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Green, Shields  

Zoe Trodd

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

fugitive slave, was hanged for his participation in John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. Nothing is known about his family or early life except that he was from Charleston, South Carolina, and was nicknamed “Emperor.” Green escaped from slavery, leaving behind a son, and reached Canada, but then returned to the United States and sought out Frederick Douglass. In 1859 Green met Brown at Douglass's Rochester, New York, home. According to Douglass, Brown saw “at once what ‘stuff’ Green ‘was made of’ and confided to him his plans and purposes” (Life and Times, 757). Green felt a kindred chemistry too. He was ready to follow Brown and accepted a position in Brown's provisional government for a nation without slavery.

On 19 August 1859 with his raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry looming large on the horizon Brown summoned Douglass to a meeting that ...

Article

Newby, Dangerfield  

Philip J. Schwarz

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

one of the first African American raiders killed in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, was born to Elsey Newby, a slave, and Henry Newby, who was white. Henry Newby freed Dangerfield's mother and his siblings in 1858, and Dangerfield was freed at the same time. Henry Newby was a somewhat typical Virginia landowner whose motives concerning manumission are unknown. That he freed family members does not necessarily distinguish him from slave owners who kept their children or other relations in bondage. The Newbys lived in Culpeper County, near the Old Dominion's Blue Ridge Mountains. For some years Henry Newby was a typical white slaveholder. In 1840 he held nine slaves, including a male who was most likely Dangerfield, and a female, probably Elsey Newby. Ten years later, in 1850, he possessed seventeen slaves. By 1860 however they had all disappeared ...