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151 . John Brown - Part II: Heroism is Treason · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to the second part of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a two part special on Who Did What Now? The
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: History podcast. It's not your history class with me, your host,
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  Speaker 1: Katie Charlwood, History harlot and reader of books. And you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: may be thinking, Katie, wow, what do you mean. It's
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the second part of a two part special. This is
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: your regular posting day. It is, it is. But here's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the thing. This is the second part of John Brown,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the American Hero, the very first man to be convicted
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  Speaker 1: and executed of treason in the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason that this episode has been released today
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and not Thursday or Friday like I initially had intended,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: is because I was covering American history for this month
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and I was planning to discuss the Great Molasses Flood.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: But with recent events in Texas with flash flooding and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the loss of life, it didn't feel appropriate. Like morally,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Effie was kind of how I best way I can
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: describe it, because there's nothing wrong technically about me putting
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: out the content that I planned to put out. But
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: it's like when I was I was doing the Beverly
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: House Spy that was supposed to come out earlier than
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I did, but I pulled it right before I except
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: that one was recorded, and I pulled it because it
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: talks about like Hiroshima and Nakazaki and like these mass
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: sort of bombings of civilians, and literally the night before
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: there was mass bombings of civilians in Palestine, and so
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I pulled the episode because it's like no, like no, no,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: like it's just not right. It's not right, and I
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: just couldn't bring myself to it. And you can call
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: me a wimp or whatever. I don't give a flying
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: fuck because children are dead who had no part in
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: any of this nonsense. And this is why don't say
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you don't care about politics, because you have to care
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: about politics. People think it's some abstract thing out there
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: in the etho that doesn't affect anybody, right, But it's
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: only men in suits and people in hats arguing right, No,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: it's fucking not right. It's not. It affects everything in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: your daily life. It affects your pension, it affects your jobs,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it affects your legal status in the country. Everything everything
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: is in is at stake. How the weather gets out,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: how reports get emergency funding for emergency services. All of
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: this comes down to politics. And this I'd said it
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: before and I'll say it again. Community. Community is your
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: basis for politics. It's your basis for your resistance to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: fight to win. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Kay,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: quit your jibber jubber in fact me, In fact you,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I will. And we don't have to get our source
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: on because we already covered it in the last episode.
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  Speaker 1: So where were we total? I don't think we're in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Kansas anymore because we haven't gotten there yet. I use
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it in comfortably good. Then let's begin. It's eighteen fifty
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: four and the Kansas Nebraska Act is passed. And what
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: this act did is it put the power in states
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hand to choose whether they were a free state or
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  Speaker 1: a slave state, and so there would be a vote
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  Speaker 1: in The vote was supposed to happen in November specifically,
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  Speaker 1: and they were supposed to give people one to vote
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  Speaker 1: to make it like a free state or a slave state.
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  Speaker 1: So on so forth. Now pro levels, pro levels, pro
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  Speaker 1: slavery people, pro slavers. I feel like that's still an
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: accurate term. So they were like, oh great, we need
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  Speaker 1: to make this like a slave state, which, of course
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  Speaker 1: the anti slavery people were like, oh, dear God, no,
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  Speaker 1: let's not let this happen because if this becomes a
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  Speaker 1: slave state, the next date that votes could become a
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  Speaker 1: slave state, and then you know, everything we fought for
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  Speaker 1: it's just gone down the drain. So what happens is
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  Speaker 1: like it seems like things are going well. You know,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of pro abolition parties going on. There's
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of things happening right, but a lot of
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  Speaker 1: pro slavery people are not feeling great about this. And
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  Speaker 1: so what they start doing is they start bringing people
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  Speaker 1: in who are like pro slavery, so pro slavery farmers
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  Speaker 1: and other such colonists. So they're all coming down and
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  Speaker 1: just infiltrating these states. Yeah, and so you've got abolitionist groups.
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  Speaker 1: They start sending sort of pro abolition people like to
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  Speaker 1: counterbalance this so that when the vote comes, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they will have lived there for what however long a
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  Speaker 1: period of time you need to live in a state
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  Speaker 1: to vote a month? Is it a month? I feel
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  Speaker 1: like you should be more, but whatever, once you're there,
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  Speaker 1: you can vote. And so they're trying to like fill
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: people and they're trying to Ah, so I just remember
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the cult, the cult, the Regination's yes, yes, So there
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: was this whole vote in was it the Dolls and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the near Portland, Oregon? And so the reagination sare was
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  Speaker 1: this cult just started busting in all these homeless people
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to bring them in so that they had lived there
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  Speaker 1: long enough to be able to vote, to vote against
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  Speaker 1: the townspeople, so that the originations could stay. That was
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: like eighty four, ninety eighty four. Look at me, I
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: remember to date. Go meet. So anyway back in Kansas,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: couple couple a century before, a century or so before, right,
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  Speaker 1: they are bringing people in on both sides to try
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and like settle the land so that there's enough people
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  Speaker 1: like one way or the other to swing the vote
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  Speaker 1: to their favor. And in a move that will shock
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  Speaker 1: absolutely no one, the Browns decided they were going to
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: move there. So John Brown's sons they had moved down
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  Speaker 1: to Kansas Territory. Three of his sons head out first.
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  Speaker 1: So you've got Owen, Frederick, and Salmon. Yep, the name
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: is Salmon. Maybe it's salmon. I'm gonna say salmon because
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I preferred Spanish way of saying it. So so there's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: there's a musical waitress and there's a song like You're
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: never everere ever ever ere ever getting rid of me.
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  Speaker 1: And in the song he has a cat called Sardine.
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  Speaker 1: Now in this Spanish version the cat is called Salomon,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and they do it in that way like the original
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Felix the Cat cartoons. I love the original Felix the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Cat cartoons. They're like surrealist cartoon that somebody thought this
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: kid needs to watch surrealist cartoons from the forties or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: It's that. I love that old tinmy cartoon vibe though,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: it's like very much my jam. That's why I like
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Betty Boop. I like old Timmy Berry Boop because that's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: just like those horror and Figuro. She's got a cat
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  Speaker 1: called Figuro. Like that's just cool, right, Baby Boop is cool.
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  Speaker 1: I love Beatty Boop. I love Clara pel the Cow,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I don't care. I love oh Oh, Felix the cat.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I love that shit, you know that, the cat with
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  Speaker 1: the clock with the tail that moves. I want one
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  Speaker 1: of those because I am a basic bitch. So yes,
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  Speaker 1: I love that very much. So anyway, the three boys
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  Speaker 1: they head down and they settle in Kansas, territory. They
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: are then followed by John Junior and Jason. Now they're
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: traveling by boat in the South, so they're surrounded by Southerners.
