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At the Home Depot, how doers get more done. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts. Up next, the story of one of America's most divisive figures, both of his time and perhaps ours.
due to the methods he employed to aid in the destruction of slavery. were of course talking about. John Brown. Here to tell the story is David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown Abolitionist.
Let's get into the story. I don't agree with John Brown and what he did. There was a legal course in America for him to follow. John Brown was a horse thief from Kansas. He stirred up trouble out there in the Kansas-Nebraska wars.
And all he did, and he wasn't in the majority. A majority of people maybe have the right to change the law, but a majority of 21 does not. A slave was property. No man in this society today has a right to go into my house to steal my television set, to break my windows. No man in the 19th century had a right to go and steal another person's property.
That's exactly what Brown intended to do. What Brown stood for was wrong. He was morally wrong. He killed. Slavery's wrong.
I mean, we all know that. How can you do anything else but to pull a John Brown? How can you do anything else but regrettably? Realizing maybe that you're sinning or that you're doing something wrong. Four million people, human beings, not numbers, not dates, not facts and figures, not words, but human beings.
Deserve to be free. John Brown can be best explained by the adage, one man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist. I prefer to see him as kind of a good terrorist. John Brown was born in 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut, and his father and mother were Calvinistic Congregationalists. Religion was very important to John Brown.
His father had heard a sermon by the anti-slavery Calvinist Samuel Hopkins in Connecticut, and this kind of anti-slavery Calvinism was passed down to John Brown. My father was so strong in his beliefs that abolition was the answer, not repatriation. That at a point in my life, he actually split the church over that issue and went off and formed a whole other church called the Free Congregational Church. and took half the congregation with him. He didn't attend church in the ordinary sense.
He did attend church sometimes, he lived for a while in Pennsylvania. And in Pennsylvania, he went to a church that they allowed black people in the church, but the black people had to sit. Way in the back, for example, in the wintertime they got frozen back there, it was away from any heat or anything.
So he got up and went into the back of the church and said, Please take my seat. He told the African Americans, please take my own seat.
So he was actually dismissed from that congregation. But his main thing was reading the Bible, learning the Bible. Though I only had a very small formal education, I had worked very hard to educate myself. I read voraciously. I had memorized the entire Bible.
When I was very small, 10 years old. And at one point he thought of becoming a minister. That didn't work out. He decided to, in a sense, be a practical minister by applying what he viewed as Christianity to enslaved people. Uh His father ran a tannery, and at age twelve, he was sent on a.
Cattle drive alone by his father over the countryside. Sent me to Detroit. That's almost 200 miles from where we lived, with 100 cows. and a contract with the U.S. Army.
Now remember, this is the War of 1812. I made that distance, by myself through pretty much an untracked wilderness. Kept it all together. Bartered with the men at the end.
Sold the cattle, got my money. and for a time I lived with a man there in Detroit. Hit a young boy about my age. It was black. He was a slave.
And one day, For reasons I never quite understood. I have never understood and I hope I never do understand. The boy did something wrong. And the man picked up his shovel, and beat him about the head so severely that his eyes and his ears bled. The boy was driven outside with a shovel, and John Brown was invited indoors to sit at the table with the white family.
John Brown said That's when I devoted my entire life to abolitionism. The injustice of that scene just never, never left him. I was outrageous. Yeah. I could not believe a human being could treat someone.
on such slim grounds so poorly. I swore at that moment. That I would be the eternal enemy of slavery and put an end to this evil. By the time he was 18, John Brownick personally led one slave to freedom. and defiantly declared in public.
that all runaways who came knocking at his door would be welcome. Brown became a radical abolitionist. Frederick Douglass said. My commitment to enslave people was like a candle to John Brown's shining sun. I could live for the slave.
John Brown died for the slave. John Brown felt that the Calvinist idea of predestination applied to him. He felt chosen really by God. to wipe out slavery. That was his mission.
