The Heyward Shepherd monument is a monument in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , dedicated in 1931. It commemorates Heyward Shepherd (1825 – October 17, 1859), a free black man who was the first person killed during John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry .
140-603: In 1918, the all-Black Storer College dedicated a plaque on its campus celebrating John Brown's raid. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) were offended by this positive depiction of Brown, and commissioned the Heyward Shepherd monument to discredit Brown's positive image and promote the "faithful slave" as a role model for Blacks. The monument misrepresented the circumstances of Shepherd's death to imply that he consciously opposed John Brown's plan to spark
280-407: A normal school , an academic (college prep) school, then a two-year college, and finally a full-fledged, degree-granting four-year college open to all. Former slaves came to Storer as they were eager to learn to read and write, to help them make their way in a new world of free labor. Some wanted to learn new skills and leave the agricultural fields where most had worked. The founding of the school
420-522: A slave catcher during the war, and at its end he pressed the British to return the slaves to their masters. With the British certificates of freedom in their belongings, the black loyalists, including Washington's slave Harry, sailed with their white counterparts out of New York harbor to Nova Scotia . More than 3,000 were resettled in Nova Scotia, where they were eventually granted land and formed
560-407: A bill signed by President Andrew Johnson on December 15, 1868, the U.S. Government donated to the new Storer College the buildings which became the core of its campus, including the building where Brackett had been teaching his classes. These were four sturdy but vacant buildings— Lockwood House , Brackett House, Morrell House, and the original Anthony Hall—built as housing for workers and managers at
700-678: A committee, of which he was chair, to investigate "the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race". Their report, first delivered to the Medical Association in an address, was published in their journal in 1851, and then reprinted in part in the widely circulated DeBow's Review . Whether slavery was to be limited to the Southern states that already had it, or whether it was to be permitted in new states made from
840-804: A community's collective remembrance, but rather as a testament to the struggle between Southern Whites and African Americans to write their respective memories of the raid into the historical landscape." The origin of the monument to the "faithful slave" is the monument to Brown, posted on the original building, the "firehouse," which had been moved to the campus of Storer College : THAT THIS NATION MIGHT HAVE A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM THAT SLAVERY SHOULD BE REMOVED FOREVER FROM AMERICAN SOIL JOHN BROWN AND HIS 21 MEN GAVE THEIR LIVES TO COMMEMORATE THEIR HEROISM THIS TABLET IS PLACED ON THIS BUILDING WHICH HAS SINCE BEEN KNOWN AS JOHN BROWN'S FORT BY THE ALUMNI OF STORER COLLEGE 1918 In 1931, after opposition since it had been proposed in 1920, what
980-534: A famous speech in the Senate in 1837, declared that slavery was "instead of an evil, a good – a positive good". Calhoun supported his view with the following reasoning: in every civilized society one portion of the community must live on the labor of another; learning, science, and the arts are built upon leisure; the African slave, kindly treated by his master and mistress and looked after in his old age,
1120-430: A free black. Although the true identity of his assailant is uncertain, Shepherd soon became a symbol of the "faithful servant" among those who deplored Brown's action against the traditional southern way of life. The monument, placed here in 1931, reflects those traditional views. The monument was in storage from 1976 to 1980 and then shrouded in plywood, supposedly to protect it from vandalism, until 1995. Another plaque
1260-553: A future date, sometimes with an intermediary status of unpaid indentured servant. Abolition was in many cases a gradual process. Some slaveowners, primarily in the Upper South , freed their slaves, and charitable groups bought and freed others. The Atlantic slave trade was outlawed by individual states beginning during the American Revolution. The import trade was banned by Congress in 1808 , although smuggling
1400-480: A handful, freed their slaves by personal decision, often providing for manumission in wills but sometimes filing deeds or court papers to free individuals. Numerous slaveholders who freed their slaves cited revolutionary ideals in their documents; others freed slaves as a promised reward for service. From 1790 to 1810, the proportion of blacks free in the United States increased from 8 to 13.5 percent, and in
1540-572: A hundred thousand (nearly one in five black slaves) left their homes ... betting on British victory", but Cassandra Pybus states that between 20,000 and 30,000 is a more realistic number of slaves who defected to the British side during the war. Many slaves took advantage of the disruption of war to escape from their plantations to British lines or to fade into the general population. Upon their first sight of British vessels, thousands of slaves in Maryland and Virginia fled from their owners. Throughout
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#17327719751271680-442: A military escort. These efforts did not succeed in closing Storer, and eventually, local attitudes changed. In 1891, "the inhabitants of Harper's Ferry hold a true interest and even a pride in the college. Some of its old opponents are now numbered among its most devoted friends. And no person in the community is held in higher honor or greater esteem than Mr. Brackett, once of all men the most hated and despised." However, in 1896
1820-450: A pre-college level. They were running in essence college-preparatory schools ; in the 19th century, in many areas there were no schools preparing students for college. Even in the 20th century, most "junior colleges for Negroes" delivered primarily high-school-level instruction. At the time, credentials as understood today (2021)—college degrees, for example—were much less important, and the line between college and pre-college instruction
1960-422: A public question from there forward". After the new country's independence was secure, slavery was a topic of contention at the 1787 Constitutional Convention . Many of Founding Fathers of the United States were plantation owners who owned large numbers of enslaved laborers; the original Constitution preserved their right to own slaves, and they further gained a political advantage in owning slaves. Although
2100-550: A punishment for crime is still legal in the United States. By the time of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the status of enslaved people had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry. During and immediately following the Revolution, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states and a movement developed to abolish slavery. The role of slavery under
2240-481: A significantly higher number and proportion of enslaved people in the population overall, as its commodity crops were labor-intensive. Early on, enslaved people in the South worked primarily on farms and plantations growing indigo , rice and tobacco ( cotton did not become a major crop until after the 1790s). In 1720, about 65 percent of South Carolina's population was enslaved. Planters (defined by historians in
