WEBVTT - Part One: The Raid on Harpers Ferry Succeeded, Actually 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:07.480 Hello, and welcome to Cool People who did Cool Stuff, 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.360 your weekly reminder that when there's bad things, there's good things, 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:13.400 and then sometimes bad things happen to the good things, 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:15.239 but then good things come out of the bad things 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:16.640 that happen to the good things that were in response 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.000 to the bad things. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.200 with me today is Bridget Tod. 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.439 Hi. How are you, hey, Margaret. I'm so excited to 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:25.880 be back. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.200 I know it's nice to have you. And wait now, 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:30.720 I don't remember what the last I usually try and 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:32.680 remember and look up with the last episode because you've 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:33.320 been on a bunch. 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:35.080 Yeah, was it Wendy Carlos? 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:37.000 Oh shit, it might have been that one? 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:38.760 Was it might have been Wendy Carlos. 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.120 Yeah, people should go back and listen to me talk 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.879 about the trans woman who invented electronic music. Bridgetod is 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.280 the host of There Are No Girls on the Internet, 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.040 which is an untrue title. I've been meaning to tell 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:52.320 you this. 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.680 Yes, oh god, the title is like I mean, first 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.080 of all, it's a mouthful. If you ever have to 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.920 name a podcast having a long title, just give it 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:02.280 some thought. If that's really what you want to do. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.800 I know, I guess cool people who I mean, you know. 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:08.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, it's I think it's worth it. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.479 It just means that every time you go anywhere, people 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.319 get your title slightly wrong. People are like, I'm adage 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.040 fan of cool people who did cool things, and you're like, sure, 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.200 good enough. I don't correct people. What do people get 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:26.440 your your's a mouthful? What do people say instead? 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:27.200 Oh? 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.360 Sometimes it's like girls on the internet, which feels like 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.160 vaguely pornographic, like. 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:35.280 Whatever I type that? 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:41.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Generally it's some combination of 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.959 correct ish words in not correct order. But yeah, I 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.520 don't correct them either. I actually love hearing the incorrect 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:49.639 podcast titles. 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:50.280 Keep them coming. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.280 I know me too. And I'm also like, I don't know, 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.560 I'm glad that people listen. I wouldn't remember the name 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.920 of my own podcast. Like we even had a long fight, 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.360 not fight, we had a long discussion. I don't think 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.440 anyone actually took any strong positions whether we were going 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.400 to call it cool people did cool things or cool 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.040 people who did cool stuff. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.079 Is there a functional difference between the things and the stuff, 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.320 the stuff and the things Sophie do you remember why 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:16.360 we ended up with stuff. 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:19.360 I think it just sounded better. 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.840 I think you're right. Also, people who listen every week 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.680 might notice, is that Sophie and it is our producer. 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.040 Sophie's here. Hi Sophie, Hi. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.639 Magpie, Hi be Hi Sophie Sophie. 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:38.760 Speaking of podcast titles, I was interviewing Molly Konger about 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.040 Weird Little Guys and I asked, where did that title 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.240 come from? And she said, oh, that was a Sophie 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.120 a Sophie production right there. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.280 Not exactly, She's very nice to say that, but it's 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.080 something she said in a meeting, and I wrote it 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.480 down on my like creepy notepad of like that could 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.800 be a podcast title. And then when we decided to 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.040 do a weekly podcast with her, I was like, lardy 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.960 have the title. So it was her idea. Originally, I 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.440 want to make sure she credits herself as well. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:13.840 Which is a podcast that people should go listen to absolutely, but. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:15.679 Nope. 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.000 I was trying to come up with a segway, but 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.560 I don't have one. Okay, So lately I have been 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.080 burning through my short list of topics that I've wanted 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.360 to cover since the very beginning of this show. I 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.080 had like maybe ten things that I set out being like, I, 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:31.960 however long the show goes, I need to make sure 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.800 to cover these at some point. And in earlier this week, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.560 I went to a little national park. I accidentally, I 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:41.560 mean on purpose. I totally went on purpose when on 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:43.880 the day that everyone had protests at the national parks, 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.920 I went to a national park called Harper's Ferry in 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.680 West Virginia and I got like every book there. It 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.160 was amazing. I went up and was like, here's all 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.040 the books, and the person behind the counter was like interesting. 