Black Abolitionist Women Who Were Friends of John Brown

Women were equal in the Brown family because all people were created equal

This video clip comes from a John Brown: America250 Roundtable discussion with historian Margaret Washington, Ph.D., and environmental psychologist Shawndel Fraser, M.A., John Brown and Abolitionist Women, hosted by John Brown biographer Louis A. DeCaro Jr., Ph.D.

In this clip, Dr. Washington explores the relationships between John Brown and many Black abolitionist women.

TRANSCRIPT:

DeCaro: Margaret, I was wondering if you might share some vignettes of other abolitionist women and John Brown. Let me just say this to set this up for our friends who are here: the fact that John Brown was thinking about women, even when he was considering the organizations that he founded, shows that he saw women as being equal participants.

Washington: Well, I think one of the most inspiring aspects of the provisional constitution was that John Brown was working on setting up what we call in Latin American history a maroon society—or in Caribbean history, a maroon society—in which enslaved people flee the plantations and go off into the mountains to set up their own communities. That is what John Brown was going to do. That is one of the things he was planning with Harriet Tubman: to set up basically a maroon society.

He created a constitution, and within that, first of all, what was amazing to me was that because Black women were so sexually violated as enslaved women, he had a vile punishment for any man who violated a woman. In addition to that, just like in the maroon societies in the Caribbean and Spanish and Portuguese America, men and women were going to fight equally. If they were attacked, then everybody fought, which was basically a sign of equality in this society that he was hoping would be built.

Relationships with Black women in the movement

In terms of his relationship with certain Black women, we've talked about Harriet Tubman, but he had a very close relationship with Anna Douglas, Frederick Douglas's wife. One of the Douglas biographers—I believe it might have been William McFeely—wrote about the time that John Brown was in Rochester talking about his provisional constitution with Douglas. Douglas was back and forth because he was a very busy man, and Douglas said Brown talked about it so much that he became a bit of a bore.

Douglas would go off and leave, and John Brown was there for a month. The person who sought to his needs was Anna. If you can imagine, she was a very quiet woman who couldn't read or write and was sort of in the background all the time. Yet, here she was involved enough both in the Underground with Amy Post and Isaac Post, and also involved enough with the movement so that he was there for a month and a half while Frederick was gone much of that time. One can just imagine, because Anna couldn't read and write, the kind of relationship that they had.

Support for the Harper's Ferry raid

One of the most inspiring aspects of his relationship with Black women—and there are many; we don't have time to get into all of them—was when he went to Harper's Ferry. Frederick Douglas met him there and Brown told him, "I want you to come with me." Douglas said, "You're walking into a perfect steel trap; once you get in, you'll never get out alive." So they said goodbye and hugged, and then Douglas said, "Oh, I forgot. Here is a letter and donation for your raid from Elizabeth Gloucester of Brooklyn, New York."

Elizabeth Gloucester was the wife of James Gloucester, a prominent Presbyterian minister. She was an African American, and here she was donating money to John Brown. We see the same thing with Mary Ann Shadd Cary. People don't talk about this; we focus so much on Harriet Tubman. Mary Ann Shadd Cary also met John Brown in Chatham, where she was a resident. She was a very strong advocate and she was very militant. She was just Harriet Tubman all over again, just much younger.

The poetry of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins, also known as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, was the person who wrote the letter that you read, but she also wrote a poem. I am arguing in my work that she wrote that poem first for her uncle who raised her and was an important abolitionist in the city of Baltimore. She came from a prominent Baltimore family; her uncle was one of the leaders in the Underground Railroad.

After the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, he was so discouraged that he finally moved to Canada, and she wrote the poem "Bury Me in a Free Land." It was published in the Anti-Slavery Bugle. Then, when John Brown and his raiders were tried and sentenced, she sent it to Aaron Stevens.

So we have those two documents: the one that you read was so eloquent, and then this amazing poem that she wrote for her uncle and then saw fit to give to these white raiders. It was a sign of the unity of the movement across race. I thought that was just really brilliant—that she was basically saying, "This is for you just like it was for my uncle."

DeCaro: It's beautiful. That poem did mean a great deal to the raiders, even after Brown was hanged.

Outro music thanks to Guy Wolff via The John Brown Project