David Brown was a Revolutionary War veteran who received the harshest sentence ever handed down under the Sedition Act of 1798, all for helping raise a liberty pole in Dedham, Massachusetts. This episode traces how an ancient symbol of freedom became the evidence that cost him his own.

We begin with the pileus cap carried on a spear after the assassination of Julius Caesar, follow the symbol through the Renaissance and the Phrygian cap mix-up, and land in colonial America, where towering liberty poles became rallying points against British rule. Then we turn to the political fever of the late 1790s, Brown’s door-to-door subscription pamphlets, the Dedham pole, his months on the run, and his trial before Justice Samuel Chase.

• How the Roman freedman’s cap became a symbol of national liberation
• The 76-foot liberty pole on Prospect Hill made from a captured British ship’s mast
• What the Alien and Sedition Acts and the U.S. Stamp Act of 1797 meant to ordinary citizens
• Why Benjamin Fairbanks got six hours in jail while Brown got 18 months and a fine near $500
• Brown’s refusal to name his supporters, Adams’s denial of a pardon, and his release under Jefferson