Abolition

by Tim Black

The teacher and his students meandered across the Bowdoin College campus in the direction of the portable.

  “In a month or two Mrs. Stowe will leave this town and head for Massachusetts. Even though she followed her husband, Harriet Beecher Stowe was the breadwinner in the family. Royalties from the novel were the family’s main source of income.”

  “Didn’t Harriet Beecher Stowe help a runaway slave, Mr. Greene? “Bette asked.

  “Yes, in fact she mentioned him by name…John Andrew Jackson. He was a runaway slave from South Carolina. Mrs. Stowe gave him refuge. Then she outfitted him with food and money and he fled to Canada. Eventually he emigrated to Great Britain. In 1862, he published his book, The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina, which was published by Passmore and Alabaster in England. The University of North Carolina published a digital version of the book sometime back, if you are interested. Anyway, John Andrew Jackson stayed in England until the Civil War ended and then came back to the United States and settled in Massachusetts. I think the reason Mrs. Stowe didn’t say that she helped him, at least to us, is that it was against the law under the Fugitive Slave Act to help a runaway slave. A person could go to jail for helping a slave in the 1850s.”

  “That is ridiculous,” Heather said.

  “Perhaps, but the 1850s was a perilous decade, Heather,” Mr. Greene said. “It began with the Compromise of 1850 and its Fugitive Slave Act, then Mrs. Stowe’s novel in 1852 and in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act that introduced the notion of ‘popular sovereignty’ into the slavery question, allowing people in new territories to decide if slavery would be legal or banned. It undid the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prevented slavery above the latitude of 36 degrees, 30 minutes. And that led to a civil war in Kansas, which is our next stop, to meet the legendary abolitionist, John Brown.”

  “The crazy man who raided Harper’s Ferry?” Heather asked.

  Mr. Greene smiled. “Some people thought Brown was crazy, but he was actually a Calvinist. Remember what was odd about Calvinists…or the Puritans?”

  “They believed in predestination,” Victor replied.

  “Very good, Victor. You see, students, John Brown believed God had put him on earth to end slavery. He was a true believer. To the North he was a saint, to the South he was a demon. Frankly, he was neither. We are going to meet John Brown before he commits a massacre at Pottawatomie, Kansas. The John Brown we will meet is without his long white beard that made him appear like a patriarch from the Old Testament ready to bring fire and brimstone down upon the proslavery people. He will later grow the beard to disguise his appearance after the murders that he oversaw in Kansas. But we will visit him before that massacre in May 1856. I believe in the case of John Brown, Sunday may have been the safest day to chat with him, although the Pottawatomie, Kansas, murders started on a Saturday night and carried over into Sunday… Are you ready, Mr. Tesla?”

  “Kansas, May 1856, Mr. Greene?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is getting close to my birthdate, Mr. Greene. July 10, 1856. I do not wish to reanimate as an infant.”

  “Relax, Mr. Tesla. We will only be there a few hours and then we head to 1859, when you will be a three-years-old. Can you manage to run the computer at age three?”

  “Of course, any three-year-old can run a computer, from what I have seen,” Tesla replied. “I certainly had no problem landing in Gettysburg when I was a week short of seven,” he added.

  “Okay, then, Kansas please. Ottawa Creek, Kansas. We want to find Brown at his hideout.

  “I thought it was Pottawattasomething” Heather said.

  “Different place, nearby, where John Brown pitched his tent. On second thought, Mr. Tesla, take us to the outskirts of Osawatomie, Kansas.”

  Chapter 10

  Nikola Tesla brought the classroom in for a soft landing on the thick sod prairie outside a gathering of ramshackle buildings that served as the shell of a village known as Osawatomie, s name derived from the two creeks nearby, Osage and Pottawatomie, which were also the names of two Native American tribes that had lived in the region. Whereas the town of Lecompton, Kansas, was the center for proslavery activity, Osawatomie was home to free-soil immigrants, people who had moved to Kansas to vote for Kansas to enter the Union as a free-state. The group once again donned their Quaker outfits so that there would be no doubt as to their pacific intentions. Before they exited the classroom, Mr. Greene had a few more instructions for the group.