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  Speaker 1: They are seen as Northerners, and so a lot of
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  Speaker 1: the people on the boats with them they are pro slavery.
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  Speaker 1: And so there is a cholera outbreak on this boat
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  Speaker 1: kills the prize because it's the past and disease is
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  Speaker 1: our wife. So they get calera or somebody gets cholera.
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  Speaker 1: A bunch of them get cholera, and then Jason's son
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  Speaker 1: passes away from cholera. I remember these are all Christian people,
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  Speaker 1: so they're like proper burial kind of people, right. So
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  Speaker 1: Jason and John they bury Jason's son. But when they're
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: doing that, as they are getting this whole grave prepared,
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  Speaker 1: when they're burying the child, the captain, a Southerner captain
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  Speaker 1: who did not really like these ablishist boys. Yeah, they
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: just like leave before the men can get back on board,
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  Speaker 1: Like they leave them behind deliberately. Needless to say, it
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  Speaker 1: takes Jason and John a little bit longer to each Kansas.
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  Speaker 1: So at this point you've got John Junior, Jason Owen, Frederick,
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  Speaker 1: and salmon. They're in Texas. So John Brown himself like
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  Speaker 1: he he wants to go to Kansas, but he doesn't
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  Speaker 1: go just yet for a couple of reasons, the first
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of which being his wife has just given birth to
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: like a baby do and so he's staying home I
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  Speaker 1: think probably just for that for a little bit, because
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  Speaker 1: in his own way, he loves his children and so
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  Speaker 1: he's there with them. And also John he felt like
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  Speaker 1: his calling was elsewhere. So while his sons are in Kansas,
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  Speaker 1: like they are updating him, John Jr. Especially, he's keeping,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a top of all the information and he's
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  Speaker 1: sending it back to his dad and he's like, there's
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  Speaker 1: rumblings happening, and you know, shit's about to kick off effectively,
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  Speaker 1: and this is actually the start of what's called Bleeding Kansas,
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  Speaker 1: which is a hm hmm. It is a state level
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  Speaker 1: civil war effectively, and that's it's like on the verge
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  Speaker 1: of happening at this point. So John Jr. He's contacting
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  Speaker 1: his dad and he's like, Hey, stuff's gonna happen. We
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  Speaker 1: could really do is with some support, you know, and
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  Speaker 1: we need you know, we need arms because we gotta
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  Speaker 1: be reading and so Yeah, John goes round. He raises
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  Speaker 1: money for weapons and an abolish convention in Syracuse, which
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  Speaker 1: is in New York State. I almost had a show
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: there but it didn't work out. So yeah, he goes
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  Speaker 1: he buys guns, and he does this and decides to
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  Speaker 1: deliver them to Kansas himself, stopping off to give speeches
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  Speaker 1: on the way. So he stops in like Chicago, Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're close to each other on
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  Speaker 1: a map, but he just starts working his way down
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  Speaker 1: towards Kansas. And he does it by like raising money,
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  Speaker 1: doing speeches and buying guns, and so he does this
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  Speaker 1: all the way down and by the time he reaches Kansas,
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  Speaker 1: he has all of the weapons. Right, He's got guns,
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  Speaker 1: He's got buckets and buckets and bullets. Like there's revolvers,
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  Speaker 1: there's pistols. I wouldn't be so if there was a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: musket in there somewhere. But like he's also got broadswords,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: double edged broadswords, Like what else is what else did
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: he bring? Like part of me is convinced that there's
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: like a mason there somewhere, Like the ball with the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: spikes on it, they're like a shot put bit like
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: stabby and so yes. John eventually arrives in Texas with
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  Speaker 1: the essentials guns, swords and buckets and buckets and bullets,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and when he gets there, he finds that things are
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: not going well for them. So like the crops are
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: trying to grow, are are not growing, Like they're rotting
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: in the fields. In John Junior's family, including his wife,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Wealthy Hotchkiss. If I find a fun name, y'all are
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: hearing about it? Okay, Wealthy Hotchkiss. He married healthy Hotchkiss.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: So she's got malaria. The family's got malaria. Everybody is sick.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: So they're not really off to the best of starts.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And so it's a couple months later they're all there
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: now and November rolls around and the Free State Party
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: was drafting a constitution, and like John, he's really positive
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: about this. He's really optimistic. And then he thinks, like
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: he thinks this is good, like you know, phase one complete.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But there's this very rich slave owner, David Rice Atchison,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: who convinces other slave owners from Missouri to like cross
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  Speaker 1: the border and just like make slavery a thing in Kansas,
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  Speaker 1: just like come over here, live for like a month
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and then beboop, slavery's here, and this fellow Attison,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: he is grease and palms. He's doing deals, he's getting
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: shit repealed, you know, stuff that kept the balance between
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: like free states and slave states. Like there's a bunch
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of illegal things happening, and he doesn't care because he
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: just wants slavery to be accepted everywhere. And so he's
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: not only promoting, you know, vote you know, pro slavery,
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  Speaker 1: but he's also you know, promoting violence. He's like, if
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: if you're not voting, first of all, vote if you
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: were a man, because men can vote, but also feel
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: free to stab someone, like you could shive a bitch.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: It's fine, Like as long as they're going to vote
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: for the other side, don't just like shove anybody. But like,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the abolitionists, the free step people, blah blah
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: blah blah shangum. And so people from Missouri had crossed
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the border in their wagons full of guns and booze,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and the people were also full of booze. And and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: yet it was not it was not a great time
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: for anyone who was not them. And so basically there's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a bunch of like fraudulent voting happen, and there's what
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  Speaker 1: like over seventeen hundred fraudulent votes cast in the eighteen
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: fifty four like election in Kansas. So basically someone's getting
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: elected to Congress and it's voted upon, but there's a
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: bunch of like extra people there voting away. And then
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: it gets worse because, like the following year in May,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the pro slavery groups were like eighty percent of the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: recorded votes, and they terrorized polling officials who tried to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: stop them. And so basically they tried pushing forward these
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: like pro slavery laws, and also they tried to make
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: like make being anti slavery at criminal events. So say,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: for example, you were to protest against slavery, you would
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: have an anti slavery publication on you perhaving it is
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a newspaper or a magazine which basically says slavery is bad, right,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: things you should do to prevent slavery, okay, or people
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be enslaved. Weekly you get caught with any of that,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: they were hoping to put you in jail for two
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to five years, okay, or present for two to five years.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: It was five years labor for writers or publishers of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: like abolitionist anti slavery writings and anyone helping slaves revoked.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: That just strain up the death penalty and talking just
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: like being anti slavery and saying it aloud, that's a felony, Like,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: that's a felony offense. What what? Now? It is very
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: difficult to like enforce laws like this. It is not easy.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: But the whole point that these laws exist, it is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to make it uncomfortable and tense and fearsome for the
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: people there. It's to make it more difficult for them.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And then and then you've got all these I don't know,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: drunkards and wagons. Right, so you have these guys who've
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: crossed the border from Missouri. They're like angry and rude
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and causing a ruckus and they're usually drunk, and they're
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: called like the border ruffians, which sounds like a very
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: soft name for what they're doing, right, And to combat
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: this class and I think lower middle class people were
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: being sent down from like anti slavery societies up in
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: like the Northeast, like they were all being sent down,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and so they get sent down to just kind of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: like balance it out and to counteract this. However, it
