July 17, 2020 • 10 mins
Tracy shares how she landed at the topic of Ignatius Sancho, and she and Holly discuss his writing style. Free Frank's unique story, and how it involves some contradictory situations, is also discussed.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio, Happy Casual Friday. I'm Tracy Vie
Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. One of our episodes this
week was about Ignacious Sancho, and this is only tangentially
(00:22):
related what what I wrote that we recorded last week
before this one was the episode about why nobody talks
about the Irish Slaves, And when we came out of
the studio from doing that, there were newly tweeted tweets
from Liam Hogan about that particular idea circulating a lot
in Ireland UM in response to black people in Ireland
(00:44):
sharing their own experiences with racism, and I was thinking,
we have not really talked about like racial history or
or racism um like in the UK that much at
all on the show, which like it led me out
at them like a couple of mental paths, was that
we had a soccer coach when I was in high
school who was from England who claimed that there was
(01:05):
no racism in England and that's not correct. But then
I was like, you know, what might be a good
thing to include is like something along those lines. It's
about like the UK in some way or Britain and
Ireland in some way. Um, and that that led me
to Ignacious Sancho. And then when I started doing the research,
I realized I started researching this episode in teen and
(01:29):
then I put it aside for some reason. I think
it might have been because I was afraid it was
gonna sound too similar to the one that we had
just done. Like when I started researching it on Ira
Frederick Aldridge, like I thought, oh, I think going into it,
I thought that there was going to be a lot
more about Ignacious Sancho's stage career, when really that was
(01:50):
like a sentence. Yeah, I UM, I have a folder
of those episodes that I have started and halted for
whatever reason. But there are times when I go back
it was like I did, like I have no recollection
of ever starting particular ones. Yeah. Occasionally when I go
clean up my bookmarks, UM, I find stuff like that
(02:11):
and I collected altogether. And so I have this, um
a folder called potential topics that is stuff that I
have started researching but have never gotten around to you
and looking at it right now, it actually has a
folder on the Black Sox scandal. So we've done that.
I can take that out of there. Um. And I
also have one called probably Not, which is things that
(02:31):
I started researching thinking that it was gonna work and
then was like, oh, I don't think this is gonna
probably not. Yeah, that's very funny. Um. I really really
enjoyed this. I'm glad you picked this one one because
his story is so interesting too. I it's funny, And
I'm glad that you specifically talked about his writing style.
(02:52):
I love his writing style. I do too, like you
and I both have worked for long years as copy editor,
and we what's funny is that sometimes people, when they
email us will say, like, I'm nervous about emailing you
because I know you and a coup. I don't think
either of us cares particularly about whether or not your
(03:13):
punctuation and grammar are perfect. We've said it before, like
the longer you work as a copy editor, the more
you realize one that everybody makes errors and it's no
big deal. And to that, like, everybody has their own
style that reflects the way they speak often and ideally, like,
to me, that is a more enjoyable way to read
(03:34):
than like a perfectly constructed uh paragraph that where all
of the grammar is ideal and all of the punctuation
is is textbook perfect. UM one. It's just a little
more interesting to you get a better sense of who
the writer is. And so I really really like the
way he cuts his phrases with dashes in some places,
(03:54):
because you it it reads like casual speech, which I of, yeah,
And I mean if you just look at it, if
you look at a page of a letter that has
been rendered as you know, a type base, but punctuated
as he punctuated it, just glancing at it, it can
kind of look like somebody just like shook a shaker
of of dashes on. But I find it really really
(04:19):
fun to read UM, and I don't think I have
I've seen people make comparisons to various other letter writers
UM in the eighteenth and maybe nineteenth centuries. UM. But
what it reminded me of a little bit was was
actually Peep's diary in terms of like the random things
(04:40):
that he was observing around him in London, and sometimes
the tone that was just uh like rye and witty
sometimes like it's it's definitely not a complete one to
one comparison because it was letters rather than a diary,
But like I feel like it has some of the
same flavor from time to time. See that. It's very cool.
(05:02):
I very much enjoyed this one. Thank you again. I'm
glad you liked it. One of the subjects we talked
about this week was free Frank McCarter, which is in
some ways a wonderful story and in many ways a
heartbreaking story because you want to cheer for him because
he overcame so much, but it sucks that he had
to overcome so much. Yeah, he had to overcome all that.
(05:24):
And then also, like we said in the episode very briefly, like,
there's also the part that we did not really get into,
which is like the exploitation of indigenous people and the
land that they were living on. Because anytime we talked
about somebody buying land from the government, that's what we're
talking about. Yeah, that's that's how the government got it.
