Black History....Dangerfield Newby

During the famous raid on Harper’s Ferry by white abolitionist John Brown, the first black to be killed in his band of freedom fighters was Dangerfield Newby. A slave of Faquier County, Virginia, Newby stood at six-feet, two-inches tall and was a child of his slavemaster, who eventually freed all his mulatto children in 1858.

After gaining freedom, Newby searched for ways to free his wife and seven children. He worked as a blacksmith and raised the $1,500 price that his wife’s master quoted to free her and his youngest child, but once he returned with the money, the price had gone up.

Frustrated with the conditions and unfairness of slavery, Newby connected with the Underground Railroad and joined with Brown, who wished to start a liberation movement among black slaves. Newby decided to free his family by force. Brown had planned a raid on nearby Harper’s Ferry, which was also a city full of guns and little ammunition. In battle, people would stuff guns with anything they could find, including six-inch spikes.

On October 1859, Newby joined in the raid with Brown. The townspeople prepared for a fight, and Newby was killed instantly by a shooting spike in the neck. He was the first. When he died, letters from his wife, Harriet, were found on his body, begging for him to free her and the children. The people of Harper’s Ferry took Newby’s body and stabbed it repeatedly and amputated his limbs. They left his body in the alley to be eaten by hogs.

In addition to Newby, another black fugitive slave who was loyal to Brown, Shields Green, lived to be captured by the law and was hanged after a treason trial. Green’s body was dissected by medical students at Winchester Medical College.