To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown

I read this book while in the US military during the Vietnam War. Having been raised in the US South I naturally had been taught that John Brown was a maniac. Partially because I was going through a very morally trying period in my own life, particularly related to the war and human rights in my own country and around the world, while reading this book I came to view Brown as a man who refused to peacefully coexist with what he considered to be intolerable evil and injustice. The vast majority of people on Earth would find the notion that Brown was a "terrorist" to be absurd. African Americans, the descendants of the people who were the victims of what Brown was willing to give his life to destroy, overwhelmingly consider him a hero and freedom fighter. Those of his day, including Frederick Douglass, spoke highly of him. His name was sometimes invoked by leaders in the so-called civil right era of the '50s and '60s. I highly recommend this book.

Who was John Brown and what made him tick? And what was his significance or importance in the pre-Civil War USA? Most readers are probably aware Brown led a raid on government property at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The raid's goal was to cause slaves to rebel and to establish a free state in the southern Appalachians. Some might also know that several years earlier he had been a participant in a bloody guerrilla war in Kansas in which Brown's followers killed five people at Pottawatomie Creek. But it was the Harpers Ferry raid that not only led to his hanging but also shaped his lasting reputation. But how to assess that reputation? Not an easy question. To some he was a crazy terrorist. Others view him as a militant aboltionist determined to bring an end to the institution of slavery even if this resulted in blood being shed. In this full length biography, Stephen B. Oates narrates Brown's life and seeks to understand the man in the context of his times. He is not writing to praise or damn Brown, which separates him from most others who have written about him. Yet, if the reader detects a somewhat favorable attitude or slant on the part of the author toward his subject, I would not disagree. So what is Oates' take on Brown? He essentially sees him as an Old Testament/Calvinist fundamentalist who believed that slavery was a sin and, as such, should be done away with. Oates cautions against the previously quite common view of Brown as being "mad" or "crazy". Rather, Brown saw slavery as a horrible evil, as something that violated not only Christian teaching but also the principles upon which the country was founded. When non-violent attempts to do away with the institution were not successful (attempts that Brown had participated in), he concluded that slavery must be purged away with blood. Oates also strongly emphasizes that Brown firmly believed that even if his Harpers Ferry raid failed to lead to slaves revolting, it would be perceived as such a volatile act that civil conflict would follow, almost certainly resulting in slavery's demise. Too, in all his anti-slavery activities, Brown believed he was an instrument in the hands of God. What were the consequences of Brown's raid and what is its significance? At the very least it led to tremendous fear in the slave states, fears of additional northern abolitionists coming down and attempting to cause servile insurrections. Yet the 1859 raid did not *immediately* at least cause a civil war. That event, the one that led directly to secession and war, was the elction of president Abraham Lincoln, who, by the way, went out of his way to condemn Brown's Harpers Ferry raid, if not Brown's belief that slavery was wrong. Still, it could be argued that Brown's prophecy was correct, for within two years of the raid a bloody civil war DID lead to the destruction of slavery. In conclusion a few words about the author and book. I have long been an admirer of the writing of Stephen B. O

Having read this author's biography of Lincoln (Malice Toward None) I was so impressed with his writing style and story telling that I wanted to stick with him. This book reads well. I recommend it. I enjoyed it. The book reads like a novel and seemed fairly comprehensive, thought it's under 400 pages and moves along at a comfortable pace. It provides plenty of food for thought about Brown. Having always heard that Brown was a mad-man, I was pleased to find that his story is much more than that. As far as dismissing John Brown as a crazy, consider how many renowned people of his day he befriended and persuaded to back his endeavors! Were they all crazy too? The book revealed for me the political / social / religious dynamics of those wild times in a meaningful way. If the issue of John Brown comes up for discussion, I now feel confident to participate.

There are a lot of books on Brown, for good reason. He is a fascinating figure, a sort of mythical creature. Many books dumb this aspect down through their soggy prose and endless fact-logging, but the prose in this book is not too bad. Oates doesn't relate too much worthless information, which is common in the social sciences. I remember reading one Brown biography that debated whether his cabin was made out of pine or oak. Many historians cannot understand that not all pieces of information were created equal. Seriously though, the prose here is decent and the history seems fairly accurate. There are some passages that are poetic in their way, and I was affected by many aspects of Brown's personality and U.S. History that Oates managed to describe quite well. Times of revolution can make for excellent reading, especially when the world today seems very difficult to change. Brown tried to change it, and in the minds of many, he did. So, for those unfamiliar with Brown, he makes for a good story. It is obvious at times that Oates is angling to not "alienate" the Southern reader. He talks about how Southerners "had a right to be scared" and makes the argument that slavery-accepting Southerners were not such bad people, etc. Racism was widespread, only slightly less so in the North, so this is partially reasonable. However, there is hardly any material about how disgusting slavery really was. There are good reasons that John Brown was violently opposed. Basically, Oates is trying to be "balanced." What that means is he is giving both sides of the argument, even when one of them has been proven to be self-evidently stronger. Slavery was wrong, and it died out, and good riddance to the Southerners who accepted and perpetuated it. If you want to read about how nasty slavery really was, and I recommend that you do if you are open-minded about judging characters such as Brown, then you can start with some of the slave narratives, for example the narratives of Frederick Douglass and Mary Prince. John Brown was one of the few people who doesn't just stand around and watch while injustices abound. He acts, and that is the reason that many cannot stand him. He is a profoundly moral person, and that is threatening to people who are not. They cannot understand that it is better to kill a thousand men then to let millions rot in slavery. Highly recommended, just don't get thrown off by the "balance."

If you were, like I was, taught that John Brown was not much more than a well-meaning madman then you don't know the John Brown of history. Oates does a great job of dispelling that myth as well as presenting for the first time the full picture, thoroughly footnoted, of the man who may have sparked the Civil War. I have small gripes with some of the text, but none worth mentioning here. Read it and be impressed.