The John Brown Raid

Dear Diary,

As stated earlier, the abolitionist John Brown was one of the first person to resort to violence in Kansas. He apparently thought of himself as "an angle of God". I recently found out that he went as far as gathering men and weapons. After two years of planning, he told his men to grab their weapons and went to take over the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry. John had 21 men, including 5 free African Americans. He wanted to get  slaves to join in a revolution against slavery. Harper Ferry, Virginia was a local hub with trains and canals. It had many escape routes. Very few people actually joined him. Many were not ready to go to such drastic measures. His friend, Fredrick Douglas, refused to join saying it would just cause more problems. During this small revolution from John Brown, two more of his sons were killed. Although some people escaped, John did not make it to those carefully planned escape routes. This was another decision that has caused Jeanette and I to drift farther apart. We now are on different ends on what to do about John Brown. I think he should go to jail but not be killed because he did have a very good reason behind his actions. Jeanette believes that he should be killed because he broke the law and is causing problems in the south. He was sentenced to death in the end. These decisions as of late will bring us to something. I just hope whatever happens has a good ending.  Overall, even though he failed with his goal of a revolution, he did make the people both in the North and in the South start to think more on slavery. I think that John Brown should be viewed as a terrorist because he has caused so many deaths and problems. Here is a poster advertising John Brown's execution:

                                                         That's all for now Diary,

                                                               Rebecca

Anti-Slavery Mass Meeting. N.d. KSHS. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.    
       <https://www.kshs.org/ksmemory/KM90549cropped.jpg>.