This sympathy, he assures us, was a result of his father's teaching.

Upon the testimony of two of John Brown's sons rests the oft-repeated story that he declared eternal war against slavery and also induced the members of his family to unite with him in formal consecration to his mission.

The time given for this incident is previous to the year 1840; the idea that he was a divinely chosen agent for the deliverance of the slaves was of later development.
As early as 1834 Brown had shown some active interest in the education of negro children, first in Pennsylvania and later in Ohio.

In 1848 the Brown family became associated with an enterprise of Gerrit Smith in northern New York, where a hundred thousand acres of land were offered to negro families for settlement.

During the excitement over the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Brown organized among the colored people of Springfield, Massachusetts, "The United States League of Gileadites." As an organization this undertaking proved a failure, but Brown's formal written instructions to the "Gileadites" are interesting on account of their relation to what subsequently happened.