“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 naturally 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.
41: Kansas! (Bleeding Kansas, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, & Caning of Charles Sumner)
40: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention & the Explosion of Social Reform
39: The California Gold Rush and the Compromise of 1850
37: La Amistad Slave Rebellion and the Rise of Abolitionism
Volume III Epilogue
36: Mexican-American War (Part 4): Los Niños Héroes, St. Patrick’s Battalion, & the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
35: Mexican-American War (Part 3): Nuevo México and the Final Push from Vera Cruz
34: Mexican-American War (Part 2): The Pathfinder, the Bear Flag Revolt, y Los Californios
33: Mexican-American War (Part 1): From the Nueces River to the Rio Grande
32: Mormonism and the Mormon Trail
31: The California Trail: From the Donner Party to the Gold Rush
30: The Oregon Trail (“You Have Died of Dysentery”)
Christmas Special II: A Jackson White House Christmas
29: The Bank War, Whigs, & Revolution in Texas
28: Ushering in the Age of Jackson
Epilogue to Volume 2
27: The Last of the Founding Fathers
26: Peace in Ghent, War in New Orleans
25: From Lake Champlain to the “Defense of Fort M’Henry”
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