2380-590: A slave rebellion; in reality, Shepherd was not aware of the plan and believed he was dealing with robbers. The inscription praises the "faithfulness of thousands of negroes" to the Confederacy during the American Civil War . The idea of the "faithful slave" was an important component of the " Lost Cause of the Confederacy ", a pseudohistorical myth that the cause of the Confederacy was justified and not centered on slavery. The Heyward Shepherd monument
2520-405: A stronger. 4. The happiness of the governed is in no sense its object. 5. The temporal improvement or the eternal well-being of the governed is in no sense its object. The object of it has been distinctly stated in one sentence by Judge Ruffin ,— "The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety." Slavery, then, is absolute despotism, of the most unmitigated form. In
2660-521: A symbol of the end of slavery in the United States , was located from 1909 until 1968 on the Storer campus, where it was once used as the college museum (the "fort" has since been moved back to the lower town). Although the college closed in 1955, much of the Storer campus is now preserved as part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park . "The locality is eminently healthful, and one of the most beautiful that can be imagined." According to an article in
2800-554: A voyage across the Atlantic". Storer began in 1865 as a one-room elementary school, sponsored by New England Free Baptists and the Freedmen's Bureau . Its first class was 19 formerly enslaved children, described as "poorly clad, ill-kept, and undisciplined", who desperately needed the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. At a conference in 2015 honoring the 150th anniversary of Storer College, John Cuthbert, head of
2940-454: Is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing
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#17327719751273080-473: Is better off than the free laborers of Europe; and under the slave system conflicts between capital and labor are avoided. The advantages of slavery in this respect, he concluded, "will become more and more manifest, if left undisturbed by interference from without, as the country advances in wealth and numbers". South Carolina army officer, planter , and railroad executive James Gadsden called slavery "a social blessing" and abolitionists "the greatest curse of
3220-608: Is especially designed. But it is hoped that, at no very distant day. the facilities for instruction will be more ample, the Course of Study enlarged, and the number of students increased, and that many will be receiving collegiate instruction. Brackett was principal of the school until 1896. He remained Storer's Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees until his death in 1910. According to
3360-455: Is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. However, as the abolitionist movement's agitation increased and the area developed for plantations expanded, apologies for slavery became more faint in the South. Leaders then described slavery as a beneficial scheme of labor management. John C. Calhoun , in
3500-522: Is no evidence that Shepherd was opposed to John Brown 's plan to end American slavery , or even that he had heard of it. He thought he was dealing with robbers. Nevertheless, the monument was intended to be a reply to Blacks' glorification of Brown, in whose honor Storer College had been established in Harpers Ferry; the college placed a plaque on the Armory in 1918. There was no better place, from
3640-519: The Journal of Negro Education : It has been said that few college sites are more scenic than the grounds occupied by Storer College for some 100 years. Situated at an almost clifftop location, the college site overlooks the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers [,] over which tower the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains . Thomas Jefferson is reported to have said that this view was "worth
3780-790: The Confederacy . Shortly afterward, the Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the U.S. Army's Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. During the war some jurisdictions abolished slavery and, due to Union measures such as the Confiscation Acts and the Emancipation Proclamation , the war effectively ended slavery in most places. After the Union victory, the Thirteenth Amendment to
3920-620: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause. Salmon P. Chase considered the Fugitive Slave Acts unconstitutional because "The Fugitive Slave Clause was a compact among the states, not a grant of power to the federal government". In a section negotiated by James Madison of Virginia, Section 2 of Article I designated "other persons" (slaves) to be added to
4060-527: The NAACP , the Black press, and the local Black community. The NAACP responded by creating a new tablet that was even stronger in its support for John Brown. The Heyward Shepherd monument continued to be controversial. The National Park Service (NPS) designed a series of interpretative signs to place the monument in historical context, and from 1981 to 1995 kept it covered in plywood to prevent vandalism. As of 2022,
4200-621: The United States Congress acted on President Thomas Jefferson 's advice and, without controversy, made importing slaves from abroad a federal crime, effective the first day that the United States Constitution permitted this prohibition: January 1, 1808. During the Revolution and in the following years, all states north of Maryland ( the Mason–Dixon line ) took steps towards abolishing slavery. In 1777,
4340-571: The United States Constitution (1789) was the most contentious issue during its drafting. The Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution gave slave states disproportionate political power, while the Fugitive Slave Clause ( Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 ) provided that, if a slave escaped to another state, the other state could not prevent the return of the slave to the person claiming to be his or her owner. All Northern states had abolished slavery to some degree by 1805, sometimes with completion at
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4480-473: The Upper South from less than one to nearly ten percent as a result of these actions. Starting in 1777, the rebels outlawed the importation of slaves state by state. They all acted to end the international trade, but, after the war, it was reopened in North Carolina (opened until 1794) and Georgia (opened until 1798) and South Carolina (opened until 1787, and then reopened again in 1803.) In 1807,
4620-660: The Vermont Republic , which was still unrecognized by the United States, passed a state constitution prohibiting slavery . The Pennsylvania Abolition Society , led in part by Benjamin Franklin , was founded in 1775, and Pennsylvania began gradual abolition in 1780. In 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in Commonwealth v. Jennison that slavery was unconstitutional under
4760-588: The West Virginia & Regional History Center , observed: It is almost impossible for us to comprehend today how revolutionary the establishment of an African-American school was at the close of the Civil War. Just a few years earlier, education of slaves was potentially a capital offense in Virginia. The education of even free blacks was forbidden by law. Once slavery was ended in the United States and
4900-514: The Winchester and Potomac rail line. He owned a small house there, had a wife and five children, according to the 1860 census, and had money in the bank. He had worked for nearly twenty years as a porter or baggage handler with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , whose trains went back and forth through Harpers Ferry. In Harpers Ferry was the first interline rail junction in the country: there
