ed him to see slavery as a crime against humanity. However, it has been noted that "his God was not the revivalists' forgiving Jesus, who encouraged sinners to save themselves through conversion, but the vengeful father of the Old Testament" (Foner and Mahoney, 1990, p. 65). Many historians have claimed that Brown's vision for freeing the slaves was fanatical. This was because he was quite willing to do violence in God's name for the sake of his cause. In fact, one of Brown's favorite sayings from the Bible was: "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins" (Batty and Parish, 1987, p. 40). Not all of his efforts were violent. For example, he participated for a while in running the "Underground Railroad" which helped many Southern slaves escape from their masters. Brown also used other peaceful means for helping runaway slaves. However, he soon became obsessed with his vision of freeing all the slaves in America, and he realized that this dramatic feat could only be accomplished through violence and bloodshed. In 1847, Brown met the famous black leader Frederick Douglass and told him of his plan to free all slaves. Douglass, being a peaceful man, was highly skeptical of Brown's proposed tactics of violence. Nevertheless, there were many other Northern abolitionists who were willing to lend Brown their support, even though they insisted on doing so in secret.
In 1855, Brown decided to move to the territory of Kansas. At that time, both pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces were fighting over the status of the territory. Brown went there with five of his sons in order to fight for the anti-slavery cause and to hopefully turn Kansas into a haven for anti-slavery settlers (Longacre, 1986, p. 83). He established his base of operations in the town of Osawatomie, and before long people throughout the area were referring to him as "Old Brown of Osawatomie" (p. 83). In May of 1856, pro-slavery forces led a raid on La...