ALTON References
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DEDICATION
3. Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave by William Wells Brown and bio – William Wells Brown
4.Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and bio – Solomon Northrup
5. Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself and bio – Henry Bibb
6. ALTON Screenplay by Zann Gill
8. TIME Magazine January 22, 1951| Vol. LVII No. 4. Religion: Trouble in Alton. John Gill, Unitarian Minister is fired for working with the NAACP to address segregation of public schools in Alton.
9. Story Impact
FOREWORD
10. Ferguson Rises
12. George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
13. Winston Churchill: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
14. George Floyd
15. Trayvon Martin
16. Breonna Taylor
21. Ferguson Riots after the Murder of Michael Brown, August 9, 2014
22. November 7, 1837 – Murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy
25. Police Officer Darren Wilson
26. I’m going to shake the world – August Alsina has turned the famous words of Michael Brown Jr. into a powerful song.
27. Michael Brown Jr.’s parents are still fighting for justice.
28. Dorian Johnson
29. Tribeca Audience Awards 2021
30. Mobolaji Olambiwonnu, Director of Ferguson Rises
INTRODUCTION
36. TIME Magazine January 22, 1951| Vol. LVII No. 4. Religion: Trouble in Alton. John Gill, Unitarian Minister is fired for working with the NAACP to address segregation of public schools in Alton.
37. Breonna Taylor
38. Trayvon Martin
40. George Floyd
41. Missouri as a slave state; Illinois as a free state; implications of slave escapes across the Mississippi
42. Story of Lovejoy’s Martyrdom and Article on the murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy in the St. Louis Observer
43. Owen Lovejoy was friends with Abraham Lincoln
44. The final Lincoln–Douglas debate held in Alton in 1858.
45. Wendell Phillips and his famous quote on Lovejoy’s murder
47. ALTON, a docu-fiction screenplay for a feature film
50. Minister who argued that slavery is supported by the Bible
51. Underground Railroad Leaders and Families
54. Henry Bibb
55. Solomon Northrop
LOBBYING & FAKE NEWS – Then and Now
56. The term “lobbying” appeared in print as early as April 1, 1820. Gelak, Deanna. 2008. Lobbying and Advocacy: Winning Strategies, Resources, Recommendations, Ethics and Ongoing Compliance for Lobbyists and Washington Advocates.
57. 1980, news media transitioned from being a public service to become profit centers
58. Sway public opinion with advertorials that do not look like advertising but in fact perform the role of persuasion.
PIASA, the Overseer
59. PIASA
60. The Hopewell Civilization lived in this region and had exceptional technical skills and a great capital at Cahokia. At the junction of the Illinois, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, they painted their PIASA icon. See John Gill, Tide Without Turning: Elijah P. Lovejoy and Freedom of the Press. p. 82 – 3.
61. The Legend of Piasa by Professor John Russell. 1836. Fifty years later Russell, whose article had propagated as a scientific interpretation of the iconography of this Native American symbol, was contacted by William McAdams, who was preparing his book Records of ancient races in the Mississippi Valley. Russell admitted that his article was fiction.
62. The interpretation of PIASA in the screenplay ALTON by the author.
TWENTY YEARS AFTER & TWENTY YEARS BEFORE
63. Owen Lovejoy and Abraham Lincoln became friends in the 1850s and are shown in this scene in 1858.
64. But Lincoln’s path to the Presidency started less than three months after Lovejoy’s murder, and twenty years before this conversation with Owen Lovejoy. Abraham Lincoln, then relatively unknown, delivered his great Lyceum speech in Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838, less than three months after Lovejoy’s murder, in which he said, “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
65. Douglas got Congress to pass a bill to open the entire Louisiana Purchase to slavery.
66. The Underground Railroad is thriving in Illinois.
67. Stephen A. Douglas challenged Abraham Lincoln in the seventh Lincoln Douglas Debate.
68. The double atrocity that propelled Abraham Lincoln to become President of the United States.
PROLOGUE – Family Secrets, A Night on the Town
69. Earliest known use of the word “fuck”
70. Gang rape
PART 1. THE MUSTARD WRAP
CHAPTER 1 – Welcome to Alton
1. Background on Alton
3. Lovejoy’s description of Alton was published in the Alton Telegraph on May 11, 1836, which reprinted from the Jacksonville Patriot, which had quoted the Observer. Op. cit. John Gill. p. 227.
4. Illinois was advertising itself as the Utopia of Freedom in the 1830s. Ibid. p. 132.
CHAPTER 2 – A Fine Reception
6. Early Alton in the “free state of Illinois”
7. Alton, where two rivers and three railroads meet
8. free speech and freedom of the press
10. Anti-slavery activists: “Firebrand abolitionists incite riot!”
11. Argument that transition from slavery requires economic adjustment.
12. Nat Turner and the literacy argument to educate both slaves and free men
13. Benjamin Godfrey
14. Printing office of Elijah Lovejoy
CHAPTER 3 – Gospel Meeting
15. Harvey, Paul. Through the Storm, Through the Night: A History of African American Christianity. Rowman Littlefield Publishers. 2013. A secret arbor in the woods to hold a gospel worship service was called a hush harbor, brush harbor or bush arbor.
16. Gospel Chorus
17. We have only the history of the tragic death of Francis McIntosh. ALTON relies on historical fiction to imagine his life.
18. Religious Experience – faith in redemption as a means to endure slavery
19. Vice built into the economy – raping female slaves to produce slave children
CHAPTER 4 – The Visit
21. Jim Crow Song and Dance and Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
CHAPTER 5 – The Vegetable Market
CHAPTER 6 – The Mustard Jars
24. jars packed in abolitionist newspapers
25. Slaves prohibited from learning to read by law
CHAPTER 7 – The Colonization Society
26. Literacy in Slavery – The Nat Turner Rebellion
27. Teaching Bible Literacy – slave Bible redacted
28. Opposition to slave literacy
30. This historical document from 1908 sounds strange and unlike any paper that would be published today: “We just think of Negroes as our children.”
31. Illinois as a model free state
32. “Free black men must be shipped back to Africa!”
33. Membership certificate to the American Colonization Society
CHAPTER 8 – A Secret Rendezvous
35. Scapegoat
36. Using dogs to catch slaves
CHAPTER 9 – Shipped Out
37. Cotton Gin Impact on Slavery
38. Pricing Slaves
41. The slave trader Walker and William Wells Brown driving a gang of slaves to a southern market
CHAPTER 10 – Celia Ann’s Advice
42. My motto is ‘Hear both sides. Spark debate.’
46. Suppose a slave is wrongly punished – the story of Frederick Douglass
47. In this world might can defeat right…. Slavery is wrong, not a matter of opinion – looking at the economics of slavery
48. Debating how and when to abolish slavery
49. Thaddeus Hurlbut in stories from Upper Alton
51. The meeting before the murder
52. The future of free speech – “Free debate can counter mobs and illegal action.”
53. “You think Negroes should be educated to prepare them for freedom?”
55. When Negroes learn to read, they get, uh, how shall I say,… more rebellious.
56. Bible studies must be handled carefully
CHAPTER 11 – The Bible Lesson
58. What makes the crops so hard to grow now?
59. Threatening Slaves with the Devil
61. British Anti-Slavery Society
62. British Anti-Slavery Campaign and the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was followed by the UK Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 In the US international slave trade was also abolished in 1807, but abolishing slavery took much longer. British abolitionists pressured the US to abolish slavery. The pressure from slaveholders in the late thirties was particularly high because of the UK example of 1833.
