Thursday, February 3, 2011

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229. "John Brown's Body."

The Civil War broke out exactly 150 years ago. Three titles have caught our attention in order to discuss the conflict:

- John Brown's Body discussed here remains one of the protest songs the most famous. It allows us to revisit the saga of the abolitionist who tried hard to eradicate slavery by force. The beginnings of the war are the seeds from the 1850 and shipping in a context of growing tension between the two sections of the country.

- The night THEY drove down Dixie of Band offers the perspective of Southern Virgil Kane particularly hard hit by civil war for which we attempt to identify the main features .

- The traumatized country out of conflict. The South is devastated, also occupied by Northern troops the time of Reconstruction. Reconciliation will be long to complete. Blacks, just liberated, will be the big losers, causing the wrath of Oscar Brown Jr. in his piece Forty acres and a mule .

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In 1860, the United States is a nation deeply divided states in which North and South can no longer coexist .
From the beginning, the pioneers of Virginia and New England not alike. If all speak English, the former are Anglicans, Puritans seconds. The barren land quickly convinces the settlers of New England to look to the commercial and maritime activities, while the plantation economy (tobacco, cotton, dyestuffs, sugar) dominates the South. Once independence was achieved, States establish a federation governed by the constitution of 1787. The two sections (the term used in the nineteenth century to designate a geographical area in the U.S.) that make up the United States, a North and South separated by the Mason-Dixon line, required in the minds much more than a feeling National embryo.

* two sections antagonists.
Slavery is the fundamental difference between these two sections. If the constitution does not prohibit the slave trade or slavery, that institution is rapidly limited or eliminated to the north. A compromise is needed that provides that facilities like the shy abolition of slave trade, which became effective in 1808. Economic development further reinforces the differences in attitudes between the two sections. The Industrial Revolution in England knows that claims of huge quantities of cotton for the textile industry. The Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and the Carolinas) turned to this "white gold" whose culture is made possible by favorable weather.
Cotton shapes the thoughts and attitudes and allows larger landowners who hold very many slaves to lead the political and economic choices in the South. Their detractors refer to as the system under the term "slavocratie. The planters say, based on the Bible that slavery is legitimate. Without him the South's economy will collapse. Moreover, only blacks would be able to withstand the scorching sun during the long days of toil. In 1860, the fifteen Southern States has 12.3 million inhabitants, 4000 000 slaves and free blacks 250 000.

cotton plantation in Mississippi.

Now the South is dependent upon bankers North. Cotton cultivation is indeed very demanding. The plant requires the conquest of new lands because it rapidly depletes the soil. The prohibition of trafficking generates a further increase in the price of slaves, plus the necessary investments. The attachment of the Southern planters to free trade is thus explained by the need to buy cheap agricultural machinery, while facilitating exports of cotton needed the proper functioning of the system. Planters impose their values, norms, silencing dissenting voices.
If the owners of slaves are still a minority among Southern whites, they do not, unless their values on the rest of society. This patriarchal agrarian civilization prevents the emergence of a middle class that can trigger an industrial revolution and urbanization slows. New Orleans, Atlanta, Richmond and vegetate remain medium-sized cities.


Dixie: anthem of Confederate soldiers, the equivalent of Battle Hymn of the Republic pour les Nordistes, durant de la Guerre de Sécession. Le premier couplet annonce la couleur: "J'aimerais être au pays du coton / le bon vieux temps n'est pas oublié / Je te garde dans mon coeur Dixie / Dixie où je suis né / tôt par un matin glacial..." Le terme Dixie est utilisé pour désigner le Sud des États-Unis.



En Nouvelle-Angleterre, les maigres possibilités agricoles et les liens maintenus avec l'Europe expliquent l'essor d'une industrie florissante. Métallurgie, textile, transformation des produits naturels prospèrent à tel point qu'en 1860 90% des produits manufacturés du pays sont manufactured in the North. The cities are growing dramatically. 33 000 inhabitants in 1790, New York jumped to 813 000 in 1860. With the opening of a stock exchange in 1817, the city became a key financial center reinforced by the presence of many garment factories, breweries, shipbuilding, or in connection with the commercial port. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia attracted thousands of immigrants who are easy to work. The federal government also adopted protectionist laws to protect infant industries.

