John Brown didn’t intend to become a martyr for the cause of slavery. His Harper Ferry plan intended to arm the slaves and fight alongside them for their freedom (Webb,5). However, due to miscalculations, the effort appeared to have been in vain. After his capture, he knew he was doomed to die. So he intended his death to be of the most use to the anti-slavery cause (Drew,59). After the initial shock of his actions had passed, Brown and his abolitionists partners set out to create a martyr out of his image.
Everything fell into place almost perfectly, the trial was shown in an unfavorable light from Brown’s injury to the obviously biased judge. Brown himself displayed no hesitation in his last days. In his correspondence with his friends in the North he accepted his role as dying as a martyr and even reveled in it (Drew,43).
But how can a man become a marytr after such a violent raid? That is where the story of the kiss comes in. Its function is to pardn Brown’s faults. Brown’s friend Sanborn claims “In heroes, faults are pardoned, crimes forgotten, exploits magnified—their life becomes a poem or a scripture—they enter on an enviable earthly immortality.”(Webb,13) The symbol of the kiss is to represent the good intentions Brown had. The supposed time it occured plays a significant part too. The story states that as John Brown is being led to his death out of jai, he stops to kiss an African child. The meaning is to symbolize that even when John Brown is about to die, he still holds to his ideas of love and freedom of slaves. With this action, his sins are forgiven in the eyes of many and his actions are deemed misguided or impractical but with good intent(Redpath, 461).
So how did this legend come into being? There is good evidence showing that John Brown quoted that he would rather have a slave mother and her children following him to the gallows rather than a priest (Redpath,457). Also, Brown was on good terms with his jailer Captain Avis who probably owned slaves and their childrens.(Drew,52) It is possible that Brown did have some interaction with a slave child. Either way, the two above fact probably combined and created the legend that is so well-known today.
The story of the kiss was the final “act” that John Brown had to do to complete his martyrdom. The “unfair” or “tragic” circumstance of his death was established already. All that needed to be done was one final reminder of his purpose along with something to wipe out or justify his “sins”. The story of Brown and the slave child fit the bill perfectly and his martyrdom was complete.