That was the main driving thing of his life. Slavery was As John Brown viewed it, A war against an entire race of people. And he was very inspired by the Calvinist leader of the English Revolution of the 1640s, Oliver Cromwell. The Puritan warrior, Cromwell himself fought for freedom, but the freedom from tyrannical oppression by King Charles. He didn't really concern himself with enslaved people.
But John Brown kept the biography of Oliver Cromwell right next to his Bible on his shelf. and he became known as the Oliver Cromwell of abolitionism, the fighter, the fighter. John Brown's inspiration from religion was, in a sense, unique because he was the first person, the first Christian, to take up arms. consistently against slavery. before the Civil War.
And you've been listening to David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown Abolitionist. You're also hearing some readings from John Brown by Doug Dobbs. The story of John Brown continues here. on our American stories.
Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country. Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do this show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to ouramericanstories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to ouramericanstories.com and give. Saturday, August 22nd in Tampa. Witnessing MMA Legends final fight.
Chris Cyborg, one of the greatest in history. She's an absolute pioneer in the sport. Defends her PFL world title? One last time. Unforgettable and got your marble.
To my unforgettable career. Saturday, August 22nd, live from Benchmark International Arena. For tickets, visit pfl.info/slash tampa. Ice Cube's Big Three season is heating up and it all comes down to this. The Big Three Playoffs are coming to Dallas, Texas.
The four best teams in the Big Three battle it out for a spot in the championship. The action starts with the legendary Big Three Celebrity Game. Three games of the most physical, competitive, and non-stop three-on-three action. The gameplay the way you love. Watch live Saturday on CBS at 12 p.m.
Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, and catch replays Monday on BET. Presented by iHeart. A Jay Jay! This is Becca and Tanya from Scrubbing In with Becca Tilly and Tanya Rad.
Becca. Can I ask you a question? How do I convince myself I need something before I buy it? Oh, so we're doing that today.
Well, I'll be shopping online, and suddenly I'm like, well, technically, this counts as self-care. You're definitely not alone there. That's why Klarna stands out. It's about smarter tools that help you feel more confident with your money. Klarna brings payments, cashback, and money management together in one place with flexible ways to pay.
It helps you make smarter money moves without the stress. That's the goal, right? Having tools that make your money work with you. Download the Klarna app today or visit Klarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California Finance Law License.
NMLS number one three five three one nine zero. Clarna Balance account required to be eligible for cash back points. Limitations, terms, and conditions apply. Uh I'm going to talk about money. And that can stress people out, understandably, because there's always something.
Rent, mortgage, kids, student loans, the future. What you need is something to bring the financial stress levels down a notch. What you need is Ally Bank. A bank that looks out for your money and you. With Ally Bank, there's no tricks, no hidden fine print, no jumping through hoops for better rates.
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No tricks, no hidden fees, banking built for life today. Ally Bank, member FTIC. And we return to Our American Stories and the story of abolitionist John Brown with author David S. Reynolds. When we last left off, John Brown had witnessed a slave, a child, beat over the head by a shovel.
and had decided to dedicate his life to a mission he saw as truly holy. the destruction of slavery. Let's return to the story. He went on to become a farmer and a tanner. He was married and had, well, a total of 20 children.
The average family had about nine kids. I mean, 20 was still very, very large. Seven with his first wife. She died in childbirth. I married in 1820.
to a young lady named Diantha Lusk. June 21st to June wedding. It was a great time. We had a good life together, and soon babies began to arrive. Our very first, we named John Jr.
Mm. We lived from place to place as work came. And sometimes things didn't go so well.
So he barely kind of struggled to get by. There were many financial panics back in those days, and the economy went up and down sometimes. Very unpredictably, and I got caught in many a situation where I borrowed way too much money. I made very bad decisions sometimes about business. and got caught.
And I went eventually into bankruptcy at some points. They also had a lot of childhood illnesses. He lost four kids within one month of an illness that no longer exists because of a vaccine. Another child was killed when a boiling pot of water scalded her to death. They lost several others as well.