* Rise of abolitionism.
In this context, the use of slaves is useless in the North. The middle class growing belief in the perfectibility of man and engage in the abolitionist movement already well established in England. Activists, but determined minority, using all means (petitions, media campaigns, support for the underground railway ) at their disposal to eliminate them as an institution incompatible with a civilized state wants. The disagreements are not lacking among the abolitionists, very divided about the fate of freed slaves. Anyway, their goals come into conflict with the interests of the slave states that adopt codes blacks especially hard and restrictive. In this context of heightened tensions spell the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, "'s Cabin Uncle Tom ", which describes the lives of miserable slaves. The book was a huge success to the chagrin of slaveholders who expose the errors of the novelist.

Advertising for the best seller of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom 's Cabin."


* conquered lands will they be free or slave?
The conquest of western lands stirs the North-South conflict. The vast areas conquered successively Louisiana (corresponding to the Great Plains), Florida in 1819, Texas in 1845, Oregon in 1846, California and south-west of the Rockies in 1848, becoming a crucial issue. The Americans, on behalf of their "manifest destiny", consider it their mission to civilize the wild land, inhabited by Indians to eradicate if they impede the progress of the conquest of the West. The fundamental problem is as follows: conquered lands will they be free or slave?

United States after the adoption of the Missouri Compromise.

* A precarious balance.
The Northwest Ordinance (1787) holds the entry into the EU of new territories and prohibited slavery in the states that will arise from the vast Louisiana (from Pennsylvania to Mississippi, Great Lakes to the Ohio). However, the conquest of the west and the creation of new states that it implies, makes this a crucial issue by questioning the line between slave and abolitionist states. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise provides a solution by prohibiting the "peculiar institution" (another way of referring to slavery in the south) north of latitude 36 ° 30 '.
Difficulties arise again in the 1850s with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) which states that the rejection or adoption of slavery depends on popular sovereignty of States, violate the terms of the compromise and calling into question the geographical criteria (on both sides of a dividing line) found in 1820.
In 1857, a resounding case stirs new tensions between the two sections. In the Dred Scott Supreme Court found against a Missouri slave who had followed his master into Illinois law and demanded emancipation. The Court considers that Dred Scott is not a citizen, his lawsuit is therefore considered void. In addition, it asserts that, contrary to what existed under the Missouri Compromise, Congress has no right to exclude slavery of a portion of the territory. The Yankees tied to the ideology of free soil (soil free), demanding instead a strict demarcation of the territories to slavery, before its final eradication.


United States after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

* Bleeding Kansas .
embittered by what they see as a victory slavery, the most radical abolitionists of the North are calling for disobedience and slavocratie accuse of wanting to impose the peculiar institution in the whole Union. Violent clashes erupt between abolitionists and slavers in contested states such as Kansas. Armed bands flock to tip the scales in their favor. A civil war tearing the State for three years, which earned him the appellation of Bleeding Kansas , Kansas bloody. The Borders Ruffians bribed by Missouri farmers sow terror in their path and loot the cities held by the opponent. In 1856, pro-slavery Mississippi sacked the city of Lawrence was founded by the New England Emigrant Aid Company in order to accommodate free settlers. The raid angered abolitionists and leads to retaliation, the most virulent are led by one John Brown.

Portrait of John Brown.

* John Brown.
Born into a poor family in New England deeply Calvinistic, the young John Brown aspires to become a minister, in vain. It then multiplies the professional activities and worked successively as a tanner, supervisor, farmer, shepherd, cotton merchant and postmaster. It just very quickly to feed his large family and to repay its debts. Indeed, it has 20 children of his two successive wives!
Owen Brown, father, austere Calvinist, already saw in slavery " an offense against God." John meanwhile abhors a very early age the "peculiar institution" and engages very early in the fight for its eradication. Enlisted in the militia Hudson during the war of 1812 against England, he was taken to stay with a slave owner, fought at the slightest excuse to shovel. It costs more " abolitionist than ever" ready to lead " eternal war against slavery. " Following the assassination of journalist antiabolitionniste Elijah P. Lovejoy in 1837, he vowed to destroy slavery.
In 1848 he moved with his family in the colony for freed slaves from North Elba (NY) and became friends with Frederick Douglass, former slave became a famous writer.

Last Moments of John Brown famous painting by Thomas Hovenden. The artist stopped the prisoner a moment to kiss a baby and hands him a black woman.

