[120] Hall, The Rending of Virginia, 485.
[121] Ibid., 490-494.
[122] Ibid., 488.
[123] Ibid., 496.
[124] Lewis, How W. Va. Was Made, 330-334.
CANADIAN NEGROES AND THE JOHN BROWN RAID
Canada and Canadians were intimately connected with the most dramatic incident in the slavery struggle prior to the opening of the Civil War, the attack of John Brown and his men on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, on the night of Sunday, October 16, 1859. The blow that Brown struck at slavery in this attack had been planned on broad lines in Canada more than a year before at a convention held in Chatham, Ontario, May 8-10, 1858. In calling this convention in Canada, Brown doubtless had two objects in view: to escape observation and to interest the Canadian Negroes in his plans for freeing their enslaved race on a scale never before dreamed of and in a manner altogether new. It was Brown's idea to gather a band of determined and resourceful men, to plant them somewhere in the Appalachian mountains near slave territory and from their mountain fastness to run off the slaves, ever extending the area of operations and eventually settling the Negroes in the territory that they had long tilled for others. He believed that operations of this kind would soon demoralize slavery in the South and he counted upon getting enough help from Canada to give the initial impetus.
What went on at Chatham in May, 1858, is fairly definitely known. Brown came to Chatham on April 30 and sent out invitations to what he termed "a quiet convention ... of true friends of freedom," requesting attendance on May 10. The sessions were held on May 8th and 10th, Saturday and Monday, and were attended by twelve white men and thirty-three Negroes. William C. Munroe, a colored preacher, acted as chairman. Brown himself made the opening and principal speech of the convention, outlining plans for carrying on a guerilla warfare against the whites, which would free the slaves, who might afterwards be settled in the more mountainous districts. He expected that many of the free Negroes in the Northern States would flock to his standard, that slaves in the South would do the same, and that some of the free Negroes in Canada would also accompany him.