(Source: Wikipedia)
John Brown, the fiery white abolitionist and anti-racist was born on this day, in 1800. Virtually all historians and analysts who have dealt seriously with Brown have accented his militant actions against U.S. slavery. Yet Brown was also a man of ideas–in the long tradition of thinkers who have articulated the great ideals of freedom, justice, equality, and human rights.
In the West one of the first major thinkers in this freedom-loving tradition was the English figure, John Locke, who had an influence on the thought of North America’s influential philosopher of freedom, Thomas Jefferson. Yet both Locke and Jefferson were heavilyg involved in and supportive of the anti-freedom slavery system. While white Europeans like Jean-Jacques Rousseau articulated strong critiques of slavery, before Brown no other white Americans had lent their pens, in a major way, to the effort for the destruction of slavery. Brown presented his ideas in letters, circulars, agreements, and interviews. There he often uses phrases like “struggle for liberty,” “friends of freedom,” and “lovers of liberty and human rights,” placing himself squarely in the tradition of radical theorists of democracy. Brown goes well beyond the ideas of virtually all the white thinkers of his day by extending the ideas of freedom and human rights to enslaved African Americans.
Brown drew in part on the European and American tradition of freedom and equality. Mostly self-taught, he was an avid reader and visited many northern and border state areas and traveled to Europe to study revolutionary movements. In his “Words of Advice, Branch of the United States League of Gileadites” (1851), a statement in support of an underground self-defense organization of African Americans in Massachusetts, he shows his knowledge of struggles of the Greeks against the Turks, the Poles against the Russians, and the Hungarians against Russia. Some years later, while waiting to attack Harper’s Ferry, Brown and his men would discuss philosophy and religion, including the works of Tom Paine. (For details, documents, and photos, see this important book edited and prepared by Jean Libby.)
Brown was not a loner isolated in his thoughts and actions. He was very much in contact with other white and black abolitionists. He did not act in private. He contributed articles and letters to newspapers, wrote constitutions and declarations on freedom and liberty, and gave many articulate speeches on these topics. In the late 1840s Brown even funded the republication of free African American David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, as well as the formerly enslaved African American Henry H. Garnet’s “Call to Rebellion.”
These were likely the first two U.S. manifestos systematically and in detail articulating the extreme oppression of slavery and calling for the liberation of enslaved African Americans. Unlike other white abolitionists, Brown had close social interactions with numerous African Americans, inviting them to his home and going to theirs. In his pioneering biography of Brown, the great scholar W. E. B. Du Bois gave him this epitaph: “John Brown worked not simply for Black Men – he worked with them; he was a companion of their daily life, knew their faults and virtues, and felt, as few white Americans have felt, the bitter tragedy of their lot. . . . the man who of all Americans has perhaps come the nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.”
In May 1858, Brown and some black and white allies convened in Chatham, Canada, to adopt a new constitution to govern the revolutionaries fighting against slavery. The preamble to the Constitution, drafted by Brown, read as follows: “Whereas slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens upon another portion; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence; Therefore, we, citizens of the United States, and the oppressed people . . . do, for the time being, ordain and establish ourselves the following provisional constitution and ordinances, the better to protect our persons, property, lives, and liberties, and to govern our actions.”
Human rights are central to Brown’s thinking. In his writings he often mentions the “natural and inalienable rights” necessary for all Americans. In 1858 he seems to have drafted, possibly with the help of an associate, a “Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America,” on behalf of enslaved African Americans. He had this Declaration and his Constitution on his person when he was captured at Harper’s Ferry. It was intended to be distributed to the white South. (See here on the Chatham convention)
Brown saw beyond the moral and political strategies of the abolitionists to the need for more aggressive, armed actions against the brutal system of slavery and the governments that upheld it. Thus, he organized a major raid on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, with the goal of arming enslaved African Americans to pursue guerilla warfare against the totalitarian slavery system on which this country was founded. Once caught, he continued to assert his ideas on freedom and liberty.