5040-652: The cotton industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor, and the Southern states continued as slave societies. The U.S., divided into slave and free states , became ever more polarized over the issue of slavery. Driven by labor demands from new cotton plantations in the Deep South , the Upper South sold more than a million slaves who were taken to
5180-468: The 19th century, proponents of slavery often defended the institution as a "necessary evil". At that time, it was feared that emancipation of black slaves would have more harmful social and economic consequences than the continuation of slavery. On April 22, 1820, Thomas Jefferson , one of the Founding Fathers of the United States , wrote in a letter to John Holmes , that with slavery, We have
5320-840: The American Continental Army . Rhode Island started enlisting slaves in 1778, and promised compensation to owners whose slaves enlisted and survived to gain freedom. During the course of the war, about one-fifth of the Northern army was black. In 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment at the Battle of Yorktown , estimated the American army to be about one-quarter black. These men included both former slaves and free-born blacks. Thousands of free blacks in
5460-520: The Armory. The College also received the land these buildings were on, which became its campus . The College was dedicated on December 22, 1869. When founded and for most of its existence, Storer did not offer what in the 21st century would be deemed a college education or college credits. Numerous other colleges, such as Tougaloo College , New-York Central College , West Virginia Wesleyan College , and Oberlin College , also offered instruction at
5600-558: The Bluefield Colored Institute, today Bluefield State University . (They are in 2021 the universities in West Virginia with the lowest black enrollment.) They certainly were not welcome at the segregated state normal school, Shepherd College , founded in 1871 in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia . In 1938 Storer began offering a curriculum that would lead to a four-year college degree. In 1867, that
5740-868: The British forces. Historians agree that the proclamation was chiefly designed for practical rather than moral reasons, and slaves owned by American Loyalists were unaffected by the proclamation. About 1,500 slaves owned by patriots escaped and joined Dunmore's forces. A total of 18 slaves fled George Washington 's plantation, one of whom, Harry, served in Dunmore's all-black loyalist regiment called "the Black Pioneers". Escapees who joined Dunmore had "Liberty to Slaves" stitched on to their jackets. Most died of disease before they could do any fighting, but three hundred of these freed slaves made it to freedom in Britain. Historian Jill Lepore writes that "between eighty and
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5880-434: The British war effort. Such proclamations were repeatedly issued over the course of the conflict, which resulted in up to 100,000 American slaves fleeing to British lines. Self-emancipated slaves who reached British lines were organized into a variety of military units, which served in all theaters of the war. Formerly enslaved women and children, in lieu of military service, worked instead as laborers and domestic servants. At
6020-597: The Deep South. The total slave population in the South eventually reached four million. As the U.S. expanded, the Southern states attempted to extend slavery into the new Western territories to allow proslavery forces to maintain power in Congress. The new territories acquired by the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Cession were the subject of major political crises and compromises. Slavery
6160-591: The Fort's former location. Tourist guides largely ignore it. The plaque reads: HERE JOHN BROWN AIMED AT HUMAN SLAVERY A BLOW THAT WOKE A GUILTY NATION. WITH HIM FOUGHT SEVEN SLAVES AND SONS OF SLAVES. OVER HIS CRUCIFIED CORPSE MARCHED 200,000 BLACK SOLDIERS AND 4,000,000 FREEDMEN SINGING “JOHN BROWN’S BODY LIES A-MOULDERING IN THE GRAVE BUT HIS SOUL GOES MARCHING ON!” IN GRATITUDE THIS TABLET IS ERECTED THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE MAY 21, 1932 2010 picture of
6300-478: The Freewill Baptists matched his $ 10,000 donation. His heirs later added $ 1,000 for a library. It was Mr. Storer's wish that the institution eventually become a college and it be so chartered—with a proviso that it be operated as a Normal School or Seminary until the endowment funds should be adequate for college purposes. And that it be open to both sexes without regard to race or color. The money
6440-546: The Legislature appropriated $ 6,000, which did not even cover half the faculty and administrative salaries. The Free Will Baptist–Home Mission Society, which quashed a fundraising drive, saying they were overextended, contributed $ 3,000. The Women's Baptist Home Mission Society contributed $ 3,000, to be used on programs that served women. In 1925 the income from these three main sources totaled $ 12,096, while expenditures totalled $ 49,291. "Boarding fees, tuition, and income from
6580-695: The Man in the Moon Was a Coon". President Nathan Brackett said that the school’s “humble and illiterate” students "generally show a desire to work and submit to wholesome discipline.” To instill moral character, students were obliged to “march in military columns” between classes, were not permitted to “jump, dance, or scuffle” inside campus buildlngs or go on “pleasure excursions, rides, or walks in mixed company.” Other rules deterred students from socializing in town or mingling with townspeople. Students did most campus labor, cooking meals, cleaning buildings, maintaining
6720-510: The North had to search for employment. George Fitzhugh used assumptions about white superiority to justify slavery, writing that, "the Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child." In The Universal Law of Slavery , Fitzhugh argues that slavery provides everything necessary for life and that the slave is unable to survive in a free world because he is lazy, and cannot compete with
6860-494: The North might well have lost. Slavery was a contentious issue in the writing and approval of the Constitution of the United States . The words "slave" and "slavery" did not appear in the Constitution as originally adopted, although several provisions clearly referred to slaves and slavery. Until the adoption of the 13th Amendment in 1865, the Constitution did not prohibit slavery. Section 9 of Article I forbade
7000-551: The Northern states fought in the state militias and Continental Army. In the South, both sides offered freedom to slaves who would perform military service. Roughly 20,000 slaves fought in the American Revolution. After the Revolutionary War broke out, the British realized they lacked the manpower necessary to prosecute the war. In response, British commanders began issuing proclamations to Patriot-owned slaves, offering freedom if they fled to British lines and assisted
7140-583: The Northern states had passed laws outlawing slavery, either immediately or over time. In New York, the last slaves were freed in 1827 (celebrated with a big July 5 parade). Indentured servitude , which had been widespread in the colonies (half the population of Philadelphia had once been indentured servants ), dropped dramatically, and disappeared by 1800. However, there were still forcibly indentured servants in New Jersey in 1860. No Southern state abolished slavery, but some individual owners, more than
