#OnThisDay 1858 John Brown convened an anti-slavery convention in Chatham, Canada.

Who was John Brown? Glad you asked.

First, about this convention. Joined by Pan-Africanist and abolitionist Martin Delaney and others, They adopted a provisional constitution and ordinances for the people of the United States, the preamble of which began:

"Whereas slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another portion …. Therefore, we, citizens of the United States and the oppressed people who . . .

" . . . are declared to have no rights which the white man is bound to respect . . . ordain and establish for ourselves the following provisional constitution and ordinances, the better to protect our persons, property, lives and liberties, and govern our actions."

John Brown was an abolitionist whose fervently hated slavery. He seized the US arsenal at Harper's Ferry, VA, wanting to arm ppl for a rebellion, though he denied that. He was hanged for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia + quickly became a martyr.

The rest of the Constitution Brown + others drew up is here.
https://www.famous-trials.com/johnbrown/614-browconstitution

He was born in CT but spent much of his youth in OH. His parents instilled in him a strong belief in the Bible + hatred of slavery, and his father taught him the family trade of tanning animal skins. He worked there before moving to MA, wanting to become a minister.

He had 7 children with his first wife. After she died, he and his 2nd wife had 13. He had several businesses, but many of them failed. He sought the company of Black people, and even lived in a Freedman's community in New York.

Brown's home and property became a link on the Underground Railroad, and organized a self-protection league for freemen of color and fugitive slaves. This is how he met both Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.

By the time he was 50 years old, Brown was convinced God had selected him as the champion to lead slaves into freedom, and if that required the use of force, well, that was God’s will, too.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 gave citizens of those two territories the right to choose for themselves whether the territories would permit or prohibit slavery, Brown, like many abolitionists, moved to Kansas, taking five of his sons with him.

Fervent members of the abolition movement were determined that when the territory was ready to enter the Union as a state, it would do so as a free state. On the other side, many defenders of slavery were also pouring into Kansas, in order to secure it for slavery.

On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery forces from MO attacked the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, pillaging and burning. Two days later, Charles Sumner, a U.S. Senator from MA, was beaten with a cane on the Senate floor by Preston Brooks of SC b/c of Sumner's virulent anti-slavery speech.

Sen. Sumner survived. He is also one of the authors of the final version of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. He originally opposed it, b/c it did not guarantee the right to vote to Black people.

Rumors spread that the so-called border ruffians intended to attack the anti-slavery settlers on Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas; Brown and his family were among the abolitionists in this sharply divided area.

On the night of May 24, Brown + 4 of his sons and 2 others rode to the homes of 3 pro-slavery settlers near Dutch Henry’s crossing on Pottawatomie Creek; Brown intended to “Sweep the Pottawatomie of all pro-slavery men living on it.”

While Brown denied murdering anyone, 5 pro-slavery supporters ended up dead. The events at Lawrence and Pottawatomie caused the territory to erupt in guerrilla warfare, giving it the name “Bleeding Kansas.” Brown’s name became known to the nation as a staunch abolitionist.

On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown led 21 followers—five black men and 16 white ones, including two of Brown’s sons—on a raid to seize the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), where the Shenandoah River joins the North Branch of the Potomac.

One goal = create a state of free Black ppl in the mountains of western Virginia and Maryland. Another goal = he hoped to create an army of former slaves and freemen to march through the south, forcing slave owners to free their slaves.

Brown himself may not have been entirely clear on what the next step would be, but he had convinced a number of Northern abolitionists to provide financial support for his actions in the United States and abroad. Remember, this was BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR.

Brown's team captured a number of prisoners, including George Washington’s great-grand-nephew, Lewis Washington. Local militia trapped Brown + his team inside the arsenal. During the short siege, three citizens of Harpers Ferry, including Mayor Fontaine Beckham. were killed.

On October 18, a company of U.S. Marines, under the command of Army lieutenant colonel Robert E. Lee, broke into the building. Ten of Brown's men were killed outright and seven others, including a wounded Brown, were captured.

He was tried and convicted for murder, conspiracy to incite a slave uprising, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. He was hanged at Charles Town, the county seat near Harpers Ferry, on December 2.

Guess who was among those watching the execution, “with unlimited, undeniable contempt” for Brown?

The future assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth.

Brown had denied any plan “to excite or incite the slaves to rebellion or to make insurrection.” He never intended to commit murder or treason or to destroy property.

“Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, . . . "

cruel, and unjust enactments, I say let it be done,” he said.

". . . cruel, and unjust enactments, I say let it be done,” he said. The “unjust enactments” included the Constitution, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, + SCOTUS Dred Scott decision.

The Dred Scott decision, led by the worst SCOTUS Chief Justice in history Roger B. Taney Black ppl were not and could not be citizens. In essence, Black ppl, regardless of where they lived, were nothing more than commodities.

"[Black people] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect;

". . . and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it."

THIS IS A SCOTUS CHIEF JUSTICE SAYING THIS Y'ALL.

Brown's last words:

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."

When he was executed, his body still had the noose around his neck. Frederick Douglass, 20 years later, said

"Did John Brown draw his sword against slavery and thereby lose his life in vain? and to this I answer ten thousand times, No! ...If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery."

The Civil War began in 1859.

FIN/T

John Brown, rest in peace.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney

https://www.historynet.com/john-brown 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)