Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, December 1st, 1859, militant abolitionist John Brown awaits his execution.

He would be hanged by the Commonwealth of Virginia the next morning, December 2nd, for treason, murder, and insurrection.

Brown, as you may know, had led a raid on the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia earlier that fall in October.

He led 18 recruits, 13 white men and 5 black men in an effort to seize

weapons and spark an anti-slavery insurrection. The raid was successful at the very beginning and then very quickly not successful.

Troops descended, killed many of Brown's men.

Brown was captured, tried, and pretty quickly sentenced to death.

On the day of his execution, John Brown wrote a famous pretty quickly sentenced to death.

On the day of his execution, John Brown wrote a famous letter in which he famously said,

quote, the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.

Sixteen months later, the country was in Civil War. So lots to discuss

about John Brown, his death, his life, his political context, his story through the years, and here

as always to do it is Nicole

Hammer of Columbia. Hello Mickey. Hello Jody. So let's start since it's our

hook with his death and his hanging and then we'll kind of go backwards in time

a little bit to the raid and his

political context and his biography but I just find some of the the details about

the hanging of John Brown so fascinating including this one which I just sort of an image I can't get

out of my mind since I first read it.

He was transported from the jail to the gallows and he rode in a wagon sitting atop his own casket on the way to the gallows.

...