So only eight of his kids outlived him, eight of his 20. Uh By eighteen fifty. I'm living in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was in that year that the United States Congress, in its infinite wisdom, passed the Fugitive Slave Act. Oh my.
The states of the North, which had outlawed slavery, saw their laws run amok, or run roughshod over. and slave catchers from the South could come into the North and drag people off with impunity. On the barest of pretexts they could accuse someone of being a slave, perhaps even though they had never been one. Hmm. Dark days indeed.
There were many who lived in Springfield. of the African persuasion. who were in great fear of themselves being drug off in the night. And most abolitionists in the North at the time were peace people. wanted to use persuasion and words.
to enforce the immorality and injustice of slavery and so forth. which is very admirable. But slavery was as John Brown viewed it. A war against an entire race of people, an ongoing war. even though he didn't particularly like war himself.
I formed the League of Gileadites. There is danger by oneself alone, but there is strength in numbers. And so I taught them to gather together and protect one another. And I gave them knives, and I showed them how to use them. And I said, if someone comes to take you off, Don't go.
It flourished. I had many friends in the black community who were dear to me as my own children and my own family. I would do anything for them, and they would have done anything for me. He actually shocked a lot of white people because of his closeness to African Americans. Not only to the fugitive slaves and he lived among them, but also to leaders like Frederick Douglass, whom I deeply respected, though I disagree with him on many issues.
We battled back and forth over the issue of the use of violence in the defense of freedom. Frederick argued that Should we go the route of violence? it would probably not go well for us and might not even achieve our goal. I argued back that we had to, that we were left with fewer and fewer options as time went on. Harriet Tubman I knew.
The general. She called me the captain. I call her the general. She was an amazing woman. Such vision, such strength of character.
Such determination, such. A woman. When it comes later on to my raid on Harper's Ferry, I argued with Frederick Douglass. But Harriet Tubman was my ally. She's going to come with us.
Alas, she grew ill and was not able to come. Frederick Douglass becomes the first person to whom John Brown reveals his plan for liberating enslaved people in the South by making a raid, perhaps in Virginia, to try to emancipate enslaved people.
So Frederick Douglass remains close to him and he stays in Douglass's house in Rochester several times and in one of his visits writes. the new Constitution of the United States. He wrote what he called the provisional constitution because he thought the current constitution avoided the whole slavery issue. And so John Brown writes this provisional constitution, which begins with the idea of abolishing slavery. Slavery has to be abolished.
He also rewrote the Declaration of Independence. I mean, it takes a lot of moxie to do that. And he imagined forming a colony of African Americans in which these documents held sway. And when he was visited where he lived among mainly fugitive slaves that had escaped in the North, He really shocked a visitor who came to his house that night. Not only were African Americans at the dinner table sitting right close to John Brown and his family, but also Brown would address them as, you know, Mr.
Smith or Mr. This or Mr. That in the same respectful way that he addressed everybody else at the table. I was shocked by that. Here's a man who had been committed to the abolitionist cause, had written about it extensively, had a wonderful philosophical defense for why slavery should end and why abolitionism was a good thing.
who was stunned that I would treat people as equals. He didn't understand me. I didn't understand him. Um Most white people of the time, abolitionists included, believed that black people were inferior. In fact, many white northerners advocated abolition only as a means of getting blacks out of the country entirely.
John Brown genuinely believed that all men were created equal. We had many setbacks through those 1850s. The Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which turned Kansas into a battleground in 1854, the Bordeaux ruffians came over from Missouri by the hundreds, by the thousands, in fraudulent elections the fall of that year. And they would stand there and they would say, this foot of ground, one square foot around me, I claim this as my territory and that gives me the right to vote. And then they would go in and vote, all heavily armed, all.
with the stink of evil about them, the cinnamon. The political crisis of the 1850s in a sense begins with the Mexican War in the 1840s because what happens is that America takes over these vast territories. California, New Mexico, Arizona, but at the time they were just territories. And the question is: was slavery going to be allowed to expand into these territories? Or not.