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't a hunky story because because even even within itself,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: like there's infighting. What what the people who think they're
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: morally just are inviting? Are you exerians? Yeah? Yeah, So
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: basically you have free status yeah, and you have abolitionists.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So the abolitionists are like everybody is free and equal,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: like yay, and the free staters are like everyone is
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: free but not necessarily equal because like, yeah, everybody is
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: free here, but I'm sorry, black people, you're not allowed here. Okay,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: you're not allowed on this land though we have stolen
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: from other people. Okay, it's ours now and you're not
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: allowed to be here. Like that's that's the vibe, right,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: like that that's what they're putting out and it's it's wild.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So they're like, we want everyone to be free, but
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: we want them over there, okay. Sidebar. This reminds me
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of something that my old geography teacher told me way
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: back when, and he was chatting about how people want
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to do the right thing, like they want to do
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the morally right thing, however not when it directly affects them.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And we were chatting about travelers. So travelers are so
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the traveling community in Ireland they travel. One could say
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: it is the defending feature of travelers. They travel, right,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So there we go, they travel from place to place.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: They are nomadic in nature. Yeah, and so then you'll
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: have a subgroup called the like the settled traveler. Okay,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: so that would be someone who doesn't travel but is
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: from this particular group in society, right, And so a
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: lot of areas we're being like established for setled travelers
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: throughout Ireland because the government doesn't want people to be nomadic.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It wants to know where you are so it can
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: track you. That's very conspiracy theory, but like that's basically
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: it's like how they go, Well, this population has this,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and this has this and this needs this resources. This
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: is me being very optimistic, get out the government. But
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: like there's reasons, Okay, not saying those reasons are always great,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: but the reasons exist, okay. And my geography teacher was
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: like everybody says, oh, you want a place for them
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to live, but you don't want them living next to you,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And it's like this sort of your moral code is like, oh,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: but I want them to have safety and security and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: yah yeada YadA, all right, Well, then don't you have
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that empty house next to you, or don't you have
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that big localand next to you, and like why don't
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: you want them beside you? And I was like, I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: remember I used to live in a field at the time,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't want any neighbors. That's
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: why I live in a field. I had a house
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: in the field. I want to make that clearer, like
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: it was a house in a field, but like I
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: had no neighbors, Like I was lucky to have a neighbor,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Like I barely saw anybody anywhere. It was great, it
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: was great. It was properly countryside seclusion. Yeah. But anyway,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's this whole deal of with these guys.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, we want them to be free, just
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: not free here, Like they can have freedom, just not
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: on this patcha this is my patch ador. Yeah, And
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: so that's its own thing. And I think like Oregon
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: was an Oregon estate that just like made it illegal
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to be black and an Oregon Oh no, wonder everybody
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: died at this century. AnyWho, back to the story, they're
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: in Kansas and all this shit just starts to hit
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the fan. And so basically anti slavery and pro slavery
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: forces are are fighting with each other for a good
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: two years, right, a good two soldiers, and it's called
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: bleeding Kansas. Like it's not it's not super for anybody.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: So then you have the next Free State Convention and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: there's another constitution that gets drafted that has an exclusion
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: clause specifically for black people. And of course it gets
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: past because the majority of people there are like, you know,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to put businessmen and quotes, so like, yeah,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you enjoy the fruits of your labor because
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: it's not your labor, and so there's less abolitionists and
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: so it passes. And yeah, like even the towns within
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the state become like one town is like a free
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: state town. Ellwin's a pro slavery town. And and this
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: leads to a lot of people being afraid to speak up.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: People not like the Browns. So you've got John Brown
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Junior and his wife Walthy, like they get asked, you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: are you like pro slavery, anti slavery, And he's like, bitch,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: what the fuck, No, No, we're not just freestales, we're abolitionists.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: And his wife Wealthy Hodgekiss being the absolute boss that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: she is. She says, perhaps we will all get shot
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: for disobeying laws, but you might as well die here
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: for a good cause. And like this is this is bold, right,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: this is incredibly bold. Because the border ruffians are out
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and about. They're harassing people. They're attacking people like they
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: are going full Like one dude he gets like a
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: senator or something. He gets beaten with a cane like
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in a courthouse. Abolitionists and freestaters are being shot, they're
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: being kidnapped, they're being they're being kidnapped and tired and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: feathered and then murdered. They're being falsely accused of murder.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Like one such dude, he's basically falsely accused of his
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: roommates murder roommate roommate by okay, okay. So anyway, he
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: gets arrested a bunch of like freestate dudes. They break
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: them out of jail and takes him to Lawrence, which
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is like a town. So because of this, the sheriff
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: asks the Kansas governor for three thousand troops and to
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: basically enforce a lot of pro slavery laws that so
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: many people had been breaking. And the Governor's like absolutely
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent and so yeah, and so these border
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Offians they make their way down towards Lawrence. So they're
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: they're basically a bunch of drunk fellas with no like
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: military experience or whatever, right, and they're gathered around the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Wickeristol River. There's twelve hundred of them, right, and they
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: are just like gathering south of Lawrence. And so in
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: there Lawrence, like the residents of Lawrence, they basically try
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and make their own little army. And you've got like
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Charles Robinson and James Lane, who are free State leaders,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: like they're trying to negotiate with the governor, the pro
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: slabory governor at the Free State Hotel and Lawrence, which
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: went surprisingly well after they got him drunk on Brandy. Right, So,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: like John had been appointed, you know, captain of the
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: first Brigade of Kansas Volunteers, the Liberty Gods. We are
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the liberty gods. We got liberty, and so he was
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: in charge of them, and he was ready to like
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: attack the Missouri Army. But then, like for Robinson and Lane,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: they managed to get it outsorted without massive, massive murder.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: But yes, Governor Shannon pest as a far on Brandy,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, no worries, will like stop really
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: enforcing those pro like slavery laws, will disband all of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: these like forces that we've got around the border. Hey, yeah,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: that's just it's fine. It's fine. And so that happens,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and then winter kicks in. It is snowing, things are frozen,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: they run out of food, and so everyone is just
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: ill and struggling, like there's frostbite, insanity. That was genuine
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: wind of the things written down, and a whole bunch
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of other winter conditions. Now, shockingly enough, the Brown family
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: all survive the winter. It's election day in eighteen fifty six,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and border Ruffians are so determined to ensure a pro
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: slavery government that they physically hack a free state leader
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to death, like hatchets and knives, like axes and stabbing,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: hack and slash, and so just major violence starts erupting
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in the town of Leavenworth. After violently murdering him, they
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: leave his mutilated corpse at the front door of his house,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: where it is discovered by his wife. Like there's a
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: level of cruelty to that, Like you're determined cruelty. And
