INSURRECTION IN SPRINGFIELD A Play in One Act by Jacqueline T. Lynch In the Spotlight, Inc. www.inthespotlightinc.org

This script is supported in part by a grant from the Springfield Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. www.massculturalcouncil.org

Insurrection in Springfield

2 CAST OF CHARACTERS:

John Brown…………………….Dressed in a worn suit, a white shirt with a standing collar and a cravat tie. He is a white man of medium height, short dark hair just starting to go gray. He is about 47 years old. He may give the impression of an aging, unsuccessful man. However, he has enormous passion and physical energy that illustrate his self confidence. Frederick Douglass…………….Dressed in similar fashion, but his clothing is more elegant and neater. He is a black man, about 29 or 30 years old. He is taller; and with his handsome looks and gentlemanly manners, his more thoughtful and educated speech, we may see him as the more successful of the two men. His fame precedes him. John Brown’s is yet to come.

TIME:

Late one night in November, 1847.

SETTING: John Brown’s home, Franklin Street, which was then called Hastings Street, in Springfield, Massachusetts AT RISE: DR there is a wooden table. Any number of wooden chairs may be placed around it, as JOHN BROWN has a large family; but two will suffice. UL is a plain wooden rocking chair, armless. It should, if possible, suggest the rocking chair that actually belonged to John Brown, now in the collection of the Springfield Museums. JOHN BROWN sits in his rocking chair, with a large rolled-up map on his lap. FREDERICK DOUGLASS sits in chair to the right of the table. The chair is pulled out, facing the audience, DOUGLASS rests his left arm on the table, looking out at the audience as he speaks, as if to himself.

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DOUGLASS (Brooding.) Last year in 1846, I finally purchased my freedom. After years of lecturing, and writing for the abolitionist cause…and friends donated the funds. But, some of my fellow abolitionists…criticized me. They said I should not have paid the money to my master because it demonstrated that he had the right to buy and sell me. BROWN (Wryly sarcastic.) Did those peace-loving abolitionist friends offer another way to convince him he did not have that right? Maybe they thought you should ask him nicely to let you go. DOUGLASS (From this point, DOUGLASS may address his lines to BROWN, as if he has just remembered BROWN is in the room.) I understand your sarcasm. But, I am as committed to non-violence as I am to the abolition of slavery, as I am to rights for women. How can I promote equality if I am not also committed to peace? BROWN You are a very young man. Oh, understand me, you impress me very much, Mr. Douglass. You are just the sort of role model all slaves and all freemen should have. You are nearly entirely self-taught, and yet you speak like a man with a university education. Still in your twenties and you write an autobiography about your youth as a slave and bold escape. You’ve just come back from a lecture tour in England. You have accomplished very much, Mr. Douglass, but will you now take a lesson from a much older man who has gained a different kind of wisdom? DOUGLASS Do you really think there is more you can teach me about slavery and abolition, Mr. Brown? BROWN About human nature, young, Sir. And yes, perhaps even about slavery and abolition. I invited you to my home, interrupting your latest lecture tour through New England, for a very urgent matter. DOUGLASS Is it to do with that scroll you brought from your office? I saw you remove it from your safe. It must be of great importance. BROWN It will be very important in time. For now, it is merely a secret. What did you think of my office over on Massasoit Street, and my warehouse?

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DOUGLASS I know nothing of the wool market, Sir. It seems you have a thriving business. You certainly work hard. BROWN I do work hard, but my business is not thriving. You see, we practice another kind of slavery here in the North, where working men are devoured by the Industrial Revolution, left with few rights and little pay. (Bitterly.) I am determined to beat the manufacturers at their own game for the benefit of the farmers and working men. I settled here in Springfield, only last year, for that purpose. While you were gaining your full emancipation by payment, Mr. Douglass, I was seeking a way to emancipate myself and other wool growers by getting a fair price. You have been more successful than I. DOUGLASS I knew you were a working man when I sat down to dine this evening with your family, so many mouths to feed, such humble quarters. BROWN (Amused.) Humble quarters? This house is the most luxurious home we’ve ever had. DOUGLASS I beg your pardon, Mr. Brown. I only meant… BROWN (Stands, paces behind DOUGLASS. Pacing is his habit when agitated. He holds the scroll behind his back). Never mind. I am not interested in a man who covers his words. I am more interested in a man who is able to cover his tracks. You and I have both aided runaway slaves. To be successful in doing so is to leave no evidence. The only evidence I have left is a sparsely furnished home. I have sold belongings to help escaping slaves. Hid them in my warehouse among the bales of wool. There is, Sir, a tunnel beneath this very house. DOUGLASS I don’t question your devotion to the abolitionist cause, Sir. I knew a little of you before I came here. You were much praised by my friends, the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet and Rev. J. W. Lougen. BROWN I recall the words of Reverend Garnet’s speech in 1843, to the slaves, “Strike for your lives! Let your motto be resistance!” This from a man who escaped slavery himself, and was unafraid to dare others to do the same. Like you did. You escaped from slavery long before you purchased your, shall we call it, piece of mind.

