Jessica Thelen Spring 2019
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  • Introduction
  • Black Radical Influence on Brown
    • Garnet and Radical Abolitionism
    • Douglass and Brown
    • Loguen and Brown
    • The Radical Abolitionist Party
  • The Chatham Convention
    • Members of the Chatham Convention
    • Investigating Members of the Convention
    • Traveling To The Convention
    • The Minutes
    • The Constitution
  • The Harpers Ferry Raid
    • Timeline of Events
    • Newspaper Coverage of the Raid
    • Black Reactions to the Raid
  • Biographies
    • Henry Highland Garnet
    • Anna Murray Douglass
    • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
    • John Brown
    • Mary Ann Shadd Cary
    • Harriet Tubman
    • Mary Ellen Pleasant
    • Osborne Perry (P.) Anderson
    • Martin R. Delany
    • Mary Brown
  • Key Documents
    • Garnet’s Address (1843)
    • Brown’s Declaration (1859)
    • Harper’s “Bury Me In A Free Land” (1858)
    • Brown’s Prison Letters
    • Interviews with Brown
  • Teaching Ideas
    • Teaching This Exhibit
    • John Brown’s Fort and Public Memory
  • How to Contribute
  • Bibliography
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RADICAL BLACK ACTIVISTS AND JOHN BROWN

OSBORNE PERRY (P.) ANDERSON (1830-1872), BLACK RADICAL ABOLITIONIST, AUTHOR, AND UNION ARMY RECRUITMENT OFFICER

Events in the Life of Osborne P. Anderson

Learn more about Osborne P. Anderson and his connections with Black Radical activists and Brown. To find out more about the images included, click on them.

 

1830

Osborne Perry Anderson was born free in Fallow Field, Pennsylvania.

Oberlin College

Anderson attended Oberlin College in Ohio along with John Anthony Copeland Jr., another Black activist who also fought in the Harpers Ferry Raid [1]. 

[1] Westbrook, A. “Osborne P. Anderson (1830-1872).” Black Past, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/anderson-osborne-p-1830-1872/.

1850

Anderson moved to Chatham, Canada. It is here that he met Mary Ann Shadd Cary [1].

[1] Westbrook, A. “Osborne P. Anderson (1830-1872).” 

June 1856

Anderson “became a subscription agent for Shadd Cary’s paper, the Provincial Freeman” [1].

He eventually became a printer for the Provincial Freeman and “continued to work for the Freeman in several capacities” [2].

[1] Rhodes, Jane. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press And Protest In The Nineteenth Century. Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 118.

[2] Rhodes 118.

1858

Anderson met John Brown [1].

In May, he participated in the Chatham Convention and served as one of the Convention’s Secretaries. He was also elected as a member of Congress of Brown’s provisional government [2].

[1] Westbrook, A. “Osborne P. Anderson (1830-1872).” 

[2] Anderson, Osborne P. Voice From Harper’s Ferry: A Narrative of Events at Harper’s Ferry. Boston: Printed for the Author, 1861, pp. 9-13.

1859

Anderson made his way back to Chatham.

On October 16 and 17, Anderson participated in the Harpers Ferry Raid. “He is the only African American to escape capture [during the Raid]” [1].

[1]  Westbrook, A. “Osborne P. Anderson (1830-1872).”

1861

Shadd Cary edited and published Anderson’s account of the Harpers Ferry Raid, A Voice From Harper’s Ferry: A Narrative of Events at Harper’s Ferry [1].

In the “Preface,” Anderson writes: “My sole purpose in publishing the following Narrative is to save from oblivion the facts connected with one of the most important movements of this age, with reference to the overthrow of American slavery” [2].

[1] Paul, Heike. “Out of Chatham: Abolitionism on the Canadian Frontier,” Atlantic Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 2011, p. 180.

[2] Osborne 3. 

1864

Anderson in the Union Army, “serving as a recruitment officer in Indiana and Arkansas” [1].

[1] Westbrook, A. “Osborne P. Anderson (1830-1872).”

1872

Anderson passed away from tuberculosis on Dec. 13 in Washington, D.C., at the age of 42.

Viewing » TO STAY OR TO GO?: THE NATIONAL EMIGRATION CONVENTION OF 1854

An exhibit in the collection of the Colored Conventions Project: Bringing 19th-century Black Organizing to Digital Life
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