John Brown African American Abolitionists

John Brown African American Abolitionists

John Brown was a radical abolitionist who believed strongly in the equality between all people, despite skin color or ethnicity. Since childhood, John Brown had been a devout Calvinist, believing that God wanted all people to be equal. He believed that his purpose on earth was to put an end to slavery, as seen in the quote "he had been predestined to bring an end to slavery, which he believed with burning certitude was a sin against God". Given the mark he left on America after the Pottawatomie Creek rebellion, he certainly did just that. John Brown's motives have been questioned by historians for many years, some believing that he was a freedom fighter, and some believing that he was a terrorist. Because he used violence to frighten slaveholders, ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...His ultimate goal was the creation of an independent black nation" (Father of American Terrorism– pg 146). John Brown was a strong freedom fighter, in the sense that he was willing to die so African Americans could be free. Brown believed that he had been appointed "a special agent of death" by God. He was convinced that he had been granted the right to kill people in order to liberate all black slaves, and it was because he believed God had given him this right that he began the rebellion at Pottawatomie Creek. To be a terrorist, John Brown would have had to purposely kill the innocent, in this case the innocent being abolitionists, purely to instill fear in the government. In John Brown's case, he had killed 5 slaveowners, and although he killed them mercilessly, he still only killed people who would have been defined as guilty in his cause. John Brown's attacks on slaveholders can be justified as an act of freedom fighting through the definition proposed by Walter Laqueur. "terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective when innocent people are targeted". Through this definition, it is evident that John Brown did not fit the qualities of a terrorist. Laqueur defined a terrorist as someone who targets innocent people to gain a political stand. Slaveholders in the time of John Brown were far from innocent; often slaves

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