JOHN BROWN’S PIKES

Scorning what he called “milk-and-water” abolitionists who only talked about slavery, John Brown in 1859 brought his abolitionist war to Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He carried with him 950 pikes—deadly spears made by a Connecticut blacksmith, which he expected to put into the hands of rebelling slaves. Violence like this between antislavery and proslavery forces had erupted earlier in the decade in Kansas. Chicago Historical Museum.