John Brown: Was he a murderer or a martyr?

The actions of John Brown raise many uncomfortable questions about how we view terrorism in modern society. It is often said that 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' and that expression certainly holds true with John Brown in his raid on Harper's Ferry. Even before the Harper's Ferry raid, Brown was a "leader of antislavery guerillas" in Kansas and "fought [against] a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year" ("John Brown," 1998). Brown was not above killing civilians and regarded brutality inflicted upon African-Americans as an evil that could be eradicated only with violence. On one hand,...
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