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DOUGLASS I was whipped and beaten as a slave, Mr. Brown. I purchased my piece of mind with my fists when I beat the bullying farmer my master hired me out to for money. My freedom was still another matter. BROWN I know about your autobiography. Now let us see if we can write another page. (BROWN unrolls his map on the table, standing behind it and facing audience. DOUGLASS glances at it.) DOUGLASS It is a map. BROWN These are the Appalachian mountains. They were placed here by God to aid the emancipation of slaves. (DOUGLASS stands, walks around his chair and looks at the map more closely, but dubiously. Attempting to help BROWN hold it flat, he gets a twinge of pain in his right hand.) DOUGLASS (Wincing, shaking his right hand and rubbing it with his left.) Pardon me. Four years ago on a speaking tour in Indiana, a mob attacked me. My right hand was broken. To this day it has not healed well. BROWN I’m sorry, Mr. Douglass. I know you have paid dearly for your stand on slavery. I also know that in that same year you led opposition to Reverend Garnet’s urging slaves to rebel. Let us see tonight if we can change your mind. DOUGLASS It is not rebellion I oppose, Mr. Brown, is the senseless use of violence which will bring catastrophe on the slaves. BROWN What I propose may be a compromise. DOUGLASS I have heard that you don’t compromise.

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BROWN It is true I do not join other people’s follies. See whether you think this is folly. Here the mountains are full of natural forts. They are full of good hiding places where a large number of men could be concealed, and baffle the enemy, and elude pursuit for a long time. I could take men into them and keep them there, in spite of all the efforts of Virginia to dislodge me, and drive me out. DOUGLASS (Amused) You say Virginia with contempt, as if you and that state have a bitter relationship. BROWN We may yet. DOUGLASS We are already using the best routes we can to conduct escaping slaves on the Underground Rail Road. If you are suggesting we recruit more conductors, I would agree that is all well, except the larger our secret society becomes the more difficult it will be to keep it secret. BROWN We can do more than help escaping slaves by twos or threes. We will invade a Southern state with, at first, twenty-five men of my choosing who will be stationed in separate groups of five in a southward line along the mountain range.

DOUGLASS You will invade a state with twenty-five men? BROWN (Impatient.) The goal is not to overpower state militias all at once. This is a new kind of battle, to strike terror. Do you recall the terror in the South caused by the Nat Turner rebellion? I consider Nat Turner to be as noble an American as George Washington, Sir. Just because his attempt failed ultimately, does not mean it did not have an effect or make a difference. (DOUGLASS looks at BROWN with new discovery, the first glint of admiration he will hold for BROWN the rest of his life.) DOUGLASS Nat Turner held Virginia off for five weeks, with fifty men.

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BROWN With such methods and the protection of these mountains, I can put an end to slavery in two years. DOUGLASS (Interested, but playing devil’s advocate.) They would employ bloodhounds to hunt you out of the mountains. BROWN (Excited.) They might attempt it, but we would whip them! We will raid nearby plantations, liberate slaves, and retreat with them to the mountains. Those who are strong and bold enough will join the band and be given weapons. Those who are unable to fight or too timid, will be sent north on a new Underground Rail Road I call…the Subterranean Pass Way. DOUGLASS (He barely suppresses a smile of ridicule.) Subterranean Pass Way. A grand name. Let me understand, the goal is to gradually increase your army of escaped slaves until they can resist military attack? And then? War? BROWN I am not adverse to the shedding of blood. Consider, the slaveholders will become frightened. It would show the Negro race in a new light both to the arrogant slave master and the apathetic Northerner who desires the end of slavery but will do nothing to stop it. As for the feelings of the escaped slaves, it will give them their manhood. DOUGLASS Mr. Brown, you are one of the few people I have ever met who is without prejudice. I say that most feelingly, Sir, and am astonished by it. I have been blessed with many friendships among white abolitionists, but I confess to noting that some are opposed merely to the theory of slavery. They feel sympathy toward the slave, but their wish to free the slave is not coupled with the opinion that the black race is equal to themselves. You are very different. BROWN (Teases him) Are you so easily impressed by sitting at my table while my children serve your dinner? DOUGLASS When I sailed back from England, the captain made me eat by myself away from the other passengers. You may laugh, Sir, but it is not small thing.

