John Brown

     Born the ninth of May, 1800, in Torrington, Connecticut, John Brown was the single man who contributed more to the heightening of the sectional crisis than anyone else in the late 1850s. In 1834, when he was still in the business of tanning leather, Brown considered raising a black boy in his own family to demonstrate to the world (of slaveholders) that race had no effect on the development of one's character. However, by 1847, he gave up on that idea as he arrived at the conclusion that example and education would not be enough to end slavery. He then consulted Frederick Douglass on the "instigation of guerrilla war against slavery based in the mountains of the South." To resist the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, he organized the blacks of Springfield into a secret militia in 1851. By 1854, he had quit the wooling business and dedicated his life full-time to achieving black freedom and equality. Through a farm in North Elba, New York, Brown helped the "struggling black agricultural colony" and helped aid the passage of escaping slaves heading to Canada through the Underground Railroad. Brown was also rather well-known for his raid on Harper's Ferry (please see Harper's Ferry under Battles and Significant Events).

     Then on the second of December, 1859, Brown was executed for "attempting to start a slave insurrection." However, he stood fearlessly, unrepenting,and firm in his belief that he was simply acting under divine inspiration and that is was God's will that the crimes committed by the people of this land would never be "purged" away without the shedding of "Blood."