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.000 This week we are talking about the raid on Harper's 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.080 Ferry of eighteen fifty nine that not only presaged the 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.000 coming Civil War but essentially sparked it. I know the 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:10.440 answer to this because I asked you earlier. But have 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:11.520 you ever been to Harper's Ferry. 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.680 I have been to Harper's Ferry many times. I love 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:15.480 Harper's Ferry. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.760 It's so beautiful there. When I was a little kid, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:20.480 it was just like the place to go get taffy. 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.880 And also there's something that happened during the Civil War there, 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:23.479 you know. 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.120 Yeah, when I went there with my parents, it was 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.920 the place where they have you know those like historical 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.880 markers of like historical thing happened here. And I have 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.960 many many memories of my dad being like I'm going 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.240 to go read this time to find out what happened here, 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.000 and we're like, Dad, let's go like that, Like that's 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.600 the space that Harper's Ferry occupied when I was young. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.159 Yeah, yeah, totally. It is a very beautiful place with 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.240 some historical markers, and now it's a place that I 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.240 like just like go and cry because I think that 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:01.320 the people who fought there are wonderful people. But the 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.000 most famous of those people is not who we're talking 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:09.440 about today. Ooh, John Brown is the most famous Harper's 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.680 Fairy adjacent person, right, Yes, I think people hold on 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:20.000 to him because he's the best white guy in American history, accurate, 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:23.200 especially at a time when like decent white men were 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:24.719 like real thin on the ground. 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:25.400 You know. 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.159 Yeah, not a ton of them back then, not really 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:29.640 a lot today either, really. 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.400 No, yeah, fair enough, And so people should go and 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.800 learn from John Brown's example if you're a you know, 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.919 a white man living today, that is a thing to 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.360 go read about, you know. But John Brown has been 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.599 covered a fair amount, But like I like him but 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.599 he's been covered a lot, including in an excellent series 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.040 of Christmas special episodes on Behind the Bastards. So you 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.159 can listen to a Cool Zone Media special all about 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.640 John Brown this week. I want to talk about the 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.400 other Raiders because twenty two people participated in the raid 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.880 on Harper's Ferry, and even that's not true. Twenty two 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.800 people set out to participate on the raid on Harper's Ferry, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:15.479 an unknown of additional enslaved people joined them. I've read 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.080 fifteen and I've read fifty, but I want to talk 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.880 about these other raiders, and in particular, I want to 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.720 talk about the five Black Raiders who set out with 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.560 the intention of joining in this raid. Have you heard 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.279 much about this story besides the just the John brown Er. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.040 I have to admit I have not, Like I definitely 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.159 John Brown is the name that looms large when I 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.880 think about Harper's Ferry, So I'm excited to learn more. 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:44.000 Yeah, and it's like one of these things where it's 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.360 like I understand why people were doing the like big 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.279 man of history stuff, but it's not interesting to me. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.200 Like he's great. I really am not trying to put 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.320 this man down, but like there were other people who 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.479 fought and died and sometimes survived who were part of this, 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.520 And uh, yeah, I don't know, so I want to 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.520 talk about them. The shortest version of this story is 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.320 that during the first half of the nineteenth century, US 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.960 politics were growing more and more tense over the issue 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.280 of slavery. It helps that the century kicked off with 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.720 Haiti proving that you can, in fact, just grab a 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.000 bunch of pikes and guns and then kill all the 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.800 people who claim to own other people, which scared the 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.840 piss out of America. Like I didn't, I didn't know 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.720 as much about how Haiti influenced American politics until it 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:38.000 started reading history books for a living. Rebellions were popping 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.520 off everywhere, and even in the halls of power, people 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.880 were discussing the issue more and more. Abolitionist tensions were 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.560 reaching a boiling point when in eighteen fifty nine, nineteen 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.800 abolitionists stormed the federal armory in Harper's Ferry. I said 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:56.840 twenty two earlier, But that's because three of them stayed 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:58.680 back at the farmhouse to guard all the guns that 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:00.640 they were going to give to enslave people if the 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.280 whole thing worked out. So nineteen of them stormed the 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.520 Federal Armory in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia now regular Virginia 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.800 at the time, with the intention of seizing arms, freeing slaves, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.120 and starting a generalized rebellion as well as an independent 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.119 black nation right here in Appalachia. And that was another 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.120 part that like never really got explained to me. Like 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.880 maybe maybe whenever I keeping like, I didn't learn about 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.320 this in school. Maybe I was just asleep. I don't know, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.840 but I don't remember learning that they were going to 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.560 start an independent black nation in Appalachia, that was the 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:35.440 purpose of this raid. 