The adoption of the 1854 law that threatens to expand the territories to slavery, convinced Brown to take action in the fall of 1855. With several of his son, he rushes over Kansas in 1855 to swell the ranks of Jayhawkers , abolitionists willing to do battle with the Border Ruffians , pro-slavery. Other serious incidents reinforce her determination. Thus, May 22, 1856, Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, delivered a strong speech against the Southerners. He denounced "a crime against Kansas," a " cons rape a virgin territory from criminals Missouri and assassins, mercenaries recruited from the vomit of drunks in a troubled civilization. "This load pushes a congressman, Preston Brooks, beat Sumner over thirty blows with the knob of his cane, injuring him seriously. At the news of the scandal Brown sees red. May 24-25, 1856, he murders with five individuals complicit in Pottawatomie (Kansas). There is little concern for the massacre and then the fight continues. In late August 1856, he led his supporters in defense of Osawatomie, but fails to push pro-250 slavery in Missouri that reduce the town to ashes.

Preston Brooks, a representative of South Carolina violently assaulted Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.

violence are becoming scarce in Kansas with the rejection of the constitution proposed by the pro-slavery and the taking possession of the state by the abolitionist (he officially becomes "free" in 1861 ). Brown does not disarm as long and remains convinced that only armed struggle can overcome slavery. He devises a plan so ambitious that chimerical. Backed by a handful of supporters and with financial support from wealthy supporters of the North (the Secret Six ), he began to raise an army of slaves to overthrow the governments of the slave South. His initial goal is in Virginia, specifically the town of Harpers Ferry Armory, which houses one of the army of the United States. Located 50 km from the free state of Pennsylvania, the town is also close to mountain areas could serve as shelters for troops Brown. This account will be ordering the weapons necessary to fight.
May 3, he held a meeting with black leaders in Chatham, Ontario (Canada). The participants unanimously adopted a "Provisional Constitution of the United States," proscribing well on slavery.



July 3, 1859, Brown and his accomplices took refuge in an isolated farm situated along the shore of Potomac, Maryland side, only 8 km north of Harpers Ferry. The raiders live in seclusion and plan their expedition. William H. Leeman, who had fought alongside Brown in Kansas sums up the purpose of the "Provisional Army of the United States" in a letter to his mother: "make war on slavery, the greatest scourge that does America had ever infected. We are determined to strike for freedom, incite the slaves to rebellion and establish a free government. With God's help we will. "
August 16, Brown met Frederick Douglass and again tries to rally to his cause. He refuses to participate in the operation and warned Brown that he risked" locked in a perfect mousetrap and this time it did not come out alive. "
The atmosphere quickly becomes oppressive in Kennedy farm, the reference to" liberation army "whose ranks are still very sparse. On October 15, at the head of 22 men, Brown triggered the raid, knowing that Volunteers flock to the announcement of the taken from the armory. At night, the attackers easily take control of it and captured hostages, including planters around whose great-nephew of President Washington. Only at daybreak the city authorities discovered the situation and organize a response. Local militias, soon reinforced by 90 Marine U.S. Army led by Robert E. Lee, march on Harpers Ferry in order to dislodge the occupiers. Fighting rages and early victims fall on both sides, including the mayor, which causes the wrath of a packed crowd. The prediction came true and Douglass Brown understands the trapped. The contingent of rebellious slaves did not come as expected. Brown refuses to demand accountability as written by Lee. The Marines then start to attack the armory they control in three minutes. Brown is so severely wounded in the back of the neck. The few survivors are then taken to the county jail in Charles Town begins questioning muscular.


Execution of John Brown, December 2, 1859. More than 1500 soldiers are around the scaffold .


The instigator of the raid is being prosecuted for inciting slave rebellion, treason against the State of Virginia and murder. The trial began October 27, twelve days after the start of the expedition. Brown's lawyers are trying to impersonate him crazy to avoid the death to which the accused replies: "I am quite sane, and I reject, as far as I can, all attempts to belittle my argument. "On 31 October the verdict after 45 minutes of deliberation: Brown is convicted of three counts against him. The official sentence is hanging, scheduled for December 2, 1859. It is not surprising if one thinks of the fear and anger at the shipment of Harpers Ferrry among Southern planters who fear more than ever a general uprising of the masses subservient. In response, the number of militias grow, while lynchings multiply in the coming weeks.

