{"id":740,"date":"2022-06-21T18:02:35","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T18:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/?page_id=740"},"modified":"2022-06-21T18:53:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T18:53:06","slug":"john-browns-rifle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/antislavery-in-small-things-project\/2021-22-projects\/john-browns-rifle\/","title":{"rendered":"John Brown’s Rifle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

John Brown\u2019s Gun: A Story of Abolitionist Movement in the Great-Lakes Region<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 21, 1861, as the American Civil War began, Brigadier General James Wolfe Ripley ordered 2,500 units of the Burnside Marine Carbine rifle to arm the Union troops. [1]<\/a> The Burnside Marine Carbine rifle was designed by Ambrose Burnside in 1855 and constructed in Providence, Rhode Island, by the Burnside Rifle Company.  The gun consisted of a cast steel barrel and wooden stock and it marked a significant leap in gun design, becoming  the third most popular carbine during the Civil War.[2]<\/a> However, the gun model\u2019s emancipatory legacy had begun three years earlier, in 1858, when U.S. abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859) traveled to Chatham with his own Burnside rifle as part of his tour through Canada to muster support for the abolition of slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Brown was a radical American abolitionist known for leading the Bloody Kansas conflict in the 1850s. The Bloody Kansas conflict was a prolonged series of guerrilla engagements to determine whether or not Kansas, upon gaining statehood, would prohibit slavery. However, John Brown\u2019s abolitionist activity expanded beyond the borders of Kansas, and even the borders of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 8th<\/sup>, 1858, Brown held a secret meeting in Chatham to discuss his plans to establish a revolutionary nation of freed slaves in the Appalachian Mountains, all of whom would have complete freedom and equality. Brown unveiled a provisional constitution for this republic, which he had written three months earlier while a guest in Frederick Douglass\u2019s Rochester, New York home.[3]<\/a> Brown\u2019s constitution comprised 48 articles outlining the governance of this proposed nation. At the convention, Brown also shared his plan to raid the United States\u2019 federal armoury in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown wanted to steal guns to arm a revolt against the South, thereby destroying the institution of slavery and establishing his new nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two goals of Brown\u2019s tour through the Northern states and Canada were recruiting free Black men to serve as soldiers in his raid and raising funds. Brown\u2019s plan was shrouded in secrecy since it was highly treasonous. Attendees at his Chatham meeting all swore an oath not to share any information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One attendee of the Provisional Constitutional Convention in Chatham was James Monroe Jones (1821-1906), a local businessman and expert gunsmith. \u201cGunsmith Jones,\u201d as he was known in the Chatham community, was in fact the only Black gunsmith in all of pre-Confederation Canada. Jones signed Brown\u2019s provisional constitution but, like the vast majority of signatories, did not join Brown on his mission to Virginia over fear of leaving his life in Canada and confronting the United States military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the convention, Jones loaned Brown $75 and Brown surrendered his Burnside Marine Carbine rifle as collateral. Judging from the cost of the units of this model that Brigadier General Ripley ordered in 1861, such a gun when brand-new was worth about $38.50, including bullet moulds and additional equipment for maintenance. A used gun would have been worth considerably less. As an expert gunsmith, James Monroe Jones would have understood the gun\u2019s value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is possible that Jones\u2019 generous loan, given the actual value of the collateral Brown offered him, was more of a donation to Brown\u2019s cause. Having attended Brown\u2019s convention, Jones would have recognised that Brown needed the money for his political activities. Jones\u2019 loan made him a political agent of Brown\u2019s initiative in his own right through his financial support of Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand James Monroe Jones, historians need to understand him beyond his life as a Black man in Canada, by placing him in a historical context of the Great-Lake region. James Monroe Jones was born into slavery in North Carolina in 1821.[4]<\/a> His father Allen spent years working evenings and nights to save enough money to purchase his own and his family\u2019s freedom, but then the slaveholder changed the price as his sons were now able-bodied young men. As a result, Allen had to work even more years, effectively buying his family\u2019s freedom twice. James Monroe Jones\u2019 politicization is contextualized by his and his family\u2019s experience of enslavement and the recent family history of unfair treatment by their previous slaveholder. The exploitation of Jones\u2019 family likely inspired him to assist Brown\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After finally purchasing their freedom, the Joneses moved North to Ohio where James and three of his brothers attended Oberlin College, the first U.S. institution to accept Black students.