Answer the following question in paragraph form (5-7 complete sentences). Be sure to check your grammar and spelling. Was John Brown a radical murderer or a hero? Defend your position.

John Brown and his sons committed murder in Kansas. Brown and his sons traveled to Kansas from his home in Connecticut in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1856. Brown was a radical abolitionist and left an infamous record in Kansas due to the Pottawatomie Creek massacre. There Brown and his sons invaded the home of a pro-slavery family and dragged them outside. They shot the father in the head and hacked and mutilated his sons with broadswords. These were deemed ritual murders and committed in front of the families female members. In 1859, Brown, somehow escaping prosecution, bought a farm under a false name in Maryland. There he plotted a slave revolt and left a paper trail as to his intentions. He needed weapons to start the revolution and so took over the US arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His scouts could find no slaves willing to join the revolt. After a few more innocent people were killed, Brown was captured by then Colonel of the Marines, Robert E. Lee. Brown was found guilty of treason and hanged. He was certainly no hero, and clearly a traitor and murderer.