Talk:John Brown

Untitled
This is an excellent and thorough article. My only suggestion would be to add some reference to the song "John Brown's Body" that emerged after his death (for which new lyrics were written as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic").

John Brown is a pretty common name. Another one is mentioned in Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Somebody needs to disambiguate this abolitionist John Brown that the song is about from Queen Victoria's John Brown that the movie Mrs. Brown is about and that I have a picture or two of that I want to post. -- isis 26 Aug 2002


 * Maybe we should disambiguate by year of birth, eg "John Brown (1859)". I don't think we'll ever come up with a satisfying, simple, intuitive qualifier. "John Brown (Queen Victoria)" is a bit long and unwieldy. -- Tarquin 13:52 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

I was thinking of birth and death dates in parentheses and/or nationality: Scot and American. The only alternative I can see is to call one a lover and the other a fighter. -- isis
 * We have used nationality before. See Piet Hein (Denmark) and Piet Hein (Netherlands).   Rmhermen 16:24 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

I would much prefer to use dates to distinguish them, but that's not helpful in this case, because their lives overlapped [(1800 - 1859) for the abolitionist and (1826 - 1883) for the ghillie], so a person who knew the man they were looking up lived in the middle half of the 19th century would not be able to tell which it was. I think the nationality would be more helpful, but I'm not sure someone would know Victoria's John Brown was a Scot (if they just had his name mentioned in passing in some article about her), and Buchanan's John Brown could have been a Scot by birth (tho he wasn't). So I would like to distinguish them by what they did, which raises the issue of how to label them. I was born and reared in Virginia, and the first epithet that comes to my mind for Buchanan's John Brown is "terrorist," which may not be NPOV enough, altho he WAS executed for treason and murder, and if that's not terrorism, what is? (Same problem with "fanatic," plus the other John Brown was gaga about Victoria, too, and so could merit that description.) I'd like to label Victoria's John Brown "ghillie" and then define that in the article, but that wouldn't help the person looking them up who didn't already know that term. So the best I can suggest, thru gritted teeth, is "abolitionist" and "servant." Can anyone else, please, please, please, do better? -- isis

General discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people with the same name)

John Brown
Has anyone heard the saying, "I'll be John Brown!" Both my husband and I, who grew up about 100 miles apart in Arkansas/Louisiana, use this saying. Does anyone know the origin? 155.58.116.247 (talk) 16:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)SSWaites155.58.116.247 (talk) 16:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Links to here that require fixing

 * Encyclopædia Perthensis mentions a John Brown (possibly a company, not a person) who was a publisher in Edinburgh in 1816
 * Colonial Heads of the Bahamas mentions a John Brown who was acting Governor from 1786 to 1787
 * Elections and parties in Norfolk Island mentions a John Brown who is a member of the Norfolk Legislative Assembly
 * Sebastian Snow mentions a John Brown
 * Rangers F.C. Hall of Fame mentions a John Brown who is a football player
 * List of Members of the Canadian House of Commons - B mentions a John Brown who was elected in 1891 as Liberal member for Monck, Ontario

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle G (talk • contribs)


 * Thanks for listing them. If you'd contribute a short stub with basic biographical data on one or the other that would be great as well. -- User:Docu

Infamous raid?
The term used here is not objective

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), famous abolitionist who led an infamous raid on Harper's Ferry

There were at the time, and are today, enough people who think that this raid was not infamous (a very negative term) but rather glorious, and wonderful, and admirable, and what have you. Of course any of these terms would not be very objcetive either. I suggest cahnging it to

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), famous abolitionist who led a controversial raid on Harper's Ferry

There can be no question that the raid was controversial, that is an objective fact whether you are in favor of it or against it.

Comments, anybody?

Adam Keller 22:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Yeah, John Brown is a very controversial figure and any value judgment wll be very easily contested. I'll do it. Vultur 17:45, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the term Terrorist would be the most objective albeit likely unfavorable due to our post 9/11 anti-Muslim prejudice that makes a deluded segment of modern America unable to accept the fact that their hero is more morally akin to the Daesh than to the persona created to mask the true nature of the agressor state. John Brown's terrorist act was undertaken as an attempt to cause millions of people, including almost all "slaves"(i.e. defacto Serfs/peasents since slaves don't reproduce at replacement rates) and southern townsfolk, to be killed in a senseless slaughter that, if it occurred, would've been more like the Cambodian genocide with families being forced to murder their members as the extermination of "Uncle Toms", in a society where master-peasant relations were more akin to familial ties than business arrangements, would've wiped out 80+% of blacks in America. If Osama Bin Laden, a man who wanted to kill no more than ~500 Americans to incite a coup/revolution in Saudi Arabia, is a terrorist, then John Brown is the absolute pinnacle of terrorist leaders. Osama didn't want to target women and children but John Brown wanted to exterminate all southern civilians. Racism is, at its core, a fear of competition from a self-sustaining group that one cannot join. The extermination of blacks and southern whites in America would've been very popular to the northerners who saw manumissions as a constant source of competition. John Brown would've been very convenient to the north if his terrorist attack succeeded. 63.152.103.93 (talk) 15:14, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

The link and/or description for John Elward Brown, Sr. is incorrect
The page redirects incorrectly. Somebody please fix/correct this. SJCarlson22 (talk) 08:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

John Brown's Body
I've just deleted claim on the intro of this page that "John Brown's Body" "orignally referred to "another person". If you go to the Body page it will be seen that (a) the reference is to one theory and (b) it is a misleading reference even to that theory. I suppose there should be some referenc eto the song though.Jeremy (talk) 01:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Primary topic, John Brown abolitionist?
The proper procedure if you believe John Brown (abolitionist) is the primary topic is to use WP:Requested moves, so that John Brown can be moved to John Brown (disambiguation). It is not proper to cut & paste John Brown to John Brown (disambiguation), which is why I reverted it before. Tassedethe (talk) 12:54, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * After clicking on John Browns, I can report that the abolitionist seems to be the only one with a significant write up. It makes no sense to have him hidden deep in the article. Kauffner (talk) 16:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, WP:MOSDAB guidelines say that the most important items should be at the top of the list. Unfortunately the way it is laid out at the moment contradicts some other guidelines. I am going to put a note at the MOS talk page to request some help with this as I have never had to separate out several entries due to importance, most pages are ordered like this one (by occupation) or by birth date. Tassedethe (talk) 07:26, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I have added a help request at the talk page here. I hope I have clearly laid out your concerns. Tassedethe (talk) 07:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

"John. W. Brown" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect John. W. Brown. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Hog Farm (talk) 19:42, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:John Brown (abolitionist) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:46, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:John Brown (abolitionist) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 09:15, 13 May 2023 (UTC)