[5]<\/a> In 1849, James graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. At this point, James had already distinguished himself for his intellect, becoming the fourth African American to attain the Bachelor of Science degree at Oberlin. He then moved across the border to southwestern Ontario and married Emily Francis, a woman from Howard Township in Kent County. In 1852, the couple moved to Chatham, then a bustling abolitionist community and underground railroad terminus near the Canada-United States border. In 1855 and 1857, Jones and Emily had two daughters whom they named Anna and Sophia.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering Jones\u2019 position as a business owner and new father in 1858, it would make sense that he did not join John Brown in his raid on Harpers Ferry. Surprisingly few people joined Brown on his raid. On October 16, 1859, when Brown seized the federal armoury, his party consisted of only twenty-two men, of whom only five were Black. [7]<\/a> Brown\u2019s failure to recruit more men suggests that many, like Frederick Douglass, regarded Brown\u2019s raid as a suicide mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one of the twenty-two men, Osborne Perry Anderson, was from Chatham. He was also the only surviving African American member of the raid; he managed to evade capture and return to Chatham. In 1861, he wrote an account of the raid, A <\/em>Voice from Harper’s Ferry<\/em>, which was published by local teacher, author and editor Mary Ann Shadd Cary, whose brother Isaac had hosted John Brown\u2019s secret convention inside his Chatham home in 1858.[8]<\/a> Following the publication of his memoir, Anderson continued his abolitionist work by fighting for the Union Army during the Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson had been lucky. Several other members of the party, including John Brown himself, were tried and hanged following the unsuccessful raid of Harpers Ferry,. As a result, John Brown\u2019s loan was never repaid, and his gun never retrieved from Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many ways, John Brown\u2019s gun is representative both of the community of abolitionists living along the Canada-United States border and of the cross-border movement of ideas and people in the Great-Lakes region.[9]<\/a> Not only did the gun move between the two countries; it also took part in one of the many financial exchanges that supported the abolitionist movement. While the gun ended up remaining in Canada after Brown\u2019s death, it was intended to be returned both to John Brown and the United States. This gun\u2019s bidirectional movement is mirrored in the bi-directional lives of many other abolitionists, such as John Brown, James Monroe Jones, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and Osborne Perry Anderson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, Canada is depicted as a \u201cpromised land\u201d and Chatham, in particular, seen as a \u201cBlack Mecca,\u201d but this uni-directional narrative of history is not necessarily accurate.[10]<\/a> As an underground railroad terminus, Chatham was populated by many self-emancipated peoples. Additionally, after the United States passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, many free African Americans fled the United States for Canada fearing an increasingly racially hostile environment and unjust persecution. For example, Mary Ann Shadd Cary emigrated from Delaware in 1851. However, while Upper Canada was legislatively safer for Black people because of the 1793 antislavery laws, it was not free of anti-Black racism. According to William P. Newman, a formerly enslaved Baptist minister educated at Oberlin college in Ohio who settled in Chatham until 1859, \u201ccolored people can scarcely walk the streets, in very many parts of Canada, without being insulted and abused by those having a fairer skin than themselves.\u201d[11]<\/a> As a result, when legal protections for Black people were enhanced in the United States or when U.S.-based political movements needed support, people frequently left Canada. Just as the Fugitive Slave Act had brought people to Canada, the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Reconstruction period brought many Black people back to the United States in search of their relatives and keen to return to their communities. For example, Mary Ann Shadd Cary returned to the United States in the early 1860s to support the Union Army with its recruitment. Similarly, some of James Monroe Jones\u2019 children went to the U.S. to study: his daughter Anna went to Ohio to attend Oberlin College and in 1885, his daughter Sophia became the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Michigan\u2019s medical school.[12]<\/a> Since the social environments of the Northern states and Canada both had anti-Black racism, changes in legislation and opportunity where the primary motivators for temporary movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Monroe Jones and his family are representative of a class of highly educated and skilled Black people who confronted anti-Black stereotypes. Jones was an exceptionally skilled gunsmith. In 1859, Jones was awarded a medal at the Montreal Manufacturing and Trade Fair for a pair of derringers he had made. Following this honour, Jones\u2019 constructed a pair of derringer pistols to gift the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, on his 1860 visit to Canada. The Prince, who was scheduled to arrive in Chatham to accept the gift, left without meeting Jones or receiving the gift after being informed that Jones was Black.