John Brown American Martyr

An authoritative new examination of John Brown and his deep impact on American history.Bancroft Prize-winning cultural historian David S. Reynolds presents an informative and richly considered new exploration of the paradox of a man steeped in the Bible but more than willing to kill for his abolitionist cause. Reynolds locates Brown within the currents of nineteenth-century life and compares him to modern terrorists, civil-rights activists, and freedom fighters. Ultimately, he finds neither a wild-eyed fanatic nor a Christ-like martyr, but a passionate opponent of racism so dedicated to eradicating slavery that he realized only blood could scour it from the country he loved. By stiffening the backbone of Northerners and showing Southerners there were those who would fight for their cause, he hastened the coming of the Civil War. This is a vivid and startling story of a man and an age on the verge of calamity.

Portrait of the tormented liberator by America's first poet laureate.

Portrait of the tormented liberator by America's first poet laureate.

To some, John Brown was a hero and a martyr to the abolitionist cause. To others, he was a treasonous murderer operating outside the law. Unlike most mainstream abolitionists, Brown believed that slavery would never end without the use of violence, and he was more than willing to take up arms against anyone who stood in his way. His ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, which resulted in his execution, was merely the final chapter in his history of using violent means to fight slavery. The question of whether violence is ever acceptable as a form of protest is one that Brown's contemporaries asked themselves and one we are still asking today. Through this book, students can contemplate that same question as they examine the facts of John Brown's life, the historical context in which he lived, and the legacy he left behind.