* Birth of a myth.
The struggle of abolitionist divides Americans and leaves no one indifferent. The editorial Republican dated to the hanging of Brown observes: "Never the death of a man had done so feeling in America. A sense of outrage deeply sorry and seems to have taken possession of the masses. "Brown and his cronies are obviously stigmatized in the South. In the North, the reactions are mixed. Some critics of the adventurous expedition of a man whose enthusiasm borders on fanaticism. Lincoln's example stands out sulfur character, declaring: " although Brown as we thought that slavery was bad, this does not excuse violence, bloodshed and betrayal. "
He finds, however thanks to abolitionists convinced and acquires the dimension of a martyr going to sacrifice for a noble cause. In the days before the execution, Virginia Governor and President of the United States also receive numerous letters calling for clemency. Victor Hugo wrote on December 2 a letter in support of convicted (" Letter to the United States of America ") which ends: " Yes, that America knows and thinks about it is something more frightening than Cain killing Abel is Washington killing Spartacus. "The sermons are delivered in commemoration of his honor. It is considered by some to Christ, crucified for the salvation of mankind.
Through their works, writers also contribute to forging Brown considered the myth "the apostle" or "martyr" for freedom. Writers celebrate his memory like that of Hermann Melville dedicates his poem The bear . Henry David Thoreau took up the cause of Captain Brown's Plea . Fascinated by the character, Victor Hugo evokes John Brown terrible Year (December):
Thou whose gallows throws in the world that begins As the world will end, a huge shadow, John Brown, thou gavest to people the lesson the other on Golgotha another horizon.

Print Victor Hugo called John Brown (1860).

In our day, John Brown owes much of its notoriety to a ballad that bears his name: John Brown 'Body . It is originally a Christian hymn written by William Steffe in 1856. At the beginning of the Civil War, the text is diverted first by soldiers and northerners new worms are heavy with meaning: " Old John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the Grave His ,/(...)/ Truth Is Marching On "(John Brown's body is laid motionless in his grave but the truth continues to advance). This version stands out as a song very popular side northerner. The American poet Julia Ward Howe turns to turn the text into the anthem of the Union in 1862 entitled Battle Hymn of the Republic . The subversive power of the piece is discharged into a hymn to the glory of God and State.



Ultimately, the expedition against the arsenal of Harpers Ferry is indicative of a country that has never carried his name so badly. A local newspaper The Southern Richmond Enquirer note and October 25, 1859: " invasion of Harpers Ferry has produced the disunity of our country than any other event, he revived with new force, all those who dreamed of a Southern Confederacy. The most determined supporters of the North should force themselves to hear: 'If any form our peace is disturbed in the Confederation invaded our state, our peaceful citizens cruelly murdered ... by those who claim our warmest friends ... and that the people of North supported this outrage, so let disunity come ... "




John Brown's Body. (see the lyrics from another version of the song ici )

John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave,
John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave,
John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on.

Chorus
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.

2
He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true,
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
His soul is marching on.

Chorus
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.

3
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
But his soul is marching on!

Chorus
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.

4
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down,
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down,
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down,
On the grave of old John Brown.

Chorus

Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
On the grave of old John Brown

--------------

John Brown's body lies in dust in his grave (repeat)
soul continues its march

Chorus Glory, glory, hallelujah (repeat)
his soul continues its march

It will be a soldier in the Army of the Lord (repeat)
His soul continues its march .

Chorus

John Brown's bag is strapped to his back (repeat)
His soul continues its march.

Chorus

John Brown died that the slaves could be free (repeat)
His soul continues its march.

Chorus

The stars in the sky look with kindness (repeat)
His soul continues its march (bis)

Chorus

Sources:
- Farid Ameur: "The Civil War", PUF, Que sais-je?, 2004. Remarkable development on the subject. The author recounts with precision and liveliness the various vicissitudes of the Civil War.
- André Kaspi: "The Civil War: The disunited states," Discovery Gallimard, 1992.
- Bernard Vincent: "History of the United States", Champs Flammarion, 1999.
- Howard Zinn "A People's History of the United States from 1492 to today", Agon, 2003.
- Claude Folhen: "History of slavery in the United States", Perrin, Tempus, 2007.
- History No. 361, currently on newsstands in February 2011 which devoted a special issue to the Civil War.


Links:
- An educational site dedicated to John Brown .
- Poems dedicated to John Brown.
- Russell Banks: "Slayer clouds" , Actes Sud, 1998. Other chronic here.

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