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BROWN I do not laugh, Sir. And I have no patience for bigots. But, I believe action does more good than talk. I have discussed this plan of mine with the black community here in Springfield. DOUGLASS What is their opinion? Do they approve? BROWN Many of them do. (Chuckles.) One in particular does not, Mr. Thomas, one of my warehouse workers. I haven’t been able to convince him. But even so, he is a good man. He is careful, as you are. DOUGLASS And you need to win over the careful people, Mr. Brown? BROWN Only if I cannot recruit enough who have no fear. DOUGLASS (Strolls away from the map and table, rubbing his right hand.) And where do you meet with the local community to openly discuss such dangerous plans? BROWN Our church, for the most part. DOUGLASS “Our” church? BROWN The Zion Methodist, the Sanford Street church. DOUGLASS You attend a Negro church? BROWN It’s a free country, Mr. Douglass. DOUGLASS (Chuckles in spite of himself.) It is as though your own soul has been pierced with the iron of slavery.

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BROWN The slave has ten times the number of friends among whites than he knows. Even if this plan fails and I and my men are driven from the mountains, slavery will be pushed to the forefront of the American conscience. Something will have to be done about it. (Proudly, perhaps with a touch of conceit.) Or something will have to be done about me. It is a good plan, Mr. Douglass. The worst that could happen is I should be killed. I have no better use for my life than to lay it down in the cause of the slaves. DOUGLASS (Silent for moment, holding BROWN’S gaze.) You would not be only one who is killed, Mr. Brown. Still, I’m intrigued by your plan. I will give my assent and cooperation as far as that may be of any value. But I must declare to you now my concern on the aftermath. BROWN The aftermath will be freedom. DOUGLASS Freedom for some, death for others. BROWN (Paces, raises his voice.) There will be a day of reckoning for this nation. DOUGLASS The aftermath I speak of is the issue of full rights under the law, beyond a bloody insurrection. I am worried about the day after. BROWN (Admonishing.) Surely when you made your escape you worried only about the moment. DOUGLASS (Angry, defensive.) The tools to those who can use them. Let every man work for the abolition of slavery in his own way. Tell me, when did you come to this fight? You were not born to it, like myself. BROWN Springfield is an abolitionist town. Here I have been introduced to a number of radical abolitionist newspapers and pamphlets, from Mr. William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, and others. Right here in town the Hamden County Antislavery Society was formed some nine years ago, in 1838. The meetings are often held in the First Congregational Church there in Court Square, led by the Reverend Dr. Samuel Osgood. As you will undoubtedly know, Mr. Douglass, the Underground Rail Road runs right up through Springfield and towns northward on the Connecticut Valley Line. Rev. Osgood is one of the conductors.

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10 DOUGLASS

Did you join? Are you a conductor? BROWN No. As I’ve stated before, Mr. Douglass, I am not a joiner of other people’s societies. DOUGLASS Follies. You said follies. BROWN Sometimes it amounts to the same thing. Oh no, I do not criticize the Underground Rail Road. I prefer to assist fugitive slaves on my own. I have spoken to many of them and asked them about their experiences. And, I believe that freeing them from slavery is not enough if they will face social oppression in the North. DOUGLASS I agree. BROWN (Paces with agitation as he speaks.) Speaking of follies, Mr. Douglass, I believe that using his freedom to squander his time and his energy, devouring silly novels and other miserable trash is a misuse of his freedom. Wasting money on tobacco, and emulating the wasteful habits of free white men to prove to themselves they are free only because they may copy these same habits. The freed slave must seek the company of only wise and good men, not tamely submitting to every bad principle that freedom allows. The black man must assume the responsibilities of a good citizen, a husband, a father, a brother, a neighbor, a friend as God requires everyone. DOUGLASS On the one hand you urge them to reform wasteful habits, and on the other hand, you urge them to violence. Is this being a good citizen? BROWN (Angry. He does not like to be challenged.) From the Book of Hebrews, chapter 9, “almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (DOUGLASS considers BROWN silently, and they hold each other’s stare a moment. Then BROWN takes a deep breath, seems to pull himself together, and brushes his hand through his hair, and if to shake off his great agitation and maintain discipline. He returns sullenly to his rocking chair.)