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.320 No, I definitely didn't learn that either. 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.600 I went I went to school in like the former 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.520 capital of the Confederacy. So I have come as an 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.880 adult to realize all the different ways that specifically the 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.640 Civil War curriculum was taught to me. Is like so 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.920 messed up. But no, I did not learn about this either, Margaret. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:55.920 I know. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.960 I even like, when I think back about I don't 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.720 remember whether school taught me that slavery was the cause 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.000 of the Civil War, not because I remember being told, Oh, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:09.080 people say that, but it's really states rights, you know. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:09.720 Yeah. 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:11.920 I So I grew I went to school in Richmond, 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.080 right outside of Richmond, Virginia, and we explicitly did not 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.640 learn that slavery had anything to do with the Civil War. 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.800 It's all states rights, yeah, like it. And it's so 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.800 funny because like I'll look at my like cousins, like 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.040 their history books and the way that they go out 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.520 of their way to be like, well, you know, sure 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.920 slavery was bad, but like it's it's yeah. So I 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.160 didn't learn it that way either, Yeah, And it's it's 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.920 kind of wild how like some of these talking points 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.960 haven't changed since the end of the Civil War, like 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.760 this idea that like slavery was bad, but enslave people. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:50.120 Were kind of happy. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:50.480 You know. 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:51.520 It's really well. 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:53.640 Yeah. 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.080 And so most people claim that the raid on Harper's 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.520 Ferry did not work. It was an abject failure. To 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.560 be certain, it was a military failure. Only one of 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.559 the raiders who actually went to Harper's Ferry, a black 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:14.520 man named Osborne Pierce Anderson, survived the raid. John Brown 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.120 himself was hanged. They had ordered a thousand pikes to 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.200 be handed out to a thousand enslaved people, and only 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.280 about twenty to fifty ended up handed out. They did 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.559 not themselves. These raiders personally wage war on the slave states, 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:34.400 successfully as they intended. But my argument here is an 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.480 argument that I think modern historians tend to just actually 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:42.280 agree on now, is that they succeeded. The raid on 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.520 Harper's Ferry was the spark that ignited the Civil War, 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.240 the end of chattel slavery. It didn't pan out like 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.199 the raiders had planned, but it happened, and they used 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.920 their own deaths to spark the war. And the thing 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.320 that I didn't realize until doing more research on this now, 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.280 that was k kind of their plan b all along. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.120 Like their goal was to have a raid and arm 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.600 everyone and go and create this independent black nation. But 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:14.480 they were like very consciously. Okay, I feel weird saying 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.079 the majority of the raiders were white, because it's not true. 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.160 The majority of the people who marched there were white, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.680 but the majority of the people who fought were black. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:24.720 But the reason that the majority of the people who 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.199 march there were white is that they were like, we 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.520 think that if a bunch of white people die, it 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:35.160 will cause northern white people to actually grow the fuck 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:36.360 up and do something about this. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.440 Wow, I mean I get that as a strategy. I 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:41.839 totally get that as a strategy. 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:46.439 Yeah, and what a what a wild one one of 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:51.439 the wild. Like like the Raiders had planned, the enslaved 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.720 people of the South had a hand or millions of 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.600 hands in their own liberation. As I've covered before on 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.160 the show, the General Strike conducted by enslaved people in 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.000 the South was the most successful labor action in US history. 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.400 They grinded the Confederate economy into dust while black and 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.240 white gorillas waged a civil war within the Civil War. 