John Brown's violent campaign against slavery — punctuated by the dramatic 1859 raid at Harper's Ferry, ... in the most righteous cause that man ever drew sword in." Sponsor Message.

Brown murdered five pro-slavery settlers at sword-point in Pottawattamie, Kansas Territory, in 1856. Three years later, he led 20 men in an occupation of the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Va.

John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights By David S. Reynolds Knopf, 578 pages, $35 In May 1863, the soldiers of the African-American ...

John Brown did not wield a sword, but directed the massacre, and put a bullet through the head of one of those who had been killed. Brown was never arrested for the murders along Pottawatomie Creek.

John Brown and many of his followers holed up in the fire engine house awaiting reinforcements by a swarm of "bees"—slaves from the surrounding area. But only a handful showed up. Library of ...

Abolitionist John Brown wasn't born in Kansas, but made his mark during the Bleeding Kansas era before the Civil War. Today, 165 years after his execution, Brown's violent acts and influence are ...

1800, May: John Brown is born in Torrington, Connecticut. His father, Owen, a strict Calvinist, hated slavery and believed that holding humans in bondage was a sin against God.