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DOUGLASS You have other books in your small library, I’ve noticed. A book about Napoleon, and about Oliver Cromwell. BROWN (Looks up at him shrewdly, with slight sneer.) You would like to be assured my ambition for the slaves is not a mask of ambition for myself. You think I take these military geniuses for a model? DOUGLASS I am not a seer into men’s souls, Mr. Brown. And an ex-slave knows to take help from any source. I know you hate slavery, and unlike many polite talkers I have met, you are willing to risk your property and your life for it. (Sadly.) I begin to see that the abolition of slavery may require something more than pamphlets and sermons. And lectures. It may, heaven help us, require the measures you describe. BROWN I have little hope that slavery will ever be abolished by moral or political means. I know the proud and hard hearts of the slaveholders. And they would never consent to give up the slave until they feel a big stick about their heads. DOUGLASS We will talk more about this, Sir. This is a discussion that cannot be concluded in one night. You must come to visit me and my family at my home in upstate New York. BROWN I would enjoy that. Thank you, Sir. (Takes out a pocket watch.) It is nearly three o’clock in the morning. DOUGLASS Seven hours we’ve been discussing the fate of the nation. I think you may have changed my life. BROWN I know I have kept you from sleep. DOUGLASS The town is quiet. The whole town of Springfield is sleeping. BROWN These whole United States are sleeping. But, they will wake to thunder.

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(DOUGLASS retrieves the map from the table, and carries it, rolled up, in his hands. He smacks it like a bat against his palm a couple times, and then walks downstage, slowly pacing DC, holding the map behind his back the way BROWN did earlier when he paced, and addresses the audience, as if delivering one of his lectures. BROWN sits in his chair like a statue.) DOUGLASS Less than two years later, John Brown left Springfield. His business failed, and he devoted most of his time after that to the abolition of slavery. He came back here a few years later when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. He formed a kind of militia here among the free black people to fight any slave catcher that came north to retrieve escaped slaves. But, there was no danger here. So, Mr. Brown went elsewhere to find some. Before he left Springfield for good, John Brown gave a bible to his church, which later changed its name to St. John’s. That old rocking chair he gave to the mother of Mr. Thomas, his warehouse worker who did not agree with his Subterranean Pass Way plan. They have it now in the Springfield Museums, as well as his safe and his desk. John Brown went to Kansas, and led a bloody massacre, but that was only the rehearsal for what came next. Captain Brown, as he was called by then, took a band of men, including own sons, and attacked the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia to steal guns. They caught him and held him for trial. Two of his sons were shot to death in the raid. He had asked me to take part in the raid. I could not. He thought I betrayed him by refusing. BROWN (As if to himself.) We failed. That we owe to the famous Mr. Frederick Douglass. DOUGLASS He did not end slavery, but he was a touchstone to the war that ended slavery. The South really began it by attacking a United States military post. When Virginia hanged John Brown on November 2, 1859, the church bells rang in Springfield, Massachusetts for a requiem. The editor of the Springfield Republican, Mr. Samuel Bowles, Jr. called John Brown a hero. His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine. It was the burning sun to my taper light. I could live for the slaves, but he could die for them. (Begins to walk DR as he speaks and then around the table, walking slowly UL towards BROWN.)

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DOUGLASS (CONTINUED) What would he think, I wonder, if he had lived only a few more years to see the end of slavery? And not only that, but to see black men in soldiers’ uniforms, carrying guns and fighting for the Union. (He stops in front of BROWN.) Would John Brown be pleased? Or, would he be angry that we didn’t follow his plan, his way? (Puts the map in BROWN’S hands. BROWN looks up at him, and takes the map.) BLACKOUT. END OF PLAY.