Then came the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which said that the Western territories could decide for themselves. whether or not they wanted slavery. This was absolute anathema. to uh the north because suddenly you have the prospect of all these Western states. coming into the union.
allowing slavery. then each of them would have representation in Congress. Therefore, they would overwhelm the American government, which had now become totally pro-slavery. The situation looked very, very dismal from the northern standpoint, and that's why you had. The rise of the anti-slavery movement and the Republican Party, which at the time was anti-slavery, that arose around this kind of anti-slavery feeling, as did John Brown.
As the decade wore on, The Dred Scott decision comes down in 1857 saying that a black man's not even a person. He is no more than cattle. He is a thing. to be owned. It was so disgusting.
The insult of Charles Sumner, a United States Senator, caned on the floor of the United States Senate by a congressman. And how does the South react? It sends Preston Brooks, the congressman, more canes. Hit him again. Was there no rich?
Was there no justice? John Brown. took action. I gathered my resources. Mr.
Beecher down in New York City was most accommodating to send me some of his Bibles. We pack them up. Sharps rifles. and label them Beecher's Bibles. Then off we went to Kansas.
And you've been listening to author David Reynolds tell the story of abolitionist John Brown. And what a story you're hearing indeed. How is faith? and his religious zeal drove him. And when we come back.
What happens next? Here on Our American Stories. Saturday, August 2013. August 22nd in Tampa. Witness an MMA Legends final fight.
Chris Cyborg, one of the greatest in history. She's an absolute pioneer in the sport. Defends her PFL world title. One last time. Unforgettable and an unforgettable career.
And the skills. Saturday, August 22nd, live from Benchmark International Arena. For tickets, visit pfl.info/slash tampa. Ice Cube's Big Three season is heating up and it all comes down to this. The Big Three Playoffs are coming to Dallas, Texas.
The four best teams in the Big Three battle it out for a spot in the championship. The action starts with the legendary Big Three Celebrity Game. Three games of the most physical, competitive, and non-stop three-on-three action. The gameplay the way you love. Watch live Saturday on CBS at 12 p.m.
Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, and catch replays Monday on BET. Presented by iHeart. This is Becca and Tanya from Scrubbing In with Becca Tilly and Tanya Rad. Becca.
Can I ask you a question? How do I convince myself I need something before I buy it? Oh, so we're doing that today.
Well, I'll be shopping online, and suddenly I'm like, well, technically, this counts as self-care. You're definitely not alone there. That's why Klarna stands out. It's about smarter tools that help you feel more confident with your money. Klarna brings payments, cash back, and money management together in one place with flexible ways to pay.
It helps you make smarter money moves without the stress. That's the goal, right? Having tools that make your money work with you. Download the Klarna app today or visit Klarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California finance law license.
NMLS number 1353190. Clarna Balance account required to be eligible for cash back points. Limitations, terms, and conditions apply. Oh. I'm going to talk about money.
And that can stress people out, understandably, because there's always something. Rent, mortgage, kids, student loans, the future. What you need is something to bring the financial stress levels down a notch. What you need is Ally Bank. A bank that looks out for your money and you.
With Ally Bank, there's no tricks, no hidden fine print, no jumping through hoops for better rates. They're a bank that wants to take care of your money and help you. Help you spin smarter by automatically analyzing spending to find surprise savings. Help you save faster with great rates and smart savings tools for the things that matter to you, like travel or a new home. help you by elevating your banking without adding anything to your plate.
Ally is designed for people like you, for how you actually live. No tricks, no hidden fees, banking built for life today. Ally Bank, member FTIC. And we return to Our American Stories and the story of abolitionist John Brown with author David S. Reynolds.
