On the way to the first stop on our current trip - Harper's Ferry National Historic Park - I began reflecting on the complicated legacy of abolitionist John Brown. I wondered: How would the park and town portray this tortured piece of history?
Imagine for a moment - as I did looking at the many exhibits in Harper's Ferry - that you're an historian writing about or speaking of Brown. Which word would you be most likely to use describing Brown and his desperate attempt to bring an end to slavery? Would you call him a patriot? A hero? Freedom fighter? Martyr? Radical? Zealot? Madman? Vigilante? Murderer? Terrorist?
The more I reflected, the more clear the folly of neutrality became to me. None of us - historian or otherwise - can reasonably claim that our version of any event is free of the lens through which we view the world. Words like martyr or madman are chosen. And then, history is told, written, repeated. But history is not static any more than the historians writing it are neutral.
When I published the post below, I'd never been to Harper's Ferry. Now that I have, my John Brown lens has shifted a bit; it's quite possible I wouldn't make the same endorsement these twelve years later. But I'm still inclined to use the term freedom fighter much more readily than I would the word vigilante.
https://reflectionsfromthebellcurve.blogspot.com/2011/10/john-brown-day.html
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