American Experience; John Brown's Holy War; Interview with historian Margaret Washington, 4 of 5

ers set <unk> asking questions but they weren't well six people want to use a jar grabbed their rifles and he did that it was so desperate for something to succeed that the sense of urgency and desperation and this massive they're already hit you can you have to ask yourself

how was it that you learned man novelists clergyman could support john brown's ideas could finance it could provide the guns and then you could have someone like frederick douglass say i can't believe it's a suicide is going to explain it but it probably has to do with the times the fact that the country was for all practical purposes already at war and the individuals who are supporting brown like a concern and sanborn and how where radical abolitionist and they wanted something to happen just like john brown did now they were going to go there and do it but they were willing to support someone who was and

they were far enough removed from john brown in a way the fed to douglas wasn't so that they could do this they could support it they could finance it and hope that it brought a catharsis which he did and then that was really individually nothing invested for them and so yes they were radical they did want to bring a situation to a crisis and john brown was willing to do that if he was willing to serve that role than they were willing to finance it so the question is what was the relationship between the sacred six percent the rate is high but the secret six wanted

john brown on that raid they were willing to support him they were willing to support him economically and that they were willing to spread the word they won a catharsis and there were many radicals in the movement who wanted to create a crisis and john brown was willing to create a crisis and john brown also wanted and needed then he needed them for his messianic purposes he needed them to finance his effort to create a rebellion he couldn't do it alone so that was in a way i suppose you could say they were feeding off of each other to create this crisis john brown obviously was investing far more he was investing his life but he was prepared to do that and so yes i think in some ways the secrets excuse to john brown to create odd this crisis and they would have even taken it further

one cannot say that they were an heroic because higginson francis was willing to lead a raid into virginia to rescue john brown that was fairly suicidal itself but john brown's attitude was i serve a better purpose it here in virginia so and actually of course they succeeded in what they were doing in a way the two down around and the secrets excuse each other and of course what they wanted was a crisis and it did create a crisis that's a date to john brown's raid a missouri in which he brought out eleven and slade people probably represented to him what was possible because it was an african american enslaved man who went to john brown and said

will you help me and my family get out of misery and john brown agreed and they ended up with eleven self emancipated african americans john brown conducted them for twenty five hundred miles all the way to canada making numerous stops sometimes going by horseback sometimes by wagon sometimes by railroad i mean it was a perfect example of what the underground railroad really was and he did it with a three thousand dollars price on his head in the dead of winter they have to get over the missouri river by crossing it on the ice but he succeeded in getting those eleven african americans to canada and i was probably one of the most exhilarating moments of his activities as an abolitionist and a probably more than anything else made him realize what was possible and

made what we see in terms of harpers ferry is suicide not really suicidal in his eyes because on some levels harpers ferry could have turned out quite differently is why it won a lot of rap and forty and slate people to be crossing over into candidate photos that show that and i think the idea you know it was a start of his journey and to be able to affect how people with their freedom and also to be able to have again at the moment yes you can when you ask him sometime so after three months of travel

with eleven and slade people all the way from missouri to canada the group finally reached chatham and this must have been an incredible moment exhilarating not only for john brown but of course for the african americans who had trusted him enough to believe that he could take them from missouri through the north after the fugitive slave law was in effect all the way to canada and they represented again what they could do what was possible a representative for the african americans who were free for the first time the hope and the commitment of this man who had never seen him before he represented the trust that they had and for john brown and represented his sense of himself as of the liver which is what he really saw himself that and it probably more than anything

else inspired him to think that he could do this on a much grander scale that of these eleven trusted him that much then surely those in virginia and maryland and the other border states were slaves lived with trust him enough to pitch as well as helping to bring our interests well because he's so anxious to go to build up his army who's very calm why does the wind is successful in larger numbers tom brown believes in unity among african american people the survey works for that community

