John Brown's raid
Abolitionist arsenal seizure
John Brown's raid was an 1859 attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, led by abolitionist John Brown.
Brown and his small band hoped to seize weapons and spark a slave uprising across the South.
The raid failed—Brown was captured, tried, and hanged—but it inflamed sectional tensions and helped precipitate the Civil War.
John Brown's raid made him a martyr to abolitionists and a terrorist to slaveholders.
- Harpers FerryWest Virginia historic town
- pikesPointed pole weapons
- armoryMilitary weapons storehouse
- slave rebellionRevolt by the enslaved
- abolitionist movementCampaign to end slavery
martyrdom · Frederick Douglass · 1859 · Kansas-Nebraska Act · Robert E. Lee · militia · secession · Harriet Tubman · Underground Railroad · Nat Turner · jail · sectionalism · Fugitive Slave Act · guerrilla warfare · anti-slavery societies · fortifications · Dred Scott decision · radicalism
John Brown's raidnonviolent resistance
Protest through peaceful means
passive resistance · civil disobedience · peaceful protest · moral suasion · sit-ins
John Brown's raidHaitian Revolution
Successful slave rebellion, 1790s
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