63. Male slave in chains: Am I not a man and a brother?
64. John Greenleaf Whittier’s antislavery poem, “Our Countrymen in Chains.”
65. American Anti-Slavery Society. Anti-Slavery Office (New York, N.Y.)
66. Painting of Slave Religious Practice
68. William Wells Brown (1814–1884)
68a. Photograph of an older William Wells Brown in the Archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
68b. Carnegie Center Biography of William Wells Brown and Center image of middle-aged William Wells Brown, which accompanies his biography as a leader in the struggle against slavery.
CHAPTER 12 – Life After Being Sold
70. Slave Escape – Challenges 2
71. Slave Escape – Challenges 3
72. Slave Escape – Challenges 4
73. Slave Escape – Challenges 5
74. Slave Escape – Challenges 6
75. Gospel Song – “Nobody knows de trouble I see. Nobody knows but Jesus,....
CHAPTER 13 – Coming Home
77. Slaves risked their lives and freedom to return for family members and to help other slaves escape. One heroic example was Harriet Tubman, who returned many times to help others escape.
78. See the film and reviews of 12 Years a Slave based on the Memoir of Solomon Northrop.
79. “Seen wives and husbands sold apart, Children’s cries near broke my heart, There’s a better day a coming, Will you go along with me? There’s a better day a coming. Let’s sound the jubilee!”
80. “You knew I’d come back for you.”
81. “Run, Mary, run, I know the other world is not like this. Fire in the East, Fire in the West, Bound to burn in the wilderness, I know the other world is not like this.”
CHAPTER 14 – Plans to Escape
82. “To cover our skin if they send the bloodhounds after us. Throws ‘em off the scent.”
83. “Disguise yourselves to look like free men.”
84. Slave Escape. Library of Congress.
85. Slave Escape from St. Louis, Missouri to Alton, Illinois
86. Using slace-catchers to chase escaped slaves Across the Missouri border
87. Christmas on a Plantation and Christmas on a Plantation 2
CHAPTER 15 – Alton on New Year’s Eve
88. The first commercial Christmas card, produced by Henry Cole and John Horsley in 1843 and more on this Christmas card.
CHAPTER 16 – New Year’s Eve at the Linden Estate
89. “I worked till night –– and through the night, In torture and disgrace; Went home and watched, For morning light, To see my baby’s face. There’s a better day a coming. Will you go along with me? There’s a better day a coming. Let’s sound the jubilee!”
CHAPTER 17 – Secret Rendevous
91. Secret arbor where the gospel service meets: Harvey, Paul. Through the Storm, Through the Night: A History of African American Christianity. Rowman Littlefield Publishers. 2013. A secret arbor in the woods to hold a gospel worship service was called a hush harbor, brush harbor or bush arbor.
CHAPTER 18 – Run for your Life
92. Flocks of birds, long files of ducks, and formations of geese
93. 1830s Saloon
CHAPTER 19 – Aftermath of a Party
96. Current legal issues and prison reform challenges
PART 2. THE LOBBYIST’S SCHEME
CHAPTER 20 – Hiring a Slavecatcher
1. Slavecatcher
2. Mulatto
CHAPTER 21 – The Hunt
4. On the escape of slaves from Missouri to Illinois and the formation of a posse of 60 leading citizens to hunt them down and capture them with two white men seen as accomplices, and the hangin’ vs. lashin’ vote, op. cit. John Gill, page 43-4.
5. “Abolitionists Stir Up Riots”
6. “Three Men Hanged in Mississippi for leading a slave conspiracy”
7. “Alabama Drives Out Abolitionists”
8. Crime for more than five Negroes to assemble
9. On slave-catching dogs, especially bloodhounds, see op.cit. John Gill, page 42.
10. On to Liberty. Oil painting by Theodor Kaufman.
CHAPTER 22 – How to Spot a Traitor
11. drapetomania – notion that slaves who choose to escape suffer from a mentally illness called drapetomania
13. Mulatto
CHAPTER 23 – Crossing the Mississippi
14. Crossing the river. Cinematic descriptions of the Mississippi River, its wildlife and seasonal changes open each chapter, op. cit. John Gill, page 42.
15. “I looked over Jordan, An’ what did I see, Comin’ for to carry me home? A band of angels comin’ after me. Comin’ for to carry me home.”
16. Crossing the River. The Underground Railroad.
17. US Coast Guard. Impacts of Upper Mississippi River Flooding, 2019.
18. Amazing Grace
19. “We’re in Alton — we’re free!”
CHAPTER 24 – Alton Town Meeting
20. Benjamin Godfrey
21. So what are we going to do about the Negro problem?
22. Vigilance committees to maintain law and order
CHAPTER 25 – Sheltering Runaways
23. Underground Railroad hosts were known as “a conspiracy of conscience.”
25. The Rhodes Family as Underground Railroad hosts
CHAPTER 26 – The Mayor Gives In
28. Alton business owners are victims of a conspiracy to make Alton a center of abolition debate.
29. If southern traders boycott Alton, we’ll all suffer.
30. Illinois is a free state! So Missouri’s slave laws don’t apply here.
31. What do you want to do? Fight those angry slaveowners?
32. “Alton will be a refuge for every damn slave that runs away.”
CHAPTER 27 – Hangin’ or Lashin’
33. Slave patrols
35. Five strokes with a big whip
36. Loopy Dixon, screaming in pain, cries, “Stop lashin’ me! I done it! I done it!” Example of False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications. Richard A. Leo. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online September 2009, 37 (3) 332-343.
CHAPTER 28 – Loopy and the Rock
37. Bowie Knife with the words inscribed on the blade: Death to Abolition. Op. cit. John Gill, page 43.
CHAPTER 29 – Speare’s Ultimatum
39. The Church should comment on every aspect of life,…. including the Negro problem.
40. Resolutions for the Church
42. Your newspaper can help us catch those runaways.
wri43. Some suspect the escaped slaves are hiding out in Alton.
44. Slaveowners will force you to help hunt down their escaped slaves.
CHAPTER 30 – Hiring a Free Man
45. On William Wells Brown’s experience working for Elijah Parish Lovejoy, op.cit. John Gill, page 28.
46. “Power decides what’s law. Those Missouri slaveholders have power.”
47. “William, wants to work for The Alton Observer…. Would you hire him if you were in my place?” Note that William Wells Brown actually worked for Lovejoy in 1834 in St. Louis as an indentured slave. To tighten the plot, in this story he works for Lovejoy in 1837 in Alton after his escape to freedom and he was with Lovejoy when Lovejoy was murdered. This portion of the story is fiction to simplify the story. Actually another escaped slave was working as a typesetter for Lovejoy at the time of his murder.
48. “I want your daughter to be my wife.” Celia Ann French married Elijah Parish Lovejoy in 1834 in St. Louis. To tighten the plot, I’ve made her the daughter of an Underground Railroad family in Alton, who marries Lovejoy after his move to Alton.
CHAPTER 31 – William’s New Job
49. William Wells Brown’s employment with Lovejoy
CHAPTER 32 – Two Weddings
51. Wedding ceremony of Elijah Parish Lovejoy and Celia Ann Rhodes. To tighten the plot, I’ve made her the daughter of an Underground Railroad family in Alton, who married Lovejoy after his move to Alton. Celia Ann French (her historical name) was deeply committed to Lovejoy and his cause – she married him in 1834 in St. Louis before his move to Alton.
52. Reverend Parker
CHAPTER 33 – Tension Mounts
54. The Politics of Correspondence: Letter Writing in the Campaign Against Slavery in the United States and Letter From a Former Slave
55. “White folks got no idea what it’s like bein’ a slave. I’m gonna tell ‘em.”
56. “We resolve to view with the deepest feelings of pain and regret the unjustifiable course pursued by abolitionists on the subject of domestic slavery.” Op. cit. John Gill. p. 49.
