A John Brown Reader

John Brown, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois & Others

John Brown, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780486845623
• eBook ISBN: 9780486849089
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: History

This original collection gathers a remarkably diverse body of literature about John Brown, the strident anti-slavery leader. Besides a selection of letters by the abolitionist himself, the book includes a significant excerpt from W. E. B. Du Bois's biography, John Brown, addresses by Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau, poetry by Louisa May Alcott and Herman Melville, and much more.

Part 1: In His Own Words

Red Rock, Iowa, 15th, July, 1857.

Mr Henry L Stearns My Dear Young Friend

I have not forgotten my promise to write you; but my constant care, & anxiety: have obliged me [to] put it off a long time. I do not flatter myself that I can write anything that will very much interest you: but have concluded to send you a short story of a certain boy of my acquaintance: & for convenience & shortness of name, I will call him John. This story will be mainly a naration of follies & errors; which it is to be hoped you may avoid; but there is one thing connected with it, which will be calculated to encourage any young person to persevereing effort: & that is the degree of success in accomplishing his objects which to a great extent marked the course of this boy throughout my entire acquaintance with him; notwithstanding his moderate capacity; & still more moderate acquirements.

John was born May 9th 1800, at Torrington, Litchfield Connecticut; of poor but respectable parents: a decendant on the side of his Father of one of the company of the Mayflower who landed at Plymouth 1620. His Mother was decended from a man who came at an early period to New England from Amsterdam, in Holland. Both his Fathers and his Mothers Fathers served in the war of the revolution: His Fathers Father; died in a barn at New York while in the service, in 1776.

I cannot tell you of anything in the first Four years of Johns life worth mentioning save that at that early agehe was tempted by Three Large Brass Pins belonging to a girl who lived in the family & stole them. In this he was detected by his Mother; & after having a full day to think of the wrong: received from her a thorough whipping. When he was Five years old his Father moved to Ohio; then a wilderness filled with wild beasts, & Indians. During the long journey which was performed in part or mostly with an Ox team; he was called on by turns to assist a boy Five years older (who had been adopted by his Father & Mother) & learned to think he could accomplish smart things in driving the Cows; & riding the horses. Sometimes he met with Rattle Snakes which were very large; & which some of the company generally managed to kill. After getting to Ohio in 1805 he was for some time rather afraid of the Indians, & of their Rifles; but this soon wore off: & he used to hang about them quite as much as was consistent with good manners; & learned a trifle of their talk. His Father learned to dress Deer Skins & at 6 years old John was installed a young Buck Skin. He was perhaps rather observing as he ever after remembered the entire process of Deer Skin dressing; so that he could at any time dress his own leather such as Squirel, Raccoon, Cat, Wolf, or Dog Skins: & also learned to make Whip Lashes: which brought him some change at times; & was of considerable service in many ways. At Six years old John began to be quite a rambler in the wild new country finding birds and Squirels, & sometimes a wild Turkeys nest. But about this period he was placed in the School of adversity: which my young friend was a most necessary part of his early training. You may laugh when you come to read about it; but these were sore trials to John: whose earthly treasures were very few, & small. These were the beginning of a severe but much needed course of dicipline which he afterward was to pass through; & which it is to be hoped has learned him before this time that the Heavenly Father sees it best to take all the little things out of his hands which he has ever placed in them. When John was in his Sixth year a poor Indian boy gave him a Yellow Marble the first he had ever seen. This he thought a great deal of; & kept it a good while; but at last he lost it beyound recovery. It took years to heal the wound; & I think he cried at times about it. About Five months after this he caught a young Squirel tearing off his tail in doing it and getting severely bitten at the same time himself. He however held on to the little bob tail Squirrel; & finally got him perfectly tamed, so that he almost idolized his pet. This too he lost; by its wandering away; or by getting killed: & for a year or Two John was in mourning; & looking at all Squirrels he could see to try & discover Bob tail, if possible. I must not neglect to tell you of a verry bad & foolish habbit to which John was somewhat addicted. I mean telling lies: generally to screen himself from blame; or from punishment. He could not well endure to be reproached; & I now think had he been oftener encouraged to be entirely frank; by making frankness a kind of atonement for some of his faults; he would not have been so often guilty of this fault; nor have been obliged to struggle so long in after life with so mean a habit.