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#17327719751277280-676: The Shepherd Monument. During the ceremony, voices rose to praise and denounce the monument. Conceived around the turn of the century, the monument endured controversy. In 1905, the United Daughters of the Confederacy stated that erecting the monument would influence for good the present and coming generations, and prove that the people of the South who owned slaves valued and respected their good qualities as no one else ever did or will do. Media Further reading (most recent first) Storer College Storer College
7420-493: The South, losses of slaves were high, with many due to escapes. Slaves also escaped throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic, with many joining the British who had occupied New York. In the closing months of the war, the British evacuated freedmen and also removed slaves owned by loyalists. Around 15,000 black loyalists left with the British, most of them ending up as free people in England or its colonies. Washington hired
7560-401: The Storer campus. In 1944 Storer's first black president, Richard Ishmael McKinney, was welcomed with a burning cross on his lawn. Some modern scholars view Storer as a reconstructed plantation. Students were taught that they should efface themselves. The school had at one point a Modern Minstrel Company, which performed "Plantation Songs and Melodies” and renditions of numbers like “If
7700-468: The Sunday evening of the outbreak, when we visited the plantations and acquainted the slaves with our purpose to effect their liberation, the greatest enthusiasm was manifested by them—joy and hilarity beamed from every countenance. One old mother, white-haired from age, and borne down with the labors of many years in bonds, when told of the work in hand, replied: "God bless you! God bless you!" She then kissed
7840-471: The UDC's point of view, for a monument to the "happy slave" than Harpers Ferry. Haywood Shepherd was a Black man; according to one source he was born free, but another source says that he had been the property of station master Fontaine Beckham. He was over 6 feet (180 cm) in height, and lived in Winchester, Virginia , about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Harpers Ferry, which two communities were served by
7980-579: The Union address), went into effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date on which the importation of slaves could be prohibited under the Constitution. The delegates approved the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution ( Article IV, section 2, clause 3 ), which prohibited states from freeing those "held to Service or Labour" (meaning slaves, indentures, and apprentices) who fled to them from another state and required that they be returned to their owners. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and
8120-587: The United States Constitution was ratified on December 6, 1865, prohibiting "slavery [and] involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime." During most of the British colonial period, slavery existed in all the colonies. People enslaved in the North typically worked as house servants, artisans, laborers and craftsmen, with the greater number in cities. Many men worked on the docks and in shipping. In 1703, more than 42 percent of New York City households held enslaved people in bondage,
8260-489: The United States was a variable thing, in "constant flux, driven by the violent pursuit of ever-larger profits." According to demographic calculations by J. David Hacker of the University of Minnesota, approximately four out of five of all of the slaves who ever lived in the United States or the territory that became the United States (beginning in 1619 and including all colonies that were eventually acquired or conquered by
8400-544: The United States) were born in or imported to the United States in the 19th century. Slaves were the labor force of the South, but slave ownership was also the foundation upon which American white supremacy was constructed. Historian Walter Johnson argues that "one of the many miraculous things a slave could do was make a household white...", meaning that the value of whiteness in America was in some ways measured by
8540-509: The United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition in 1865, and issues concerning slavery seeped into every aspect of national politics, economics, and social custom. In the decades after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation , sharecropping , and convict leasing . Involuntary servitude as
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#17327719751278680-474: The Upper South as those who held 20 or more slaves) used enslaved workers to cultivate commodity crops. They also worked in the artisanal trades on large plantations and in many Southern port cities. The later wave of settlers in the 18th century who settled along the Appalachian Mountains and backcountry were backwoods subsistence farmers , and they seldom held enslaved people. Beginning in
8820-539: The West Virginia Legislature appropriated $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 218,000 in 2023). This was the first appropriation in the state for the education of Negroes above the elementary level. From 1882 to 1892, Storer received $ 630 from the State of West Virginia, to provide "industrial-type training for Negroes". In 1903, President McDonald referred to the state's "small biennial appropriation" for
8960-399: The ability to purchase and maintain black slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe described slavery in the United States in 1853: What, then, is American slavery, as we have seen it exhibited by law, and by the decision of Courts? Let us begin by stating what it is not: 1. It is not apprenticeship. 2. It is not guardianship. 3. It is in no sense a system for the education of a weaker race by
9100-453: The air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill." Hammond believed that in every class one group must accomplish all the menial duties, because without them the leaders in society could not progress. He argued that the hired laborers of the North were slaves too: "The difference ... is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment," while those in
9240-424: The assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it – when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell". Our new [Confederate] Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to
9380-611: The attitudes of white Southerners, and the concentration of the black population in the South, were bringing the white and black populations to a state of equilibrium, and were a danger to both races. Because of the racial differences between master and slave, he believed that the latter could not be emancipated. In a letter to his wife dated December 27, 1856, in reaction to a message from President Franklin Pierce , Robert E. Lee wrote, There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution
9520-550: The benediction. The monument was immediately challenged by many as perpetuating the "happy slave" concept of slavery as a justification for the practice. The NAACP responded by preparing a plaque, which they called "The Great Tablet", to be displayed at Storer College in Harpers Ferry, where the firehouse used by John Brown as a fort had been moved. The text on the plaque, replying to the "faithful slave" allegation that Virginia's happy slaves did not want freedom, states that seven "slaves and sons of slaves" fought with Brown, who
