The pre-Civil War period was one in which increasingly irresolvable tensions between the opposing forces of the slave advocating South and the slave condemning North seeded violence on both sides. This conflict was at the center of the difficulties in the Kansas territories in the 1850s. By means of violence, corruption, and intimidation, pro-slavery Missourians established their own legislature despite the right of the citizens of Kansas to decide whether they wanted to be slave or free. John Brown was an ardent abolitionist who believed that the only way to end slavery was through violence; he sought to accomplish this through acts of terrorism such the Pottawatomie Massacre and the siege of Harpers Ferry. To Brown, the Missourians and the South deserved as good as they gave, “an eye for an eye.”[1] Brown acts of terrorism were motivated by a want to fight against the illegitimate Legislature of Kansas, fight against the sin that was bondage and slavery, and protect citizens against violent pro-slavery forces.[2]

A terrorist is one who acts alone or in a small group, and he utilizes “the unconventional use of violence against civilians for political gain. [Terrorism] is a strategy of using coordinated attacks that fall outside the laws of war commonly understood to represent the bounds of conventional warfare.”[3] Using this simple, standard definition as a context for Brown’s actions, the parallels are obvious. For both the Pottawatomie Massacre and Harper’s Ferry, Brown assembled small groups of men that were by no means formal military forces. They were small militia groups that planned and coordinated attacks in secret meetings and had secret support, such as the “Secret Six.”[4] Brown had passionate moral and religious criticisms of slavery, but he was still mainly fighting a political battle against a major political force. The political power of pro-slavery men was proven by what had happened in Kansas. In defeating these men, Brown would destroy the political institution of slavery and restore a free Kansas, as well as establish free soil for the entire United States.

Brown didn’t target just politicians, the Missourian legislature, and the Southerners who were publicly fighting to preserve the institution of slavery; his attacks were also aimed at any slave owner. These groups were all civilian groups. In Pottawatomie Creek, Brown abducted five pro-slavery men and murdered them in retaliation for five murders of free-soilers by pro-slavery men. The men massacred by Brown, however, had nothing to do with the murders; they were innocent civilians. Moreover, at Harpers Ferry, Brown planned to arm slaves to fight against their civilian masters. This goes against the standard idea of warfare being army against army. Brown’s small militia took civilian hostages in Harpers Ferry and even killed a civilian baggage master.[5] He was by no means fighting a conventional war.

Brown was justified in his anger and his motives; they were shared by many northerners. Slavery in the south and Missourian aggression to establish Kansas as a slave territory fueled anger. However, Brown’s actions, attacks, and attempts at revolution reflect characteristics of terrorism that made his attempts at revolution and abolition bloody and infamous. He acted in small secret groups that worked together to plan and coordinate attacks and outcomes, albeit not too well in the case of Harper’s Ferry; fought for a political and religious purpose; and attacked civilians without regard to the extent of their involvement in his motives. It’s these things that turned Brown’s attempts at revolution and war into terrorism.

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Bibliography

McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988.

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End Notes

1 James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press,1988), 152-153.

2 Brown was also angered by the caning of Congressman Charles Sumner Southern Congressman Preston Brooks, an act he felt exemplified the violence and intolerance of the South, the same sentiments behind slavery. Ibid, 149.

3 Encyclopedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Terrorism [encyclopedia on-line]; internet; accessed January 2006.

4 James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 202 & 204.

5 Ibid, 152-153 & 206.