At his November 2, 1859 address to the court that sentenced him to death for the Harper’s Ferry raid, Brown spoke of the golden rule guiding him to speak and work for the “despised poor” and of his commitment to “forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice” and to mingle his blood with “the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments.” Does this sound like the “wild” and “crazy” man that we are taught about in school?
And where is his big monument in DC? Where is that monument to all those, black and white, who fought bravely against the 246-year-old slavery system?
Thanks for this. It only just occured to me the difference in how children are taught, and I was taught, about John Brown. I was taught that he was a bit . . . mentally disturbed. Or, at least, the tone of the teacher and the book the class was reading suggested the Brown was a little less than sane.
But ultimately, what makes him so different from the vaunted patriots, the white revolutionaries who fought the British empire. (Speaking of revolutionaries fighting the monarchists, can anyone believe Mitt Romney had the audacity to suggest that publicans represented the revolutionaries, and Dems the monarchists? What a joke!)
No1Kstate, we are all taught he was “crazy.” When people are revolutionary heroes against racism, like Brown, the elites have to run them down and portray them as crazy. No person is perfect, but Brown did more for extending the ideas of the liberty and justice frame than Jefferson the slaveholder (he held hundreds under whip and chains over his lifetime), yet Jefferson is the “sane” hero who gets the huge monument in DC. Where is the huge monument in DC for the man (and many others, black and white, with him — not to mention many others) who fought against one of the most brutal oppressions in world history and very much for liberty for all?
Erm, or some of us are not taught about him at all? (like back in Washington State…*cough cough*). If anybody lives in the GW state or comes from there and has been taught about John Brown, please let me know…so far, everybody I have asked hasn’t been taught about him. He’s a “who?” up there. The older older folks are familiar with him because of the John Brown song. My best guess as to why WA is not big on John Brown is because then they would have to figure out how to still maintain GW as a hero? Considering GW owned the most slaves in history if that is correct?
Considering this is a totally rockin’ post, let me allow the conversation to speak to others that may come on–different social sectors and stuff. John Brown was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWH8SlJze-w (and to get an AC/DC song is most certainly a compliment–we can at least try to mix it all together with history)–one of our most awesome historical figures from what I know.
And while here, might as well wish him and others born in May, like Joe, Malcolm X, and others–belated, today, or up-coming, a very happy birthday with an honorable and most awesome live performance by the great Sir! 😀 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjF1bG5LUcs&feature=related
Happy birthday, Joe!
And talking about monuments. How about the monuments to confederate soldiers all throughout the South. My family decided that if the DNC made Clinton the nominee, you remember way back during the primary, that we wouldn’t necessarily riot with all the other black people in the area. We’d just be sure to take down the monument to confederate soldiers.
I suggest reading Lynne Olsen’s unparalleled “Freedom’s Daughters” for an engrossing look at other whites (her book mostly focuses on women) who have worked with blacks to achieve racial equality. These brave whites fought oppression at the expense of their personal and material comfort, safety, and in some cases, their lives. Among them: Viola Liuzzo, Virginia Durr, Elizabeth and Waties Waring, Jessie Ames, and Lillian Smith. It’s very telling that in our society these particular white men and women, who advocated tirelessly for breaking down racial and gender barriers even though it made them pariahs, go unacknowledged while we glorify men like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison–slaveholders who are nonetheless held up as beacons of democracy and freedom.
That’s going in my “books to read” list, adia. Thanks. And you’re absolutely correct. The argument that we can’t blame slaveholders and slavetraders, and therefore the founding fathers, for what they did because it was just part of their time and culture just doesn’t hold water when you begin listing all the men and women, both in America and Europe, who spoke out against slavery.
Just came back quickly to put up this link not only to compliment the main post, but it also has the John Brown song playing in the back ground for anybody interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMuwzimDeZ8
ntch, ntch, ntch–I forgot earlier…. I wanted to accent the above with the point that one of John Brown’s right hand men, was Jewish, August Bondi. And, hands down to the American Indian folks (and some white women along the way) that played key roles in his ability to travel, keep safe, and carry on with his various missions to fight, and help abolish slavery. Cheers to Canada, as well! Such awesome history here. Brown and Douglass are hanging out somewhere–two incredible men this nation should embrace.