AMERICA. A NEGRO INSURRECTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 427, 4 February 1860, Page 2

AMERICA. A NEGRO INSURRECTION.

A recent mail from New York brought us news of a very extraordinary incident. What may be called an insurrection of abolitionists and negroes had broken out at a place called Harper's Ferry, and the United States' armoury had been seized by a band of desperate men. A man named Brown had formed a design o£ liberating the northern slave states by an insurrection of the negroes of Maryland and Virginia. His confederates numbered at first scarcely 20 white men and only five negroes. This number afterwards swelled considerably, but never rose to anything formidable. The insurgents managed to take the armoury by a coup de main, to stop the trains, cut the telegraph wires, &c. But the authorities, having succeeded in promptly bringing an overwhelming force to the spot, soon quelled the outbreak.

All Brown's party was either killed or captured, except one. It appears that the whole affair was organised with considerable care. A constitution and code of rules were drawn up, to which the conspirators were bound to accede. Brown had provided arms sufficient for 1500 men, and on search being made at his house a number of letters and other documents were found, among which was one from Frederick Douglas, and another from a lady containing the dollars " for the cau«e." The result of the engagement at the Ferry appears to have been that six citizens and 15 insurgents were killed, three insurgents wounded, and five made prisoners.

The preliminary examination of the conspirators took place on the 25 th of October before a court of magistrates. Brown, when called upon to accept counsel named for him by the court, made a bold and disdainful speech, declining to trouble himself with a defence on the ground that his case was prejudged. The court, nevertheless, assigned the duty of defending the prisoners to two counsel, who accepted the office. Brown was on October 31 convicted of treason, murder, and inciting a servile insurrection, and, when a motion in arrest of judgment that has been interposed shall have been argued and denied, he will undoubtedly be sentenced and executed. The intrepidity of the wretched man in facing his cprtain fate appears to have excited the admiration of his foes ; while the rapidity with which the trial has been forced on — the prisoner being so weak as to be obliged to lie upon a cot while it progressed — has created in the north a partial reaction.

The New York correspondent of the Daily Neivs gives the following curious account of Brown's past life and of the origin of the conspiracy :—: —

John Brown, or, as he is more commonly called, "Old Brown of Ossowatomie," is a native of New England, and was a settler and leading combatant on the free soil side in Kansas during the troubles there. He is a New England puritan of the old school, and went to the west with a family of six sous, to better his foitune by farming. He was in Kansas when it was invaded by the border ruffians, and though he has always been an abolitioni&t, he never displayed any fanaticism in the cause until his house had been burned, two or three of his sons killed under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, and numbers of his neighbours murdered and driven from their homes before his eyes. The loss of his sons seems to have deranged his mind, and he took the field with as many men as he could muster, and at once became the terror of the pro-slavery men. He defeated an immensely superior force of them at Ossowatomie, and did summary execution upon large numbers of single individuals, and all in a spirit of the most exalted religious enthusiasm. He finally got it into his head that he was commissioned by God to wage war upon slaveholders and liberate negroes, and seems to have inspired his followers with a portion of his own frenzy. No man performed half so many daring exploits in the course of the war. More than once he seized upon Missourians in their own homes, in the dead of night, and hanged them on the nearest tree, for having participated in outrages on the free-state men in Kansas ; and he at last became the bugbear and terror of all the border ruffians. Whenever " Old Brown "' was reported to be in the neighbourhood they instantly disappeared. When the war was over a return to his old mode of life was of course impossible. The loss of his sons had maddened him, and he devoted himself entirely to carrying off slaves to Canada. That he was countenanced and encouraged in this by many leading abolitionists there seems to be no reason to doubt ; but that any of them went any further has yet to be proved. For the last j'ear or more the public has not heard much of him, but during this interval he seems to have been busily engaged in organizing an insurrection of the slaves. With this view he went to Virginia, hired a farm in the neighbourhood of Harper's Ferry, and having quietly, and as it appears without exciting any observation, collected a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition, and been joined by 15 of his most devoted followers, including his two surviving sons, on the evening of October 13 he seized upon the United States armoury in the village, arrested and imprisoned the employes and many of the principal inhabitants in the neighbourhood, blocked up the railroad, cut the telegraph wires, &c, &c.