[13]<\/a> In 1864, Jones won First Prize for the best assortment of firearms at the Provincial Exhibition. According to James Gooding, publisher of the C<\/em>anadian Journal of Arms Collecting<\/em>, Jones was \u201cone of six Canadian gunsmiths who had the skill\u2026to be compared with the best in the world.\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one sense, the story of John Brown\u2019s gun is the simple story of an item owned by John Brown and given as collateral to James Monroe Jones. However, when looked at the gun as an artifact representing the movement of goods and ideas along the US-Canada border, the story of the firearm becomes more complicated. The loan was intended to aid Brown\u2019s violent abolitionist mission and, as a result, should be seen not solely as a loan from a small businessman, but as financial support from Jones as a free political agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Purchase of arms<\/a>, House Documents, 1861, P. 140.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Smithsonian Institution. \u201cBurnside Carbine.\u201d Smithsonian Institution. Accessed March 11, 2022. http:\/\/www.civilwar.si.edu\/weapons_burnside.html.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Louis A. DeCaro, “Fire from the Midst of You” a Religious Life of John Brown, (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2002) 244.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Brown, \u201cProvisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States\u201d 1858; Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, Record Group 94. Online Version, https:\/\/www.docsteach.org\/documents\/document\/provisional-constitution-and-ordinances-for-the-people-of-the-united-states-written-by-john-brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Don Robinet, \u201c’Gunsmith’ Jones Saw Opportunity in Chatham.\u201d Chatham-Kent This Week<\/em>, February 13, 2014. https:\/\/www.chathamthisweek.com\/2014\/02\/13\/gunsmith-jones-saw-opportunity-in-chatham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Karen Paton-Evans, \u201cGunsmith James Jones.\u201d The Miller Times. Miller & Miller Actions LTD., September 24, 2021. https:\/\/millerandmillerauctions.squarespace.com\/stories\/2021\/9\/23\/james-jones-gunsmith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Oberlin College Archives. \u201cAnna H. Jones.\u201d Oberlin College Archives. Oberlin College. Accessed March 5, 2022. https:\/\/ohio5.contentdm.oclc.org\/digital\/collection\/photos\/id\/360.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Zoe Trodd and John Stauffer, Meteor of War: The John Brown Story<\/em>. (Maplecrest, NY: Brandywine Press, 2005).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> The apostrophe is incorrect but present in the publication. National Parks Service. \u201cAboard the Underground Railroad: Mary Ann Shadd Cary House.\u201d National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d.. https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/nr\/travel\/underground\/dc2.htm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Nina Reid-Maroney, \u201cPossibilities for African Canadian Intellectual History: The Case of 19th\u2010century Upper Canada\/Canada West.\u201d History Compass, vol. 15, no. 12, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Nina Reid-Maroney, \u201cHistory and Historiography in the \u2018Promised Land\u2019\u201d, in Reid-Maroney, Handel Kashope Wright, Boulou \u00c9banda de B’b\u00e9ri, eds.  The Promised Land: History and Historiography of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent’s Settlements and Beyond<\/em>. (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> Carmen Poole, \u201cConspicuous Peripheries: Black Identity, Memory, and Community in Chatham, ON, 1860\u20131980.\u201d Dissertation, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2015. 39.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> Don Robinet, \u201c’Gunsmith’ Jones Saw Opportunity in Chatham.\u201d Chatham-Kent This Week. Chatham-Kent This Week, February 13, 2014. https:\/\/www.chathamthisweek.com\/2014\/02\/13\/gunsmith-jones-saw-opportunity-in-chatham; Nina Reid-Maroney, \u201cAfrican Canadian Women and New World Diaspora, Circa 1865.\u201d Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, Canadian Woman Studies<\/em>, 2004, 94.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> F Riehl, \u201cOne of the Best Old World Gunsmiths, You’ve Never Heard Of.\u201d AmmoLand.com. AmmoLand Shoot Sports News, January 4, 2019. https:\/\/www.ammoland.com\/2018\/12\/gunsmith-james-monroe-gunsmith-jones\/#axzz7Nq8kEp3d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Karen Paton-Evans, \u201cGunsmith James Jones.\u201d The Miller Times. Miller & Miller Actions LTD., September 24, 2021. https:\/\/millerandmillerauctions.squarespace.com\/stories\/2021\/9\/23\/james-jones-gunsmith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson, Osborne P. A Voice from Harper’s Ferry: A Narrative of Events at Harper’s Ferry. Chatham, Ontario: The Liberator, 1861. https:\/\/docs.google.com\/viewerng\/viewer?url=https:\/\/omeka.coloredconventions.org\/files\/original\/9405e1eb44a30ef0cb2d983e0aed2173.