in dealing with fried african american stars john brown believes immunity as far as african americans are concerned any certainly works for that unity when he's dealing with free people of color in the north but he feels that the real struggle that the real army is going to come from enslaved people and the enslaved people of canada or the formerly enslaved people of canada is where he wants the army to start and because that community that's a captain's and chatham had been enslaved he feels that they more than anyone else can understand the importance of what he's doing the significance of that the commitment that's involved so he goes there and hopes that he can rally them to his caucus also gaza not going all that well for african americans in chatham there's a lot of racism on the part of the canadians and what john

brown is advocating is basically a utopian community a black utopian in the west where they don't have to deal with the racism of canadians and they can fortify this community and it can be a self contained like state so this is what he's advocating he's advocating a kind of black nationalism to this formerly enslaved people in canada and he's positive that they will accept this ms burrows yeah was the leaders in common although he was probably won't be available for a series of things winding piece of that and so it said that it had this moral but at the same time

there's a little experience that happens simple people with that way it's something that's that must've been skeptical about it this is true and interesting too is they get a little more today because george tenet was a disappointment for brown when he organized his meeting to talk about his provisional constitution for the spike state in the west only thirty four thirty five individuals show up and of course was a disappointment for him harriet tubman was not their arm and cat that this was not there the people from la boston the secret six were not they are nevertheless he laid out his plan and proceeded on the basis of what he felt was right there don't know

i think john brown didn't really understand was that the community was a community of african americans who had been enslaved they had emancipated themselves at great cost it took to get from the south to canada took a long time many of them died on the way slavery was and excruciating experience and yes in some ways they had a responsibility to those who were still in bondage but to ask them to go back and to believe in him as their leader to create this rebellion to succeed and move into the west and then even once they got the air to fortify themselves and not so that they could withstand the onslaught of the united states army

was more than they could comprehend and it was too much of a risk for them and john brown again that never having been enslaved himself being a person who saw himself as the messiah on this messianic mission and being the man he was in the sense that he did have a kind of tunnel vision an uncensored i am right with requests goals would be the messiah he was not willing to entertain this probably if some of them has said had set him down and said oh we don't think this is going to work because the abc and d he would not listened and they have a lot of respect for him and they serve me understand his commitment but they were not willing to put their lives in the hands of john brown at what point is this is not a job right on some

slippery going to get the right location say that the capital levels of human and succeeded because a question that remains is was john brown's idea suicidal as many people thought on some level perhaps it wasn't there was an arsenal player what would have happened had he been able to get that arsenal but even more important what would have happened if he had laid groundwork for his mission if he had said people and those communities of virginia a round harpers ferry if he hadn't done what harriet tubman had done so well which was going to a community engage the sentiment and see who

was willing to go and who was not willing to go who could be trusted and who couldn't be trusted if he had done that kind of protracted work before he made his attempt at harpers ferry who knows what could have been and if he had met someone like nat turner who knows what could have happened one has to beat you cannot would wonder why virginia but on the other hand gabriel this conspiracy was in virginia nat turner's rebellion was in virginia salt virginia was as likely a place as anyone any other place perhaps even more so because of the history of virginia the history of rebellion in virginia but it seems as though where the real failing was was in the

planning and and the fact that john brown really didn't know the enslaved community of virginia the free black community and north elder was a transplanted community part of curious mix visionary ideas to create sort of a black utopia to take african americans who were not doing that well in the city and put them in a place where they could farm and be on their own now live in the world of segregation and was also sort of an experiment the community was pretty much cast aside from the white tower farmers they had nothing to do with them and john browne and asking

smith to allow him to buy this land and live amongst the african americans and teach them how to farm because they were city people and how to live in this very very hostile environment in terms of its weather that this was in the can experiment that john brown helped her would be beneficial it worked on some level but it didn't work on others firsts on john brown wasn't there now and when he did come he was certainly very useful he helped the african americans build their homes helped them with farming he was a very skilled it was a very good leader he was very disciplined and these are skills that he helped the african american to acquire however many of them ended up believing that they'll blow up and returning to the city because of the environment because it was an unstable situation john brown saw it as his son rod

