Re: America's First Terrorist

I wrote an article entitled John Brown: Prototerrorist a few months ago in which I establish, I believe, that John Brown certainly was a terrorist by any standard by which we measure the term today.

A more realistic and honest assessment of the man paints him as an individual driven by religiously inspired ideology. A man that distrusted the government to do that which he thought was right; a person willing to do violence, commit crimes, and foment terror to achieve his aims, all for what he believed to be a greater good. In this sense he is really no different than any terrorist we might compare him to.

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The question of whether Brown and was a terrorist or not is best answered by analyzing his actions. For this purpose his raid on Harper’s Ferry is sufficient. Suppose that today a group of armed men raided a government arms depot, killed innocent civilians, took hostages and engaged the police and military all with the intent of using the arms they hoped to steal to start an open insurrection. Would the media not term this group as terrorist? (Jenkins, 1996) These actions and the actors that perpetrated them would certainly be labeled as terrorist, no matter which side of the right-left divide their ideology rest.

The assertion that John Brown was a terrorist is supported by analyzing three factors; advocacy of terror to achieve political objectives, ideology-based action, violent acts and intentions.

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Laying subjective ethics aside and ignoring the socio-economic realities of 19^th century slavery, and the potential reality that slavery would and was slowly disappearing via a natural death based solely on economics we can clearly establish that Brown was in fact a terrorist. His actions in Kansas were akin to many other terrorist groups we might compare his group to. Brown himself declared that the express purpose of his work in Kansas was to influence the political process and it is undeniable that that “work” involved terror and violence. His grand plan for a massive slave insurrection began with an event that if it occurred today, by any group right or left, with similarly stated objectives would certainly be deemed as that of terrorist.

The matter is simple, whether Brown was the spark that lit the fire of secession and war and eventual abolition of slavery is debatable. Other potential outcomes and ways the institution of slavery might have ended are debatable. What is not really debatable is the application of the term terrorist to John Brown, right or wrong, vindicated by history or not, his actions were that of a terrorist.