Frederick Douglass Town Hall Activity

For our first speech activity, we had a fictional town hall meeting in which each student chose a historical figure to speak as. Each historical figure gave their takes on the issue of slavery, and whether they agreed or disagreed with the practice. I was John Brown, a puritan abolitionist who literally fought slavery in Bleeding Kansas. However, in this blog, I will instead discuss the pro-slavery figures that were at our town hall meeting. 

Dr. J Marion Sims

The first figure that interested me was Dr. J Marion Sims. Dr. Sims is known as "the father of gynecology", and was a pioneer in care for pregnant women (and women in general). He founded the first women's hospital in New York and was responsible for the opening of the nation's first hospital for cancer patients.

However, he had a dark side. Many of his techniques and discoveries were developed with the use of slaves as test subjects. While trying to figure out cures and surgeries for vaginal injuries, he experimented on enslaved women without anesthesia; at the time, it was commonly believed that black people felt less pain than white people.

Another interesting figure was Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson has been heavily discussed before, but I still found it interesting to hear someone speak as him anyway. Thomas Jefferson appears to have had a very complex view on slavery; he generally critiqued it, but he also owned over 600 slaves. Eventually, it appears he settled on the idea of gradual emancipation, but historians still debate over his true view.

I greatly enjoyed our "town hall meeting" as historical figures. It was interesting to hear differing perspectives from an era that was so different than the one we are in now. Watching people present through these different lenses provided a more contemporary view of how we interpret these figures.

John Brown Research

John Brown

For our historical figure town hall presentations, I chose to research and present as John Brown. John Brown was a Puritan evangelist who was (not to put it negatively) an extremist abolitionist. Out of all the abolitionists I've learned about/researched, John Brown has always been my favorite to his interesting and unique story.

John Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut on May 9th, 1800 to Owen Brown and Ruth Mills. The Brown family moved multiple times during John's childhood, eventually settling in Hudson, Ohio. This region would eventually become one of the most anti-slavery regions in the country, with Hudson acting as a safe town for Underground Railroad fugitives. Hudson's founder, David Hudson was a fervent abolitionist along with Owen Brown and advocated for slave resistance. 

It is likely that Hudson, Ohio, and his father were John Brown's core influences in his fervent and forceful anti-slavery stance. These influences were solidified in an event that Brown witnessed when he was 12 years old. While delivering an errand to a man, he lodged with them for a night since it was a relatively long trip there. He was treated kindly, but he witnessed the man beat a young slave boy with an iron shovel. It was likely witnessing this is what drove Brown to lead a life of action against slavery, not just words.

For most of his adult life, Brown lived a relatively normal and successful life. He became a successful tanner and taught himself surveying. He moved to Pennsylvania with his family, establishing a large farm that also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It is estimated that helped over 2,500 slaves make it to Canada. However, the Panic of 1837 ruined Brown's finances, and it took until around 1850 for him to recover, having lost almost all of his property.

In 1854, a state-level civil war began in the Kansas Territory, referred to as Bleeding Kansas. Five of Brown's sons moved to Kansas as the war began, and Brown followed suit in 1855, bringing with him a wagon full of guns and ammunition. He settled in Osawatomie, and shortly after he became the leader of the anti-slavery forces in Kansas.

Artist's depiction of Bleeding Kansas

Multiple pro-slavery raids would occur in 1856, including the Sacking of Lawrence, which would drive Brown to carry out the first action that gave him national attention. On the night of May 24th, 1856, Brown led anti-slavery forces to kill 5 slave hunters and pro-slavery militants in Pottawatomie Creek: this would be called the Pottawatomie Massacre. In the following three months, Brown saw the most action in Kansas due to retaliatory attacks by pro-slavery forces. Brown's forces captured 22 men while defending an anti-slavery settlement, and they also killed 20 pro-slavery Missourians while retreating due to being overwhelmed by numbers. Shortly after, the fighting stopped due to intervention from the state's governor.

Brown's final act would be his raid on Harper's Ferry. Brown spent 3 years recruiting and raising funds for the raid, working with and meeting influential abolitionists along the way. He worked with Harriet Tubman to recruit men for the raid and tried to enlist Frederick Douglass for the raid. Douglass declined as he thought the raid would be a suicide attack, and he worked to dissuade black men from enlisting.

Though Brown originally planned to have a force of around 4,500 men, he would only end up having 21 recruits for the raid. Brown would end up leading only 18 men on the raid into Harper's Ferry. They met no resistance when capturing the armory, only encountering a single guard and no resistance from the surrounding town. However, things quickly went south as Robert E. Lee and other soon-to-be-famous generals arrived with 88 U.S. Marines.