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: so this news reaches John Brown, who naturally isn't the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: happiest of this information, and so he, you know, he
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: writes to his wife that things are not great and
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: things things are a bit teds there in Kansas, especially
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: because of President Franklin Pierce, who was very much pro slavery,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and he declared opponents of the pro slavery government treasonable,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and like in Tepeka there is a free state government
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and President Pieris doesn't like that, and so he publicly
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: announces it, like in the February like he's like, no,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: no bad. And so anyway, you know, there's a town
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: hall meeting. They're like, what do we do about this?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Because the president clearly has a side here, and this
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: one dude's like, yeah, we're just gonna have to abide
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: by the pro slavery laws now. And this disgusts John Brown,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: like he is incensed by this, and he's just like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: getting angry. He's doing one of his we speeches and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: he says that he would rather see his union dissolved
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and the country drenched in blood than to pay taxes
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: to the pro slavery government. Okay, I'm going to need
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: an American man to like read this for me, and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: just like angry. John Brown tones, I'm gonna need that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: just for my own personal well being. And then have
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I ever re record this. I'll get you to do
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the voices. So John Brown and his family very much
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: pro abolitionist, right, they are abolitionists and they are vocal
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: about it. And so by the end of April, Sterling Cato,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: this pro slavery judge issues arrest warrants for John and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: his family on charges of overt abolitionism. So this warrant
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: comes out like they're notified of it, and so John
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: sends his son in law Henry, and his son Salomon,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you know, to go figure it out. And the two
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: fellows go to the courthouse and they're like, okay, you
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: have warrants. Here we are, and the judge is like,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm too busy to deal with you today. Bye.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And so they're just gone like, hey, you have warrants
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: for their arrest, You're not arresting them. Feels like it
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: can't be that important, just as an outside observer. Meanwhile,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: about there being murdered, So you've got a bunch of
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: free staters just just be murdered all around the shop.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: You've got one being killed. Then the person investigated being killed.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And it gets to the point as well that these
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: fucking judges, they're like a jury has to indict members
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of the free typical legislator for treason because they're like,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you know, a free state government. Yeah, and so this
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: leads to like a massive attack on Lawrence because they
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: are legally considered traitors and so they kind of have
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: to do something because a federal judge like he orders
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: like people from the territory to organize an invasion of
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the town of Lawrence. So basically he says, listen, ruffians,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I needed to go attack that town. And so you
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: have all these alarmies coming from all over the South,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: like South Carolina, Alabama. They've got like banners, what you're saying,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of racist shit. And this leads to the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: sacking of Lawrence. So you have all of these like
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: these border ruffians, these pro slavery arseholes, they are just
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: ransacking the town. They are destroying printing presses, they are
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: burning houses, they're brunning newspapers, they're burning shops and stores,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and they destroy the Free State Hotel with their cannon
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and like it used what thirty two shots, like thirty
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: two cannibals and this hotel. Oh actually it's like after
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: this the center gets beaten with a kne I thought
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it was earlier. It's like during this period, like it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: it's on it's on the Senate floor. I thought it
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: was in a Quarteruse my brain is putting look at
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: me reading my notes, going oh yeah, no, it's now,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I got excited earlier. Okay, I'm sorry, but yeah, he
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: gets the Sumner I think his name is, Senator Sumner
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: gets beaten with a cane on the Senate floor by
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: like some like racist congressman. And so he's getting the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: crap kicked out of him with a cane, and Lawrence
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: is burning. And it was only like after stuff started
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: happening that the Browns knew of this. So John Junior
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: he gets his thirty four man group together, the Potter
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Wajomi Rifles, and they ride towards Kansas and the other
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: like his brothers and also John they join him on
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the way and like when they get there, John Brown
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: is pissed no at the slabors, I mean he is
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: not those dudes, but also like the abolitionist freestaters, he's
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: mad that they're not standing up for themselves. He's like,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: you got arms, should a gun? You have the right
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to bear arms. Why are you not bearing your arms?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Arm your bears, man, Arm your bears with a harpoon gun.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: It'll work because like this whole time, not one abolitionist
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: had like loaded a gun. Like none of them were
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: doing shit. None of them are doing shit. And so
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: he's like, Okay, looks like I'm gonna have to take
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the matter into my own hands because there have been
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: like a lot of killing happening. Right. And so two
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: days after the sacking of lords, right, John Brown loads
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: up his wagon with weapons. He gathers, you know, a
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: decent group of anti slavery gun men, right, He has
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: a bunch of them. Right. He's got black people and
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: white people working together, which again, community like working together
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: when they can't divide you, right, when they can't divide
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you and make you in fight with each other, like
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that scares the oppressive boot on your neck, right, because
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: they can't be dealing with it. Sidebar. It is like
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: in the Three Ninjas, right where the grandfather tells them,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: like a rope of one strand is really easy to break.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: A rope of three strands is strong. I'm paraphrasing, but
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: that's basically the gist of it. So John, he's about
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to go out with his army men who are brandishing swords, broadswords,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: double edged broadswords. I'm I'm sorry. I mean, he's not
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: incorrect with the right to bear arms, like like you
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: could what what is a weapon that you're not allowed
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to have? Like what constitutes like too much in the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: level of bearing arms? Like where's the line in the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: sand for that? I feel like I could look that up,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm probably going to after this, but that's just
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: my query. So John and his men they ride into
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: town and they managed to convince one of the Free
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: State residents to give him the names and locations of
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the pro slavery Court members who lived nearby. Now, remember
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: he is tall, he is built, he has a fucking
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: double edged broadsword. I don't think it's gonna take much convincing. Okay,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: ten pm on the twenty fourth of May. So another
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: like two days after this, because he didn't do anything
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: rash before, so now he's going to do something rash now.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And so there he is, him and his oldest sons
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: apart from John Junior, who was doing something else. I
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: don't know what it was, but he wasn't here for this.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: And so they're going towards the settlement in Potowatomi Creek,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a pro slavery settlement. So John Brown and his crew
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: they make their way to the home of John Doyle.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: So he's just one of these pro slavery courty people, right.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: John Brown goes up, knocks on the door and demands
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: that all the men come outside, which they do because
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be seen as like scared. And
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: here's the thing about free staters and abolitionists. The opinion
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: of them by pro slavery people was that they were weak,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: that they wouldn't do anything, that they would have the
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: opportunity to push them as far as they could because
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: they didn't retaliate, because they didn't you know, fight. You know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: they were all about like democratic and peaceful solutions to violence.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And so they come out and this is when the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: entire party of men are hacked to death with broadswords
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: like they are like cutting through skulls, they are chopping