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonhams . \u201cA Very Rare Silver-and-Gold-Mounted Philadelphia-Style Percussion Derringer by James Monroe Jones.\u201d Bonhams, November 10, 2014. https:\/\/www.bonhams.com\/auctions\/21653\/lot\/1013\/?category=list<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown, John, \u201cProvisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States\u201d 1858; Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, Record Group 94. Online Version, https:\/\/www.docsteach.org\/documents\/document\/provisional-constitution-and-ordinances-for-the-people-of-the-united-states-written-by-john-brown<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comminey, Shawn C. \u201cNational Black Conventions and the Quest for African American Freedom and Progress, 1847-1867.\u201d International Social Science Review 91, no. 1 (2015): 1\u201318.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeCaro, Louis A. “Fire from the Midst of You” a Religious Life of John Brown<\/em>. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horwitz, Tony. Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War<\/em>. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Parks Service. \u201cAboard the Underground Railroad: Mary Ann Shadd Cary House.\u201d National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d.. https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/nr\/travel\/underground\/dc2.htm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oberlin College Archives. \u201cAnna H. Jones.\u201d Oberlin College Archives. Oberlin College. Accessed March 5, 2022. https:\/\/ohio5.contentdm.oclc.org\/digital\/collection\/photos\/id\/360.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paton-Evans, Karen. \u201cGunsmith James Jones.\u201d The Miller Times. Miller & Miller Actions LTD., September 24, 2021. https:\/\/millerandmillerauctions.squarespace.com\/stories\/2021\/9\/23\/james-jones-gunsmith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul, Heike. \u201cOut of Chatham: Abolitionism on the Canadian Frontier.\u201d Atlantic Studies 8, no. 2 (2011): 165\u201388.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poole, Carmen. \u201cConspicuous Peripheries: Black Identity, Memory, and Community in Chatham, ON, 1860\u20131980.\u201d Dissertation, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prince, Shannon. Buxton National Historic Site & Museum. Accessed November 23, 2021. http:\/\/www.buxtonmuseum.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reid-Maroney, Nina, Handel Kashope Wright, Boulou \u00c9banda de B’b\u00e9ri, and Afua Cooper. The Promised Land: History and Historiography of the Black Experience in Chatham-Kent’s Settlements and Beyond. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riehl, F. \u201cOne of the Best Old World Gunsmiths, You’ve Never Heard Of.\u201d AmmoLand.com. AmmoLand Shoot Sports News, January 4, 2019. https:\/\/www.ammoland.com\/2018\/12\/gunsmith-james-monroe-gunsmith-jones\/#axzz7Nq8kEp3d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinet, Don. \u201c’Gunsmith’ Jones Saw Opportunity in Chatham.\u201d Chatham-Kent This Week. Chatham-Kent This Week, February 13, 2014. https:\/\/www.chathamthisweek.com\/2014\/02\/13\/gunsmith-jones-saw-opportunity-in-chatham<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simser, Guy. \u201cThe Prince & The Pistols.\u201d Canada’s History, February 6, 2018. https:\/\/www.canadashistory.ca\/explore\/politics-law\/the-prince-the-pistols<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smithsonian Institution. \u201cBurnside Carbine.\u201d Smithsonian Institution. Accessed March 11, 2022. http:\/\/www.civilwar.si.edu\/weapons_burnside.html.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trodd, Zoe and John Stauffer. Meteor of War: The John Brown Story<\/em>. Maplecrest, NY: Brandywine Press, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tsai, Robert L. \u201cJohn Brown’s Constitution.\u201d Boston College Law Review 51 (January 28, 2010): 151\u2013207.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

United States Congress. House Documents, Otherwise Published as Executive Documents: 13th Congress, 2d Session-49th Congress, 1st Session<\/em>. 5. Vol. 5. Part 1. Washington, DC: United States Congress, 1862. Online Version, https:\/\/books.google.ca\/books?id=NJoFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA140&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Brown\u2019s Gun: A Story of Abolitionist Movement in the Great-Lakes Region On November 21, 1861, as the American Civil War began, Brigadier General James Wolfe Ripley ordered 2,500 units of the Burnside Marine Carbine rifle to arm the Union troops. [1] The Burnside Marine Carbine rifle was designed by Ambrose Burnside in 1855 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":751,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_mc_calendar":[],"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-740","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/740\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.huronresearch.ca\/antislavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}