CHAPTER 34 – The Hazards of Packaging
57. Packing Bibles in Abolitionist Newspapers is historically documented. Ibid. p. 46.
59. Bibles packed in “Abolitionist propaganda”
60. Plantation owner… wants advice on how to revive religion on his plantation.
CHAPTER 35 – Home Is a Scary Place
61. “strange noises outside in the dark”
62. James M. Rock is referred to also as JM Rock, whose prison confession is described in George Thomson. Prison Life and Reflections. 1851. pp 222-225. Thompson describes JM Rock as “Lovejoy’s murderer,” though this has not been confirmed. Op.cit. John Gill. page 4 – 7, 221.
CHAPTER 36 – George’s Gift
63. Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis. NY: Vintage Books, Random House. 1983.
CHAPTER 37 – The Eye of the Storm
65. In this scene Lovejoy’s soliloquy to an imagined audience is inspired by an appeal to his fellow citizens that he delivered to a real audience. Op. cit. John Gill. p. 52 –3. Lovejoy’s soliloquy in this chapter is the pivotal climax of both the book and the screenplay ALTON, showing how a man in conversation with himself, imagining an audience when no one is present, arrives at a momentous conclusion. This chapter started from Lovejoy’s Market House speech (printed in full in op. cit. Gill p. 215 – 217) and is also inspired by great historic speeches, such as the speech of William Wilberforce nearly fifty years earlier (1789).
66. Historical fiction offers potential to simplify detail in order to focus on big issues in their historical context. In this scene Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a historical character, faces the most critical moment of his life, his recognition that he is an abolitionist. William Wells Brown is an important historical figure who did work for Lovejoy, but the circumstances are partially fictionalized. The year is 1837, rather than 1834, when William Wells Brown actually worked for Lovejoy as an indentured slave before he escaped from slavery. I have fictionalized that he has already escaped slavery. In fact another escaped slave was working for Lovejoy in 1837. George Edwards, father of Sharna Milton, is entirely fictional, as is his daughter – both represent a key challenge of the day: children born into slavery because of rape.
CHAPTER 38 – Attacking William
67. William is attacked while carrying a tray of type
68. William Lloyd Garrison’s Abolitionist Newspaper
CHAPTER 39 – Celebrating the 4th of July
69. Using Christianity to argue for slavery
70. What to a slave is the 4th of July? On July 4th from a former slave’s perspective: Frederick Douglass
71. History has documented only the tragic lynching of Francis (Frank) McIntosh, not his life and humanity. This story imagines what his life might have been like.
72. Historical fiction offers potential to examine and clarify big issues relative to history. That Francis McIntosh was a free man with a job on the Riverboat Flora is history. The fact that Lovejoy deplored the crucifixion of McIntosh is history and was one reason that Lovejoy was forced to move his newspaper and change its name from The St. Louis Observer to The Alton Observer. Making Frank the son of Melda and brother of Sharna and having him tap William’s writing skill to write a Letter to the Editor – to Lovejoy – is fiction to tighten the plot and to show how racism denied Frank even the right to testify about the abuses that he had experienced.
PART 3. WHEN FAKE NEWS TURNS REAL
CHAPTER 40 – A Mob Stampedes
1. Francis McIntosh – See also op.cit. John Gill. p. 60 – 63.
2. Deputy Sheriff George Hammond portrayed as a hero
4. “Yur not innocent. You get at least ten years in the penitentiary.”
CHAPTER 41 – A Crucifixion
5. The Mob shouts randomly, “Burn him!”
6. Burning a man at the stake without a trial is illegal.
8. McIntosh pleads, “Shoot me! Please shoot me!” Op. cit. John Gill. page 228.
9. They crucified my Lord, And he never said a mumbalin’ word. They crucified my Lord, And he never said a mumbalin’ word. Not a word, not a word, not a word!
CHAPTER 42 – A Terrible Dilemma
11. Murder of our respected fellow citizen, Deputy Sheriff Hammond by a colored man, Frank McIntosh. Op. cit. John Gill. p. 66 – 70.
12. destruction of this free colored man by chaining him to a tree and burning him alive.
13. On the justification for dismissal
14. Negroes don’t yet know how to respect law and order.
15. Lovejoy’s fictitious nemesis, Horace Speare, fuses multiple historical figures who attacked Lovejoy. Speare’s words here were spoken by a young lawyer, Junius Hall: “Rome was flooded by inferior peoples… pouring over her borders, so American culture will be corrupted, destroyed by a black horde let loose within. There will be interbreeding, mongrelization. Proud western civilization will be reduced to the level of the Hottentot.” Op. cit. John Gill. p. 98.
16. Sending freed slaves back to Africa
17. No man’s property shall be taken from him without compensation.
18. atrocities committed by those of Negro blood against their white brethren
19. abolitionism
20. Abolitionists
21. Who has not observed how the writing [of The Alton Observer] is calculated to fanaticize the Negro? And to turn him against white men! Op. cit. John Gill, p. 70.
22. inflammatory
23. Anti-abolition is a tool for political power.
24. firebrands
CHAPTER 43 – Downturn in Alton
25. Alton has transformed from a boom town into a ghost town.
26. “Alton’s land boom has collapsed.” Speculation, Promotion, and the Panic of 1837 in Chicago.
27. “Southerners won’t trade with us anymore because The Alton Observer writes about Abolition.”
30. James Gillespie Birney was a former slaveowner who had converted to become an abolitionist. Op. cit. John Gill, p. 43, 102, 104, 164, 185. The broadside “Abolitionists Beware” appeared in July 1836 in the Cincinnati newspaper The Philanthropist, founded by James Gillespie Birney.
CHAPTER 44 – Cherry Bouncers
31. Cherry Bounce
32. Dixon shakes his fist at an imaginary enemy, “You’ll be punished! You’ll be put down!”
33. “Tar an’ feather ‘im!” Image:“RETRIBUTION: Tarring and Feathering, or the patriot’s revenge. Nay & You’ll Stop Our Mouths, Beware Your Own” by James Gillray (died 1815).”
CHAPTER 45 – Tar and Feathers
34. Owen Lovejoy
35. apothecary
36. Fireflies and whip-poor-wills and an owl . . . On the diversity of waterfowl migrating through Alton during the fall in the 1800s see op. cit. Gill, page 41.
37. pond is almost still with lilies
38. Tie him in a canoe and float him down the Mississippi!
40. “Double, double, toil and trouble.”
42. “I’m in your hands. Do as God wills.”
CHAPTER 46 – A Night at the Press
44. Historical Fiction is a powerful tool for clarifying issues and ideas. William worked for Lovejoy in 1834 three years before Lovejoy was murdered and shortly before William escaped from slavery in 1834. so having him work for Lovejoy after his escape from slavery and be with Lovejoy at the time of his murder is fictional. George Edwards is a fictional character who symbolizes the many men who became aware of the abuses of slavery because of having fathered children with slaves.
CHAPTER 47 – Lovejoy’s Last Stand
47. A man was burned at the stake without a trial.
48. “The cry of slaves has entered my soul. I must speak out.”
49. The three Lovejoy brothers, Elijah (1802-1837), Joseph Cammett Lovejoy (1805-1871) and Owen Lovejoy (1811-1864) all supported the abolitionist cause. Joseph Cammett Lovejoy wrote a Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey: Who Died in the Penitentiary of Maryland, where He was Confined for Showing Mercy to the Poor, published in 1847.
CHAPTER 48 – Hear Both Sides
51. The Saloon of the 1830s as a social hub
52. On Lovejoy’s motto to “hear both sides” op.cit. John Gill, page 37.
53. “Although we don’t claim the right to prescribe your course as an editor, … we hope that the concurring views of so many will induce you to change the character of The Observer.” He stops to cough, then continues, “…so as to pass over in silence the subject of slavery.” Ibid., page 51.