The same correspondent (who expresses an opinion by the way that if a general negro insurrection ever does take place the Southerners will, unless speedily aided by the North, fail to restore order), thus refers to the sensation and even terror excited in the South by the outbreak :—: —

The secrecy with which the plot was brought to maturity, the large quantity of arms and ammunition which Brown had collected, the facility with which he surprised the village and seized the armoury, the desperate tenacity with which he held it,*the resolution displayed by all his followers from first to last, and more than all, Brown's dauntless bearing since his capture, the lofty tone of moral superiority which he assumes over his captors, have made a^ profound impression on the southern people. They have long been in the habit of accusing •the Abolitionists of tampering with the negroes and instigating them to flight or revolt, but it was alwpys supposed to be in an underhand sneaking way. The popular notion of an Abolitionist made him above all things a coward. But here is at least a small tasie of servile wnr, avowedly begun by this detested crew, and what manner of men do they find them to be ? Why, 15 of them suffice to raise the whole state of Virginia into wild affright, 'to call out all its militia, to bring federal troops from the capital, to seize on an armoury, and defend it for two days, and when if was at last stormed by an overwhelming force, 13 of these poltroons are found to have died at their posts vine in hand ; two only came out alive, there desperately wounded and glorying in their cr.me. It is no wonder if the South feels that an abyss has opened at their feet. The damage done is to be sure very trifling. Only half-a-dozen negroes joined Brown's enterprise, but it 33 acknowledged that this is mainly to be ascribed to his having chosen a bad scene of action. In that part of Virginia the negroes

are few in number, and a large number of them house servants, and the farms arc comparatively small. Had he thrown himself into the cotton states, amongst the great plantations, where a thousand blacks often toil for a single owner — tantalised by hard work, exposure, and the overseer's lash — and offered them arms and bid them follow him, no man dare say he would have been crushed without untold, horrors. The panic his mad effort has spread proves in what horrible insecurity men dwell south of Mason and Dixon's line — what a flaming sword hangs suspended over the whole slave region and how deeply the white population feels its danger.

The Washington correspondent of the New York Herald thus reports the San Juan affair. His statements, though not to be implicitly relied on, are the most trustworthy that we as yet have :—: —

Great reserve is manifested by all the members of the Government in regard to the character of the despatches recently sent to Mr. Dallas, our minister in London, touching the San Juan Island affair. I am assured from a trustworthy source negotiations of a very serious character are pending between the two Governments, and that we are much nearer to a violent rupture with England than is generally supposed. It is known that the despatch of Lord John Russell to our Government is peremptory, and the whole tenour anything but peaceful, and would require some forbearance on our part. It is neither conciliatory nor pacific, as has been stated. It demands full explanations of the conduct of Ilarney. It is very evident that the Government does not want this to be known ; hence their desire to keep it quiet. The reply of our Government is rirm, dignified, and decided, maintaining our right to the island in an able, clear, comprehensive argument, backed up by documents irrefragable in their character ; but, to show to the British Ministry that our intentions are honourable, and that we adhere to the stipulations entered into by Governor Marcy on the part of our Government and Lord Palmerston that neither should occupy the island while negotiations were pending, copies, of the instructions to General Harney and General Scott have been communicated to Mr. Dallas. What the exact nature of the instructions are has not transpired, but it is evident that they are conciliatory, and that in them Harney's conduct is disavowed, else they would not have been sent to London. England maintains her right to the island, and judging from the tone of the despatch, does not intend to yield. Our Government maintains a clear and undisputed right to the island, and will not yield one iota. The matter is now under negotiation between the two Governments. There is good reason to believe that it is in its present shape not only serious but threatening, and that is the reason why cur Government is so quiet on the subject. What is here stated you may rely on. — Home Nays, Nov. 18.