 Du Bois, Benjamin Quarles, and Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Once the Reconstruction era ended and the country distanced itself from the anti-slavery cause and the martial law imposed in the South, the historical view of Brown changed.In the 1880s, Brown's detractors—some of them contemporaries now embarrassed by their former fervent abolitionism—began to produce virulent exposés, particularly emphasizing the Pottawatomie killings of 1856.Historian James Loewen surveyed American history textbooks circa 1995 and noted that until about 1890, historians considered Brown perfectly sane, but from about 1890 until 1970, he was generally portrayed as insane.