As John grew up, he became an active abolitionist — someone who fights to abolish slavery — by helping runaway slaves escape. Brown led a counter-raid and ordered five pro-slavery settlers hacked to death with sabers. This brutal response was one of the most controversial events in his life.

Although Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel had a huge impact on America, it did not start the Civil War. The novel did however capture the tension of a nation torn. At a time when tension was high, Uncle Tom’s Cabin provided a window into the cruelty that resulted from slavery and changed America in the process.

In sum, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin widened the chasm between the North and the South, greatly strengthened Northern abolitionism, and weakened British sympathy for the Southern cause. The most influential novel ever written by an American, it was one of the contributing causes of the Civil War.

Although the raid failed, it inflamed sectional tensions and raised the stakes for the 1860 presidential election. Brown’s raid helped make any further accommodation between North and South nearly impossible and thus became an important impetus of the Civil War.

16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led 21 men down the road to Harpers Ferry in what is today West Virginia. The plan was to take the town’s federal armory and, ultimately, ignite a nationwide uprising against slavery. The raid failed, but six years later, Brown’s dream was realized and slavery became illegal.

John Brown, (born May 9, 1800, Torrington, Connecticut, U.S.—died December 2, 1859, Charles Town, Virginia [now in West Virginia]), militant American abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), in 1859 made him a martyr to the antislavery cause and was instrumental …

Historically, Harpers Ferry is best known for John Brown’s raid in 1859, in which he attempted to use the town and the weapons in its Federal Armory (munitions plant) as the base for a slave revolt, to expand south into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865.

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist leader. He rose to national prominence for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, eventually being arrested and executed for a failed incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry preceding the American Civil War.

Douglass describes Brown’s modest living circumstances, his devotion to his wife, children and the destruction of slavery. He compares him favorably to Patrick Henry, he of the “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. “Henry loved liberty for the rich and the great. Brown loved liberty for the poor and the weak.”

Deceased (1962–1997)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The man who killed Grand Ole Opry star David “Stringbean” Akeman and his wife in 1973 has been granted parole and will be released from prison. John Brown shot Stringbean as he walked into cabin. …

Their corpses were discovered the following morning by their neighbor, musician Louis “Grandpa” Jones. A police investigation resulted in the convictions of cousins John A. Brown and Marvin Douglas Brown, both 23 years old. They had ransacked the cabin, and killed Stringbean when he arrived.

Frederick Brown (the second) was born December 31, 1830 in New Richmond, Pennsylvania. He was shot and killed by Martin White in Ossawatomie, Kansas, on August 30, 1856, and was buried there. Infant son (unnamed) was born August 7, 1832, and died three days later. His mother, Dianthe Lusk, died shortly afterward.