38: The (Early) Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
History That Doesn't Suck
Prof. Greg Jackson
4.7 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2019
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“I am your fellow man, but not your slave, Frederick Douglass.”
This is the story of self-education, self-emancipation, overcoming adversity, bad and good luck, and the abolitionist cause. Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick is ripped from his mother, never knows his father, but quickly realizes the power of literacy. Against the odds, the Baltimore-living youth teaches himself to read and write behind his master’s back.
But despite his evident natural intelligence, he’s soon sent back to the plantations of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where Frederick endures the worst of slave life as he’s beaten weekly by “slave-breaker” Edward Covey. This only comes to an end when Frederick daringly stands up for himself, incredibly breaking the slave-breaker. The audacious young man goes to the plantation of the much kinder William Freeland, but is nonetheless determined to have his freedom, damn the consequences. And those consequences can be great. Caught runaways are often sold to even greater miseries farther south. Godspeed, Frederick--we’re rooting for you.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | History that doesn't suck is a bi-wiggly podcast delivering a legit, seriously researched |
| 0:04.0 | hard-hitting survey of American history through entertaining stories. |
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| 0:15.4 | consider giving at patreon.com-forward-slash-history-that-doesn't-suck. |
| 0:21.6 | And if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to check out our other podcast, History that |
| 0:25.4 | doesn't suck presents Office Hours with Greg, where CL, Josh and I will discuss HTDS |
| 0:30.8 | episodes in depth, go behind the scenes, and take your questions. |
| 0:35.8 | Two advisories on today's episode. |
| 0:38.2 | One, I'll be quoting first-hand accounts that include slaves speaking a dialect of American |
| 0:42.7 | English that you'd hear on 19th century plantations. |
| 0:46.5 | In an effort to be both true to the historical record and respectful to cultural sensitivities, |
| 0:51.2 | I will read their words as written, but will not affect any kind of accent. |
| 0:56.0 | Two, some quotes include white Americans using a particularly offensive term for African |
| 1:01.6 | Americans. |
| 1:02.6 | I'll read the first syllable and we'll believe it from there to avoid explicit language. |
| 1:06.7 | But given the violence accompanying these beliefs at one particular point, listener discretion |
| 1:11.5 | is advised. |
| 1:22.2 | Welcome to History that doesn't suck. |
| 1:25.8 | I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. |
| 1:31.3 | It's an early summer morning and an enslaved Maryland teenager named Frederick is out in |
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