John Brown and his “army” raided the Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to create a slave uprising. Instead they were defeated, many of Brown’s followers were killed, and Brown and six of his men were captured. Brown would hang for treason, becoming a martyr figure for the abolition movement. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.

The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.