History

Nicole Kopp
US History I
Mr. Bergen
April 20, 2009
Martyr or Maniac
During a divided nation one man stood out to show his support for the antislavery movement. His name is John Brown. This “Father of American Terrorism” led a life of failure in business until he decided to do something else with his life. When announcing to the other people in a church, “’Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery,” no one would have thought this man would go on to kill and attempt to start a slave rebellion and leave such a huge impact on the rest of society. However his role in the Pottawatomie Massacre and the raid at Harpers Ferry would lead for him to become a very important figure in American history.
Before making his first impact by killing people, John Brown was a part of the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape to Canada from his home in Ohio. It was only a matter of time before he decided to take a more drastic approach in helping to end slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the initial event that sparked another dispute over slavery. This Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854 by Congress and permitted the residents of the Kansas and Nebraska territories to vote on whether the territories would be free states or slave states. Both southerners and northerners were eager to make sure their views on slavery would come out victorious. After numerous people started moving to Kansas to be able to cast their vote for slavery or antislavery, there were still armed supporters of slavery, called “Border Ruffians”, from Missouri who went and cast their ballots on March 30, 1855. These illegal votes however led to legislature passing laws to allow slavery and get rid of the antislavery forces that were there. Instead of listening to the laws, antislavery followers set up a free-state government at Lawrence with a different constitution. “Bloodshed soon followed when a proslavery judge, Samuel LeCompte, sent...