Also with us playing the role of John Brown is Doug Dobbs, a former AP history teacher. When we last left off, John Brown and his family had left for Kansas amid bleeding Kansas, a dark time when pro-slavery settlers and their abolitionist counterparts fought. the future of the state. Let's return to the story. In 1855, Brown went to Kansas.
with money and guns given to him by secret supporters in the East. This was the time of bleeding Kansas. the frontier territory where pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers fought their own civil war six years before the rest of the nation. Kansas was hanging in the balance between slavery and freedom. What was happening was very corrupt.
Ruffians from Missouri, a neighboring state, would go across the border and terrorize the polling booths, take over the polling booths, and they elected a fraudulent pro-slavery government to try to make it a slavery state. This pro-slavery government was actually supported by the president Franklin Pierce. And again, if Kansas goes to slavery, They could be like dominoes and all the western territories, the future states. could have tumbled into the pro-slavery camp and the cause would be lost.
So John Brown goes there with several of his sons and family members, and he says, I'm going to fight. If necessary to the death, And we worked, and we built, and we built some cabins, and we got that through that winter, and it was an awful time. In the summer of the next year. By then I had had formed a militia to defend ourselves. and I was given word that the town of Lawrence, north of us, was under threat from a Missouri militia.
We raced north as fast as we could. We got there too late. Lawrence had been sacked, the town burned, the printing presses destroyed. Ablawren's an abolitionist stronghold. a place where free soil men could lift their heads and do business and feel safe.
have been destroyed. They deliberately set fire to the Union Hotel downtown. It was an awful time. I was beside myself. I couldn't believe.
That people could do this to one another. He was totally enraged. He also heard. over the telegraph that Charles Sumner an anti-slavery senator Have been pummeled virtually to death on the Senate floor by a pro-slavery. A man with a gold-headed heavy cane and had been left for dead.
John Brow was just totally appalled by the this violent activity, said Okay, the time has come. I'm just gonna have to do something more here. And he literally has several battles with weapons, with guns, with pistols. Horses and so forth. And in most of these battles, he's greatly outnumbered, but He becomes a kind of terror.
Uh even though he's outnumbered, he usually wins. He scatters the enemy. He charges almost like Oliver Cromwell, who during the English Civil War. was often outnumbered by the Royalist troops against him, but he just charged right at them and dispersed them. And it became kind of a The very feared figure and very unusual because Abolitionists were known to be peaceful men, pacifists, and using gentle persuasion.
But he was under direct threat. The pro-slavery party not only had killed many more people than an the anti-slavery party had in Kansas. They had made a direct threat on the whole Brown family. They said, We're going to wipe out. The browse.
So At midnight on May 26 in 1856. I went down to Pottawatomie Creek, where a man named Mr. Doyle had made threats against my life to my face, not knowing who I was. I had gone through his camp under disguise. And he had told me that, yes, he was going to come and kill me and my sons, that my line could be wiped out.
I said it's too much. It's just too much. And so we went down there on the night of May 24th. And we dragged him from his bed, and we drug his sons out into the field. And we killed her.
Now I didn't do it. But I was there. And I gave my consent. It was an awful thing. But we had no choice.
We had to strike back. We had to strike fear into the hearts of these ruffians. We had to let them know we would not be victims forever. They could not ride roughshod over us. We had to stand up for freedom.
We had to stand up. He asked them. hacked to death with swords. Good. created chaos the these murders and the whole court system didn't know how to handle it.
And eventually, a few years later, Kansas would be admitted as a free state. In part because of the very chaos that John Brown created. We danced back and forth with those fellows around Kansas for a while, and then things began to settle down. I decided to lay low for a while. Came back east.
Then about Christmas time 1858 I went back to Kansas. I had decided what I needed to do. I had been having this plan for a long time. We were we were pulling people out through the Underground Railroad. by ones and twos and threes and fours.