54. The promise of complete editorial freedom was made when Lovejoy was offered the job as Editor of the St. Louis Observer. The statement, “Times have changed,” was made to Lovejoy in St. Louis. Ibid. p. 51.
55. “Slavery is an evil, an unfortunate institution. A curse like Adam’s.” Ibid., page 26.
56. “The demand that slavery be abolished now is unreasonable, ungentlemanly.”
CHAPTER 49 – A Mob Rave
58. William Wells Brown novel Clotel.
60. Nigger
61. “Close the press! Close the press!” Then and now, there are serious implications when local presses are shut down. Beyond the lack of local community news, the centralization of news reporting converges toward a single message, which can be detrimental to free speech and freedom of the press.
CHAPTER 50 – Burning the Press
62. The mob grabs the press, dumping it out of the open portal toward the river.
65. Free speech issues, then and now.
68. Destroying the Press. Image courtesy of the Missouri History Museum.
CHAPTER 51 – Two Worship Services
69. Gospel Chorus
CHAPTER 52 – Power Players
71. “civilized attitude toward slavery”
72. Slave Escape and the justification of evil via drapetomania
CHAPTER 53 – Freedom of the Press
73. “Alton cannot be a respected city without a newspaper”
74. Free speech and freedom of the press in America.
75. Burning the press must be seen as lawless destruction.
CHAPTER 54 – Ruffians in the Garden
76. Border ruffians and the turmoils of politics
77. “There’s a bunch of us out here, waitin’ for your husband to open the front door.” Historically, the ruffians invaded their home while Celia Ann was away. Op. cit. John Gill. p. 77.
78. The courage of Lovejoy’s wife, Celia Ann
79. Le Patriote 1837 showing the garb of tough fighters of this era, painted by Henri Julien 1904.
CHAPTER 55 – A Saloon Plot
80. My barrel is empty, And it I must fill. Pay up the old score, And I’ll credit you still.
81. “While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return!” Op. cit. John Gill. p. 49.
82. Barrel drums
CHAPTER 56 – Top Hats and Tails
83. Costume of high top hats and swallow tail coats
84. See an account of the events leading up to the murder here: Woman ringing church bells in account of the events leading up to the murder. Op. cit. John Gill. p. 4-5.
85. Murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy
CHAPTER 57 – A Night of Murder
87. The murder of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy on November 7, 1837, while defending his printing press from an anti-abolitionist mob in Alton, Illinois, was an early flash point in the conflict over slavery. Edward Beecher, also a Protestant minister and one of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s older brothers, was there as an ally of Lovejoy. Excerpts from his 1838 book: Narrative of the Riots at Alton, In Connection with the Death of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy. Alton: G. Holton, 1838.
88. Library of Congress and also Alton trials against those who defended Lovejoy, who were tried for inciting riot. Winthrop S. Gilman, who was indicted with Enoch Long, Amos B. Roff, George H. Walworth, George H. Whitney, William Harned, John S. Noble, James Morss, Jr., Henry Tanner, Royal Weller, Reuben Gerry, and Thaddeus B. Hurlbut; for the crime of riot, committed on the night of the 7th of November, 1837 while engaged in defending a printing press from an attack made on it at that time by an armed mob.
89. Merriam, Allen. Document on Elijah P. Lovejoy. 1987.
90. More here on these pro-slavery advocates in the crowd that murdered Lovejoy, John Hogan and Illinois Attorney General Usher F. Linder and Illinois History Teacher Class Training Materials funded by the Illinois State Library.
91. Notice of Lovejoy’s Murder in a Cincinnati Newspaper.
92. PIASA – Native American painting both opens and closes the screenplay ALTON.
CHAPTER 58 – A Day of Mourning
93. Joseph C. Lovejoy and Owen Lovejoy with an Introduction by John Quincy Adams. Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy who was murdered in defence of the liberty of the press at Alton, Illinois, Nov. 7, 1837. New York: Taylor, 1838. Thomas Dimmock took interest in Lovejoy and restored his grave. And Colby College, Lovejoy’s alma mater, established an annual award in Lovejoy’s memory.
94. Lord, I want two wings to veil my face.
CHAPTER 59 – Epilogue
95. After his murder, Lovejoy’s supporters were tried for inciting riot. See also notes 86 and 87 above.
96. Cincinnati Journal: “Alton! Alton – a mob is on the throne.” For other quotes, see Paul Simon.
98. Adlai Stevenson: “Lovejoy learned that ordinary living affords many occasions for men to dare greatly, to live dangerously, and even to die nobly.”
99. John Brown was inspired by Lovejoy to dedicate his life to ending slavery.
100. Diverse accounts of the Underground Railroad
PART 4. ALTON THEN & NOW
CHAPTER 60 – NON-FICTION AND FICTION IN ALTON
2. Joseph C. Lovejoy and Owen Lovejoy with an Introduction by John Quincy Adams. Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy who was murdered in defence of the liberty of the press at Alton, Illinois, Nov. 7, 1837. New York: Taylor, 1838.
3. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and bio of Solomon Northrup.
6. Accusation of packing Bibles in abolitionist newspapers is historical. Op. cit. John Gill. p. 46.
7. The escape of slaves from Missouri to Illinois and the formation of a posse of 60 leading citizens to hunt them down and capture them with two white men seen as accomplices, and the hangin’ vs. lashin’ vote is historically documented. op. cit. John Gill, page 43-4.
8. Judge Lawless’ failure to prosecute is historical.
9. That Sheriff George Hammond arrested Francis McIntosh without provocation is historical.
10. Lawless’ actual speech in the courtroom is used.
11. That William was attacked while carrying a tray of type to Lovejoy is historical.
12. William Wells Brown wrote the poem that Sharna turns into a song: Seen wives and husbands sold apart, Children’s cries near broke my heart…
13. Jim Rock is an historical character. James M. Rock is referred to also as JM Rock, whose prison confession is described in George Thomson. Prison Life and Reflections. 1851. pp 222-225. Thompson describes JM Rock as “Lovejoy’s murderer,” though this has not been confirmed. Op.cit. John Gill. page 4 – 7, 221.
14. James Smylie was a well-known pro-slavery minister of this era, whose views opposed those of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, who had studied at Princeton Theological Seminary.
15. “The Evil Effects of Angry Excitement” was addressed in Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Speech of January 27, 1838.
16. Advertising Illinois as “the Utopia of Freedom” occurred in the 1830s. Op.cit. John Gill. p. 132.
17. Storming the press in high top hats and swallow tail coats occurred on November 7, 1837 as described.
18. Both of Elijah Lovejoy’s younger brothers, Joseph and Owen Lovejoy came to Alton to be with their brother. Joseph and Owen Lovejoy were guarding his home at the time of the murder. Owen was not with him as portrayed in this story.
19. But Celia Ann was not at home to receive the news of Lovejoy’s murder from his horse, Old John. She had been sent to another town because of the danger. Instead his two brothers received the news from Old John.
20. Lovejoy’s printing press was destroyed three times, combining his experiences in St. Louis and Alton.
21. Integrating fiction and non-fiction is an excuse to draw inspiration from a range of authors and from memoir, e.g. James Baldwin – “Letter from a region in my mind”
CHAPTER 61 – The Piasa Enigma
22. The Piasa at Alton, Illinois, overlooking the Mississippi River.
23. Ibid.
24. John Russell. The Piasa Legend. 1836. Also here.
25. The Legend of the Piasa Bird by Beverly Bauser.
26. Esarey, Duane; Vincas Steponaitis; Michael McCafferty; David Costa (15 January 2015). Untangling the Piasa’s Tale: A Revised Interpretation of Illinois’ Most Famous Rock Art. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, East Central Illinois Archaeological Society (ECIAS).
