Heroes & Villains

I think that he had an intolerably sharp sense of an intolerably grave crime, and felt very much alone with it, except for his own sons. He thought that he could trigger a revolution with Harper’s Ferry. People act as if he were a violent man. He probably initiated less direct violence than most major slaveholders did, and there were a lot of them. People act as if there was peace before John Brown, but there was simply a war against the unarmed before John Brown. He could not be indifferent. And maybe it drove him a little crazy. I don’t know. I’m not in a position to judge him.

If you were in Missouri, there were factions there. There were the John Brown people, and then there were the Jesse James people. Now, Jesse James killed a lot more people in a much more horrible fashion than John Brown did. Jesse James was a folk hero. John Brown is some sort of blight on the history. It makes no sense. Jesse James rode around with human scalps hanging from his saddle. He was trying to carry out a one-man guerrilla war against the North. If Jesse James and John Brown had anything like the same historical reputation, then I would be willing to make small concessions toward the idea that John Brown is justly treated. Given the absolute obvious distortion that is apparent when you compare the two, you have to say John Brown has been pilloried. If he went to excesses in a good cause, Jesse James went to far greater excesses in a very bad cause. And who’s the villain? Who’s the folk hero?

—Marilynne Robinson on John Brown