The Secret Committee of Six Funds John Brown's Raid

Hawk1981

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Apr 1, 2020
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When it came time for an antislavery warrior who would stand up to the South, John Brown promoted himself precisely at the right moment and in the right cultural environment. There was a dire need for a self-reliant, sincere individual utterly dedicated to a cause, and Brown appeared to his admirers as a valiant rebel whose violence against the slave power was fully justifiable.

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John Brown

Brown was well aware of the activities of the National Kansas Committee which had raised over $185,000 in cash and supplies for antislavery emigrants to Kansas. He hoped to exploit the widespread concern for Kansas by making a fund-raising tour of the East and by asking for support for his antislavery battles in Kansas, Brown hoped to redirect the support to his secret long-considered invasion of the South.

In January 1857, John Brown appeared at the office of Franklin Sanborn, the secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. Sanborn was instantly impressed by the "tall, slender, and commanding figure," with a military bearing and intense Calvinism, Brown appeared to combine "the soldier and the deacon."

Franklin Sanborn as an author, journalist and reformer. He lived in Concord, Massachusetts and was closely acquainted with the American transcendentalists. He would write the early biographies of many of the movement's key figures. Sanborn was active in politics and was a member of the Free Soil Party.

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Franklin Sanborn

Through Sanborn, Brown was introduced to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Higginson was a pastor at the Free Church in Worcester and a radical abolitionist. He joined the Boston Vigilance Committee, whose purpose was to protect fugitive slaves from pursuit and capture. Higginson actively assisted slaves in their journey to Canada and participated in actions to free captured slaves, including one incident where the federal courthouse in Boston was stormed by a small group using a battering ram, axes and cleavers. Higginson was injured in that attack and proudly wore that scar for the rest of his life. Higginson took so strongly to Brown that he soon became his most radical supporter.

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Thomas Higginson

Another antislavery minister that Sanborn introduced to Brown was Theodore Parker. Parker had gained notoriety as a clergyman so liberal that he was forced to preach in the Boston Music Hall. Though his religious views were widely divergent from those of the Calvinistic Brown, the two met on the common ground of antislavery violence. Parker had taken up arms in defense of fugitive slaves threatened with recapture, and he passionately supported slave revolts.

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Theodore Parker

Another leading member of the Massachusetts Kansas Committee was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. Howe was a physician and social activist who had fought in Greece in its revolution against Turkey, and in Poland in its rebellion against Russia. He returned to America and became a pioneer for treating mentally and physically disabled people. He and his wife Julia Ward Howe, who would write the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", were involved in many reforms, including antislavery.

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Samuel Howe

George Stearns was the President of the Massachusetts Kansas Committee. He had made a fortune as a factory owner and with his wife, Mary, lived in a mansion in Medford that was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Stearns and Brown instantly took to each other "like the iron and the magnet" his son recalled, as each "recognized the other at first sight and knew him for what he was worth."

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George Stearns

While traveling in New England to raise funds, Brown and Sanborn visited Peterboro, New York to call on Gerrit Smith, a wealthy landowner and abolition supporter. Smith furnished money to cover the legal expenses of people charged with infractions of the Fugitive Slave Act, and had contributed funds to support antislavery emigrants to Kansas. Smith was supporting the Massachusetts Kansas Committee with a $1,000 annually.

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Gerrit Smith

The committee agreed to turn over to Brown 200 Sharps rifles, ammunition and a promise of $500 for expenses. It was expected that Brown would use the weapons and funds to defend antislavery settlers in Kansas. It is unclear whether some or any of the "Secret Six" knew of John Brown's ultimate plan to capture weapons from a federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), and lead a slave rebellion in the South. Brown and the group met several additional times in 1858 and 1859 to raise funds and to discuss ways that he would attack the slave system.
 
In October 1859, John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry failed. During and after his trial, newspapers linked the names of the six to Brown. Gerrit Smith had himself committed to an insane asylum, denying he had been involved with Brown. Howe, Sanborn and Stearns fled to Canada to temporarily avoid arrest. Parker was already in Italy seeking relief from the tuberculosis that would soon take his life. Only Higginson stayed in the United States and publicly proclaimed his support for Brown. He even developed a plan to have Brown rescued from his jail cell, but Brown did not want any part of it. Higginson asked Sanborn upon the latter's fleeing to Canada, "Can your clear moral sense justify our holding our tongues in order to save ourselves from the reprobation of society, even as that nobler man whom we did provoke to enter into danger becomes the scapegoat of that reprobation, going for us even to the gallows?"

Higginson, Sanborn and Stearns made periodic pilgrimages to Brown's grave in North Elba, New York for the remainder of their lives. Sanborn saw to it that the daughters of John Brown received an education in Concord, and even after the turn of the twentieth century took a measure of responsibility for Brown's children and grandchildren.

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Howe distanced himself from the others and published a disclaimer about his involvement. He worked for the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War and at the end of war worked for the Freedmen's Bureau and other philanthropic activities that he saw as an extension of his work before the war as an abolitionist.

Smith returned to his estate in New York and continued his work giving his money away to private causes and charities. He kept no financial accounting but the value of his gifts is said to have exceeded $8 million before his death in 1874.
 
A number of guerrilla warfare activities occurred in the Territory of Kansas beginning in 1855. The term “Bleeding Kansas” began to appear in the press the following spring as a result of these activities, prominent among them was the Pottawatomie Massacre.

This event occurred a few days after the Sack of Lawrence Kansas when the Free State Hotel, the Lawrence newspaper office and other property were destroyed by proslavery forces. It is generally believed that John Brown led four of his sons and three others in killing five pro-slavery men near Dutch Henry's crossing on Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County on May 24, 1856.

The Pottawatomie Massacre, as the Brown killings were known, aroused emotions and distrust on both sides. It was denounced by Southern and some Northern newspapers.
 
Prior to the Harpers Ferry attack, Frederick Douglass met twice with John Brown in 1859 and attempted to talk him out of the plan. Though generally supportive of Brown’s purpose, Douglass believed that attacking federal property was suicidal and would enrage the American public.

Following the raid, Douglass fled for a time to Canada, fearing guilt by association as well as arrest as a co-conspirator.

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Frederick Douglass
 

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