John Anthony Copeland

John Anthony Copeland, Jr.
John Copeland in 1859, drawing from a newspaper, likely made during his trial
Born	1834 (1834) Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Died	December 16, 1859(1859-12-16) (aged 24–25) Harper's Ferry, Virginia
Cause of death	Hanging
Education	Oberlin College
Known for	Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Raid on Harpers Ferry

John Anthony Copeland, Jr. (1834–1859) was born a free black in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1843 when he was a child, his family moved north to Oberlin, Ohio, where he later attended Oberlin College. He became involved in abolitionist and antislavery activities, and participated in the successful Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. Copeland joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, was captured, convicted of murder and conspiracy to incite slaves to rebellion, and hanged on December 16, 1859.

Copeland's parents were John Anthony Copeland, who was born into slavery in 1808, near Raleigh, North Carolina, and Delilah Evans, born a free black in 1809. Copeland, Sr. was emancipated as a boy about 1815. As a young man, he married Evans and they lived near Hillsboro, North Carolina until 1843, when the family fled racial persecution, first to Cincinnati, Ohio and then to Oberlin. Some of his wife's brothers and their families also settled there. The Copelands lived on the southeast corner of Professor and Morgan Streets.

The son became a carpenter and briefly attended Oberlin College. His high quality of literacy and self-expression was demonstrated by later letters to his family (see below). As a young man, he became involved in the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society. Together with his maternal uncles, Henry and Wilson Bruce Evans, in September, 1858, Copeland was one of the thirty-seven men involved in the incident known as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, to free John Price, a runaway slave who had been captured and held by authorities under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. The men freed the slave and helped him escape to Canada. In a negotiated deal between state and federal officials, only two men were tried for their part. They received light sentences, in part due to Charles Henry Langston's eloquence.