And there was no way we were ever going to end slavery. There was no way to end this institution. We were just we were just draining little bits and pieces here and there.
So I I decided I'd experiment on a small scale.
So I took my militia and we went over into Vernon County, Missouri. and we attacked two places over there at two farms. We pulled out 11 people. Eleven slate. Took some horses, took a few other things.
We figured they'd earned them. They deserved them. Liberated and you might say. And we headed back into Kansas and went to Ground. Maybe hidden.
And while we're hiding there between Christmas and New Year's, By eleven, who had escaped became twelve. One of them was pregnant. She gave birth. Plus her heart. From there we worked our way up north.
back over through Illinois, back to Ohio. Eventually we got up into Detroit. And I put him on the ferry across the river into.
Solomon. Cross into Canada. to freedom. You were freaky. They were no man's property anymore.
I said to myself, That's what we're gonna do. He became a kind of symbol of anti-slavery activism. That then culminates in his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859.
So that's summer. I began to lay my plans in earnest. I rented some property down in southern Maryland, right across the river from Harper's Ferry. And I watched The warehouse where my rifles were stored. They were marked mining equipment by this point.
I was posing as Mr. Isaac Smith. a mining prospector. And so I could travel just about anywhere and look at just about anything with a prospect of maybe a mine being on their property and generating great wealth. Everybody was glad to see me.
And so I looked and I poked and I wandered and I went all over the place and I made contact with people and we set up a plan. We were going to take a group of people across the river into Harper's Ferry, and we were going to steal a bunch of rifles, and we were going to get up in the mountains. just south of there. We're going to build some redoubts, some forts up on top of the hill there, and we're going to send out folks down to the plantations in the lowland and say, come. Come away.
Be free. We weren't gonna do by tens. not even by twenties or hundreds. We were going to get thousands to come out. and thousands beyond that.
And we're going to run him up the ridge. all the way to Canada. My aim was nothing less than to crash the entire economy of the South. They had as much money wrapped up in their slaves as the North did in their factories. If I could get their factories to run away.
All their bills would come due at the bank, all those loans, all those mortgages, and they'd have nobody to work the fields and nobody to pick their cotton. And those bills would come due. I could bring down the whole system. Crash the whole thing. It was a prize too big to ignore.
And you're listening to David Reynolds tell one heck of a story about abolitionist John Brown. You're hearing tremendous readings by Doug Dobbs, a former AP history teacher. when we return, more of the remarkable story The Life of abolitionist John Brown. Here. on our American stories.
Ice Cube's Big Three season is heating up and it all comes down to this. The Big Three playoffs are coming to Dallas, Texas. The four best teams in the Big Three battle it out for a spot in the championship. The action starts with the legendary Big Three Celebrity Game. Three games of the most physical, competitive, and non-stop three-on-three action.
The gameplay the way you love. Watch live Saturday on CBS at 12 p.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, and catch replays Monday on BET. Presented by iHeart.
This is Becca and Tanya from Scrubbing In with Becca Tilly and Tanya Radd. Becca. Can I ask you a question? How do I convince myself I need something before I buy it? Oh, so we're doing that today.
Well, I'll be shopping online, and suddenly I'm like, well, technically, this counts as self-care. You're definitely not alone there. That's why Klarna stands out. It's about smarter tools that help you feel more confident with your money. Klarna brings payments, cashback, and money management together in one place with flexible ways to pay.
It helps you make smarter money moves without the stress. That's the goal, right? Having tools that make your money work with you. Download the Klarna app today or visit Klarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California Finance Law License.
NMLS number one three five three one nine zero. Clarna Balance account required to be eligible for cash back points. Limitations, terms, and conditions apply. I'm going to talk about money. And that can stress people out, understandably, because there's always something.
Rent, mortgage, kids, student loans, the future. What you need is something to bring the financial stress levels down a notch. What you need is Ally Bank. A bank that looks out for your money and you. With Ally Bank, there's no tricks, no hidden fine print, no jumping through hoops for better rates.