  “Do not wander off. Proslavery forces are nearby and for the past few months they have been ambushing free state settlers, or abolitionists, as they traveled on the roads. These incidents of bushwhacking would be the reason that John Brown resorted to violence. Up until John Brown, abolitionists did not fight back against the proslavery forces. Brown was different. He believed the only way that slavery would be defeated was with violence. Okay, fellow Quakers, we are out the door. Which of my friendly ghosts is staying behind?”

  “I am,” replied Carl Bridenbaugh.

  “Okay then, Mr. Tesla lead the way.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Tesla replied with a smile and a wink to Minerva.

  Minerva rolled her eyes. “You wish, you old reprobate,” she replied to his gesture.

  “Just wait until I reanimate again, I will be irresistible,” Tesla teased.

  A smile slid onto Minerva’s face. The old rogue, she thought, recalling how cute Nikola Tesla had been as a seven-year-old boy back in Gettysburg in 1863. Such an oddity of time travel, she thought. When a ghost returned to an era when he was alive, he reanimated to his age in the year in which he stopped.

  Nikola Tesla floated ahead, and the group walked across the prairie as Mr. Greene talked of the farmers who were coming to Kansas. “Underneath the sod is some of the richest farmland on earth. At one time, Americans had thought the Great Plains was a desert, but the steel plow changed everything. Within a few decades Kansas will turn from grassland to farmland.”

  “I wish we could go to Auntie Em’s,” Heather said, trying a joke. It flopped. Not even a groan from her classmates.

  Glumly, Heather dropped her head and looked at the ground as she walked. She didn’t see the large man on horseback approaching. But Victor did. He nudged Mr. Greene with an elbow. “Might be trouble, Mr. Greene,” he said.

  Mr. Tesla, return, the teacher thexted. The ghost returned quickly, even beating the man on horseback.

  The horseman drew in his reins and his horse halted. “Are you, proslavery or anti-slavery?” asked the horseman.

  “Anti-slavery,” Mr. Greene replied. “I am afraid we became lost on the prairie. We are Quakers from Pennsylvania, sent here by the New England Emigrant Aid Society. My name is Greene, these are my nieces and nephews,” the teacher said.

  The horseman looked curiously at Samuel Chandler. “The Negro, too?”

  “Yes, he is my adopted son,” Mr. Greene lied.

  “Really?” said the horseman, a grin forming on his face. “My father will certainly like to meet you, Mr. Greene.”

  “Who is your father, sir?” Mr. Greene asked, pretending not to know the answer.

  “John Brown. I am Frederick Brown,” the horseman said, finally dismounting, offering his horse to the girls. While Bette and Minerva declined his offer, Heather hopped up on the mount.

  “Sidesaddle, Heather,” Bette whispered. “You are supposed to be a lady.”

  “Fat chance of that,” Samuel said

  Heather did not adopt the sidesaddle for her ride.

  Frederick Brown approached Samuel. “A white man really adopted you?” he asked.

  Samuel was averse to lying, but he realized there was some reason that Mr. Greene had told Frederick Brown the whopper. “Nathan Greene is an unusual man,” he replied, not lying, because his teacher was unusual.

  “So is my father,” Frederick replied. “He believes all races are equal and that Negroes should become citizens and have the right to vote. Heck, father thinks women should have the right
to vote as well… I think that may be going a little too far myself,” Frederick said in a whisper to Samuel.

  “My sisters are my equals,” Samuel said, which brought another grin to Frederick Brown’s face.

  “How did you ever get so tall? Why, you are taller than me and taller than father, too.”

  “Clean living,” Samuel said, which was true. He did not drink or smoke, but Samuel could hardly have a discussion on genes with an antebellum man. Gregor Mendel’s work with pea plants would not be published until 1866.

  Samuel thought Frederick Brown was a bundle of energy. He wondered if the son of John Brown suffered from attention deficit disorder, for Frederick moved from one of the group to another, talking briefly with each of the group before returning to Heather and his horse and mounting the steed and sitting behind her.

  “We are going to go ahead and tell father you are coming,” Frederick Brown said.

  Mr. Tesla, please go along with them and make sure Heather is safe, would you please? Mr. Greene thexted to the ghost.

