Reading About John Brown. History Essay. American Pluralism

please read what i upload carefully





in an essay of

250 words or so, how interpretations of the past change over time and space, using the three

excerpts from biographies of John Brown I have provided.

HIST 3401: AMERICAN PLURALISM TO 1877 Professor Warren Low Stakes Writing Assignment 5 Biography as Document: Reading about John Brown You will be reading and comparing extracts from three biographies of John Brown, the militant abolitionist who led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1859, a failed attempt at starting a slave rebellion. He was tried for treason, convicted and executed. A complicated and controversial historical actor, his life and actions have been interpreted in fundamentally different ways: Brown has been seen as a hero, a villain, a madman, a terrorist, a religious zealot; the hero who prompted the North to take on the South in Civil War, or the monster who inflamed the nation’s passions, precipitating a needless war. It is not your job to identify the real John Brown; instead, your task is to explore, in an essay of 250 words or so, how interpretations of the past change over time and space, using the three excerpts from biographies of John Brown I have provided. • Introduce each of the three passages and its author in turn. • Summarize each biographer’s “take” on Brown. • Speculate on how the biographers’ life experiences (in terms of time, place, and the personal identity of each) shaped their interpretation of Brown. • Finish with your thoughts on the interpretation of history, or whether and why we should care about Brown today. Background to read up on before you begin: • John Brown’s early life: family and career • Abolitionism • Brown at Pottawatomie • Kansas-Nebraska Act • “Bleeding Kansas” • Harpers Ferry Raid • Brown’s trial, imprisonment, and execution • “John Brown’s Body” Some things to keep in mind as you read: • Who is the author? Where is he from? What is his relationship (if any) to the North and South, or African American history? • What is the work from which the excerpt comes (date, title of larger work)? • Does the passage emphasize Brown’s virtues, vices, emotions? Look for evidence of bias (either in Brown’s favor or against him) • How does the author assess Brown’s significance in American History?