Oakland Unified School District
District Assessment
8th Grade U.S. History
Spring Semester, 2010
Topic: “Is John Brown an American Hero?”
Part I – Thinking About “Heroes of American History”
Step #1 – Imagine there is a “Heroes of American History Hall of Fame” and you’ve been asked to nominate five people for inclusion. In the first column of the chart below write down the names of five people you think deserve to be inducted [placed] in that hall of fame. In the second column write down why you think each of these individuals deserves to be included.
A person to be included in the “Heroes of American History Hall of Fame” / Why should this person be included?1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Step #2 – In the space below, using the reasons you gave for why the people you chose are American heroes, write down your definition of an American hero.
Step #3 – Below is one definition of an American hero.
One definition of an American Hero Dictionary –
A person of great courage or ability, admired for his or her brave deeds and noble qualities; someone whose actions led to important social, political, or economic changes that lifted the spirit of Americans and bettered the situation of the country.
1. How is the dictionary definition similar to or different from the definition of a hero you wrote for step #2? Explain.
2. Thinking about the people you chose in step #1, the reasons you chose them, and the dictionary definition of a hero – What is your definition of an American hero?
Step #4 – Return to your list of individuals you said belonged in the “Heroes of American History Hall of Fame.” Is there anyone there who you would remove based on your final definition?
First list of people to be included in the “Heroes of American History Hall of Fame” / Are you going to keep or remove this person from the list? / Why should this person be kept or removed?1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
If you removed a person or persons from your list, who do you want to replace that person? / Why should this person be included?
Step #5 - Looking ahead: Over the next three to four days you will be studying about a man named John Brown. You will learn about when he lived and what he did. At the end of these lessons you will be asked to write an essay that answers, based on your definition of a hero, the question “Is John Brown an American hero?”
Part II – A Brief Chronology of John Brown’s Life: When did he live and what did he do?
Below are two timelines of the same time period. Timeline I includes information about a man named John Brown. Timeline II includes information about important events in U.S. and World history.
Timeline I:Important Events in John Brown’s Life / Date / Timeline II:
Important Events in American and World History
§ John Brown is born in Torrington, Connecticut.
§ His father hated slavery. / 1800
§ Brown observed the beating of a young slave boy. / 1812 / § United States declares war against Great Britain.
§ John Brown marries Dianthe Lusk.
§ She dies in 1832 / 1820 / Missouri Compromise:
§ Admitted Maine admitted to nation as free state and Missouri as a slave state.
§ Prohibited slavery above the 36030’ line of latitude, allowing it below that line.
1831 / Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Virginia:
§ Sixty whites were killed.
§ One-hundred slaves who did not participate in the rebellion were killed.
§ Nat Turner was captured and executed.
§ John Brown weds Mary Day. / 1833 / § Slavery is abolished in the British Empire
§ The abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is shot to death by a proslavery mob.
§ John Brown makes a vow to end slavery. / 1837
1846 / § The United States declares war against Mexico.
1850 / Compromise of 1850:
§ California admitted as a free state, ending the equal number of free and slave states
§ Fugitive Slave law passed.
1854 / Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854:
§ Giving in to Southern power, the federal government placed the issue of slavery into the hands of those settling in these new territories. The people would decide, by popular vote, whether to be "free" or "slave."
§ Brown goes to Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas and directs his men to murder five proslavery settlers. / 1856
1857 / Dred Scott ruling:
§ Supreme Court ruled that no African American could be a citizen of the United States and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery anywhere in the country.
§ John Brown attacks two proslavery homesteads Missouri
§ He frees 11 slaves and takes them to freedom in Canada / 1858
§ October 16: John Brown attacks the U.S. government armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
§ November 2: A Virginia jury finds John Brown guilty of murder, treason, and inciting a slave insurrection.
§ December 2: John Brown is hanged. / 1859 /
Events that occurred after John Brown was tried, convicted and hung.
1860 / § Abraham Lincoln elected President.
1861 / § Confederate armies open fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina; the first shots of the Civil War.
1865 / § The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolishes slavery.
Source – “John Brown’s Holy War,” PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/timeline/index.html
1. Examine the chronology of John Brown’s life – timeline I. After reading the information use the space below to briefly explain:
A. Who he was.
B. What he did – What actions did he take that might be considered historically significant?
C. What happened to him and why.
2. Using information gathered from timeline II speculate [guess at] as to why John Brown attacked the U.S. government armory [a place where the government stores weapons] at Harpers Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1859. Why do you think he did it and why at that time in American?
PART III
“John Brown and ‘Bleeding Kansas’”
I. Read the following account of what happened in Kansas between 1854 and 1856. Answer the questions that follow.
(paragraph 1) The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 stated that the future of slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territories was to be decided by popular vote, a vote of the people. Because of this both antislavery Northerners and proslavery Southerners competed for this territory.