They're a bank that wants to take care of your money and help you. Help you spend smarter by automatically analyzing spending to find surprise savings. Help you save faster with great rates and smart savings tools for the things that matter to you, like travel or a new home. help you by elevating your banking without adding anything to your plate. Ally is designed for people like you, for how you actually live.
No tricks, no hidden fees, banking built for life today. Ally Bank, member FDIC. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
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$15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes means slow when network is busy. See terms. And we return to our American stories and the final portion of our story of abolitionist John Brown with author David S. Reynolds.
When we last left off, John Brown had decided to put his grand plan in action: a massive slave revolt that would start at the U.S. Arsenal. in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Let's get back to this story. John Brown and his tiny band of raiders, 22 in all.
took up arms against slavery here at Hoppers Ferry in 1859. At that time in the slave states, we had four million people held in perpetual bondage by less than half a million slave owners with powerful political and legal protection. The time came. october sixteenth, eighteen fifty nine. And I gathered our men.
And we went down the road. And we cut the telegraph wires. And we went into Harpers Ferry. A band of raiders, white and black, stole into the sleeping town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia. They called themselves the Provisional Army of the United States and took their orders from their commander-in-chief.
John Brown. They overpowered the guard and took control. Of the United States Armory and Arsenal, and the Hall Rifle Works about a half mile up the road. The raiders secured the two bridges into town. freed slaves from surrounding farms and plantations, took hostages, cut the telegraph lines, and in just a few hours found themselves fighting for their lives.
The shots brought out the local militia. We hunkered down in the firehouse. Eventually a Marine showed up. John Brown could have escaped if he had gone earlier, but he kept waiting for more and more enslaved people to come. He delayed too long, he stalled.
Maybe at one point he said, Well, I'll just be a martyr for the cause. Who knows? But he delayed. He got trapped, surrounded. And then Robert E.
Lee was brought out from Washington. And sent Jeb Stewart, both of them would become later Confederates. He came to the door of that firehouse and said, Will you surrender? And I said, No, sir, I will not. And he stepped away from the door.
That's the last I saw of him. He gave a signal. The Marines came. They busted in the door, and a lieutenant came through the door. wearing a dress sword.
Didn't even have time to get his real saber. And he came at me with that sword. And of all things that sword hit my belt buckle. And it bent double and snapped in half. I thought, Lord save me and He did.
But then He began to beat me about the head with the sword and the hilt. And that was the end of that. I lost consciousness, came to, we were all captured, and it would all gone south. It was all a mess. John Brow was dragged out.
And people thought he was bleeding to death. He was bleeding very severely, but he answered questions for two hours. Then he was taken to jail. And when he was brought to court, He was still so severely wounded that he had to be carried in. every day on a on a stretcher.
And uh for a while there I was in grave despair that Awful things had would come from this, to hurt people I loved. But eventually. God showed me. that this was indeed the best path. And I got to speak my peace in court.
and I got to call slavery for what it was in a Virginia court room. In Thomas Jefferson's backyard, I advocated for the freedom of those who had been enslaved. He was weak from his wounds and attended most of the trial in a cut. But he spoke so eloquently for his cause that one commentator observed it was slavery on trial. Not John Brown.
His defense lawyers tried for an insanity plea, but he would have none of it. Nor would Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise. They are mistaken who take him for a madman. He is cool, collected, and indomitable.
He inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth and intelligence. It's a great irony of history that, as Henry David Thoreau said in his speech on John Brown, John Brown has won higher praise among Southerners than among Northerners. The Northerners say, oh, he was kind of a madman, he was kind of wild and everything. The Southerners, it's not that they agreed with John Brown. They hated what John Brown stood for, but.