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: off arms like they are they are murdering, like they
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: are really like violent, violent deaths. And then they go
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: on to the next cabin in the area and they
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: do the same thing again, and next thing you know,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: it's in the newspapers. It is all over there, like
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: John Brown murdered men. Yeah, okay, And so it just
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: becomes this huge, huge deal. There's a there's a manifesto
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: written up against abolition robbers and assassins who kill law
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: abiding citizens like Brown. John Brown, he's seen as like
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: a murderer, a cold blooded murderer. I mean he's there
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: like washing the blood off his sword in the creek
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: next to the bodies. He's just decapitated. And so like
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: before the Portowatoby massacre, before they just started hacking up
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: racists with swords, who was seen as being like, oh,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: you're an abolitionist. Oh you're like a dippy happy whatever.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Like it's very wishy wash, it's not taken seriously. It's
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: kind of seen as like you're not really going to
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: make an effort with the things you do. And then
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you have a man hacking up people with broad swords.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing, he's evangelical. He's a religious man.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: So like the symbol as, I feel like the symbolism
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: is a little bit lost here because all I can
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: think of is the idea that these men are portraying
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: themselves as angels of God because angels are swords. They
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: got the fire resord like read the Bible, right, they
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: have their weaponry and whatnot. Like this seems like this
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: is the sort of imagery he's trying to portray here,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: because it's very symbolic, you know, because they have guns. Okay,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: there's no need for broadswords in the eighteen hundreds, right,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: there's no need for that, and yet here we are.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: And so it basically starts the mythos around John Brown.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: So basically, yeah, there's there's a warrant out and like
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: they're probably going to try and arrest. They're probably trying
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: to arrest like the Browns. So John Brown he just
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: runs straight into the wilderness because as he wants to do.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: And so if he goes, it's stuck in his head
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: from when he was a kid into the wilderness, right,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: he's thought this through and then that it's like he
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: escaped into the wilderness, which really just makes you sound cool,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: like hey, he killed the blind people and now he's
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: run off into the wilderness and it's like yeah I did,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah I did. So then you've got Captain Henry Pate,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: who I think is like I don't know if he
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: was deputized like before rafter, but he's like a marshall
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and he has a group with him, and he captures
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Jason John Junior, and he also destroys like their home,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the Brown family property, and so they're basically captured, and
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: they are tortured. They are tortured so badly that it
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: said that John Junior was driven to like the edge
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: of insanity, like almost there. And John Brown is obviously
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: annoyed that his have been kidnapped, and so he organizes
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: an army of volunteers, twenty nine of them, and they
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: have a surprise attack on Captain Pate at Blackjack Creek,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and so off he goes. The battle lasts for something
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: like five hours, after which the captain finally surrenders. So
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: he captures twenty two men, including the captain, and then
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: holds them to ransom. And his demand was the return
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: of his sons. Like that's it. He's like, bringing my
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: boys back or shit's gonna get real. So three days later,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: right Colonel Edward Sumner and fifty cavalrymen they arrive at
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the campsite and He's like, listen, I'm under presidential orders
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: to like disband militias, right, any arm group in Kansas, right,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: especially about you know, pro abolition. And John's like, I mean, yeah,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: you could do that, but here's this treaty that I
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: signed with Captain Pate. Give him my boys. And they're like, okay,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: that's a deal, and he goes fair enough, right, it's
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: written in ink. It's good. And so he takes it
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and he's like, you're afraid to go. John has a
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: warrant out for his arrest for a bunch of things,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: including murder. Okay, this is a thing, and he's like, yeah,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: you're fine of if you go. He's like these these
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: are good and so right, it takes a while for
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the kids to come out, and he's pissed,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: right because he learns that his two sons aren't going
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to be released until September. Right, this is after him
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: freeing the hot hostages and like doing everything in the treaty,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: you know. And so in July, John you know, comes
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: out of hiding from the wilderness and goes to Lawrence
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: and he meets with an anti slavery journalist and they
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: meet up with like John's company of men, and they
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: traveled to Nebraska City where they meet and have strategy
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: sessions with Free State leaders. So you've got Samuel Walker,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: You've got James Lane. Oh, and you've also got like
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Aaron Stephen ends up joining them. He was a Mexican
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: war veteran, and he's like this Free State warrior and
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: so he joins him. And so as he's traveling, his
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: reputation grows, like to the point like he's he's referred
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: to as the old Terrifier and the terror of all Missouri,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: like and this is printed in the New York Times, right,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: is so like the legend growsen by August John Brown's
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: got a decent amount of followers, and so he's got
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: this like smaller company like within his big group, Yeah,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the Kansas Regulars. And they were supposed to be like
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: respectful and sensible and to like not light fires after
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: midnight and to behave well, which is like interesting because
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: he's like, you need to be polite. Now you can
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: ransack this, you can steal the shit, right, but be
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: nice about it, like be a polite like soldier. And
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: they're like okay. And so in a completely rational response
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: to all of this into everything going on. You have
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: about three thousand like Missourians, we're all pro slavery going
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: armed into Kansas territory and they're just hunting like abolitionists
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: and anti slavery leaders, like it's an absolute slaughter. And
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: so they're just like kill anybody, men, women, children, just
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: anybody who was like abolitionist or free state like anyone border.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Ruffians are just massacring people right just all over the shop.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: And so John puts together a group of twelve men
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: to track down Ruffians and they end up just like
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: fucking things up for people, like from a capitalist perspective,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: like they are stealing like cattle and clothing and like
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: just good shit. He takes a bunch of pro slavery
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: soldiers captive, steals all the weapons, you know, gives them
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: a fucking sermon, and then ends them on their way.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: And this is and this is where things get worse.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: So one of John Brown's sons, Frederick, he was seen
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: as being I think he's got an intellectual disability. The
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: term they use is quote simple right. So there's this
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: pro slavery army. It's sort of on the border of
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: also a toomy, and there's where they see Frederick Brown.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Now in this army is Reverend Martin White. He's the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: fella who, just like earlier on was like, oh, we
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: better agree with these pro slavery laws, and John Brown
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: was like what the fuck this dude? Right, so he's
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: now with the pro slavery guys, and Frederick's just like
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I know you, I know you. And so he's like
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: walking towards him, like I know you because you know,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: he doesn't see danger because this is a reverend that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: he knows, and so like as is getting closer, the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Reverend Martin White shoots Frederick in the chest, just like down.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And John Brown is still eating his breakfast when he's
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: informed that his son has been murdered. And with thirty
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: eight men behind him, they ride to Osawatoby to meet
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: this army. And when they get there, they are vastly outnumbered.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Right, there's like one is to seven, I think in
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: this there's like a huge disparity, and so like are
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: they are smart with it?