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.319 And this doesn't even mention yet the one hundred and 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.120 eighty thousand black soldiers who fought in the Union Army 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.760 or the thirty six thousand of them who died, and 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.520 the Union Army when it marched into the Civil War, 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.000 it marched with a song on their lips. And the 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:30.640 song was John Brown's Body, which states John Brown's body 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.520 lies a moldering in the grave, but his soul is 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:40.440 marching on. To me, this was the people marching into 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.440 the South to end slavery. Was his soul marching on 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:48.080 like a for me a kind of literal sense. And 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.280 so my argument is that the Raiders fought, died, and 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.240 then won. And I think there are many such cases 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.480 of this throughout history. One of the reasons that I 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:03.640 think so much about this. Okay, So I went, oh, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.080 I'm not going to go off script. I'm just gonna 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:06.280 read my script because I'm going to say what I 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.720 was going to say. The raid itself was fought and 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.280 over within a couple of days, about thirty six hours 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.520 in eighteen fifty nine, but the battle over its story 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.680 is still being fought. I live not terribly far from 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:20.880 Harper's Ferry, and I grew up going there as a kid. 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.040 I went a couple years back and I saw a 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:29.079 private tour guide giving a talk. He said, basically, oh, well, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.880 the raid was ill advised. No matter how good his intentions. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.079 John Brown was basically just this white guy who is 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.480 disconnected from what the black enslave people here actually wanted. 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.480 You know, they didn't want someone coming in to liberate 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:47.160 them at gunpoint, and I wanted to scream in retrospect, 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.160 I kind of wish I had, but I had my 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:50.400 dog with me, and I didn't want to go to 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:56.800 jail because this is the talking point that even like 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.839 sympathetic people have started to believe. And when I say 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:05.320 started immediately this was an active media campaign right away 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:10.280 to disconnect John Brown from a racially integrated abolitionist movement 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.319 that he was an integral part of. I got really 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:14.320 angry about this stuff. 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.160 Why do you think that attitude person or like, how 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.200 have that attitude managed to persist today that you're hearing 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.040 it from a tour guide in a park. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:25.680 I have a lot of thoughts about it. So I 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.960 think he wasn't an official tour guide because I actually 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.080 went back and I think the actual National Park the 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.720 information that the National Park Service is presenting is actually 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.120 fairly accurate for now. If you're listening to this next year, 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.880 it might be not anymore. They'll just be like John Brown, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.560 a trader who just went and died, and all black 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:48.520 people hated him. But I think there's a couple reasons. 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:52.320 I think that people immediately people painted him as a 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.240 zealot and then ignored everyone else who fought right. It 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.120 was just him and he was crazy. He had to 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.280 be crazy in order to do what he did. So 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.160 for racist white Southerners it was a way to be like, oh, well, 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.760 obviously that's the wrong way to make change. But I 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.360 think vaguely less racist white Northerners. It was kind of 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.000 the same thing. It was kind of a way to 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.760 get yourself off the hook, to be like, oh well, 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.920 it wouldn't really have work to take militant action against slavery. 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.160 So it's okay that all I did was hold up 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.080 a ping pong paddle that says we don't like fascism 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:29.160 or whatever. 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:29.560 You know. 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:35.400 Because after the raid, the Southern media presented John Brown 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.160 as evil and as a threat to all humanity. Eventually, 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:43.120 the basic moral rightness of his cause couldn't really be 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.600 argued right, and in order to reach that, seven hundred 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:52.080 and fifty thousand people had to die. But the conservative position, 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.680 I'm back on script saying the same things I just said, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.400 sorry about that. The conservative position switched quickly to claim 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.000 that he was a zalot and crazy. His followers were 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.880 misguided or crazy too, and they wanted to deny that 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.400 he was a well connected and well loved abolitionist too, 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.600 as part of an international movement to end shadow slavery 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:12.120 in the US. He also was a bit of a zelot. 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.840 I think it might take a bit of a zelot. 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.320 And when I read about the rest of his followers, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:20.600 I think they kind of were too. 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.720 They're nice though, Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.640 that this kind of action would take a bit of 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.360 a zelo it to organize, I. 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.440 Know, especially especially once they found out what the real 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.000 plan was. They were like, wait, our plan is to 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.760 just go there and try and win. We're just gonna 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.040 twenty one of us are just gonna take over the South. 