The 1859 Harper's Ferry raid was an attempt by abolitionist John Brown to seize weapons from a federal arsenal to arm enslaved people and incite a slave revolt.

October 16, 1859 - Abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 other men, five black and sixteen white, in a raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. They had hoped to set off a slave revolt — throughout the south — with the weapons they had planned to seize. Virtually all his compatriots were killed or captured by General Robert E. Lee’s troops; Brown was wounded and arrested, and hanged for treason within two months. Former enslaved and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass said of Brown that he was a white man "in sympathy a black man, as deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." #JohnBrown #HarpersFerry

#OtD 16 Oct 1859 abolitionists led by John Brown, including Black people recruited by Harriet Tubman, raided a federal armoury in Harpers Ferry, WV, to get weapons to arm enslaved people. Several were killed, and Brown later executed for treason https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8828/harpers-ferry-raid