  Tesla said nothing but nodded in the affirmative.

  As Frederick galloped off with Heather, Bette Kromer turned to Mr. Greene and said, “Why did you let him take off with Heather?”

  “I didn’t see any harm in it,’ Mr. Greene replied. “I sent Mr. Tesla along to chaperone. I sensed she and Frederick were rather kindred spirits. It is too bad that Frederick doesn’t have much longer to live.”

  “What?” Bette asked.

  “He will be killed in August fighting proslavery militia who have slipped over the border from slave state Missouri. Battle of Osawatomie.”

  “Mr. Greene,” Minerva said. “I don’t understand. Why did you make up the story about adopting Samuel?”

  “He thought it would gain John Brown’s trust,” Samuel chimed in, having figured out Mr. Greene’s rationale.”

  Mr. Greene smiled at Samuel. “Very good, Samuel. You caught on from the get-go. You see, Minerva, John Brown was an unusual white man. He had not an ounce of prejudice in his bones. He treated Native Americans as equals, too. Most of the white abolitionists were also racists. They thought slavery was wrong, but they thought blacks were inferior to whites. Even the Lincoln of the 1850s thought that way. His point of view evolved during the Civil War. But John Brown was the real deal, and he is beloved by African Americans to this day. When, after his death, Northerners claimed that John Brown was insane, the blacks didn’t. He was one white man they trusted. They saw him as a savior, a man who was willing to give up his life to end slavery. Any parallels?”

  “Jesus?” Minerva asked.

  “Yes, the African Americans saw the parallels right away. Like I said, they considered him their savior. Frederick Douglass said that, ‘I could live for the slave, John Brown could die for him.’ John Brown was a devout Christian, a Calvinist Puritan who believed in predestination, as I have said. Everything John Brown did he believed he did because God had planned it. It might sound strange in our secular age, but John Brown’s beliefs made it easy for him to accept his fate and face the hangman with a smile on his face.”

  Frederick Brown and Heather returned on separate horses. Frederick led a string of saddled horses, held together by a rope. Heather, Minerva observed, seemed delighted with her circumstances. But then, Minerva, remembered Heather had a bit of cowboy in her, having competed in junior rodeos in Okeechobee, Florida.

  “My father sent these horses for your transportation,” Frederick explained as he dismounted. “He is curious to meet you. He has a soft spot in his heart for Quakers,” he added.

  Minerva sensed that Frederick had no such reverence for the Society of Friends.

  As if finishing her thought, Frederick added, “Nothing personal, folks but I don’t think pacifism is going to end slavery. Slavery can only be ended by violence. That’s what father has always said, which I find confusing since he admires you people so much.”

  “Perhaps, Mr. Brown, your father admires we Quakers because we practice our religion every day as I have heard he does,” Mr. Greene said.

  “Maybe, that might be it,” Frederick agreed. “Heck, father likes anyone who is anti-slavery, even the Hebrews,” he added, referring to the Jews. He smiled and watched as Mr. Greene and the students mounted their horses effortlessly.

  “You surprise me,” he said. “Most Quakers I have met prefer buggies to riding in the saddle.”

  Samuel wondered what the big deal was. All of the History Channelers could ride a horse. Hadn’t Bette and Minerva on horseback rescued Victor from the Confederates after the Battle of Gettysburg? Hadn’t George Armstrong Custer even admired the girls’ horsemanship? And Custer was a cavalry officer.

  With Frederick Brown leading the way, the group followed in single line procession across the prairie, as a warm spring wind fanned the grass, seeming to make the prairie wave a greeting to the visitors from the future. In the distance, Samuel saw a cloud floating across the grassland and Frederick explained to the newcomers that the cloud was a large herd of buffalo crossing the prairie. Samuel realized that the age of the buffalo slaughter had not commenced yet; that would come after the Civil War. As would the transcontinental railroad and its demand for bison needed to feed its horde of workers laying the track from east to west.