9660-569: The black community the Park Service located it on the former Storer campus, at the Fort's former location. In 1895, the 20 "free schools" in Jefferson County were all taught by Storer graduates. Storer graduates were also found "in other important schools all over the state", and from Maryland in the northeast to Texas in the southwest. American slavery The legal institution of human chattel slavery , comprising
9800-407: The campus, and caring for the animals on the school farm. Paternalism is particularly linked with Storer's second president, Henry T. McDonald , who tried to smooth over the growing ideological divide between the college and the town. The biggest single such incident was McDonald's full participation in a controversial ceremony, the 1931 dedication of the Heyward Shepherd monument . The monument
9940-441: The charter of Storer should say "without distinction of race or color" was "fiercely debated" in the Legislature, and approval of the charter was delayed until March 1868. In 1881 the Legislature directed that the state finance the education of 17 prospective "colored" teachers, justifying this number as being equivalent, relative to West Virginia's colored population at the time, to the ratio of white prospective teachers supported by
10080-534: The college and referred to Brown as an initiator of the civil rights group. W.E.B. Du Bois had prepared a new plaque in response to the Hayward Shepherd monument, but McDonald, backed by the trustees, refused to allow the NAACP to place this plaque on a wall of the Fort. The plaque was not erected until 2006. Rather than attaching it to the Fort at its present location, as originally planned, by request from
10220-420: The college ceased renting rooms in the summer to black vacationers, because of local opposition. It continued accommodating white vacationers. The decision was much criticized by students and alumni. The citizens of Harpers Ferry did not like having John Brown's Fort in their town or the black tourists it attracted, and were happy it was moved to Chicago. They were quite unhappy at its return and then move to
10360-476: The colonial era were unevenly distributed: 14,867 lived in New England , where they were three percent of the population; 34,679 lived in the mid-Atlantic colonies , where they were six percent of the population; and 347,378 in the five Southern Colonies , where they were 31 percent of the population. The South developed an agricultural economy dependent on commodity crops . Its planters rapidly acquired
10500-455: The community of the black Nova Scotians . In the first two decades after the American Revolution, state legislatures and individuals took actions to free slaves. Northern states passed new constitutions that contained language about equal rights or specifically abolished slavery; some states, such as New York and New Jersey, where slavery was more widespread, passed laws by the end of the 18th century to abolish slavery incrementally. By 1804, all
10640-548: The differences between the Constitution of the Confederate States and the United States Constitution , laid out the cause for the American Civil War, as he saw it, and defended slavery: The new [Confederate] Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions – African slavery as it exists among us – the proper status of
10780-474: The education of blacks was no longer prohibited, there was a "wild rush for the schools". A $ 10,000 matching grant from John Storer , a philanthropist from Maine, led to the charter of "a school which might eventually become a College, to be in located in one of the Southern States, at which youth could be educated without distinction of race or color". Though called a college from the beginning, it
10920-596: The end of the war, freed slaves in British lines either evacuated to other British colonies or to Britain itself, were re-enslaved by the victorious Americans, or fled into the countryside. In early 1775, the royal governor of Virginia , Lord Dunmore , wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth of his intention to free slaves owned by American Patriots in case they staged a rebellion. On November 7, 1775, Dunmore issued Dunmore's Proclamation , which promised freedom to any slaves of American patriots who would leave their masters and join
11060-457: The enslaved of the early Republic were considered sentient property, were not permitted to vote, and had no rights to speak of, they were to be enumerated in population censuses and counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation in the national legislature, the U.S. Congress . The rebels began to offer freedom as an incentive to motivate slaves to fight on their side. Washington authorized slaves to be freed who fought with
11200-639: The enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans , was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South . Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas . From 1526, during the early colonial period , it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies , including the Thirteen Colonies that formed
11340-469: The federal government from prohibiting the importation of slaves, described as "such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit", for twenty years after the Constitution's ratification (until January 1, 1808). The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 , passed by Congress and signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson (who had called for its enactment in his 1806 State of
11480-622: The fight, and in the number who suffered martyrdom afterward. However, the official view, in the reports of the Virginians Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee and Governor Henry A. Wise , was that no Blacks participated voluntarily at all. Lee's report did not become public until the report of the Senate Select Committee investigating the incident, over six months later. But Wise's views were widely known, as he stated them clearly in speeches, which appeared in many newspapers. There
11620-400: The historian James Oliver Horton noted, prominent slaveholder politicians and the commodity crops of the South had a strong influence on United States politics and economy. Horton said, in the 72 years between the election of George Washington and the election of Abraham Lincoln, 50 of those years [had] a slaveholder as president of the United States , and, for that whole period of time, there
11760-463: The intelligent European white race. He states that "The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world." Without the South, "He (slave) would become an insufferable burden to society" and "Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery." On March 21, 1861, Alexander Stephens , Vice President of the Confederacy, delivered his Cornerstone Speech . He explained
11900-505: The leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away ... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon
12040-491: The location used for parking. It was located at current North East Lane and Woodstock Lane, near 39°11′04″N 78°09′38″W / 39.18444°N 78.16069°W / 39.18444; -78.16069 . There has been contention throughout the 20th century as to what plaque, if any, should be displayed next to the UDC's memorial. "Today the Heyward Shepherd Memorial stands not as a representative of
12180-563: The monument remains on display accompanied by an interpretative sign. The monument was intended to publicize the Lost Cause allegation that the enslaved were happy and did not want freedom; the UDC had a "Faithful Slave Memorial Committee". However, the grand jury Bill of Indictment lists 11 Black enslaved men who were allegedly incited to revolt by the accused. One was locked up in the Charles Town jail together with Brown, Green, and
