DBQ Essay: Was John Brown A Villain?

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Many people believe that John Brown is a villain for murdering people, making slaves revolt against the government, and for committing treasonous acts. John Brown was a brutal abolitionist born in the 1800s. As a kid, he really hated slavery and would kill anyone to end it. Because of this, he went on a rampage to free slaves and forced the masters to liberate their slaves, or they would kill them. My first evidence of why John Brown was a villain is that he killed people supposedly in the name of slavery. As said in Doc. A, John Brown's companies went to free slaves while killing a few of the masters that they forced to liberate. In Doc. :. E, he also killed an innocent father and 2 sons of a family in cold blood when they didn’t own a single …show more content…

Even if this was all for the cause of ending slavery, this is not going to persuade the other pro-slavery people to liberate their slaves, that will only make them terrified of him and they will just hate anti-slavery people even more. Another factual evidence is that John Brown used the slaves to revolt and cause harm to a government facility. In Doc. :. C, John Brown ordered 1000 pikes and wanted to use them to make the slaves revolt, but luckily, he was stopped before it got out of hand. He also lied about it to try and escape his death sentence in Document F. Freeing slaves is one thing, forcing them to stay and fight the government to spark a revolt is committing severe treason. This makes him a villain because he tried using other people to commit treason against people and lied. He also lied in court (also known as perjury) just to escape and continue his rampage. His original intentions are stated in documents such as Document G and H where he still lied about putting the slaves in a position to defend themselves and wanted them to fight back against the government. Many people also know that he committed crimes and treasonous activities. In

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