John Brown was a radical who believed he was led by god to evoke a war on pro-slavery activists and slave owners in order to diminish slavery. At the age of 59 Brown set out to put a team of anti-slavery abolitionist and free black men together, call them an army and execute his plan. However only 21 people enlisted mainly whites, 13, no slaves or free blacks joined. As surprising as this was to Brown it surprises me too. I wonder if the blacks were scared. Why didn’t they jump at every opportunity and chance to free those oppressed by the inhumane of slavery? Maybe they had their own plans to victory in the works. Brown still pursued his plan and went fourth with his 21 men. Although a follower of Christ, John believed the only way to overthrow …show more content…
slavery was to do so with violence. This was Gods way. They didn’t make it very far and nearly all were caught or killed, Brown put up a much needed fight and made a name for himself. Anti-slavery icon. Nat Turner, an educator, abolitionist and preacher started at a young age a pursuit to freedom. He was an avid follower of Jesus and preached the bible upon his people. Learning to read and write at a young age by his mother and grandmother was gold for him. I believe that he had an advantage over the whites because they thought they were dealing with another dumb, black, slave and not an educated one. Reading and writing was also unfamiliar to his fellow slaves so they trusted that he was able to guide them and lead them in the right direction. His mother and grandmother played a big role in his plan to freedom they armed him with knowledge no one else had, they believed in him early on and encouraged him to lead the way. Much like John Brown, Nat turner too believed he was called on by god to gain freedom from slavery and the only way to do so was through violence. He used the solar system; the day and night time sky, the stars, and a solar eclipse as a sign from the spirit to pursue his plan. Turner killed many more people than Brown did and bestowed plenty of fear onto whites and slave owners on plantations everywhere. He and his army’s chance to freedom was short lived like Browns, and most of the insurrectionist were killed and along with Turner hanged. Ultimately, Turners efforts called for changes some good for whites and mostly bad for slaves. Whites came to find out that blacks armed with intelligence and the bible was godawful for them and could cause a great deal of damage, so they made it illegal to educate the oppress. An action like that spoke volumes and still does. Blacks are and always has been viewed as fear, less worthy and uneducated. Whites know that a black man strapped with faith, intelligence and an army, can overthrow the hierarchy. They feared the threat of a loss of power, so along with oppression, obstruction and slavery they made it legal to hinder the black race. Both men’s actions, similarities and differences made them significant to American history and although both Brown and Turner died defeated they still left an indent in the white slave owners. Nat Turner and John Brown both were avid followers of the bible and its teachings and this is what fueled their eagerness to accomplish their goal to freedom.
They believed God called on them specifically and they were willing to do whatever it took to satisfy the lord. However they killed an overwhelming amount of whites which is really a contradiction to their following. The bible says “thou shall not kill” but they did the opposite. Turner and his army killed nearly 60 people men, women and children including his slave owners sleeping baby then threw the baby into the fireplace. Actions as such are hard to defend, making the best word to describe both army’s decisions as inhumane. I don’t believe Turner fully deliberated all his choices and next steps. His killing spree caused for slave owners all over to kill blacks on their plantation because they feared their slaves would catch the attention of other blacks and give them the idea to overthrow their own slave owner and join Turners army. Brown, under the impression that violence was the only way to achieve his goal killed many too. He was a white man and his actions seem to be more inhumane than Turners because he killed his equals. He was free and had access to the same people he killed there were ways around the high death toll both men
evoked. Consequently of the men’s action they were killed, yet only one was written down in history. Brown, the white man was praised as a hero by the blacks and even an anti-slavery icon by most whites. Turner on the other hand was hanged, skinned, and spread from home to home as a lesson to be learned. This absolutely has to do with race. Even though the two committed the same crime one was praised and one received the ultimate punishment even after death. This history is repeating it’s self in the 21st century. Slavery is over, supposedly, and many activist have fought for gender and racial equality yet you still see black being prosecuted and sentence to double the time for the same crime a person of white descent commits. It was unfair to Turner then and still unfair to blacks now. They both left a legacy of determination and commitment but they were honored and punished differently. Turner and Brown should be remembered equally, as men, preachers, educators, abolitionist and anti-slavery icons. Their stories should be told and their memories should be kept alive. Without having rea this article I wouldn’t have realized how much of a repeat if time this is. All men and women both black and white should study both men’s actions and remember what they fought so equally hard for.
In order to be a hero, one must be courageous. Some people that are heroes are Susan B. Anthony and Harriet Tubman.
Since John Brown went through his death sentence so bravely, I believe that this could have been his purpose from the beginning, not to prompt a slave revolution but to be finished and hence, sacrifice himself to the root. If this is true, then he placed the lives of twenty-three other people in danger which consisted of sixteen people that were slaughtered in the invasion, one passed away from a disease while waiting for his trial, six that were hung for their contribution to the raid and as well as the deaths of Brown’s two sons.
It could be argued that the revolt was entirely reactionary and in response to the myriad of abuses propagated by the white, slave-holding society (Garrison). Slaves were treated as little more than chattel – subject to the caprice and whims of their owners. In one infamous case, a slave woman was executed for killing her master when he attempted to rape her. As a slave, the court literally did not recognize her as a woman but only as an item to be used and abused (Foner 410). Such callous treatment is difficult to fathom, and perhaps helps to put the slave’s rebellion into context; however, Turner’s actions were highly reprehensible in that his slaughter was not confined to those who had perpetrated these abuses, but was instead an indiscriminate massacre of the innocent and the guilty
After careful consideration, I have decided to use the books dedicated to David Walker’s Appeal and The Confessions of Nat Turner and compare their similarities and differences. It is interesting to see how writings which has the same purpose of liberating enslaved Black people can be interpreted so differently, especially in the matter of who was reading them. Akin to how White people reacted to Turner’s Rebellion, which actually had promising results while most would see the immediate backlashes and to which I intend to explain more. As most would put emphasis on the Confession itself, I assume, I decided to focus more on the reactions and related documents regarding the Rebellion.
