Abolitionist John Brown (May 9, 1800-December 2, 1859) was as responsible as any one person for the coming of the Civil War. His October 16, 1859, raid on Harpers Ferry galvanized the nation, further alienating North and South and drastically reducing any possible middle ground for compromise.

Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut, the fourth of eight children of Owen Brown and Ruth Mills. Unsuccessful at every occupation he undertook, by the 1850s Brown had committed himself to the violent abolition of slavery. He took an Old Testament view of his cause, believing that the great sin of human bondage must be purged from the land by the shedding of blood. In May 1856 he and his sons and followers killed five slaveholders at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, and he later lost one of his sons in a similar raid.