28. Nikole Hannah-Jones. The 1619 Project.
29. Frederick Douglass: “The story of the master has never wanted for narrators. The masters, to tell their story, had at call all the talent and genius that wealth and influence could command.”
30. Frederick Douglass: “My part has been to tell the history of the slave.“
31. Efforts to ban the teaching The 1619 Project in schools.
33. Trump commissioned a report excusing the Founding Fathers for owning slaves.
34. The New York Times in 2021 on the 1619 Project.
36. It’s Our Story – telling the stories of the disability community and showcasing leadership.
37. Sheryl Sandberg founded Lean In to tell the stories of women.
38. Wendy Hanamura produced Honor Bound: A Personal Journey, an Emmy-award winning documentary about her father and his storied unit, the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
39. Collaborative intelligence as related to Collective intelligence, Crowdsourcing, and Human Computation.
41. The APPLE “Think different” campaign
42. Irving Janis pioneered research on Groupthink.
43. Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum speech
CHAPTER 62 – Abraham Lincoln’s Warning
44. ibid. Lincoln’s Lyceum Speech
45. ibid.
46. ibid.
47. Lovejoy moved from St. Louis to Alton, taking the Observer with him.
50. Illinois in the 1830s was advertising itself as “the utopia of freedom.” Op.cit. John Gill. page 132.
51. T. W. Deacon. 2012. Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 1, 3.
52. Joseph C. Lovejoy and Owen Lovejoy with an Introduction by John Quincy Adams. Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy who was murdered in defence of the liberty of the press at Alton, Illinois, Nov. 7, 1837. New York: Taylor, 1838.
53. George Washington to Officers of the Army from Newburgh, New York, on March 15, 1783.
55. Op.cit. Lincoln’s Lyceum speech.
CHAPTER 63 – Campaign to End Free Speech
57. R. Schmitt‐Beck. Bandwagon effect. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication. 2015:1-5. doi:10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc015
58. C. E. Robinson. 1937. Recent developments in the straw poll field: Part 2. Public Opinion Quarterly, 1, 42–52. doi: 10.1086/265122
59. Samuel A. Cartwright published the paper in which he coined the term drapetomania entitled “How to Save the Union and the Position of the South in the Union” In The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal 1851:691–715.
60. Drapetomania as an instance of professional cooption and used too rationalize oppression: Drapetomania: When Fighting Oppression is a Mental Illness.
61. The term lasted for more than sixty years, appearing in the third 1914 edition of Thomas Lathrop Stedman’s Practical Medical Dictionary as an entry. Physician Samuel A. Cartwright, an exemplar of scientific racism, wrote (1851): “If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night—separated into families, each family having its own house—not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed—more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.
62. David Pilgrim, Curator at the Jim Crow Museum, noted that “the goal of the scientific racist was – and remains – the defense of a racial hierarchy.”
64. Subjectivity – what we believe – can drive objective outcomes, such as a stock market crash.
65. Drapetomania.
66. Political correctness, a definition
68. Elijah Parish Lovejoy in his Market House Speech, shortly before his murder, said,“You may hang me up, as the mob hung up individuals at Vicksburg! You may burn me at the stake, as they did McIntosh at St. Louis. Or you may tar and feather me, or throw me into the Mississippi, as you have often threatened to do. But you cannot disgrace me. I, and I alone, can disgrace myself.” Speech reprinted in full in op.cit. John Gill. page 215-217.
69. In 1936 H. G. Wells published a pamphlet, The Idea of a World Encyclopaedia, based on lecture he gave at The Royal Institution on November 20, 1936, republished in the April 1937 issue of Harpers Magazine and in 1938 in a collection of Wells’s essays and speeches on this theme entitled World Brain, renamed “World Encyclopedia.”
CHAPTER 64 – The Suicide of Democracy
70. Owen Lovejoy was so effective as a conductor of the Underground Railroad that he was dubbed “a Negro stealer.”
71. Abraham Lincoln debates Stephen A. Douglass in the Senate campaign of 1858
74. Was Eichmann ordinary or evil?
75. W.E.B. Du Bois on “the color line”
76. Arendt’s 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, soared to a best seller after Trump’s election. Her foresight was uncanny in how she described our current threat: totalitarianism as organized loneliness.
77. Nazi propaganda film Triumph des Willens (1935 – “Triumph of the Will”), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, showed in Hitler’s crowd of 700,000 admirers marching through Nuremberg the mesmerizing power of the bandwagon effect.
78. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by Hitler in 1945, wrote in his “Letters from Prison”: “Every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. . . one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused.
79. Social media enables “cancel culture” – the bandwagon effect that propagates hate language.
80. Collaborative intelligence
81. Irving Janis pioneered research on Groupthink
82. John Nichols, in his book Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, shows how profiteering exploits the fear that accompanies disaster. In “The Land of Impunity” (February 7/14 The Nation) Nichols writes: “That’s what makes this moment so haunting. . .” He proposes (March 7/14 The Nation) a clear, simple idea: Implement a 92 Percent Tax on Pandemic Profiteers: “Let’s tax billionaires—and ubermillionaires—back to where they stood when the pandemic surged in March 2020. With authorization from Congress, Internal Revenue Service auditors can then collect the excess profits of the billionaire class and then collect the cash in the spirit of shared sacrifice,” noting that an annual wealth tax would raise $928 billion per year.
83. Nichols highlights a Report from the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness in fall 2021 on how working class Americans suffered from the pandemic while “America’s billionaires have grown $2.1 trillion richer during the pandemic, their collective fortune skyrocketing by 70%—from just short of $3 trillion at the start of the COVID crisis on March 18, 2020 to over $5 trillion on October 15, 2021.” During that same period, the billionaire class expanded from 614 to 745 members. The $5 trillion in wealth that was locked up by those 745 billionaires “is two-thirds more than the $3 trillion in wealth held by the bottom 50% of US households.”
84. Bernie Sanders proposed the Make Billionaires Pay Act, which would have imposed a 60 % tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020 and January 1, 2021.
85. In March 2022 Bernie Sanders introduced the windfall profits tax.
86. Like the slavery profiteers, the pandemic profiteers have not been held accountable. John Nichols reminds us that, “Accountability done right drives change.” Non-accountability is not merely the absence of accountability. It is an absence around which corruption mobilizes – that festering from within about which Lincoln warned us when he asked his audience in 1838 the question more of us should be asking today: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?”
CHAPTER 65 – Great Threats Within
87. Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor of The Atlantic, wrote: “We are close––closer than most of us ever thought possible––to losing not only our democracy, but what’s left of our shared understanding of reality.”
89. 2019 – A white man shot and killed 23 shoppers at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, aiming to kill Mexicans
90. 2021 – A white man shot and killed 8 at Atlanta Spas, targeting Asian American women.
91. 2022 – A white man shot and killed 10 in Buffalo, aiming to kill African Americans.
92. In 2022 there was a record level of gun violence in the United States.
94. George Packer, in The Atlantic asks, “Are We Doomed?“
96. Op. cit. Abraham Lincoln.
CHAPTER 66 – Lovejoy’s Legacy – Lincoln’s Presidency
99. Owen Lovejoy was moved by this experience to dedicate his life to ending slavery.
105. Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, c. March 1822
106. How Harriet Tubman freed more slaves than anyone else in history.
107. Harriet Tubman – Leadership of the Underground Railroad
108. John Brown and his raid on Harper’s Ferry
109. Harriet Tubman was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement as also described here and served as a spy during the Civil War.
