Talk:John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry/Archive 1

comments
Why doesn't John Brown's Raid redirect here? Instead it redirects to John Brown. It just seems silly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.28.130.182 (talk) 02:29, November 10, 2008


 * Fixed it. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 04:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Local Militia
If anyone could figure out the name (names?) of the local militia commander at Harpers Ferry before Lee arrived that would be fantastic! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.141.202.217 (talk) 01:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Relationship to Civil War
This event is taught as a significant precursor to the American Civil War, but the article doesn't mention that. -- Beland (talk) 07:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Awkward placement of sentence
"'In 1794, George Washington selected the site of Harpers Ferry for the location of a federal arsenal. John H. Hall was contracted to manufacture his rifle in the town.'" This sentence needs to be moved into the appropriate section of the article. --Alexanderaltman (talk) 02:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Participant discrepancy
The list in the box at the top has 21 participants, but the list at the bottom of the page has 22 names. Which is correct? Is there an extra name in the list or is the a miscount on the box? 68.99.172.81 (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

John Starry
What about Dr John Starry? He gets mentioned promimently on Harper's_Ferry, but there's no mention of him here. --80.228.197.201 (talk) 22:47, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

"First White Man to use violence in an attempt to end slavery..."
Someone has already marked this line as needing citation, and I just want to reiterate that with some skepticism here in the comments. Positioned, as his raid, and all his previous actions are some of the last significant pre-civil war violent anti-slavery actions, it seems incredibly unlikely that John Brown was the first white man to use violence to fight slavery. Granted, his enthusiastic participation in the "bleeding Kansas" crisis gives him several years precedent during which he was also involved in anti-slavery violence, but the line in this article implies a link between Brown's supposed status as the first white man to use violence to fight slavery and the Harpers Ferry raid, suggesting that this was the first time a white man had done so.

At the very least, that implication needs to be remedied, because Brown himself was involved in violent anti-slavery actions for several years prior to the raid. More likely, though, is that he can in no way be considered the first white man to use violence to fight slavery. A cursory look revealed no other likely candidates for the honor, but I'm sure someone with more knowledge of the subject could find at least one instance of a white person participating in a violent anti-slavery action that took place prior to Brown's involvement in Kansas in the 1850s. I simply can't believe there isn't one documented instance of this in the seventy-odd years prior to that, and that's assuming we're only looking so far back as the founding of the country (slaves were here before the revolution). 67.253.225.182 (talk) 10:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * May well be true. I can't recall any historian mentioning a possible counter-example. Rjensen (talk) 10:50, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * According to this timeline, the British Navy started to fight slavery in 1807. In 1816 the British and Dutch attacked Algiers in order to free Christian slaves and end enslavement of Europeans.  James Brooke, the "White Raja" of Sarawak, liberated slaves while fighting pirates.  LesLein (talk) 00:32, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * slavery was quite legal in the British Empire (including Canada and the Caribbean) until 1833 -- the Royal Navy was stopping the slave TRADE (from Africa) which was illegal in Britain and the US from 1808.
 * Good catch. My point is still valid.  Starting in 1833 the Brits must have used violence to enforce the law and liberate slaves.  Brooke appears to be another valid case.  Another example is from Syracuse, NY in 1851.  A group of blacks and whites broke into the police station to liberate a slave arrested under the Fugitive Slace Act.  I found some good material in McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom on the aftermath in the south.  Over the weekend I'll use it to replace the unsourced material.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by LesLein (talk • contribs) 01:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Harpers Ferry
Remember, it's Harpers Ferry, not Harper's Ferry. I just changed several instances of the latter spelling throughout this page. CopaceticThought (talk) 06:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone must have changed your changes. :-( I just went back and made them Harpers Ferry again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freedie (talk • contribs) 02:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the naming convention is much more fluid for Harpers Ferry in the 19th Century than today. Period accounts waver back and forth between possessive and not. The problem is so prevalent that it often helps, when searching a database, to use a wildcard between the "r" and "s". Not that it should go back, but just be aware when incorporating primary material, that it mightn't be an transcription error.165.83.128.24 (talk) 16:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The source of the change was the 1890 decision by the US Board on Geographic Names to discourage use of the apostrophe in almost all place names. As such what was known as "Harper's Ferry" in the Civil War era became the town of Harpers Ferry, but much much later. I don't think it's historically appropriate to call it the "raid on Harpers Ferry" as that name did not exist at the time. --Dhartung | Talk 09:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Consensus in contemporary historical sources, based on Google Books and Google Scholar searches, is to spell the town name without the apostrophe. – flamurai (t) 04:37, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Category
I created Category:John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. I was thinking of creating an category titled "People associated with John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry". Is that recommendable? I believe I could put at least 10 articles in said proposed category?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 23:25, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I added this category to George Luther Stearns article.Juan Riley (talk) 16:14, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Article needs a section on the Mason report
AKA the "Senate Select Committee Report on the Harper’s Ferry Invasion" c. 1860. E.g., http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/masonreport.html The stuff on Stearns' testimony is quite red meat. Any good historians out there? Juan Riley (talk) 16:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * After re-reading the article, I also think that there is a glaring absence of monetary and material support for Brown, e.g., the Secret Six. Juan Riley (talk) 19:20, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

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Proposed country
I have put this in Category:Proposed countries. Since there was a proposed constitution, and it’s different from the U.S. Constitution, as it is, then it’s a proposed country. I think it deserves an article, actually.

Brown’s constitution does not have a name for this country he proposed to start in the Appalachians. Did it have a proposed name? If not, what title would be good for an article?deisenbe (talk) 19:25, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

In popular culture
Is there any reason (other than neglect) that depictions of the raid in popular culture are not listed here? patsw (talk) 01:19, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Dr Starry
I can't find the source that states Brown let Starry go. Can anyone find it?

Jasper0333 (talk) 01:07, 18 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is one, but how could he have gone to Charles Town otherwise? deisenbe (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Packed with information, but poorly written
Very informative article, but it is so poorly written that it's almost painful to read. Major editing is recommended. The following paragraph is an example of trying to pack too many ideas into one sentence. Note the resulting overuse of commas. 2603:9000:7400:361C:3908:5CCF:3060:8BEA (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2021 (UTC) As there were few official messages to send or receive, the telegraph carried on the next train, connected to the cut telegraph wires, was "given up to reporters", who "are in force strong as military".

Then there is another paragraph whose only purpose seems to be to insist that the incident was never called a raid. Why is this so important? 2603:9000:7400:361C:3908:5CCF:3060:8BEA (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

''The label "raid" was not used at the time. A month after the attack, a Baltimore newspaper listed 26 terms used, including "insurrection", "rebellion", "treason", and "crusade". "Raid" was not among them.''
 * Since the article title uses the word "raid", the note that this is not an original term is relevant. deisenbe (talk) 17:35, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Request for support for proposed deletion of list of sources
A while ago I took the list of sources out of this article and made it a "list" article, which has now been proposed for deletion. Articles for deletion/List of sources for John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

I find the list to be a handy tool that shows in order the many writers who have published their recollections. Sometimes it has been useful to consult to look at who took what from whom about what happened at HF. But I have the tool. I've saved it in my sandbox. If anyone else thinks this is useful information I'd appreciate any serious suggestion about what to do with it. Should I put it back in the article? Note that there is a properly formatted citation (I hope) for everything cited. deisenbe (talk) 10:25, 11 November 2021 (UTC)