WEIGH
EVIDENCE
THE
John Brown
Instructions
- Rate each of the following exhibits based on how well it supports the statement:
“John Brown should be seen as a hero.”
-Each exhibit is rated from -2 (very against the statement) to + 2 (very supportive of the statement)
-A rating of 0 means the source is not useful in either case
-For each write one or two sentences defending your rating.
Set up your paper into columns like this:
Exhibit
Rating
Why?
Z – Photograph
of forest
+1
Stories of bigfoot often say he lives in the forest. This is actually a forest so the stories are somewhat believable.
Not all evidence is equally important. Part of drawing a conclusion is determining how much weight you give to each bit of information.
-2
Heavily against
-1
Slightly against
0
No
value as a source
+1
Slightly for
+2
Heavily for
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
Exhibit A:
Personal Testimony
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
“Pottawatomie was cold blooded murder - killing people based on anger, and vengeance. That blood was all over the weapons and hands of John Brown and his men at Pottawatomie.”
-Dennis Frye
Historian
Exhibit B:
Re-enactment of John Brown’s Final Speech
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
Exhibit c:
Personal Testimony
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
John Brown was brave, committed, and unalterably opposed to slavery. But he was also violent. He killed men—or ordered them killed—in Kansas. Those killed at Pottawatomie were, for the most part, combatants in a ruthless civil war. One of the men killed had threatened to kill Brown and his sons and other Free State settlers. All those killed supported slavery in the fight over the status of freedom in Kansas.
Peggy A. Russo
Author, “The Legacy of John Brown”
Exhibit D:
1861 Song
“John Brown’s Song”
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, /|�John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,�But his soul goes marching on.
Chorus:�Glory, glory, hallelujah, /|�Glory, glory, hallelujah,�His soul goes marching on.
He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord, /|�He's gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,�His soul goes marching on.�Chorus:
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back, /�John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back,�His soul goes marching on.�Chorus:
John Brown died that the slaves might be free, /�John Brown died that the slaves might be free,�His soul goes marching on.�Chorus:
The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down, /�The stars above in Heaven now are looking kindly down,�His soul goes marching on.�Chorus:
Exhibit E:
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
(1881)
Exhibit M:
Modern book
About three weeks before the raid on Harper's Ferry, John Brown wrote to me, informing me that before going forward he wanted to see me. . . We sat down and talked over his plan to take over Harper’s Ferry. I at once opposed the measure with all the arguments at my command.
To me such a measure would be fatal to the work of the helping slaves escape. It would be an attack upon the Federal government, and would turn the whole country against us. Captain John Brown did not at all object to upsetting the nation; it seemed to him that something shocking was just what the nation needed. He thought that the capture of Harper's Ferry would serve as notice to the slaves that their friends had come, and as a trumpet to rally them.
-Frederick Douglass
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
Exhibit F:
“”Modern Essay
(~2005)
The raid itself was poorly planned and executed. Brown succeeded in attracting only twenty-one followers, far fewer than the fifty or one hundred he had hoped for. He made no effort to communicate with slaves in the Harpers Ferry area before the raid. He and his men carried no provisions when they attacked the federal arsenal. Brown failed to destroy a stash of documents incriminating his supporters. In the end, his indecisiveness and procrastination during the raid resulted in the deaths of ten of his supporters and the capture and hanging of six others. Had Brown died in the attack, he might well have been dismissed as an incompetent fanatic.
At first, Brown was widely denounced in the North as a murderer, criminal, and madman, leading conservative unionists to feel confident that his actions would unite the nation against extremists, South and North.
Source: Steven Mintz, History Professor, University of Texas
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
Exhibit F:
Mural, 1942
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
In response to this violence, John Brown, a Bible-quoting Calvinist who believed he had a personal duty to overthrow slavery, announced that the time had come "to fight fire with fire" and "strike terror in the hearts of proslavery men.” The next day Brown led a group of six men and dragged five proslavery men and boys from their beds at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas. Brown’s men split open the proslavery men’s skulls with a sword and cut off their hands. The men said that Brown did not commit any of the actual murders himself, but he was their leader and made the decisions as to who should be killed and who was to be spared.
To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown,
by Stephen B. Oates. Harper & Row, 1970
John Brown should be seen as a hero.
Instructions