former slave Henry Shackleford, AKA Onion.

Choosing Harpers Ferry because of its arsenal and because of its location as a convenient gateway to the South, John Brown and his band of 16 whites and five blacks seized the armoury on the night of October 16. Fractured by ideology and economy, this war sought to unify a divided nation.

Historically, Harpers Ferry is best known for John Brown’s raid in 1859, in which he attempted to use the town and the weapons in its Federal Armory (munitions plant) as the base for a slave revolt, to expand south into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.