On this day, December the 2nd, in the year of 1859, American abolitionist John Brown was hung for leading a raid on a federal armoury in the hopes of creating a freed slave stronghold which in it self was part of a grander plan to create a freed slave stronghold.

The raid was to gain supplies and a base of operations for the adformetined stronghold, it ended in the deaths of seventeen men and the killings of the raiders.

John Brown, a staunch abolitionist with a history of fighting (in a lirteal sense) for abolition, became a martyr in the antislavery movement, angering Southerns as they feared it would be the first of many slave revolts, dangering what they saw as their way of life. 

One year later in 1861, America’s Southern states would secede from the Union, starting the American Civil War (American Battlefield Trust) (PBS) (Britannica) (Britannica).

To read more about the U.S. Civil War, please see “On This Day – November 7th (Abraham Lincoln)”.

To read more daily facts and tidbits, see the Barron Perspectives “On this Day Archives” webpage.