The Cynical Historian

John Brown and Good Lord Bird | Based on a True Story (2021x18)

Air date: Jun 15, 2021

Good Lord Bird is an awesome show, and I’m surprised it isn’t getting a lot of attention. While no one can deny John Brown was fighting for a noble cause, he absolutely did so ignobly. The man committed atrocities in abolition’s name, but in his long afterlife, much of the public has expunged the brutality and foolishness of his actions from their minds, forming a myth. Brown is more of a symbol than a flesh and blood historical character, and that is precisely what he would’ve wanted. ------------------------------------------------------------ Connected videos: Gold Rush: https://youtu.be/W1dmyx6LBKA sectional crisis: https://youtu.be/Ff2AKILyi0o second great awakening: https://youtu.be/0AwHLRqX3Qk unitarians: https://youtu.be/5B8vgdS8ikU limits of film accuracy: https://youtu.be/Ek88jgEsXgA ------------------------------------------------------------ See pinned comment and its replies for references, notes, responses, and errata *Bibliography* *Secondary sources:* Durwood Ball, _Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861_ (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001). https://amzn.to/2m06NLB Stanley Harrold, _Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War_ (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010). https://amzn.to/2xbEKSp David M. Potter, _The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861,_ Reprint (1976; New York: Harper Perennial, 2011). https://amzn.to/3aeYy5q Reggie Ugwu, “How Accurate Was ‘The Good Lord Bird’?” _New York Times,_ 17 November 2020. https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/good-lord-bird-showtime-accuracy-fact-fiction.html https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/good-lord-bird-frederick-douglass-historical-accuracy.html *Primary sources:* Brown’s last speech: https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/content-images/05508.051p1.jpg Sources on the trial and investigation of Brown: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/john-browns-body-lesson-primary-sou