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DDH - Harpers Ferry · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

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  History is strange, it's alien, and it won't give us what we
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  would like to have. John Brown, an unyielding
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  evolutionist who believed that God had appointed him to end
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  slavery, would go on to become one of the most divisive figures
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  in American history, not for what he said, but for what he
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  did. By 1859, this nation was a
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  powder keg. The Dred Scott decision from the
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  Supreme Court had ruled that African Americans had no rights,
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  none that white men were bound to respect anyway, and the
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  Fugitive Slave Act forced Northern citizens to be
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  complicit in the recapturing of enslaved people who had escaped.
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  Tensions were rising. But it wasn't just words that
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  would push the country to the brink of the Civil War.
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  It was action. And John Brown was the man for
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  that job. Brown had long been a fixture of
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  the abolitionist movement. The most would describe him as a
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  radical, violent and uncompromising.
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  Born in 1800 in Connecticut, he was raised in a deeply
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  religious, anti slavery household.
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  He was influenced by the Puritan values of his time and he
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  believed that slavery was not just a social I'll but a very
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  sin against God. There was no abstract moral
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  stance for Brown. It was his personal crusade and
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  one that shaped his entire life and would eventually lead him to
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  Harpers Ferry, Virginia. But before Harpers Ferry there
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  was Kansas, Bleeding Kansas to be precise.
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  The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 had opened new territories to
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  the possibility of slavery, and soon enough pro slavery and anti
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  slavery settlers were pouring into those areas prepared to
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  fight over the land. It was here in 1856 that John
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  Brown made his name. During a violent confrontation.
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  He led a group of men in the Potawatomi massacre, killing
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  five pro slavery settlers. To his supporters, this was
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  justified as an act of war. To his critics, it was
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  terrorism. Either way, Brown's reputation
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  as a militant abolitionist was solidified.
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  In the years that followed, he became obsessed with his grand
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  plan, a full scale slave uprising.
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  The spark he believed, would happen in Harpers Ferry, a small
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  town in Virginia, which is now West Virginia with a federal
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  Armory. His idea was simple.
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  Seize the Armory, distribute weapons to enslaved people, and
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  March S triggering a revolt that would topple the institution of
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  slavery once and for all. It was bold, was visionary, and
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  it was utterly impractical. Still, he was convinced that if
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  he could strike at the heart of the South, enslaved people would
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  rally to his cause. So in October of 1859, with a
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  band of 21 men, both black and white, young and old, and three
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  of his own sons, Brown launched his assault.
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  The initial moments of the raid went according to plan.
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  On this evening, October 16th, 1859, he and his men captured
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  the Armory and took several hostages, including Louis
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  Washington, the great grand nephew of George Washington.
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  It was a dramatic move, holding a descendant of the nation's
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  founding father in a bid to destroy one of the nation's
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  founding sins, and for a brief moment it seemed like he might
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  pull it off. But then came the
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  miscalculations. He did not anticipate that the
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  local militia would respond so quickly.
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  Instead of retreating into the mountains as he had planned, he
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  and his men were trapped inside of the Armory.
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  By the next morning, word of the raid had spread.
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  Townspeople had surrounded the Armory, and there was no hope of
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  escape. President Buchanan, hearing of
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  the chaos, dispatched Colonel Robert E Lee.
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  Yes, that Robert E Lee, to lead a detachment of U.S.
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  Marines to put the rebellion down.
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  After tense standoff, Lee's Marines stormed the Armory.
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  Brown refused to surrender. He was severely wounded, and he
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  was captured. Ten of his men, including two of
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  his sons, were killed. In those final moments, Brown
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  didn't seem like a desperate man who failed.
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  He seemed calm, almost serene, viewing himself as a martyr to
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  the 'cause his trial was swift, perhaps too swift for such a
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  monumental case. He was charged with murder,
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  treason, inciting a slave rebellion, all of which he
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  freely admitted to. But rather than mounting a
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  defense, he used the courtroom as a platform to condemn
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  slavery, declaring that the crimes of America would only be
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  washed away with blood. And on December 2nd, 1859, he
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  was hanged in Charlestown, Virginia.
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  His last words, spoken to the jailer, echoed the prophecy that
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  the country's guilt over slavery would not be purged without
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  violence, a statement that would prove eerily accurate in the
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  years to come. If Brown's raid had failed
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  tactically, it succeeded in shaking the nation to its core.
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  Reactions to his execution were as divided as the country
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  itself. In the North, many abolitionists
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  mourned him as a hero, even if they questioned his methods.
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  Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau praised his
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  bravery. For those who had spent years
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  fighting slavery with pamphlets and speeches, Brown's
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  willingness to take direct action stood out as something
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  profound and unflinching. But in the South, he was seen as
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  a terrorist, the embodiment of Northern aggression.
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  His raid only confirmed their worst fears of slaveholders that
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  the North was filled with fanatics willing to incite
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  violent rebellions on Southern soil.
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  The political consequences were enormous.
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  While Brown had acted independently, many Southerners
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  saw his raid as part of a broader abolitionist conspiracy,
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  one that simply could not be ignored.
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  Southern newspapers clamored for the South to secede from the
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  Union, fearing that more John Brown's would follow.
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  Northern abolitionists, for their part, began to lionize
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  Brown. Some even compared him to
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  Christ, a martyr who had died for the sins of the nation.
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  In a very real sense, Brown's raid helped to helped to
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  fracture what little was left of the Union's ability to
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  compromise on the issue of slavery.
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  The idea of peacefully resolving the question seemed increasingly
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  impossible. Less than two years later,
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  Abraham Lincoln would be elected president and the South would
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  begin to secede. The nation was hurtling towards
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  civil war, and Brown's raid was one of the last fateful sparks.
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  His legacy, even today, is hotly debated.
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  Was he a hero fighting for the most noble of causes?
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  Or was he a madman willing to resort to bloodshed and
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  violence? To many, he was actually both.
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  But there's no doubt that his raid on Harpers Ferry on October
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  16th, 1859 pushed the country one step closer to the conflict
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  that would ultimately decide its future.
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  Check out more stories from history@davedoeshistory.org.