John Brown (1800–59) is both martyr and murderer in American memory. A radical abolitionist, he harbored runaway slaves and formed a biracial group to assist them. In 1856 he spearheaded a massacre of five pro-slavery settlers in Pottawatomie, Kansas. He also convinced the Secret Six (wealthy northern abolitionists) to support his plan for black freedom.

Brown planned to seize the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and incite a slave insurrection. He recruited twenty-two men, seventeen whites (among them his four sons) and five blacks, including North Carolinian and former Oberlin College student John A. Copeland. The group obtained and stockpiled steel pikes for slaves’ weapons. They raided the armory in October 1859, but US army troops defeated them. Ten of the men died; seven escaped. Brown, Copeland, and three others were captured, tried, and eventually hanged. The event fueled slaveholders’ fears, southern secession, and the Civil War.