Is John Brown a freedom fighter or a terrorist? Explain.

The answer to this is "yes."  In other words, John Brown
is both.  Because he was on the side of the North and because the North won, we see him
in a positive light today.  However, the things he did would have been seen as terrorism
if the North had not won or if he had done them in the cause of the South (like, say,
John Wilkes Booth did).

The things that John Brown did in
Kansas and what he tried to do in his raid on Harper's Ferry were very much like
terrorism.  For example, in Kansas, he killed men in front of their wives and children. 
We would certainly look on such acts as terroristic.  In Harper's Ferry, he wanted to
arm slaves who would then kill white people, not all of whom would have "deserved"
it.

Yet, at the same time, it is hard (impossible?) to
argue that he was not fighting for a worthy cause.  Slavery was an evil institution that
deserved to be destroyed.

So which is Brown?  To be honest,
you have to agree that he can be seen in both ways.