RADICAL BLACK ACTIVISTS AND JOHN BROWN

OSBORNE PERRY (P.) ANDERSON (1830-1872)

Black Radical Abolitionist, Author, and Union Army Recruitment Officer

Timeline

1830

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

Osborne P. Anderson. Image courtesy of blackpast.org. Head and shoulders portrait.

Osborne P. Anderson. Image courtesy of https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/anderson-osborne-p-1830-1872/.

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].

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “View of college square at Oberlin College.” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed October 17, 2021.

1850

Anderson moved to Chatham, Canada. It is here that he met Mary Ann Shadd Cary [2].

June 1856

Anderson “became a subscription agent for Shadd Cary’s paper, the Provincial Freeman” [3].

He eventually became a printer for the Provincial Freeman and “continued to work for the Freeman in several capacities” [4].

1858

Anderson met John Brown [5].

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 [6].

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]” [7].

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 [8].

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” [9].

1864

Anderson in the Union Army, “serving as a recruitment officer in Indiana and Arkansas” [10].

1872

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

“Death of Osborne P. Anderson,” New National Era (Washington, DC), page 2, Dec. 19, 1872. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

References

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

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

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

[4] Rhodes 118.

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

[6] 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.

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

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

[9] Osborne 3.

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