nding 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.

The main business before the convention was the adoption of a
constitution for the government of Brown's black followers in the
carrying out of his weird plan of forcible emancipation. Copies of the
cons