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: They go for gorilla, right, So they are hiding behind
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: you know, rocks and trees, and they're using the terrain
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to their advantage, and so they just start like shooting.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Then at the cavalry. And so this leads to like
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: a bunch you'll being shot, horses going wild. It's complete disarray. Right,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: So they kill about twenty of the army and they
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: wound forty. And so by the time like they managed
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to regroup, John and his men have already buggered off
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: into the woods. Right. Meanwhile, as they are like fleeing,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: as they are making their escape, they can see the
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: town of Ossa, who Toomy burning. I think all in all,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: John Brown lost like one man, like one man was
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: killed and four were captured. But like this whole thing,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it just elevates the mystique and the legend of John Brown.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: So John Brown, he'd become a living legend. At this point,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: he's trying to raise money for abolitionism and the whole
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: jazz like that's what he's trying to do. He's trying
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to fight this movement because the movement as well had
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: been seen as passive for so long. By the time
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: this comes around, they're like shocked, They're shocked, this is
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the thing that's happened. And so like things are bad.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: But like by September, his sons are out there released
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: to him, and they are not doing well, Like they
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: have been tortured, they have been beaten, and they go
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: and stay with family in North Elba in New York
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: and that's like up they go and they do this
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: as part of like fundraising efforts. So like John Brown
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: is going, you know, he's getting his name out there,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: he's getting known, he's trying to gain support. He's meeting
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry David Thureau,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: He's go on the Secretary of Massachusetts, the State of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Kansas Committee, like all of these people. He's meeting these
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: big people to make a point. And this is where
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: he meets like the Transcendentalists who are giving him the money.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Now the Transcendentalists, we have discussed this in the Louisa may
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Alcot episode and they end up like giving him the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: most money and they become known as the Secret Six.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Like John is out there just you know, chatting to
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: newspapers and reporters and just anyone who listens, trying to
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: like gain traction and gain money. And by eighteen fifty
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: seven he returns to Kansas and when he gets there,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: he's like, oh, things are being dealt with pretty calmly
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: here and he's like, well, that's fine, and so he
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: really starts thinking about this concept of the Harper's Fairy attack.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: He he's got a goal he's going to aim I mean,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: you have to like admire that, Like he's aiming for
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: this symbolic attack in Harper's very in Virginia. And he's like, really,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: something he's wanted to do. He's been talking about it
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: for years. And so he ends up telling this story
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: to Hugh Forbes and he's like, this is a good idea.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I want to attack this. I want to do this,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: and I want to just like enslaved people on the
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: same night and then they'll just join my army and
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: it'll be like a big thing and and yeah. So
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: he's convinced that, you know, he believes so strongly in
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: the cause that he feels like once he communicates with
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: other people, they will also want to join the cause.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: But people aren't always like that. And he's convinced this
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: enslaved people are gonna just like rise up and fight
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: against like the tyranny once they're handed a gun. Yeah,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: and Forbes has trying to explain to him that people
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: aren't always like that, and so they both want the
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: same thing. They're just they're just coming from two different angles.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Because John Brownie thinks, you know, he's so impassionate, he's
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: so determined. He's convinced that these people will want their freedom,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: that they will know what to do, that they'll have
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to fight or fight, they're
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: going to fight, you know, like that's this thing. And
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Hugh Forbes is like, we want to dismantle the system though,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Like that's that's the goal. So it wouldn't be better
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: to just do like these random attacks in free a
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: bunch of slaves at different times and just bring them
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: north and just remove that labor source is free labor
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: source for all of these slave owners, Like wouldn't that
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: be wouldn't that be the way of it? Right? And
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: also it creates chaos, It creates disruption, It you know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: hurts them where it matters in their pocket. And when
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: you've got random attacks happening anywhere anyone in time, the
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: wonderful thing about it is like chaos. Chaos reigns. Right now.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I don't want to tell terrorists how to do their jobs, Okay,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do that, because that's one not
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a job into I don't want to give people ideas
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: for destruction, even though I've said this before. However, however,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: if you really want to create terror, if that's your goal,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to create terror, why would you always
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: go for the big cities. It doesn't make sense. You
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: want to strike fear into the hearts of a country,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you want to let them know you'll attack anywhere. Right,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: but you take England for example, like you really want
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: to like strike fear then, just like you want to
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: go to where you're not going to be expected, you know,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: you want to go for Cockermouth or Dunstable or Barrack
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: upon Tweed, like who's gonna suspect Leamington? Spot right exactly exactly.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Now Again, I'm not giving ideas, nor am I condoning terrorism,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: nor am I can do it? Don't do it? Okay,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: don't do it. No, It's just one of those things,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: like it's all I've always thought about. But anyway, back
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: to John Brown and Forbes here, and so John and
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Forbes they disagree, they disagree, and so he's still trying
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: to go out and like fund this, and so he
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: goes up to Canada and he tries to create this
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: like abolitions meeting and he speaks to like Harriet Tubman
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: and like all these people, right, but a lot of
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: abolitionists they don't show up because technically John Brown is
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: a fugitive. Okay, he is a criminal. There's warrants out
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: for his rest for like murder and treason, and so
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: it's like a whole thing, and so people are like
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: worried about being guilty by association who would do that?