John was never quarrelsome; but was excessively fond of the hardest & roughest kind of plays; & could never get enough [of ] them. Indeed when for a short time he was sometimes sent to School the opportunity it afforded to wrestle, & Snow ball, & run, & jump, & knock off old seedy Wool hats; offered to him almost the only compensation for the confinement, & restraints of school. I need not tell you that with such feeling & but little chance of going to school at all: he did not become much of a schollar. He would always choose to stay at home & work hard rather than be sent to school; & during the warm season might generally be seen barefooted, & bareheaded: with Buckskin Breeches suspended often with one leather strap over his shoulder but sometimes with Two. To be sent off through the wilderness alone to very considerable distances was particularly his delight; & in this he was often indulged so that by the time he was Twelve years old he was sent off more than a Hundred Miles with companies of cattle; & he would have thought his character much injured had he been obliged to be helped in any such job. This was a boyish kind of feeling but characteristic however.

At Eight years old John was left a Motherless boy which loss was complete & permanent for not withstanding his Father again married to a sensible, inteligent, & on many accounts a very estimable woman: yet he never addopted her in feeling: but continued to pine after his own Mother for years. This opperated very unfavourably uppon him; as he was both naturally fond of females; & with all extremely diffident; & deprived him of a suitable conne[c]ting link between the different sexes; the want of which might under some circumstances have proved his ruin.

When the war broke out with England; his Father soon commenced furnishing the troops with beef cattle, the collecting & driving of which afforded him some opportunity for the chase (on foot) of wild steers, & other cattle through the woods. During this war he had some chance to form his own boyish judgment of men & measures: & to become somewhat familiarly acquainted with some who have figured before the country since that time. The effect of what he saw during the war was to so far disgust him with Military affairs that he would neither train, or drill; but paid fines; & got along like a Quaker untill his age finally has cleared him of Military duty.

During the war with England a circumstance occurred that in the end made him a most determined Abolitionist: & led him to declare, or Swear: Eternal war with slavery. He was staying for short time with a very gentlemanly landlord since a United States Marshall who held a slave boy near his own age very active, inteligent, & good feeling; & to whom John was under considerable obligation for numerous little acts of kindness. The Master made a great pet of John: brought him to table with his first company; & friends; called their attention to every little smart thing he said or did: & to the fact of his being more than a hundred miles from home with a company of cattle alone; while the negro boy (who was fully if not more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed; & lodged in cold weather: & beaten before his eyes with Iron Shovels or any other thing that came first to hand. This brought John to reflect on the wretched, hopeless condition, of Fatherless & Motherless slave children: for such children have neither Fathers or Mothers to protect, & provide for them. He sometimes would raise the question: is God their Father?

At the age of Ten years, an old friend induced him to read a little history; & offered him the free use of a good library by; which he acquired some taste for reading: which formed the principle part of his early education: & diverted him in a great measure from bad company. He by this means grew to be very fond of the company, & conversation of old & inteligent persons. He never attempted to dance in his life; nor did he ever learn to know one of a pack of Cards, from another. He learned nothing of Grammer; nor did he get at school so much knowledge of comm[on] Arithmetic as the Four ground rules. This will give you some general idea of the first Fifteen years of his life: during which time he became very strong & large of his age & ambitious to perform the full labour of a man; at almost any kind of hard work. By reading the lives of great, wise, & good men their sayings, & writings; he grew to a dislike of vain & frivolous conversation, & persons; & was often greatly obliged by the kind manner in which older, & more inteligent persons treated him at their houses...

Table of contents

• Part 1: In His Own Words
• Part 2: The Literary Heritage
• Part 3: W.E.B. Du Bois on John Brown