110. The Ku Klux Klan was founded shortly after the Civil War ended as a terrorist organization to oppose the rights of newly freed African Americans.
111. Veiled Prophet’s Sixth Annual Autumnal Festival, Oct 2nd, 1883. [Front Cover].
112. The End of the Veiled Prophet – The Veiled Prophet. 1878 Edition of The Missouri Republican. The Veiled Prophet Parade (widely Known as a Ku Klux Klan Symbol) occurred for 140+ years in St. Louis on July 4 – Independence Day, a symbol of racism and privilege that only finally may have ended in 2021.
CHAPTER 67 – The Decade of the 1830s
The following timeline of the 1830s highlights the parallels between the 1830s that were revealed in the drama of ALTON and described in Chapters 61 to 66. The 1830s was filled with hatred, shown in brutal acts of violence, mob riots, burning down buildings, outright murder and physical brutality, and blocking free speech and freedom of the press. Today we also see hatred and violence, as murders and mass shootings surge. Debate is replaced by shouting matches and social media rants. Though fires today may be caused by global warming, there is outrage and insane anger enough to cause fires to be set today as they were set in the 1830s. Overturning Roe v. Wade signals a return of the backlash against women. Racially motivated hate crimes are commonplace. We do not all have equal right to speak and be heard.
The decade of the 1830s was marked by exploitation and brutality and an unprecedented wave of mob violence in the Northern states over both abolition and women’s suffrage, such as the burning of the Pennsylvania Hall in 1838, just because meetings on those topics were held there. The brutality of slaveowners showed their fear of growing pressure to abolish slavery, their source of wealth. Pressure from Britain, which had abolished slavery in 1807, and a growing abolition movement in the United States included voices like William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Elijah Parish Lovejoy.
The 1830s saw the rise of colonialism and imperialism. Native Americans were exploited, and the Trail of Tears began. Britain rose in power as a world leader with the ascension to the British throne of Queen Victoria in 1837, the year of Lovejoy’s murder.
This decade was marked by the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 against Mexican troops near what today is San Antonio, Texas and the Opium Wars in Asia.
The history of the 1830s saw advances in science and invention. Charles Darwin embarked on his Beagle voyage to collect specimens, which took him to the Galapagos Islands. A steam locomotive raced a horse, which launched the great period of railroad building. Invention of the mechanical reaper led to advances in farming and a new kind of slave exploitation. The Colt revolver was invented, and suspension bridges were built.
From 1829 to 1837 the second major cholera pandemic raged in Europe, arriving in the US in 1832. Cholera was linked to polluted water supplies and so typically struck poor neighborhoods and was often blamed on immigrant populations.
From August 17–22, 1829 white mobs attacked Black neighborhoods in Cincinnati in what became known as the Cincinnati Race Riots accompanied by enforcement of Ohio’s “Black Laws” (see this 1836 Cincinnati article). Black Americans sought hope in migrating to Canada to establish free colonies, which become key way stations on the Underground Railroad.
1830
May 28, 1830: The United States Congress passes the Indian Removal Act, leading to the Trail of Tears.
June 26, 1830: King George IV of England died and William IV ascended to the throne.
August 28, 1830: Peter Cooper raced his locomotive, the Tom Thumb.
September 15, 1830: The National Negro Convention Movement was launched in Philadelphia, bringing together forty freed Black Americans to protect the rights of freed Black Americans in the United States.
November 8, 1830: Ferdinand II became King of the Two Sicilies.
December 10, 1830: American poet Emily Dickinsonwas born
1831
January 1, 1831: William Lloyd Garrison began publishing his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator in Boston, Massachusetts and that year The Liberator published a short book by free black leader Maria W. Stewart (1803–1879)on Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build, advocating for the abolition of slavery and autonomy for black persons.
March 29, 1831: The Great Bosnian uprising against the Ottoman Empire breaks out.
April 27, 1831: Charles Albert becomes king of Sardinia after the death of King Charles Felix.
July 4, 1831: Former President James Monroe died.
August 21, 1831: Nat Turner led a rebellion by enslaved people in Virginia, memorialized in the Sundance award-winning 2016 film Birth of a Nation by Nate Parker.
November 11, 1831: Nat Turner was hanged in Virginia.
December 27, 1831: Charles Darwin sailed from England aboard the research ship H.M.S. Beagle. During five years at sea, he observed wildlife and collect samples that he brought back to England.
1832
1831–2: The 1832 United States presidential election was the first election to use presidential nominating conventions. The Democrats, National Republicans, and the Anti-Masonic Party all used conventions to select their candidates. Incumbent president Andrew Jackson, candidate of the Democratic Party, defeated Henry Clay, candidate of the National Republican Party.
January 13, 1832: American author Horatio Alger was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
April 6, 1832: The Black Hawk War in Illinois started and was a major conflict between the colonists and three American Indian tribes.
April 20, 1832: Black American political activist Maria W. Stewart (1803–1879) spoke before the African American Female Intelligence Society.
May 7, 1832: The Treaty of London creates an independent Kingdom of Greece. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria, is chosen King of Greece, beginning the history of modern Greece.
May 30, 1832: Germany: Hambacher Fest, a demonstration for civil liberties and national unity, ends with no result.
July 9, 1832: A Commissioner of Indian Affairs post was created within the War Department.
August 2, 1832: The Bad Axe Massacre ends the last major Native American rebellion east of the Mississippi in the U.S.
November 14, 1832: Charles Carroll, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, died in Baltimore, Maryland at the age of 95.
November 29, 1832: American author Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
December 3, 1832: Andrew Jackson was elected to his second term as president of the United States.
December 4, 1832: Battle of Antwerp: The last remaining Dutch enforcement, the citadel, is under French attack.
December 21, 1832: Battle of Konya: The Egyptians defeat the main Ottoman army in central Anatolia.
December 23, 1832 – The Battle of Antwerp ends with the Netherlands losing the city.
1833
March 4, 1833: Andrew Jackson took the oath of office as president for the second time.
Summer 1833: Charles Darwin, during his voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle, spends time with gauchos in Argentina and explores inland.
August 20, 1833: Benjamin Harrison, future president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio.
August 28, 1833: The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act of May 1, 1807, which had ended slavery in England and the British Empire, making the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire.
September 29, 1833: Three-year-old Isabella II becomes Queen of Spain, under the regency of her mother, Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Her uncle Don Carlos, Conde de Molina challenges her claim, beginning the First Carlist War.
October 1833: The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society was formed.
October 21, 1833: Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and sponsor of the Nobel Prize, was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
December 6, 1833: William Lloyd Garrison establishes the American Anti-slavery Society in Philadelphia. This society was powerful in being founded and led by abolitionist leaders, regardless of race or gender. Two prominent escaped slaves, William Wells Brown, who has a lead role in ALTON, escaped from slavery in 1834. Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery in 1838, became a leader of this society, who often spoke at its meetings. Mixed race leader Robert Purvis was also a founder, as was businessman and philanthropist Arthur Tappan. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members. Noted members included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Dwight Weld, Lewis Tappan, James G. Birney, Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston Chapman, Augustine Clarke, Samuel Cornish, George T. Downing James Forten, Abby Kelley Foster, Stephen Symonds Foster, Henry Highland Garnet, Beriah Green, who presided over its organizational meeting, Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phillips, Robert Purvis, Charles Lenox Remond, Sarah Parker Remond, Lucy Stone, and John Greenleaf Whittier. The AAS moved its headquarters to New York City the society published a weekly newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard from 1840 to 1870.
December 9, 1833: The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society is founded by Quaker minister Lucretia Mott (1793–1880) and Grace Bustill Douglass (1782–1842) and others, because women were not admitted as full members of the American Anti-slavery Society.