12320-421: The nation". Gadsden was in favor of South Carolina's secession in 1850, and was a leader in efforts to split California into two states, one slave and one free . Other Southern writers who also began to portray slavery as a positive good were James Henry Hammond and George Fitzhugh . They presented several arguments to defend the practice of slavery in the South. Hammond, like Calhoun, believed that slavery
12460-438: The negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of
12600-560: The notice of John Storer , a philanthropist , who like Brackett was from Maine . At the suggestion of Oren B. Cheney , founder and president of Bates College , a Free Will Baptist school in Maine, Storer offered a $ 10,000 grant to the Free Will Baptists for "a school which might eventually become a College, to be in located in one of the Southern States, at which youth could be educated without distinction of race or color", if
12740-542: The others. The owners of two submitted claims for their losses. Some slaves were observed with weapons inside the Arsenal. The story that Washington and Allstadt's slaves were there only because they were forced to be there is what the slaves had said, after Brown's raid had failed, and their owners wanted to believe that. A different view is provided by Osborne Perry Anderson , the only Black in Brown's party who escaped: On
12880-401: The party at her house, and requested all to kneel, which we did, and she offered prayer to God for His blessing on the enterprise, and our success. At the slaves' quarters, there was apparently a general jubilee, and they stepped forward manfully, without impressing or coaxing. Captain Brown...was surprised and pleased by the promptitude with which they volunteered, and with their manly bearing at
13020-475: The person had received a college education. No one saw this as a problem, as a college education was much less important, and somewhat unusual. Having studied at the " prep school " gave some of the intellectual benefits and prestige of studying at the college. Storer was the first school for blacks, ex-slaves or freeborn, in the new state of West Virginia, that was more than a one-room, one-teacher, "ungraded" operation (and there weren't many of those either). There
13160-549: The plaque Archived 2021-06-26 at the Wayback Machine at its current location. Close-up photo . A plaque to contextualize the original 1931 monument was placed in 1955 by the National Park Service. The text of the plaque read: John Brown's raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry caused the death of four townspeople. One of those who died in the fighting was Heyward Shepherd, a railroad baggagemaster and
13300-474: The political power of Southern states, as three-fifths of the (non-voting) slave population was counted for congressional apportionment and in the Electoral College , although it did not strengthen Southern states as much as it would have had the Constitution provided for counting all persons, whether slave or free, equally. In addition, many parts of the country were tied to the Southern economy. As
13440-572: The rail line and the Potomac, was destroyed during the Civil War and was never rebuilt, and the lower town was in poor condition. However, a sturdy and almost vacant building on higher ground was available; it was known as Lockwood House for a Union general who had stayed there briefly. Brackett installed his family. Under him were four different schools, in different communities. One was conducted by him and his family in Lockwood House, which
13580-652: The relatively safe haven of the Shenandoah Valley by the end of the American Civil War . Dedicated as they were, these few teachers could not begin to meet the educational needs of the freedmen in the area. Across the South, education of freedmen was an urgent priority within their communities. By 1867, some 16 teachers struggled to educate 2,500 students in the Shenandoah Valley . Reverend Brackett realized that he needed to train African-American teachers. In 1867, Reverend Brackett's school came to
13720-586: The same purpose. In 1911–1912, the American Baptist Home Mission Society, which "as a result of doctrinal conflicts" absorbed the Free Baptists in 1911, contributed $ 1,350 to salaries, and in 1912–1913 was budgeted to contribute $ 2,750, and for 1913–1914 and 1914–1915, $ 3,000 each year. In addition, Storer was to receive $ 1,785 from the sale of Manning Bible School ( Cairo, Illinois ) property, In 1926,
13860-477: The scene of violence. ...The truth of the Harper's Ferry "raid," as it has been called, in regard to the part taken by the slaves, and the aid given by colored men generally, demonstrates clearly: First, that the conduct of the slaves is a strong guarantee of the weakness of the institution, should a favorable opportunity occur; and, secondly, that the colored people, as a body, were well represented by numbers, both in
14000-460: The school's farming enterprises, property investments, and donations made up the remainder." In 1932, the West Virginia Legislature reduced its support from $ 17,500 to $ 12,000. Raising $ 10,000 turned out to be easy compared to facing local resistance by whites to a " colored school ." The Freewill Baptists' other mission school, resembling that in Harpers Ferry, in Beaufort, North Carolina ,
14140-601: The school. They petitioned the Legislature to have Storer's charter revoked. One teacher wrote, "it is unusual for me to go to the Post Office without being hooted at, and twice I have been stoned on the streets at noonday." Threats by the Ku Klux Klan in the first years caused the faculty and students to carry arms while walking outside. In 1923 the Klan marched past the college. At one point lady teachers required
14280-493: The second half of the 18th century, a debate emerged over the continued importation of African slaves to the American colonies. Many in the colonies, including the Southern slavocracy , opposed further importation of slaves due to fears that it would destabilize colonies and lead to further slave rebellions . In 1772, prominent Virginians submitted a petition to the Crown , requesting that the slave trade to Virginia be abolished; it
14420-422: The second-highest proportion of any city in the colonies, behind only Charleston, South Carolina . Enslaved people were also used as agricultural workers in farm communities, especially in the South , but also in upstate New York and Long Island , Connecticut , and New Jersey . By 1770, there were 397,924 blacks out of a population of 2.17 million in what would soon become the United States. The slaves of
14560-401: The size of the United States, and it was established at the insistence of Cutler and Putnam as "free soil" – no slavery. This was to prove crucial a few decades later. Had those states been slave states, and their electoral votes gone to Abraham Lincoln's main opponent, Lincoln would not have become president. The Civil War would not have been fought. Even if it eventually had been,
14700-410: The slaves didn't want freedom. In a dramatic moment, the Storer musical director then praised Brown. McDonald was much criticized in the black press. One newspaper called the college a failure, and asked African Americans to ostracize the college. The Afro-American called for his resignation. In 1932, Max Berber, a founder of the NAACP, presided over the unveiling of a tablet honoring John Brown at
