The 'Colored Hero' of Harper's Ferry
John Anthony Copeland and the War against Slavery

This is the first and only biography of one of John Brown's African American comrades, John Anthony Copeland.

Steven Lubet (Author)

9781107076020, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 2015

282 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.61 kg

'This is a very good book, well-paced and replete with interesting moments and finely noted details. … Full of such fascinating details, The 'Colored Hero' of Harper's Ferry: John Anthony Copeland and the War against Slavery will appeal to a wide readership. Lubet's writing is concise and approachable, and Copeland's story is engrossing.' Keith D. McCall, The Journal of African American History

On the night of Sunday, October 16, 1859, hoping to bring about the eventual end of slavery, radical abolitionist John Brown launched an armed attack at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Among his troops, there were only five black men, who have largely been treated as little more than 'spear carriers' by Brown's many biographers and other historians of the antebellum era. This book brings one such man, John Anthony Copeland, directly to center stage. Copeland played a leading role in the momentous Oberlin slave rescue, and he successfully escorted a fugitive to Canada, making him an ideal recruit for Brown's invasion of Virginia. He fought bravely at Harpers Ferry, only to be captured and charged with murder and treason. With his trademark lively prose and compelling narrative style, Steven Lubet paints a vivid portrait of this young black man who gave his life for freedom.

Prologue
1. The frozen river
2. 'A good abolition convention'
3. The colony and the college
4. 'A most well disposed boy'
5. 'I have found paradise'
6. 'My object in coming to Oberlin'
7. 'Not a fugitive was seized'
8. The new marshal
9. 'Recital of the wrong and outrage'
10. Wack's tavern
11. A brace of pistols
12. The Oberlin rescue
13. 'The black mecca'
14. The felons' feast
15. Votaries of the higher law
16. 'The bravest Negroes'
17. The invisibles
18. The war department
19. Hall's rifle works
20. 'His Negro confession'
21. Nothing like a fair trial
22. An abolition harangue
23. Only slave stealing
24. 'This guilty land'
25. The colored American heroes
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]