African American History - John Brown's Philadelphia

On Monday and Tuesday we are going to have a virtual field trip around Philadelphia to explore the sites and stories featured tell the ways John Brown is connected to Philadelphia and how the City became an important indicator of the nation’s fissures over slavery. In the 1850s the City’s industry, commerce and many of its wealthy families, by marriage and/or business connections, were rooted in the South’s slave economy and slave trade. Philadelphia was also the home of the North's largest free Black population. As we will see Philadelphia was sharply divided over slavery and John Brown intensified that division.




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