14840-466: The state West Virginia Colored Institute opened, it was the only college in West Virginia that accepted non-white students. In 1865, as a representative of New England 's Freewill Baptist Home Mission Society , charged with coordinating their instructional efforts in the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding areas, Reverend Nathan Cook Brackett chose centrally-located Harpers Ferry as his base. The Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, on low ground adjoining
14980-492: The state compared to its white population. The school charged only minimal tuition, $ 3 per quarter, or $ 20 for five years. Rooms were only $ 3 per quarter, so the students' main expense was for their board, estimated at $ 2–$ 3 per week. By 1881, the school had already passed through "severe financial embarrassments". Support of the College was the largest single endeavor of the Free Baptists, to which they were "thoroughly committed". In 1867, in addition to chartering it,
15120-487: The state's new 1780 constitution . New Hampshire began gradual emancipation in 1783, while Connecticut and Rhode Island followed suit in 1784. The New York Manumission Society , which was led by John Jay , Alexander Hamilton , and Aaron Burr , was founded in 1785. New York state began gradual emancipation in 1799, and New Jersey did the same in 1804. Shortly after the Revolution, the Northwest Territory
15260-413: The superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This view of the "Negro race" was backed by pseudoscience . The leading researcher was Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright , a Southerner and the inventor of the mental illnesses of drapetomania (the desire of a slave to run away) and dysaesthesia aethiopica ("rascality"), both cured, according to him, by whipping. The Medical Association of Louisiana set up
15400-562: The time was prohibited by law at state-regulated schools in West Virginia and the other Southern states. In the early twentieth century, Storer was at the center of the growing protest movement against Jim Crow treatment that would lead to the NAACP and the Civil Rights Movement . The first American meeting of the predecessor of the NAACP, the Niagara Movement , was held at Storer in 1906. John Brown's Fort ,
15540-547: The total of the state's free population, at the rate of three-fifths of their total number, to establish the state's official population for the purposes of apportionment of congressional representation and federal taxation. The "Three-Fifths Compromise" was reached after a debate in which delegates from Southern (slaveholding) states argued that slaves should be counted in the census just as all other persons were while delegates from Northern (free) states countered that slaves should not be counted at all. The compromise strengthened
15680-530: The wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. The French writer and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville , in his influential Democracy in America (1835), expressed opposition to slavery while observing its effects on American society. He felt that a multiracial society without slavery was untenable, as he believed that prejudice against blacks increased as they were granted more rights (for example, in Northern states). He believed that
15820-425: Was "crucified". It was written by W. E. B. Du Bois , author of a biography of John Brown and NAACP cofounder. Henry T. MacDonald , the white president of Storer, who had participated in the UDC's 1931 ceremony, refused to allow the plaque to be mounted, because he found it "too militant". In 2006, 74 years later, the plaque was finally given a public place, but a remote one: on the former Storer College grounds, at
15960-416: Was "that he had been out on the railroad bridge looking for a watchman who was missing, and he had been ordered to halt by some men who were there, and, instead of doing that, he turned to go back to the office, and as he turned they shot him in the back." He rejected his assaulters' claim that this was to begin a slave rebellion. He thought they were robbers and refused to keep quiet as they requested. A bill
16100-494: Was a historically Black college in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia , that operated from 1867 to 1955. A national icon for Black Americans , in the town where the 'end of American slavery began', as Frederick Douglass famously put it, it was a unique institution whose focus changed several times. There is no one category of college into which it fits neatly. Sometimes white students studied alongside Black students, which at
16240-458: Was a normal school until into the twentieth century, providing high school-level instruction to future primary school teachers. It also is not " historically black " in the usual sense. The student body was overwhelmingly black, and in the 1910 advertisement reproduced at right it describes itself as "for Colored students", but there were some white students. It was also ahead of its time in that it accepted both male and female students, which then
16380-547: Was a legal practise and had become entrenched socially and economically in many societies. The ideals and principles promoted in the Enlightenment and the American Revolution helped to put slavery and the desire for its abolition on the political agenda. As historian Christopher L. Brown put it, slavery "had never been on the agenda in a serious way before", but the American Revolution "forced it to be
16520-615: Was abandoned after one year due to "lingering Confederate sympathizers". Storer's predecessor in Jefferson County, a school staffed by "Miss Mann", a niece of the educator Horace Mann , in neighboring Bolivar , only lasted one year because of "militant race prejudice". The town of Harpers Ferry had already rejected a proposal to use Lockwood House "for a school for colored children". Storer's charter aroused intense and violent opposition, and passed by one vote. Residents of Harpers Ferry tried everything from slander and vandalism to pulling political strings in their efforts to shut down
16660-597: Was called at the time the Faithful Slave Memorial was erected by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy ( 39°19′24″N 77°43′48″W / 39.32330°N 77.73005°W / 39.32330; -77.73005 ) . The text of the granite monument reads: On the night of October 16, 1859, Heyward Shepherd, an industrious and respected colored freeman,
16800-408: Was common thereafter, at which point the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (Coast Guard) began enforcing the law on the high seas. It has been estimated that before 1820 a majority of serving congressmen owned slaves, and that about 30 percent of congressmen who were born before 1840 (some of whom served into the 20th century) at some time in their lives, were owners of slaves. The rapid expansion of
16940-568: Was defended in the South as a "positive good" , and the largest religious denominations split over the slavery issue into regional organizations of the North and South. By 1850, the newly rich, cotton-growing South threatened to secede from the Union . Bloody fighting broke out over slavery in the Kansas Territory . When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, slave states seceded to form
17080-470: Was established, by Manasseh Cutler and Rufus Putnam (who had been George Washington's chief engineer). Both Cutler and Putnam came from Puritan New England. The Puritans strongly believed that slavery was morally wrong. Their influence on the issue of slavery was long-lasting, and this was provided significantly greater impetus by the Revolution. The Northwest Territory (which became Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota) doubled