1834
1834: The mechanical reaper that would revolutionize farming in America, and eventually worldwide, was invented by Robert McCormick and completed/ patented by his son Cyrus McCormick, a Virginia blacksmith. The reaper followed the invention of the cotton gin Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794, both of which were used by slaves in this era. The price of slaves increased after invention of the cotton gin, as described in ALTON.
June 7, 1834: Greek independence: General Theodoros Kolokotronis was sentenced to death for treason for resisting the rule of Otto of Greece and released the next year.
1834 – Athens becomes the capital city of Greece.
July 29, 1834: Office of Indian Affairs organized in the United States.
August 1, 1834: The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 took effect in Great Britain in 1834, outlawing the owning, buying, and selling of humans as property throughout its colonies around the world. This Act freed more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Canada, the Caribbean, and South Africa. Although this Act did not free enslaved people in the United States, it was a source of inspiration and hope for abolitionists and a great threat to slaveowners, causing increased hostility and brutality as portrayed in the story of ALTON.
August 2, 1834: French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, creator of the “Liberty Enlightening the World,” now known as the Statue of Liberty, was born in the Alsace region of France.
August 11-12, 1834: The Ursuline Convent riots. A Protestant mob burned down a Convent for Catholic nuns near Boston in a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment.
August 15, 1834: The South Australia Act empowered His Majesty to turn South Australia into a British Province for colonization.
September 1, 1834: In preparation for the removal of the Cherokee Native Americans, Company F of the 4th U.S. Infantry established Fort Cass, also called Camp Cass, named for the Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, which became the military headquarters and site of the largest internment and concentration camps during the 1838 Trail of Tears.
September 2, 1834: Thomas Telford, British engineer, designer of the Menai Suspension Bridge and other noteworthy structures, died in London at the age of 77.
1835
January 30, 1835: The first assassination attempt on an American president occurred when a man shot at Andrew Jackson in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
March 2, 1835: Ferdinand becomes Emperor of Austria.
May 1835: A railroad in Belgium was the first on the continent of Europe.
July 6, 1835: United States Chief Justice John Marshall died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 79. During his tenure, he had made the Supreme Court into a powerful institution.
Summer 1835: A campaign to mail abolitionist pamphlets to the South drove mobs to break into post offices and burn anti-enslavement literature in bonfires. The abolitionist movement changed focused on speaking out against enslavement in Congress.
August 25, 1835: A Vigilance Committee in Nashville, Tennessee held a kangaroo court that convicted Rev. Amos Dresser to a public whipping for the crime of being an “active member” of an anti-slavery society in Ohio, having in his possession “sundry pamphlets of a most violent and pernicious tendency, and which if generally disseminated, would in all human possibility, cause an insurrection or rebellion among the slaves” and publishing and exposing to public view the said pamphlets. The names of 62 members of the self-appointed vigilance committee were published by the American Anti-Slavery Society. A proposal to set vigilance committees occurs in ALTON.
September 15, 1835: Charles Darwin arrived at the Galapagos Islands during his voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle.
September 19, 1835: Sarah Grimke wrote a “Letter to a Respected Friend” to William Lloyd Garrison, who published her letter in The Liberator, launching the South Carolina white sisters Sarah Grimke (1792–1873) and Angelina Grimke (1805–1879), two of thirteen siblings, into leadership as abolitionists. Their father John Grimke was a strong advocate of slavery and subordination of women – a brutal slaveholder in South Carolina. Angelina later discovered that their brother had fathered three slaves, Frances, Archibald, and John Grimke, whom they committed to help.
October 21, 1835: The Female Anti-Slavery Society announced that British abolitionist George Thompson speak in Boston. Pro-slavery forces posted c. 500 notices offering a $100 reward for the citizen that would first lay violent hands on him. Thompson canceled at the last minute. William Lloyd Garrison, Editor/ Publisher of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, stepped up to speak in his place. A lynch mob formed, forcing Garrison to escape through the back of the hall and hide in a carpenter’s shop. When the mob found him, they put a noose around his neck to drag him away. Several strong men, including then Boston Mayor Theodore Lyman II, the first Democratic Mayor of Boston, intervened and took Garrison to the most secure place in Boston, the Leverett Street Jail.
November 25, 1835: Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland.
November 30, 1835: Samuel Clemens, who would be famous under his pen name, Mark Twain, was born in Missouri.
December 1835: Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairy tales.
December 15–17, 1835: The Great Fire of New York started on Wall St. in the financial district, when water sources were frozen and destroyed a large part of lower Manhattan.
December 28, 1835: The Second Seminole War breaks out.
December 29, 1835: The Treaty of New Echota is signed between the United States Government and members of the Cherokee Nation.
1836
January 1836: The siege of the Alamo began at San Antonio, Texas.
January 6, 1836: The Gag Rule, prohibiting discussion of slavery, was the pro-slavery response when former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, serving in Congress, started to introduce petitions against enslavement in the House of Representatives. Adams fought for eight years.
February 1836: Samuel Colt patented the revolver.
February 24, 1836: American artist Winslow Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
March 2, 1836: The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico.
March 6, 1836: The Battle of the Alamo ended with the deaths of Davy Crockett, William Barret Travis, and James Bowie, whose prowess using knives as weapons, led to the Bowie knife being named after him – one of the weapons in ALTON.
April 21, 1836: Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution, was fought. Troops led by Sam Houston defeated the Mexican Army.
April 28, 1836: Only four months after passage of the Gag Rule, prohibiting discussion of slavery, a rioting mob grabbed Francis McIntosh, a free black man employed on the Mississippi Riverboat Flora, tied him to a tree and burned him alive as described in ALTON.
May 19, 1836: Fort Parker massacre. Native Americans captured nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker, who later gave birth to a son named Quanah, who became the last chief of the Comanche.
May 26, 1836: The House of Representatives passed the Pinckney Resolutions, authored by Henry L. Pinckney of South Carolina. First Resolution: Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states. First Resolution: Congress “ought not” to interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia. Third Resolution: Reinforcing “The Gag Rule” passed with a vote of 117 to 68.
June 28, 1836: Former U.S. President James Madison died in Montpelier, Virginia, at the age of 85.
August 1836: Commonwealth v. Aves, 35 Mass. 193, was a case in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the subject of transportation of slaves to free states. In August 1836, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that slaves brought to Massachusetts “for any temporary purpose of business or pleasure” were entitled to freedom. The case was the most important legal victory for abolitionists in the 1830s and set a major precedent throughout the North but also threatened and enraged southern slaveholders. In 1836, Mary Aves Slater of New Orleans went to Boston to visit Thomas Aves, her father. She brought with her a six-year-old girl named Med who, under Louisiana law, was considered the property of Slater’s husband, Samuel Slater. When members of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society learned that an enslaved girl was staying in Boston, they hired attorney Rufus Choate to bring the matter to court Benjamin Robbins Curtis, later known for his dissent in the Dred Scott decision, represented Aves.
September 1836: Texas applied for annexation to the United States, but was rejected by the Secretary of State because a majority of Texans favored the annexation of the Republic by the United States. Both major U.S. political parties, the Democrats and the Whigs, opposed the entry of Texas because this vast slave-holding region would impact the political climate and pro- and anti-slavery sectional controversies in Congress.
September 14, 1836: Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, died in Staten Island, New York, at the age of 80.
October 2, 1836: Charles Darwin arrived in England with a rich collection of specimens after sailing around the world aboard H.M.S. Beagle.
December 7, 1836: Martin Van Buren was elected President of the United States.
1837
February 4, 1837: Seminoles attack Fort Foster, an ammunition and supply post for the Seminole Wars in Florida.