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.000 Yeah, yeah, you gotta a. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.360 Zelot might be the type of person that would go 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:51.560 along with that plan. 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.680 Yeah, totally. But you know, it doesn't take much as 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:59.800 ellotry going along with Wow, taking advantage of the excellent 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.480 that are offered by all of our sponsors, which absolutely 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.560 would later claim to have been on the right side 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:12.640 of any given large thing in history. Allegedly, here's our. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:21.720 Ads and we're back. 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:28.440 So it is true that Frederick Douglas, the most famous abolitionist, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.399 a man who had self emancipated from slavery, turned John 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.560 Brown down when he was invited to the raid, but 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.159 one of Frederick Douglas's close friends, who was at the 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:45.200 same meeting, agreed to join. Harriet Tubman, perhaps the single 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.800 most impressive badass the US has ever produced. Like, honestly, 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.280 I'm like I bring her up like here and there 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.440 in other episodes, but mostly because it's just like I'm 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.760 just slowly collecting books and I'm just I don't know. Anyway, 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:57.560 she was amazing. 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:59.800 She's the coolest fun fact. 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.119 She's like, I'm an avid outdoors woman, and whenever people 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.479 are like, oh, black women hiking, I'm like, oh, Harriet 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.360 Tubman was like, people don't think of her this way, 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.399 but avid outdoors woman, you know, Like that's true. Yeah, 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.000 I really I really own her as my like black 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.720 woman outdoors woman, you know, idol. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.199 Honestly, there's a lot to be said there about like 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.080 people who were using the outdoors in real interesting ways 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.320 during the first half of the nineteenth century. 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.960 Like, oh, yes, that's cool. 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:31.679 I'm so. 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:36.320 I mean something told me that that might be a 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.840 spirit that we have to embrace at some point in 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:40.359 the future. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:41.200 I'll put it that way. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.199 It's fair enough. Yeah, Honestly, one of the people involved 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:46.800 in this story is going to die because he can't 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:47.560 hike far enough. 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:48.920 Uh there you go. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:56.280 So uh so Harriet Tubman wasn't on the raid because 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.439 she was sick when the when it was planned, so 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.320 she didn't make it, but she proved contacts for it, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.119 She raised funds, and she recruited soldiers. And there's so 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.000 much focus on John Brown himself and his psychology that 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.560 I think that disconnects him from the vibrant movement he 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:12.359 was part of, right, because not everyone involved in that 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.400 movement was like a zalot, but he was still part 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:16.879 of that movement, if any, he was kind of the 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.840 wing nut fringe of it, and that movement that he 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.240 was part of did in the end and through bloodshed 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.160 and legal chattel slavery in the United States. There were 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.560 twenty two people who were part of the raid. Nineteen 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.920 of them marched on Harper's ferry. John Brown was one 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:34.679 of them. And we're going to talk about some of 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:40.320 the other ones. But first context, those are the other 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.679 instead of ads. That's the other thing I cut to context. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.280 We should like play the Jaws theme song whenever you 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.000 say context. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:52.200 We absolutely should. 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.080 The South was always internally divided on the issue of slavery, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.840 as we've talked about before on this show. Of course, 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:03.880 four point five million people living there had a particularly 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.400 personal reason to be opposed to the institution of slavery. 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.800 There was a free black population, and as there were 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.040 a few white people arguing against it as well. For 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.199 about three years, from eighteen twenty nine to eighteen thirty two, 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.320 debates raged in Virginia about slavery. And I think this 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.320 was happening elsewhere, but like I read about it in 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.720 Virginia because the western half of the state, which is 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.359 now West Virginia or Greater Virginia. Actually people have told 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:29.960 me I shouldn't call it Greater Virginia, I should call 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.200 it Best Virginia. And that makes sense. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.240 West Virginia Best Virginia it is. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:37.040 And whenever people are like, why do you call it 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.800 Best Virginia, I'm like, hello, I would like to introduce 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.520 you to why West Virginia exists. It's because they did 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.480 not want to fight for the Confederacy. On the other hand, 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.600 the tables have turned politically a little bit, but I'm 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:53.679 still holding out that people will anyway whatever. So just 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:55.840