Unsurprisingly, Brown and his men were overwhelmed and defeated. 5 of Brown's men escaped, 11 of Brown's men were killed before they were captured, and Brown and 6 others were captured tried, and sentenced to death. Initially, Brown was widely viewed as a madman for the raid, but after voluminous amounts of correspondence with the press and responding to letters written to him, he came to be viewed as a hero to Northerners with anti-slavery sentiments.

Painting of John Brown before
his execution

Brown knew that his actions and soon-to-be would have profound consequences on the country. He wrote, "[I am] fully persuaded that I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose" (The Atlantic). He had been able to heavily publicize his views thanks to the press requesting interviews with him, and he knew his death would polarize the nation. His final words which he wrote to his jailor (and that I used to end my speech) proved to be prophetic. "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."

Sources/Further Reading
A Blurb about John Brown's Farm in Pennsylvania
An Interview with Charles S. S. Griffing about John Brown
An Interview with Ruth Thompson, Daughter of John Brown
A Timeline of John Brown's Life
A Visit to John Brown by a Lady (Interview)
Britannica Biography of John Brown
Memoirs of John Brown
Midnight rising: John Brown and the raid that sparked the Civil War
Territorial Kansas: John Brown
The Atlantic Monthly (1922) "John Brown"

Bible Research Challenge

The following blog post was a collaborative writing assignment between myself and Lauren Pujolar. Slight edits have been made to Pujolar's writing for clarity, but the style and content are untouched. The sections have been marked with their authors.

Written by Lauren Pujolar Slavery was a controversial issue that haunts the history of the world. It was not only an issue in society but also an issue in religion and in the Bible. As Professor Dean wrote on the page, “they based arguments both for and against slavery on religion usually on the Bible” (Smith). 

In Christianity, the argument about if slavery was right or wrong was a big debate, especially in America’s earlier years as a country. The Bible supports slavery and also looks down on it. The debate of what was right and what was wrong in the eyes of God was a big part of deciding whether slavery should be abolished or not in the US Constitution. And the opposite views based on the Bible caused division in early America and why the decision of abolishing slavery was delicate in the eyes of Christianity. 

Christianity is a religion that preaches loving your neighbors, forgiving your enemy, as well as forgiving those who have wronged you. From the outside looking in, a religion with these values would never support slavery. Slavery is considered a sin in Christianity based on the belief of treating people the way you wanted to be treated. 

The Bible follows these values by stating: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16) As a Christian, the only higher power is God and all men and women are created equal regardless of skin color. According to the Bible, “slaveholders cannot be Christian because slavery is a sin.” (Hosmer) In the beginning of the 16th century, many Popes declared slavery a sin and that made it against religion. 

A huge advocate for anti-slavery was Henry Ward Beecher, he claimed that “while the fundamental feature of the Roman system was that he was a chattel and not a man.” (American Historical Association) He and many other Christians believed that slavery was sinful, against the Bible, and unchristian because it put the well-being and selfish needs of some above others. 

It also put the slave owner above the slave which would make him closer to God/above someone else which wasn’t prohibited in the Bible. Slavery was against the Bible and that is why so many Christians were pushing for the Constitution to get rid of slavery based on the fact that it was sinful. 

Written by Parker Nyboer

While the idea of modern forms of Christianity condoning slavery is ludicrous, the denominations of the Christian religion have not always been anti-slavery. In fact, many Christian thinkers and leaders have been staunchly pro-slavery. While Christian views are obviously different today, there is no denying that Christianity once condoned slavery.

The slave trade in America brought about the need for theological justifications in the Christian world. If slaveholders were Christian, either they or someone else would have to confront the issue of slavery from a religious standpoint. Many theologians and church leaders did, and many reached a conclusion in support of slavery.

Bishop John Henry Hopkins

For example, John Henry Hopkins, who was an Episcopalian bishop, strongly believed in the idea of slavery and used the Bible to defend it. He stated that while the Bible did establish that blacks and whites had a common ancestor through Noah, they were not equal. In one of his pamphlets he wrote, “why should not the African race be subject, and subject in that way to which it is best adapted?” (Burrell 4)

Said biblical arguments usually stemmed from the story of the Curse of Ham, in which Noah condemns his grandson and son of Ham, Canaan, along with Canaan’s descendants to be “servants” to Ham’s other brothers. English Bishop Thomas Newton heavily used the “Hamitic Hypothesis” (Burrell 4.1) in his publication, Dissertation on the Prophecies, in defense of slavery.

As with all other religions’ beliefs, Christianity’s beliefs are fluid. While slavery was once accepted by a sizeable amount of Christians, the abolitionist movement was also heavily influenced by Christianity. There may be religious practices today that will end up mirroring this story in the coming years.

Source Slavery, the Hebrew Bible and the Development of Racial Theories in the Nineteenth Century by Kevin Burrell