March 4, 1837: Martin Van Buren took the oath of office as president of the United States.
March 18, 1837: U.S. President Grover Cleveland, was born in Caldwell, New Jersey.
April 17, 1837: John Pierpont Morgan, American banker, was born in Hartford, Connecticut.
May 9 – 12, 1837: The first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York City, repeated in 1838 and 1839, with leaders who went on to play key roles in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, including Lucretia Mott, the Grimké sisters, and Lydia Maria Child.
May 10, 1837: The Panic of 1837, a major financial crisis of the 19th century, followed a period of economic expansion from mid-1834 to mid-1836. The prices of land, cotton, and slaves rose sharply in those years. The boom’s origin had many sources, both domestic and international. Because of the peculiar factors of international trade, abundant amounts of silver were coming into the United States from Mexico and China.
June 11, 1837: The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
June 20, 1837: King William IV of Great Britain died at Windsor Castle at the age of 71 and Victoria became Queen of Great Britain at the age of 18.
November 7, 1837: Abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois.
December 8, 1837: William Ellery Channing organized a meeting in Boston’s Faneuil Hall to express the abhorrence those in Boston felt for this grave violation of freedom of the press.
1838
January 4, 1838: Charles Stratton, better known as General Tom Thumb, was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and became famous as a dwarf in P.T. Barnum’s Circus.
January 27, 1838: In one of his earliest speeches, Abraham Lincoln, at the age of 28, delivered his first major public address, his Lyceum Speech, in Springfield, Illinois in what became known as the Lyceum Movement for Adult Education.
February 21, 1838: For the first time in history, a woman addressed a legislative body. An overflow crowd gathered at the State House in Boston to hear Angelina Grimké, daughter of a South Carolina slave owner, present anti-slavery petitions signed by 20,000 Massachusetts women. She and her sister Sarah spoke before at least 88 meetings in 67 towns about the evils of slavery. On behalf of American women Angelina said, “We are citizens of this republic and as such our honor, happiness, and well-being are bound up in its politics, government, and laws.”
May 10, 1838: John Wilkes Booth was born in Bel Air, Maryland. A pro-slavery advocate and American actor, he sought to gain notoriety and advance his acting career by assassinating Abraham Lincoln.
May 17, 1838: On the night of May 17, 1838, a mob congregated outside the hall. The Pennsylvania Hall Fire was started by a mob because a series of meetings had taken place in the hall concerning abolition and women’s suffrage. The Pennsylvania Hall fire is one such case of violence spurred by racial/gender tensions. The hall had several rooms and a large auditorium that seated three hundred people. A Board of Managers who “took pains to make it clear that the hall was not exclusively for the use of abolitionists” managed the hall. This was possible since the hall had several rooms and was two stories high. The presence of women speaking at the podium and whites and African Americans advocating for the abolition of slavery as well as women’s suffrage was more than the enemies of equality and freedom could bear.
May 25, 1838: Muhammad Ali, he Albanian Ottoman governor and the de facto ruler of Egypt, considered the founder of modern Egypt, told Britain and France that he intended to declare independence from the Ottoman Empire, which the European powers opposed, since they wanted to maintain all territories within the Ottoman Empire. The European powers later intervened in what became known as the Oriental Crisis of 1840 and on July 15, 1840 the British government, having negotiated with Austria, Prussia, and Russia to sign the Convention of London, offered Muhammad Ali hereditary rule of Egypt as part of the Ottoman Empire if he did not secede.
May 26, 1838: The people of the Cherokee Nation are forcibly relocated during the Trail of Tears.
September 1, 1838: William Clark, who with Meriwether Lewis had led the Lewis and Clark Expedition, died in St. Louis, Missouri, at the age of 68.
September 3, 1838: Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery.
Late 1838: The Cherokee Nation was forcibly moved westward, continuing the “Trail of Tears.”
1839
1839: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, backed by the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire, compels July Monarchy France to abandon Muhammad Ali of Egypt, and it forces him to return Syria and Arabia to the Ottoman Empire. The European
January 19, 1839: The British East India Company captures Aden In what is now Yemen, Saudi Arabia.
April 19, 1839: The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.
July 23, 1839: First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839 – Battle of Ghazni: British forces capture the fortress city of Ghazni, Afghanistan.
June 1839: Louis Daguerre patented his camera in France.
July 1, 1839: A rebellion of enslaved people broke out aboard the ship Amistad, memorialized in the 1997 film Amistad, directed by Steven Spielberg and led to a classic Supreme Court Case United States v. The Amistad in which former U.S. President and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued that the Declaration of Independence says “that all men are created equal.” Adams called on the court to respect the Mende Africans’ natural rights, which secured their freedom on March 9, 1841: the Supreme Court upheld the circuit court’s ruling that the Mende Africans were not enslaved people under Spanish law because the U.S. federal courts lacked authority to order their delivery to the Spanish government. In the court’s 7-1 majority opinion, Justice Joseph Story managed to issue a legal argument without any reference to ethics. He noted that since the Mende, rather than the Cuban traders of enslaved people, were in possession of the Amistad when it was found in U.S. territory, the Mende could not be considered as enslaved people imported into the U.S. illegally. Abolitionists Lewis Tappan, Simeon Jocelyn, and Joshua Leavitt form the Friends of Amistad Africans Committee to fight for the rights of Africans involved in the Amistad case. Abolitionists raised funding so that the 35 surviving Mende, with a small group of American missionaries, could sail from New York for Sierra Leone in November 1841.
July 8, 1839: John D. Rockefeller, American oil magnate and philanthropist, was born in Richford, New York.
November 13, 1939: The formation of the Liberty Party is announced by abolitionists to use political action to fight against enslavement.
December 5, 1839: George Armstrong Custer, American cavalry officer known for “Custer’s Last Stand,” was born in New Rumley, Ohio.
PART 5. MAKING MEDIA ACTIONABLE
CHAPTER 68 – Your Third Column by Donald G. James
1. Ernst Mach “On Thought Experiments” 1897 translation, updated
2.Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change. . .”.
3. Victor Frankl. Man’s Search for Meaning. 1946.
CHAPTER 69 – It’s Our Story by Scott Lowell Cooper
4. It’s Our Story project website – telling the stories of leaders with abilities
5. “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” Teddy Roosevelt
6. Ed Roberts, Founder of the Independent Living Movement
8. Judy Heumann book and disability leadership
10. James LeBrecht – Disability Rights and Education
11. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. Documentary film. Co-directors: Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht. Executive Producers: The Obamas, through their production company, Higher Ground. The film won a Peabody Award, was nominated for an Oscar, and won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, raising national awareness of the disability rights movement.
14. Victor Pineda Inclusive Cities Lab UC Berkeley
15. Victor Pineda – Film Company Windmills and Giants
16. Kate Gainer bio
17. USC Shoah Foundation project website about Holocaust survivors, later expanding to serve many other groups that experience discrimination, an inspiration for the It’s Our Story project, which focuses on the disabilities community
18. Howard Zinn inspired me to think about “two types of stories, the winner’s story and the survivor’s story.”
19. It’s Our Story Workforce Development Initiative
20. It’s Our Story – Becoming Understood
21. It’s Our Story Youtube Channel
CHAPTER 70 – The Final Round by Lisa Maydwell
22. The Final Round [documentary]
23. The Final Round—Round 16 [book]
24. The FBI continued their efforts to discredit Mr. Lee and Mr. King.
CHAPTER 71 – Story Project Action Cycles by Joseph Okpaku
26. Artificial intelligence is ethnocentric
27. Collaborative Intelligence
For more information on media, see POW! [Power Our World].
For more information on the books, see MetaVu Books. YourMah
