“I’ll be John Brown’s slew foot,” a euphemism for “I’ll be damned,” makes reference to the abolitionist riot leader John Brown, who was said to be damned after he was hanged. Slew in this sense means...
I’ll be John Brown! and I’ll be John Browned! are mild oaths that go back to John Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. The abolitionist planned to arm enslaved people for revolt and was caught and hanged. Depending...