17220-440: Was frequently baggage or freight to move to or from the trains of the Winchester and Potomac Railroad , whose northern terminus was the Harpers Ferry station. The stationmaster was Fontaine Beckham, the popular mayor of Harpers Ferry; when he was absent, Shepherd was in charge of the station. Beckham, who also was killed, "liked him very much." What happened, as described by Shepherd to the physician who treated him, John D. Starry,
17360-464: Was installed near the 1931 monument by the National Park Service, to place the monument in context. It reads: On October 17, 1859, abolitionist John Brown attacked Harpers Ferry to launch a war against slavery. Heyward Shepherd, a free African-American railroad baggage master, was shot and killed by Brown's men shortly after midnight. Seventy-two years later, on October 10, 1931, a crowd estimated to 300 whites and 100 blacks gathered to unveil and dedicate
17500-599: Was introduced into the Virginia Legislature to provide a pension for his widow Sarah. His wife and children moved to Washington, D.C. He was buried in the Winchester–Fairfax Colored Cemetery , on what is today Route 11 , with "honors of war by the military companies of the town, accompanied by the mayor and other citizens." However, in 1932 no one could find his grave. Subsequently, Winchester's Old Colored Cemetery has been paved over and
17640-426: Was left upon a record which is the peculiar heritage of the American people, and an everlasting tribute to the best in both races. Although he had objected to the original 1920 proposal as provocative of "unpleasant racial feeling"—there was a Ku Klux Klan march a year later—Storer College president Henry T. MacDonald gave the opening address, and the college chorus performed. A "distinguished colored clergyman" gave
17780-610: Was mortally wounded by John Brown's raiders. In pursuance of his duties as an employee of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, he became the first victim of this attempted insurrection. This boulder is erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans as a memorial to Heyward Shepherd, exemplifying the character and faithfulness of thousands of negros who, under many temptations throughout subsequent years of war, so conducted themselves that no stain
17920-462: Was needed to build the rest of society. In a speech to the Senate on March 4, 1858, Hammond developed his "Mudsill Theory", defending his view on slavery by stating: "Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in
18060-497: Was never a person elected to a second term who was not a slaveholder. The power of Southern states in Congress lasted until the Civil War , affecting national policies, legislation, and appointments. One result was that most of the justices appointed to the Supreme Court were slave owners. The planter elite dominated the Southern congressional delegations and the United States presidency for nearly fifty years. Slavery in
18200-412: Was nothing similar, at least nearby, in any neighboring state. While training elementary school teachers in the normal school, there were also lots of illiterate adult students for the student teachers to instruct. Storer College spent much of its early years teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic , as almost no one else in the state was providing this instruction to blacks. Storer's Preparatory Division
18340-550: Was often blurry. Just as today with upper undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S., pre-college and college students might be in the same classroom, taking the same course at the same time, but at a different level of instruction. Medical schools, in the nineteenth century, did not require as prerequisite a college education as understood today (2021). Neither did teaching: normal schools to train teachers for public elementary schools offered high school level instruction. "I studied at X College" did not necessarily mean, then, that
18480-478: Was one of many erected by the UDC to help popularize the Lost Cause myth. Although the monument was completed before 1923, it was not installed immediately because local White leaders feared that it would provoke interracial animosity. The UDC eventually agreed to change the design to satisfy White leaders' concerns, and the memorial was dedicated in 1931. Despite the changes, the monument was strongly opposed by
18620-585: Was preparing students for the Normal School, which required literacy. No one saw this as a problem; it was what the West Virginia Legislature expected when they chartered Storer College, described as "a high school for negroes" by a hostile newspaper. No one else in West Virginia was educating those students until the foundation in 1891 of the West Virginia Colored Institute, today West Virginia State University , and in 1895 of
18760-469: Was raised, and by March 1868 Storer received its state charter, which was approved in the Legislature by a vote of 13–6, though the phrase "without distinction of race or color" was fiercely debated. At the same time the institution was authorized to operate as a normal school , training teachers for the "colored schools". "Storer College, Normal Department" opened its doors in October of that year. It
18900-399: Was rejected. Rhode Island forbade the importation of slaves in 1774. The influential revolutionary Fairfax Resolves called for an end to the "wicked, cruel and unnatural" Atlantic slave trade. All of the colonies banned slave importations during the Revolutionary War. Slavery had existed for thousands of years, all around the world. In the United States and many parts of the world it
19040-446: Was related to a larger national effort by Northern philanthropic organizations and the government's Freedmen's Bureau to set up schools in order to educate the millions of enslaved African Americans freed by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution . From Harpers Ferry, Reverend Brackett directed the efforts of dedicated missionary teachers, who provided a basic education to thousands of former slaves congregated in
19180-428: Was sometimes referred to informally as Storer Normal School. According to its Trustees, in 1870: It is the design that this institution shall ultimately become a College, and to this end, a charter granting full College powers has been obtained. It will, however, be run for the present as a Normal School or Academy, as it is believed that in this way it will best meet the wants of the colored people for whose benefit it
19320-408: Was the project of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans , and was intended to support their claim that the enslaved in the South did not desire freedom, and did not support John Brown. McDonald, in his capacity as the president of Storer, made introductory remarks. Two attacks on John Brown then followed; Heyward Shepherd allegedly showed that Brown was wrong and
19460-439: Was to become Storer College's first building. They taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to the children of former slaves and sometimes to their parents. Parents and children sometimes took the same class together, "but the rising generation so far outstripped their ancestors that the old folks became ashamed of themselves, and gave it up." From this beginning as a one-room school for freedmen , Storer developed slowly into
19600-440: Was unusual. The Free Baptists called Storer their greatest success. The U.S. Congress turned over to it four buildings that had been used for housing at the former Harpers Ferry National Armory . The school gradually expanded its offerings, adding a traditional or "collegiate" high school, an industrial division, then junior college classes, and finally four-year programs. The College built additional buildings. Until 1891, when
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