cktimes.ca Archives for Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
THE MAY THAT JOHN BROWN CAME TO CHATHAM
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
( NOTE: In May of this year a plaque was unveiled at Chatham's First Baptist Church honouring the abolitionist movement in Canada. In particular, the famous Chatham Convention by John Brown in 1858 held at First Baptist Church was commemorated. In order to clearly understand the significance of this plaque and its various ramifications we are reprinting a three part series on John Brown first published a number of years ago)"It is infinitely better that this generation should be swept away from the face of the earth, than that slavery shall continue to exist"
The man who boldly uttered the preceding statement stepped down, just as boldly, from the train as it steamed to a stop in Chatham on April 30th, 1858 and purposely strode towards the offices of the influential black newspaper known as The Provincial Freeman.
Clad in a long black coat and flashing the wild eyes of a Puritan warrior, he drew the slightly furtive sideways glances of many Chatham residents who happened to meet the stranger on his trek downtown. In a small town of 6,000, with at least a third of that population being fugitive slaves, the identity of the mysterious fifty-eight year old visitor was soon on the lips of most residents.
And the phrase that was soon whispered about town was "It's John Brown...you know...the Abolitionist!" Some residents may have also had the word "murderer" play about their lips as well. Even in this small Canadian town, it was a well known fact that Brown and his followers had been responsible for the ruthless slaughter, with symbolic broadswords, of five pro-slavery advocates in the Kansas Territory.
After visiting with Israel Shadd who was editor of the Provincial Freeman, at the southeast corner of King and Adelaide Street, Brown proceeded on to the home of his good friend James M. Bell at 153 King Street East where he was to reside during his stay in Chatham.
Ostensibly, Brown was in town to aid in the formation of a Masonic lodge for Chatham blacks. However, the influential blacks in town like Isaac Holden (politician), Alfred Whipper teacher), Martin Delany (physician) and Israel Shadd knew that Brown had much bigger plans in mind.
The meetings Brown planned over the next week were designed to create a constitution that would in his words "seek to abolish by sword and fire the terrible
sin of slavery". In pursuit of this radical action, Brown hoped to assemble in Chatham the groundwork for a fanatical, wild scheme that would see war waged upon southern U.S. plantations, with troops consisting of an ever-growing number of freed slaves that Brown planned to continually increase in his war of liberation.
Chatham was a natural place to hold these meetings of revolution as there were more blacks within fifty miles of Chatham than any other place in Canada. Many of them were influential leaders in the black community and several of them, thirty three to be exact,were on their way to Chatham to hear what the well-intentioned but obsessed abolitionist had to say.
The major characters had been cast, the scene was set and the drama of what was to be known as the Chatham Convention was set to begin on Saturday morning May 8th at First Baptist Church on King Street East.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