  As clouds gathered across the prairie sky, they bypassed the town of Osawatomie and rode out to a woodland where John Brown, his sons and his followers had set up canvas tents as a camp. One of the men was rotating a roasting pig on a spit as the flames beneath crackled away at its flesh. Curiously, Victor noticed several men, both black and white, using sharpening stones for large broadswords. Hadn’t he read that John Brown and his men used broadswords at the Pottawatomie Massacre? Then Victor spotted a clean-shaven older man, in his late fifties, wearing a brown broadcloth coat with a high leather collar, as well as a gray overcoat and a matching cape. After a moment, the man, responding to the warmth of the sun, removed the coat and cape and took a turn at the spit, relieving the younger man.

  As the group dismounted, Frederick led the way to the old man at the spit. “Father,” he said, “here are the Quakers I met.”

  John Brown indicated for Frederick to replace him at the spit-turning. The old man wiped his hands on a hand towel, before offering his right hand to Mr. Greene, whom Heather had informed the abolitionist, was the leader of the group.

  “I am John Brown,” he said with a smile, offering the teacher his hand.

  “I am Nathan Greene,” replied the teacher, shaking the old man’s hand.

  Victor noticed that his teacher winced when he shook the abolitionist’s hand. John Brown must have a strong grip, he thought.

  John Brown nodded as Mr. Greene said, “I see that you met Heather. Allow me to introduce Bette, Minerva, Victor and Samuel.”

  Brown smiled at each of the girls and then offered his hand to Victor. Doing his best at a manly shake, his hand was overcome by the vice-like grip of the old man. He held on as long as he could and looked at John Brown’s gray eyes. They almost seemed to be twinkling, Victor thought as he seemed to sense Victor’s agony in the handshake. Suddenly, he let go and gave Victor a “nice try, kid,” smile.

  Samuel was another matter. Victor watched with amusement as Samuel bested the abolitionist at his own hand-shaking game. Rather than be annoyed, however, John Brown merely said, “You have a strong grip young man, as strong as my son Frederick’s I believe. Where do you hail from?”

  “Philadelphia,” Samuel lied.

  “And Mr. Greene adopted you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you a slave?”

  “No, Mr. Brown. I was born free, but poor. My mother died of cholera and my father died of pneumonia and I was an orphan.”

  Samuel hoped he was the only one to see his teacher’s eyebrows rise. But his whopper had done the trick. If John Brown had a weakness, he trusted people to tell the truth, Samuel remembered Mr. Greene once saying in class. Once again, it seemed, that his t
eacher was correct: Brown was gullible.

  The abolitionist gestured for his younger guests to take a seat on a felled log. He sat across from the group, using a small wooden crate as his chair. He offered an adjacent seat to Mr. Greene. Nikola Tesla floated about the gathering like a reconnaissance drone, collecting information on John Brown’s ‘army’ of abolitionists, the bulk of which were John Brown’s sons.

  “You know, Mr. Greene, it is my belief,” John Brown began, “that it is better that a whole generation of men, women and children should be swept away than the crime of slavery should exist one day longer.”

  Victor watched Mr. Greene’s reaction, for Victor and the other students had read those words in a biographical sketch of John Brown that their teacher had downloaded from Google. Mr. Greene was unflappable, and his reaction seemed to surprise John Brown.

  “Do my words not offend you, Friend Nathan?” John Brown asked, using the Quaker form of address.

  “They do not, Friend John,” Mr. Greene replied. “Words do not hurt, but actions do.”

  John Brown smiled. “Do you believe that Negroes should not only be free, but should be allowed to vote as well?”

  “Yes,” the teacher replied. “I also believe women should vote and hold public office.”

  John Brown seemed startled. “I believe women should vote,” he agreed. “But I never considered that they should hold public office.”

  “It would seem a logical result of the voting franchise,” Mr. Greene said.

  John Brown pondered the matter for a moment, his head turned skyward as if asking for a sign from heaven. At that moment, as if in response to Brown’s gesture, the clouds parted, and the sun shone through. John Brown smiled. He had received his answer. “I shall add that to my ‘Constitution.’”

  “Constitution?” Mr. Greene inquired.

  “Yes, I have a dream of a new Constitution that will live up to the promise of the Declaration of Independence. That all men are created equal. I admire what the ladies wrote at their convention at Seneca Falls, New York, a few years back…‘that all men and women are created equal.’ God didn’t make a man superior to a woman just because He created him first. Are your nieces, suffragettes?”