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.
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.
