Reinterpretation/Recontextualization Frameworks. Explore definitions here.
Introduction
Historic Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (formerly Virginia), witnessed the first major event leading to the Civil War. A large portion of the town has been designated a National Historical Park (NHP) and is managed by the National Park Service (NPS).
In 1859, abolitionist John Brown organized a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry with the intent to arm African Americans and inspire others to join his cause. Heyward Shepherd, a free African American, would ironically become the first casualty of Brown’s raid. This tragedy was later understood as the climax of an interconnected series of events that would involve civil rights leaders, officials, and key figures in history.
The Heyward Shepherd memorial is located a few steps away from the John Brown memorial. Funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), the medium-sized gray granite marker portrays Shepherd as a martyr to the abolitionists’ “attempted insurrection.” For this reason, the memorial has sparked controversy since its inception.
Both memorials mentioned in this case study are property of the NPS, and several NPS sites within Harpers Ferry are integral to this case study. Visitors tracing the history of Brown’s raid can start by exploring the hills of Murphy Farm, where the fort occupied by Brown was reconstructed and opened to the public in 1895; examining the works of civil rights leaders at Storer College, a historically Black college; and immersing themselves in Harpers Ferry’s richly atmospheric Lower Town. It is in these places that the stories of Brown’s raid and the death of Heyward Shepherd are told through stone, rails, and markers.
Section 1: Historical Context
Heyward Shepherd was well known throughout Harpers Ferry’s Lower Town. He was a relatively prosperous man who worked as a porter at the town’s train station and tended the station when the station master, Harpers Ferry Mayor Fontaine Beckham, was absent.
News of Brown’s plan to raid the federal armory had been leaked prior to the raid, but Brown remained determined to seize the weapons. Shepherd was at the train station when Brown and his men approached Harpers Ferry the night of October 16, 1859. Accounts vary as to the precise details of how and why Shepherd crossed paths with the raiders. They agree, however, that at about 1:30 a.m. on October 17, shortly after the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) express train arrived from Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), Shepherd walked to the Potomac River railroad bridge and was confronted by two of Brown’s armed men. Ignoring their order to halt, he turned away, but the raiders fired, striking Shepherd in the back just below the heart. Although seriously injured, Shepherd made his way back to the railroad office. He lingered there “in great agony” before dying early on the afternoon of October 17. Both the railroad and bridge that were present in the shooting of Heyward Shepherd are still in use today.
News of the incident spread quickly: Passengers on the express train immediately notified the president of B&O Railroad, who then informed the President of the United States. Marines were sent to quell the uprising. By the end of the revolt, ten of Brown’s men had been killed and five had escaped. Six, including Brown, were hanged in the ensuing weeks and months.
Section 2: Creation of the Monument
The problematic nature of the Heyward Shepherd monument lies in its inception. In the aftermath of Brown’s raid, the public had differing opinions on the event’s significance. Some believed that Brown’s raid, while morally justified, had failed in its goal of igniting civil war. Other observers regarded Brown as simply a terrorist or madman (Finkelman, 2011).
In 1905, The United Daughters of the Confederacy announced a commission to immortalize Heyward Shepherd in a monument that portrays the treatment and willful service of enslaved people as an honorable venture. Historian Akiko Ochiai writes, “…The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), in cooperation with the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), concentrated their efforts on propagating the Lost Cause version of their war memories” (Ochiai, 2012).
In denouncing John Brown’s goals and ideals, the Confederacy created a platform on which the Lost Cause narrative could develop in Harpers Ferry. In 1930, The UDC received permission from the Harpers Ferry Town Council to place the memorial on town property.
The monument to Heyward Shepherd was unveiled on October 10, 1931. Unlike many other Confederate monuments, it was not located in a highly visible area. Visitors will find the surprisingly modest memorial on the corner of a large brick building near the fort that Brown and his men had occupied. The chiseled text praises Shepherd as exemplifying “the faithfulness of thousands of negros,” despite his standing in Lower Town as a respected freedman.
Section 3: Site Selection
The first question that must be asked about the Heyward Shepherd monument is why it was placed in its location. Harpers Ferry is a multi-faceted historical site, and careful analysis is required for understanding the full context of the monument.
The significance of the Heyward Shepherd monument was shaped by the events that occurred before and after John Brown’s raid. The fort that Brown occupied survived intense fighting during the Civil War and was later purchased, reconstructed, and opened to the public by Alexander Murphy on his farmland in 1895. It became a site of pilgrimage for members of the Niagara Movement in 1908, prior to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As a nearby NPS marker recounts: “The fort — a symbol of freedom to those once enslaved — became a shrine and helped inspire early civil rights advancements for African Americans” (The Historical Marker Database, 2021).
The Lost Cause narrative, including false depictions of slavery, continues to be seen in icons of the Confederacy. These monuments of oppression are intended to create an idealized image of the South and to recast the Civil War as a conflict over states’ rights. Similar approaches can be seen in Arlington National Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial (recently removed), which immortalizes the Southern forces as tragic heroes while presenting racist images of the “faithful slave.”
Archival evidence shows that the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans commissioned and erected the monument to Heyward Shepherd at least in part to portray John Brown’s raid as an “insurrection” and to argue for the moral legitimacy of the Lost Cause. There is also evidence that various groups expressed disapproval of the monument and its message, including then secretary of the NAACP Walter White, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Baltimore newspaper Afro-American.
