Editor
Countywide & Sun;
I am concerned with a story of 25 August in the Countywide, in which John Brown, “the Butcher of Osawatomie” was portrayed as an anti-slave hero. In fact, John Brown was a murderer, a madman and a terrorist, and as a former Kansas resident of 22 years, I never cease to be outraged by this crazy person’s portrayal as a hero.
I have a fair understanding of Kansas history. I have taught the graduate level course on “Kansas and the Great Plains.”
My Grandmother was a “school marm” in Osage City for many years. My Great Grandfather Frank Root was editor of the newspaper at Holton, on the Potawatomi reservation. I have read his memoirs of life among the Potawatomi and the Wyandotte people. I understand that sad period of Kansas history and know that an intruder such as John Brown only made Kansas worse for all its citizens during the time known as “Bleeding Kansas,” John Brown, the so-called “hero” ran a 14-yearold boy through with a sword on a road near the boy’s farm because his father supposedly owned slaves. Brown followed his Kansas atrocities by conspiring with his nine sons to raid the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and arm the slaves as a means of starting a Civil War. Hardly any of the enslaved people embraced the scheme, and the first shot fired in his act of treason killed a free black telegraph operator.
John Brown was placed on trial for sedition against the state of Virginia and hanged for his crimes. Why our present culture makes a martyr out of this person is a sad commentary on our understanding of history, and why the Potawatomi people embrace this character is beyond reason to me.
Donald Rominger, Jr.; ph. D. Tecumseh