There was this kind of code of honor in the South, this idea of, you know, sticking by your guns and really fighting for, and also kind of remaining cool and calm. And the people that captured John Brown, the Southerners, And who witnessed him up close said he was the coolest person that we've ever seen in danger. I mean, he had been wounded pretty severely when they were captured him, but he lay there for two or three hours on the ground. He was bleeding. interrogated by Southerners and and they kept on trying to rile him and everything.
And they said, well, why did you come here? He said, I just came here to emancipate enslaved people. That's all. Who sent you here? And he said, Nobody sent me here.
He didn't want to expose his backers. He has the secret six of backers of the North, but he didn't betray them. He just says, I came of my own volition and I feel I was directed by God and by my own morality to try to free people. And so he went on and on. Boots by the way.
Try to be The new John Brown, but in reverse, he was a complete white supremacist. He thought John Brown was the grandest man of the century. Why? Because John Brown was incredibly brave on the scaffold. John Brown, you have been found guilty of murder, conspiracy, and treason.
And I hereby sentence you on December 2nd in the year of our Lord 1859 to be taken from your cell to a public place and that you be hanged. Until you are dead. And may God have mercy. on your soul. On the last day of his life, John Brown woke up.
He actually slept very well in prison.
Some people in prison would get totally depressed and lose sleep. You know, I'm sleeping fine. My conscience is clear. I am awaiting the hour of my public murder with great composure of mind and cheerfulness. Feeling the strong assurance that in no other way possible could I be used to so much advantage.
To seal my testimony for God and humanity with my blood will do vastly more toward advancing the cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote. than all I have done in my life before.
So he woke up. Filled out his will, and then when he walked out of the jail, there's a huge legend, even to this day, that he bent down and kissed. an enslaved woman who was carrying a baby. It never happened. It could have happened, because he did say, I would rather walk to the gallows with an enslaved woman than with the greatest clergyman on earth.
However, what did happen is that he did leave to his jailer a little note. that the jailer read later and it said, I, John Brown, am now convinced that slavery will only be abolished after very much bloodshed. This nation will have to be purged. in blood. Two years later, the Civil War began and it would cost at least 620,000 lives.
Some people have upped that number to 750,000, but A real blood death. Then he was taken to the gallows, taken on a cart, he had to sit on his pine coffin. There was a big worry concern that there was going to be an attempt to rescue him. Indeed, uh there were rescue forces being sent.
So Robert E. Lee and the later famous Stonewall Jackson. There were several later famous Confederate people who helped to organize a very heavy guard of horses and armed people around the gallows to prevent any attempt at escape. But John Brown at that point didn't even want to be captured. He knew he was going to be a martyr.
He was the first up the stairs to the gallows. And he turned to his jailer and he said, I want to thank you for your services. This was his southern jailer, you know. And then he walked to the middle of the platform and he said, just don't keep me waiting forever here, okay, for like 15 or 20 minutes or something. As it turned out, he had to wait because the troops were scrambling to get into place.
But finally the uh gallows uh drops and he takes a few minutes to die. He uh you know quivers a lot in his legs, but Emerson simply said, John Brown makes the gallows as glorious as the cross. His parents do not exist. Yeah. It is not accurate to suggest that John Brown's raid was the direct and specific cause of the Civil War.
It is, however, proper to note at the evocative image of John Brown's body. became the standard under which thousands upon thousands of men and boys marched off to do battle. in their own land.
So That's why, in a sense, you have to call him sort of a good terrorist, it seems to me. Would I recommend his militant use of violence? No. Uh and I think that a lot of people missing misinterpret him. Uh in that way.
But I would defend his use of language. And his devotion to principle. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by Aron Monty Montgomery. A special thanks to David Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist, and my goodness, what a way to end the peace. John Brown predicting that the nation will have to be purged in blood.
The story of John Brown, the Oliver Cromwell of Abolition. Here on Our American Stories. Some people use ChatGPT to answer questions. Others use it to get real work done. With ChatGPT work, you bring the goal, plus real inputs like briefs, notes, files, feedback, data, and project plans.
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