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: And so anyway, he doesn't get the support of the
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: funding he's looking for, and he tries to get like
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a few people together for his biggest rage. Yet he
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: wants to do like Harper's Ferry, but Forbes has been
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: out there telling people about this plan, which sort of
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: negates the plan. And so over a period of time,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: he just starts doing like random captures, like slave options
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and things like that. Like he's going to these places
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and he's deliberately being involved in things to detract from
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Harper's Ferry to be like, oh, he's not doing that,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: and so he's off doing other things because there's probably
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: so many rimmers going out about this fella at this point,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and so he's like, well, ha ha ha, love as
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: you can. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread Man.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, he's there with the support of the Secret Sex.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: He's there causing commotions in Kansas to be like stuffs
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: happening over heear, you know, Sigfried and Roy. So he's
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: out doing it and so he ends up freeing a
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: bunch of enslaved people, and then a group of them
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: end up traveling north towards Canada. And so at one
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: point they're staying in this inn and the news gets
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: out that John Brown is in this inn with a
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: bunch of evil, and so a little I want to
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: say Milasia sort of gets themselves together. And so they
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: are positioned very well, sort of in the distance after
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: this inn. And so as they're traveling with a baby,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I might add, so as they're traveling with a baby
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: because one of the women gave birth like en route,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: so well she's traveling or they're traveling, like they see
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: these people in the distance, and then they just keep going,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: and you know, the closer they get to these people,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the furtherest people get away from them because the legend
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: of John Brown has grown so much that like they're
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: not doing shit. So he gets he's like eleven formerly
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: enslaved people, he's freed them. He's getting them up. And
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: so they do this once they've when it's killed and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: they get there. And so while this is happening, there's
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: the governor of Missouri takes out a three thousand pounds
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: bounty on John Brown. Meanwhile the President is like, that's
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: too high. I'm gonna put out a two hundred and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: fifty dollars bounty. And so at this point it's not Pierce,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: it is John Buchanan, President Buchanan, and so yeah, like
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: he's trying to like just get things going now. So
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: he's done this. He's got them to Canada after traveling
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: for eighty two days, which is like eleven hundred miles
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: they went, and so there they are helped because like
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: they go through the underground railroad and so they get
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: there and up they goes and so he goes on.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: He gets more money, he gets money in Iowa, he
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: gets it in Chicago, and like he's just sort of
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: collecting as he goes. And so after doing all this,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: he is ready to set his sights on Harper's ferry.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: And he's determined to do it. And he's trying to
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: get men together, and he writes to Frederick Douglas, and
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas is like, dear God, no, this is this
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: is not how bad lead you're gonna win, sir no,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: And so he doesn't help him, and so they end
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: up getting getting to Virginia, and so they end up
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: like trying to get somewhere to live. And so Tom
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Brown manages to quote befriend a slaveholder because he's like,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: my name is Isaac Smith, and I am a farmer
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: from New York steak and he's like, hey, I need
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: somewhere to love because I want to have a farm.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: And this guy's like yees. And so this dude helps
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: like them get this rental agreement at the Kennedy Farmhouse,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: which is only five miles from Harper's Ferry. And so
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: he moves in and his sons move in, and then
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: all eighteen men and total are there, and so they're there,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: and because there's a lot of them there, they don't
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: erase suspicion, so they can't go out like during the day,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and like they're trying to like keep themselves hidden, and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: so to make it seem less suspicious, like he brings
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: his Daughters down, I mean also in Daughters more was
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: because he's like, hey, come here, let's make it normal.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: And so they're there and the women are there to
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: act as lookouts, because who would suspect a woman? And
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: so after like preparing for several months, they get ready
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: for the raid and Harper's ferry. And so they write
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: letters to their families and they put it all out there,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and they are ready, ready for what might be the end.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: And on the fifteenth of October eighteen fifty nine, John
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Brown announced that the revolution would begin on October sixteenth.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Remember he's evangelical. He holds a service, he says prayers
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and he reads his favorite verses and prays for help,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: you know, to support them. So the men split into groups.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: So some would go out further into the world, and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: others would directly attack the ferry like some were cutting
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: like telegraph wires. Some would guard the bridge. Some would
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: like catch like the ferry bridge watchmen. They would try
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: stopping trains. They would capture the armory, the engine house,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and just like all this stuff, like they'd been organized,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: they've been running drills for months. And so they go
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: to the armory, they go to the well that's what
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: it was. It was an armory. So all the weapons
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: that were going through they were going through Harper's Ferry
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: in Virginia. Now they add weapons, but they didn't have
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: bullets because it had armory, not ammunition, which is fine,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: it's fine, but also yes, so some of them are
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: attacking directly Harper's ferry. Like there's one watchman who refuses
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: to give the keys, and so they're like just open
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the door with a crowbar and they're just like claiming
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: the ferry. They are taking people hostile. Things are going well. Meanwhile,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: a group of sex men are traveling out to the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: farm of the great grand nephew of George Washington, Colonel
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Louis Washington. So they are sent there. This is more
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: of this symbolic stuff. So they are there to get
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the Lafayette pistol and the sword of Frederick the Great.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: So they go there, they collect these very symbolic items,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: and then they also free the slaves, and so the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: pistol and the sword are then passed over to this
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: former enslaved person Anderson, and so basically the people that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the colonel owned were declared free, and so like they're like,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: you're free. Now bodies, and so the family were taken
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: captive like hostage situation, and meanwhile, like people are being freed,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: they're being handed weapons, and some of them are like
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I don't want to go with you, like some did
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: some joined the freight, and others just went back home,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: like back to where their masters were, their former masters,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: like they were going there and they're like yeah no,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: yeah no, though, because like you can't just the shock
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: and force them into the situation doesn't create the situation
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: that John Brown wanted. And because the way that John
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Brown wanted this to work, like he'd also told his
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: men like only take prisoners if absolutely necessary, only use
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: force of absolutely necessary, which is like a bad idea.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: It's a bad idea. Like they war like you're trying
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: to raid here, and you're like as necessary. So yeah,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: they've got you know, there's like a train approaching the town.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: It gets held for a little bit and then it's
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: allowed on its way, which like don't do that either,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: right because they cut the lines, like the telegraph lines
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: by them. They hadn't come up at the next station.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: And so when it like the eastbound like Baltimore, Ohio
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Railroad train like gets to like the next station, a
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: telegram is sent to the be and No headquarters in Baltimore,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: which then send telegrams onto President Buchanan and the Governor
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: of Virginia, Henry Wise, and like all this stuff happens
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: just like vicious vicious murder. So basically word gets out
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that there is like a group of people at Harper's ferry.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: They're raiding Harper's ferry, and so this militia sort of
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: comes together. And the thing is when they get through,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: initially they don't know who they're finding against. And the
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: thing is, I think if they had known, they might
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: not have gone. Like if they'd known John Brown was
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: part of the scenario, I feel like they had not
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: entered this. And so people are being like shot in
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the jets, like they run out of amyl, right. So
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: at one point they're just putting steel spikes into the
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: guns like a harpoon, and like a guy gets harpooned
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: through the throat like left to right, like a back
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: straight through. People are being shot in the chest, they're
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: being riddled with bullets and thrown into the river. Right.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of a lot of vicious killing. And