(paragraph 2) Competition between proslavery and antislavery factions reached a climax on May 30, 1855, when Kansas held territorial elections to see if the state would allow slavery. Although only 1500 men were registered to vote, 6000 ballots were cast, many of them by proslavery "border ruffians" who came into Kansas from Missouri. As a result, a proslavery legislature was elected, which passed laws stating that only proslavery men could serve in office or serve on juries. One law gave five years imprisonment for anyone questioning the legality of slavery in Kansas.
1. Briefly summarize paragraphs 1 & 2 - What question was being settled by voters in Kansas in 1855?). Based on the information in these two paragraphs - do you think this was a fair election? Why or why not?
(paragraph 3) Free Soilers (people opposed to slavery in the new territories that were to become new states in the United States) held their own "Free State" convention in Topeka, Kansas in the fall of 1855, and drew up a constitution that prohibited slavery in Kansas, and also barred free blacks from the territory. Like the Free Soilers who settled in California and Oregon, most Northerners in Kansas wanted the territory to be free and white.
(paragraph 4) Kansas now had two legislatures - one pro-slavery, the other against. President Franklin Pierce supported the proslavery legislature and asked the United States Congress to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state.
(paragraph 5) The situation then became violent. On May 21, 1856, 800 proslavery men, many from Missouri, marched into Lawrence, Kansas, to arrest the leaders of the antislavery government. They burned the local hotel, looted a number of houses, destroyed two antislavery printing presses, and killed one man. This became know as the “sack of Lawrence.”
2. Briefly summarize paragraphs 3, 4, & 5 - What happened in Kansas after the 1855 vote on whether Kansas would or would not allow slavery?
(paragraph 6) 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.
3. Briefly summarize paragraph 6 – What did John Brown do at Pottawatomie Creek and why did he do it?
Text from:
· “Bleeding Kansas and Bleeding Sumner” , the Gilder Lehrman Institute, http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module9/index.html
· To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown,
by Stephen B. Oates. Harper & Row, 1970, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/CONTEXTS/Kansas/jbrown.html
Part IV – Historians’ Comments on John Brown’s actions in Kansas (sources 1 & 2)
Below are comments by historians on Brown’s actions at Pottawatomie Creek in 1856. Read over the comments and for each decide whether the historian had a positive or negative view of Brown. Explain your thinking.
Source #1 Source #2
A. [What happened at] Pottawatomie was cold blooded murder. [It was] 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
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html
B. The [Pottawatomie Creek] massacre and the mutilation of the corpses certainly worsened the situation in "Bleeding Kansas," igniting the conflict's most violent phase, which ultimately left about fifty-five settlers dead.
- Steven Mintz, historian
http://www.historynow.org/09_2005/historian6.html
------
Negative or Positive view of Brown? ______
Why? / 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 [fighters] 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.
- from the Introduction to Terrible Swift Sword—The Legacy of John Brown, Edited by Peggy A. Russo and Paul Finkelman, 2005
------
Negative or Positive view of Brown?______
Why?
Considering what you read about “Bleeding Kansas” and the historians’ comments, would you, based on this limited information, support the argument that John Brown is an American hero? Why or why not?
Three Years Later - October, 1859
The paragraph below describes where and how the story of John Brown's fight against slavery continued.
On October 16, 1859, John Brown led 21 men (5 blacks and 16 whites) on a raid of the federal arsenal [place where weapons are kept] at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He planned to take the weapons and use them to start a slave revolt. The plan did not work. Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where he was tried and convicted of treason. John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.
- from Africans in America, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html
Part V – Evidence: Two Primary Sources (sources 3 & 4)
What John Said About his Raid on Harpers Ferry – Why?
To Do: Below are two statements by John Brown about his raid on Harpers Ferry. In the box next to each of the statements briefly summarize, using your own words, what John Brown said. After working with the two sources decide (on next page) whether these statements, taken together, support the argument that John Brown should be considered an American hero.
Two Statements from John Brown / Short summary of what the author of the quote is saying. / What does this quote suggest about whether John Brown should or should not be considered an American hero?Include exact words from the quote and quotation marks.
Source #3 - John Brown's Last Prophecy
Charlestown, Va, 2nd, December, 1859
I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done. / In this passage from 1859 John Brown is arguing that violence and bloodshed are necessary if slavery is to be abolished in the United States. / Sample responses: Both sides, depending on your point of view, can be argued from this quote.
In 1859 John Brown said, “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this land will never be purged away but with blood.” This suggests he should be considered a hero because it means he is willing to even use violence to end slavery.
Or
In 1859 John Brown said, “I am now quite that the crimes of this land will never be purged away but with blood.” This suggests he not should be considered a hero because it means he is arguing for using violence as a means to end slavery.
Source #4 - From address of John Brown to the Virginia Court at Charles Town, Virginia on November 2, 1859
… I believe that to have interfered as I have done… in behalf of His [God] despised poor, was not wrong, but right.
Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments [laws]. -- I submit; so let it be done!
Do these statements from John Brown support the argument that he is an American hero? Why or why not?