Section 4: Framework – Reinterpretation/Recontextualization
There have been several documented attempts to recontextualize the events surrounding John Brown’s raid and the monument to Heyward Shepherd. On May 30, 1881, Frederick Douglass focused on Brown’s sacrifice in an address given on the campus of Storer College. The address reads in part:
If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery. If we look over the dates, places and men for which this honor is claimed, we shall find that not Carolina, but Virginia, not Fort Sumter, but Harpers Ferry, and the arsenal, not Col. Anderson, but John Brown, began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes and compromises (NPS, 2015).
During the dedication ceremony for the Heyward Shepherd monument on October 10, 1931, Pearl Tatten, director of the Storer College choir, spoke her piece, to the dismay of many in the audience. As the National Park Service documented in 1995, Tatten said:
I am the daughter of a Connecticut volunteer, who wore the blue, who fought for the freedom of my people, for which John Brown struck the first blow. Today we are looking forward to the future, forgetting those things of the past. We are pushing forward to a larger freedom, not in the spirit of the black mammy but in the spirit of new freedom and rising youth (Johnson, 1995).
In 1995, the National Park Service introduced an interpretive wayside that included a brief description of the events surrounding Heyward Shepherd’s death, the monument’s dedication ceremony, and the UDC’s quoted reasoning for erecting the monument. It also acknowledged the controversy surrounding the monument that has endured since the dedication ceremony (Shackel 2003). The wayside’s second panel presented “another perspective” using a quote from W.E.B. Du Bois’ writing in response to the Shepherd monument (ibid., 144). This recontextualization effort was executed without engaging stakeholders and was ultimately opposed by both the West Virginia chapter of the NAACP and southern heritage groups. The interpretative wayside has since been replaced.
As of January 2024, Pearl Tatten’s words are featured on an informational panel adjacent to the Heyward Shepherd memorial. The panel includes the following information:
‘I just had to speak out’- Pearl Tatten
Hearing praise for ‘faithful slaves’ during the dedication of the Heyward Shepherd memorial (to your left), Pearl Tatten interrupted the ceremony. ‘I am the daughter of a [Union soldier]… who fought for the freedom of my people, for which John Brown struck the first blow.’
Tatten challenged the faithful slave stereotype. ‘We are pushing forward to a larger freedom…’ The audience was shocked. ‘Confederate Daughters gape as she lauds John Brown,’ reported the Baltimore Afro-American (NPS 2024).
More recent approaches to interpretation of the monument have sought to affirm that John Brown’s actions were for the benefit of enslaved African Americans and that Brown played a crucial role in the abolition of slavery. The public historians and academics engaged in providing interpretation of NPS historic sites and places play a key role in the evolving narrative surrounding the Heyward Shepherd memorial.
As Michael Hosking, curator at the Harpers Ferry NHP, explains, the interpretive program for Harpers Ferry is considering ways to pull the monument away from its association with the Lost Cause so that the stories of men and women like Pearl Tatten can be further developed. “Yes, if I lived in this area at the time [Brown would be] a terrorist,” Hosking says. “But looking at this after the fact, do the means justify the ends? We spin that question around [for people to consider]. We try not to sanitize [history]. We try to let the public decide.”
Historic spaces in Harpers Ferry continue to invigorate the story of what took place in 1859. Together with the adjacent sites of Murphy’s Farm and Storer College, the monument to Heyward Shepherd provides a piece of context for a pivotal event leading up to the Civil War. However, stakeholders continue to call for the removal of the Heyward Shepherd memorial from public view due its direct intentions to perpetuate the “faithful slave” and Lost Cause myth. Recontextualization/reinterpretation has been deemed an insufficient method for resolving the monument’s controversy by those who advocate for its removal.
References
Digital History. (2021). Frederick Douglass’s Oration on the Subject of John Brown. Digital History.https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/brown/douglass3.cfm.
Finkelman, P. (2011). A Look Back at John Brown. Prologue Magazine, 43(1). National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html.
Historical Marker Database, The. (2021). Harpers Ferry History: Heyward Shepherd — Another Perspective. HMdb.org. Retrieved from https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=171726.
Johnson, M. (1995). Heyward Shepherd Memorial and John Brown Fort Tablet. Special History Study Draft 3:HFR-300A. IRMA. 25-26. PDF. https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/583509.
National Park Service (NPS). 2024. “Information Panel: I Just Had to Speak Out. Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.” January 12, 2024. https://home.nps.gov/places/information-panel-i-just-had-to-speak-out.htm.
— (2015). Frederick Douglass at Harpers Ferry. National Park Service. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/frederick-douglass-at-harpers-ferry.htm.
Ochiai, A. (2012). Continuing Skirmishes in Harpers Ferry: Entangled Memories of Heyward Shepherd and John Brown. The Japanese Journal of American Studies, (23), 7-26. Retrieved from http://www.jaas.gr.jp/jjas/PDF/2012/01_007-026.pdf
Shackel, Paul. 2003. “Heyward Shepherd: The Faithful Slave Memorial.” Historical Archaeology 2003, 37 (3).