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: by the time, like the morning comes around because John
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: Brown tries to like arrange like a treaty in negotiation,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: and their plan is to like when there it's like, listen,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: we've got all the guns. Let's just make haste and go.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Because there was like a moat, like the way the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: river is converged. There's a mote, right, and one group
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: take charge of one bridge, one group could take charge
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: of the other of like the militia, and so their
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: escape plan is basically blocked off. So basically things just
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: don't go to plan because the way that John Brown
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: had envisioned this was that every single plantation, that every
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: single enslaved person would come up and rise up and fight, right,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: that was his dream. But he only gains a handful
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: of men from this, you know, he only gains a few.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: So like I'm just saying, Forbes' idea may have been
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: the better one, but we appreciate, you know, the determination.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, they try and send out people to negotiate.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: They end up shooting the first and to go shator
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: wounding the second. It's like a whole situation and by
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the morning of the eighteenth, so they end up moving
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: through Harper's ferry to the point where they are lodged
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: in the engine house, which at one point becomes known
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: as John Brown's sport, right, because it's like the three
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: solid doors, so it's really hard to get through. And
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: by that morning the Marines are there, led by Colonel
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Robert E. Lee, Yes, that one, and so they were
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: around it and oh they try and like they try
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: and like get them to surrender, and John Brown's like,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: have you met me? No? And so they end up
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: like sledgehammering the doors and like battering ram it and
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: they get round and they pull them out. So when
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: they are dragging John Brown out of this building, he's
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: covered in so much blood that people think he's already dead.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: And this being the past, the first people like there
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: are journalists and reporters, and they just start asking John
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: all of these questions, like he's banded it up, he's
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: still kicked in blood, right, and they're asking this and they're,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: you know, asking him all these questions, and his response
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: is the same all the time. He's like, slavery is
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: wrong and he's trying to stop it, and like they don't.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: They don't seem to be like they're like, but why,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: And he's like, kids, it's morally wrong. It's morally wrong.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Read your bibles, right, He's like it's wrong. Like at
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: one point he's asked if he owned like every black
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: person in the United States, what he would do with them,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: and he's like, I'd free them. And they're like what what,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Like they can't like they can't get it, like comprehension
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: is not happening. And of course the raid and Harper's
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: ferry is just news. It's on all the papers all
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: across the country. John Brown is taken to Charleston Prison
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: to await trial, and the abolitionists who knew him so well,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: well they're just keeping their destines because you know, guilty
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: by association, like Robert Douglas just fucking gets at a dodge,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: he leaves the country, and so many of his former
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: friends and acquaintances like deny like any connection to John
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. Right. So, on October
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: twenty fifth, you know, he was arraigned on three charges.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: He was escorted by eighty militiamen eighty Right, So he's
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: got his three charges treeson against the State of Virginia,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy to incite a slave insurrection, and first degree murder.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: So he's like, supposed to be going to trial, yeah,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and so John Brown being John Brown, He's like, listen,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to have a fair trial, Like it's
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: not possible. But the direct quote he says is, if
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: you seek my blood, you can have it. I am
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: ready for my fate. I asked to be excused from
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: this mockery of a trial, and he's like, I'm not
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: going to get a free trial in the slave state
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: of Virginia. He's like, and he says that he refused
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: to be insulted by cowardly barbarians who fall into power,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: and so so he actually refuses to be seen by
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: like a minister because he won't be seen by any
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: pro slavery like religious leader. So when away during his trial,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: John's lawyers are trying to argue his case like not
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: guilty by insanity, and he's just like, I'm not insane.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Slavery is bad. And so after a forty five minute trial,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: he is sentenced to death by hanging. On the first
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: of December eighteen fifty nine. Mary Ann Brown, john Brown's wife,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: had visited her husband for several hours after she got
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: permission from governor. Wives. Because there's a lot you can do.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: You can't be like, oh, I'm sorry, you know, future widow,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: you can't possibly see your husband before he gets hung,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: because that just looks bad in the press, and that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: just looks bad on you. So they're like, you can
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: allow it. And so she finally goes to see him,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: like for the first time in a long time, because like,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: for her safety, it was just not a thing. And
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: so the following day, on the second of December eighteen
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: fifty nine, he reads from his Bible, writes a letter
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: to his wife which includes the will that he has written.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: And yeah, at eleven am he goes in from the
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: county jail all the way to like this field. It's
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: like a little bit away, but it's because they're got
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: like the gallows are set up in it, and so
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: there's like a crowd of what two thousand soldiers. Effectively
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: they are lining the road because they are prepared for
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: an attack, like they are terrified someone's going to do
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: something to like, you know, oppose this. And so yeah,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: quarter past eleven eleven fifteen am, John Brown was hanged
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: and pronounced dead thirty five minutes later, and John Brown
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: wanted his body cremated. That was he wanted that. He
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: wanted his sons to be disinterred and the same for them.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: But the sheriff of Jefferson County he was like, we
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: don't allow the burning of bodies. And Maryanne Brown, she
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: didn't want that. She wanted to bring her husband home.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: And so John Brown's body was placed in the coffin
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: with the noose still around its neck. So when the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: train gets to Philadelphia, you know, it's it's caused such
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: a scene that like they're so worried that things are
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: going to go wrong. So they end up having a
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: fake coffin with flowers on it, and that goes one
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: direction to sort of lure people away. And so Mary
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Anne travels with her husband bodies further because they're like,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: it can't remain in fil in Philadelphia, and so it
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: ends up going through like all these places. So it's
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: got you know, New York, Rutland, Vermont, Lake, Chamberlain and
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: eventually ends up in like North Elba and and here's
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the thing. John Brown again not a short man, and
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: his body was put into a five foot ten inch
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: one point seventy eight meters by the way cofin and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: he was buried on the eighth of December eighteen fifty nine,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: and if you remember our Louisa may Alcott episode, it
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: was her family. They're one of the Transcendentalists, maybe not
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: one of the Secret Sex, but definitely part of the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: larger group of it. They had taken in John Brown's
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: family after his execution to help support them for the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: next step. And sixteen months after the execution of John Brown,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: the Civil War officially begun, and so ends our story
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: on John Brown. If you liked my retailing of this story,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: please feel free to write in review of five stars.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: If you don't want to write in review five stars,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: you can just keep it to yourself. It's absolutely fine.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: So yeah, sorry if that was a bit happizard this
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: week's episode. Again, I thought I had a couple more
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: days to get everything written down, so a little bit
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: here and there, but I hope you enjoyed it. You
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: can follow me on the socials if you're still listening
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: at this point. Turns out I'm eligible voted for and
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: the British Podcast Awards, which is hilarious by the way.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: So I think it would be ridiculous, like if I
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: were to get anywhere in there, anywhere at all, but
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: I think it'd be really fun to just to just
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: do it. Would it be fun? Can you imagine annoyed
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: they'd be if I won? I'm the worst nightmare. I
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: love it. But yes, so I guess it's a recommendation
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: time for reading. I know I'm gonna recommend zoot Suit
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: by Luis Valdez for listening. Let's go for some classic
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: all American rejects. Let's do it and watching watching you
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: know what for some levity Resident Alien? Which resident Alien?
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: It's fun? Alan T Dick, He's today to Dick, he's
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: he's just a good fun time. Okay, And with that,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: I shall bid you good day. Adios au revoir of
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: wa Zen, my friends, Bye bye,