alba as his real home and on some level he longed to just going out and work among this community of african americans that was not to be and in some ways i suppose you would have to say that the experiment itself was a failure for many reasons that the most important reason was that it was just not a hospitable environment on both in terms of the weather in terms of the attitude of the people even in terms of the way the lander was surveyed because the african americans were actually cheated out of the best plan if you're going to set up a utopian community then if you don't set it up in the empire state living in this iteration community to be living in the mountains in the sense that he was living in a place that you want to be and yet leave and sam

and some level you might say the elder and that the community that i'm he helped organize an elbow was a microcosm what he'd hoped to create with this blank state and this utopian area where african americans could be farmers are where they could live in peace and live in harmony and you know in a way he was going to sort of be the page you are not the leader he had envisioned other people has been a leader it was gonna be self governing but certainly there was this image of john brown overseeing everything just as he was in northern alberta and yes there's a certain element of paternalism in it that was the case in northern alberta that was the case with his provisional territory that he was trying to establish in the west it is that that and some ways the ultimate white

man do gooder attitude that john brown was espousing his heart was in the right place he's been willing to pay last question of the message i'm brandon jones is something larger it it's all this is a just a trial and they are the beginning of this story here and because of that the lebanese seems to be part of this well it was what is this john brown's probably becomes far more important at the end of his life and beyond then even harpers ferry or us a lot of me

especially for african americans their representation of john brown in the painting where a black woman is holding up her baby for him to kiss is the personification above what john brown meant to the black community and what he meant was the ultimate sacrifice the price of freedom for african americans has often been death and john browne was willing to make that sacrifice not for himself but for black freedom and that painting represents what african americans actually thought of him the idea of a black woman holding up her black child to be kissed by a white man

represents almost that the the fusion of the races in john brown's life and robbie's and certainly went out and tried to do in his life which was to live it so that yeah there was no difference between black and white and i think that that's one of the important meanings of that painting both symbolically and in terms of what the painter was trying to represent thank you stephanie john brown's death

represented many things said he represented the civil war ii it represented the separation and the nation on between north and south it represented the willingness on the part of some people to die for a cause and i represented probably what some people consider the best in america going all the way back because john brown was a puritan stock it represented what many people felt the nation was founded on the nation was founded on freedom that freedom was supposed to be a universal freedom it never was and what john brown's death meant was that through his dying through his sacrifice that this freedom hopefully would be expanded to include people of african descent and that the

expanded meaning of american freedom would come through the death of john brown the civil war in the fight slavery will issue at all because this is working his life made this an animal in the final analysis it was john brown's life and his sacrifice that transformed the civil war and to a crusade to end slavery which is not of course what it was when it began but the sacrifice of john brown the legacy of john brown and the fact that so many people as a result of his death or committed to making that the goal of the war that is the end of slavery in

a way his death transformed the nation and it took a while you know it took some working through for people like lincoln and others to realize that the war would mean nothing if slavery didn't and and so jon benet you can also see it again the words of people as the war moved toward its logical conclusion which was the end of slavery that the words of john brown were re formed by many people including lincoln himself that many people adopted the words of john brown as their own and so john brown's body became a symbol of the war many innocent where he is going to do this so that's john graham and no incentive no use

you know they say this isn't an encino poor you know as you know was right and some ways john brown transformed america his statement as he was being led to the gallows that the sense of the nation would only be purged with blood really sent a chill through the nation and many people thought that this was insanity and even at the beginning of the civil war this idea of the war having a direct effect on slavery was not accepted even by the president by lincoln himself toward the end of the war however you find even people like lincoln essentially rephrase

singing john brown's words john brown said that he did not think that the sense of the nation would be purged except by blood the sounds of the nation that he meant with slavery lincoln and his second inaugural march of eighteen sixty five even though he says that he hopes that the scores of war will quickly pass away if it does not pass away until every drop of blood that the bomb and has shed has been absolved then let the war go on and that sounds very much like john brown and it's completely different from what lincoln said at his first inaugural and so they're quite different from what he said on john brown was executed the petition