The similarity between Susan B. Anthony speech and Martin Luther King Juniors “I Have a Dream” speech is that they are fighting for the equality of America. Susan B. Anthony is fighting for women being able to vote like everyone else. Martin Luther King is fighting for the equality of African Americans. Both just want to see America as an equal place instead of discrimination against others based on race or gender. Even though their message has similarities the way they delivered them was different.
In the 1850’s the Kansas Civil War, known as “Bleeding Kansas,” started and John Brown started becoming involved in this war leading a small group of men. He had remained fighting to create Kansas as a free state and led a raid known as the Pottawatomie Massacre in May 1856. This event turned into more of a show of their power than for getting revenge. With the involvement people changed their views on the abolition of slavery, “... many were losing faith in the electoral process as a means of destroying slavery- The Civil War was to prove them right- while some were increasingly inclined to believe that John Brown’s projected invasion...must be tried” (Boyer 7-8). He returned to Iowa and started on his next project, launching an attac...
They went to the extreme of fight in slave holders. They used physical intendment to force the southern and whoever didn’t want to listen to what they wanted out of their government’s institution. They wanted freedom rights one way or another .
Turner took his religion seriously. He was a preacher and he preached at many different black churches. The white slave owners like the fact that he was a preacher because they thought that they could learn better from one of there kind. As a young man, he began having visions that he believed were from God. Turner had three visions prior to the rebellion in 1831. In 1821,he had his first vision, after he had run away. He had hid in the woods and he was determine...
John Brown became a legend of his time. He was a God fearing, yet violent man and slaveholders saw him as evil, fanatic, a murderer, lunatic, liar, and horse thief. To abolitionists, he was noble and courageous. John Brown was born in 1800 and grew up in the wilderness of Ohio. At seventeen, he left home and soon mastered the arts of farming, tanning, and home building.
Slave rebellion had not dissipated even after years had passed since Turner’s last insurrection. David Walker was son of a slave born free in North Carolina; he wrote a pamphlet Walker’s Appeal which infuriated southern slaveholders. Also, Harriet Tubman became the most famous conductor of the Underground Railway and led many slaves to freedom. Next, Frederick Douglass became the most famous black man of his time. On the 4th of July he gave an Independence address: “What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” (qtd Zinn 182). He also worked alongside William Lloyd Garrison a white abolitionist and editor of The Liberator. Additionally, John Brown a white abolitionist advocated the use of violence to disrupt and destroy the institution of slavery. He later was executed by the State of Virginia with the approval of the national government. Therefore, we start to see intellectual blacks fight for freedom and equal rights. Not only were they wanting to engage in armed insurrections, but also more ready to use political devices—the ballot box, the Constitution—anything to further their cause (Zinn
The Civil War is often thought of as white northerners and southerners fighting over the freedom of African American’s. African American soldiers would fight on both sides of the war. The eventual acceptance of African American’s and their contributions to the Union Army would be pivotal in the Unions success. African Americans were banned from joining the Union Army in the early part of the Civil War. President Lincoln feared that African Americans in the Army would persuade certain states, such as Missouri, to join the Confederacy. Once African American soldiers could join the Union Army they would contribute to almost every major battle of the Civil War. 180,000 African Americans served in the Union Army in 163 different units, and 9,000 served as seamen in the Union Navy.1 President Lincoln stated, “Without the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.”2
...e Massacre, hatched a plan designed to create an uprising of slaves against their masters. Brown led twenty men, and took over an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown failed to spread the word of his plan to the slave population, and the siege turned into a standoff. Eventually, half of Browns men were killed, and Brown with the rest of his group were captured. Brown was quickly tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for treason. Despite the colossal failure of his plan, Brown helped his cause when by becoming a martyr in the abolitionist movement.
On August 13 Turner felt that since the sky turned green, this was the sign for him to do what he was called to do. On August 21, Turner met his men in the woods to make their plans and started their plan to rebel. The next morning, Turner and a group of slaves set out to the Travis farm where they started their killing spree. By August 22, word of the rebellion had gotten out to the whites and Turner's force became weak. Turner was determined to finish what he starts so the next day Turner and his group attempted to attack but were unsuccessful. The remaining force then met the state and federal troops in which one slave was killed and many escaped, including Turner.
John Brown was a key person in slave history. He planned on overthrowing slavery in the south. Brown and his followers invaded harpers ferry Virginia in October 1859. Brown and his followers ended up killing people during the raid. Brown was captured and was charged with treason. Brown and his men succeed by rising the emotions of the people who supported slavery and who opposed slavery. Brown and two of his followers where found guilt and hanged. Northerners mourned the death of John brown while the southerners were upset by the way the northerners ma...
Turner went through all of this because he claims it was the Lord’s calling for him. I believe there was something mentally wrong with Turner because of this. He must have been so fed up with how slaves were being treated he had these irrational thoughts about killing these people, including his own owner who had done no harm upon him. Back then slavery was the norm, but no I do not see it as the slaves had to accept that. I see it as the white men and women should either one, have seen it coming and to be prepared, or two not own slaves