You mentioned too at the end of the episode, the
(05:45):
really difficult topic of of sometimes people who were enslaved
and even after they had gained their freedom, had to
kind of buy into that system that was enslaving people
in the first place in order to make a difference,
which is a really stinky paradox to be in and
(06:05):
like the part of it when I was researching that
really struck me in regards to that, and that really
broke my heart was when he was getting ready to
move to Illinois but had to like make nice with
everybody who still enslaved his kids and be like, no, no,
I promise you, I promise you. I'm going to come
back and purchase their freedom. We're good, right, Like he
(06:26):
had to completely reassure the people who held his children
in such an awful situation that he was trustworthy, and
it yea makes me like angry, cry and clench my fist.
I want to punch things. Yeah, yeah, he he really was,
like he was having to not only save up the
money to do this, but also like plague hate and
(06:50):
manage the feelings of white people. Uh huh. There is
a part of me, though, that really really loves the
idea that all of these people thought he could do
what he wanted to do in saving up this money,
in securing his family's freedom. And I just sort of
wish like we could get a snapshot of their faces
(07:12):
when they realized that they had put every obstacle in
his path and he still was like, Okay, good, I'm
ready to make this transaction. Now, um, uh, that's just
a little a little historical schadenfreude for me. Uh yeah.
So in your research, did you find anything regarding his
(07:32):
his sort of thinking behind establishing New Philadelphia as an
integrated community. Um, there really isn't. That is the trick
with Frank mccorder is that he was not, to the
best of our knowledge, like keeping a diary. His internal
thoughts were not really recorded. Um, even as he was
(07:54):
running the community, there's not a lot of documentation about
his point of view as a leader. I think it
was one of those cases where one because of the
nature of the community he had lived in from the
time he was eighteen in Kentucky, which obviously was a
(08:16):
slave state. There are a lot of histories that talk
about the fact that even though it was a slave
state and obviously there is an imbalance of power, there
was a certain a different sort of relationship in some
of these frontier areas that were small communities where uh,
some you kind of had to rely on each other
(08:38):
enough that some of those boundaries got a little blurrier um,
which is I think evidenced in the fact that like
he was left behind by the person who enslaved him
to run things and was trusted to run things, which
also meant that that mcquarter was trusting Frank to handle
things like business transactions with white people at that point
(08:59):
on behalf of him. So there is clearly some level
of that being a normal state of affairs for Frank,
I think. And so when he started selling plots of land,
I don't I would guess, and again speculation. I can't
imagine it was an issue for him one way or
the other. Really, he just wanted like a place where
(09:19):
he and his family could live, and everybody else who
wanted to come there that was okay with him because
he saw them as all kind of just wanting a
new start. Again, that is my speculation, um, but I
do think that's probably part of the result of being
in that frontier space where where he was. And again,
he was running a business completely illegally if you think
(09:41):
about it, his Saltpeter business, Like, he was not legally
allowed to have any sort of contract, so any of
that would have been not legal, even though everybody was
was entering into those sales transactions with him. Um, So
there is sort of some fuzziness in all of that
in terms of like one the rights and legal abilities
(10:07):
of an enslaved person at that time in that community
that I think informed his his later life behaviors and adventures.
So yeah, that is our casual Friday hope. If you
work a regular work week that heading into the weekend,
you have a good one. If you would like to
write to us, you could do so at History Podcast
at i heart radio dot com. You can also reach
us on social media as missed in History, and if
(10:29):
you like to subscribe, it's super easy. You could do
that on the I heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio, Happy Casual Friday. I'm Tracy Vie
Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. One of our episodes this
week was about Ignacious Sancho, and this is only tangentially
(00:22):
related what what I wrote that we recorded last week
before this one was the episode about why nobody talks
about the Irish Slaves, And when we came out of
the studio from doing that, there were newly tweeted tweets
from Liam Hogan about that particular idea circulating a lot
in Ireland UM in response to black people in Ireland
(00:44):
sharing their own experiences with racism, and I was thinking,
we have not really talked about like racial history or
or racism um like in the UK that much at
all on the show, which like it led me out
at them like a couple of mental paths, was that
we had a soccer coach when I was in high
school who was from England who claimed that there was
(01:05):
no racism in England and that's not correct. But then
I was like, you know, what might be a good
thing to include is like something along those lines. It's
about like the UK in some way or Britain and
Ireland in some way. Um, and that that led me
to Ignacious Sancho. And then when I started doing the research,
I realized I started researching this episode in teen and
(01:29):
then I put it aside for some reason. I think
it might have been because I was afraid it was
gonna sound too similar to the one that we had
just done. Like when I started researching it on Ira
Frederick Aldridge, like I thought, oh, I think going into it,
I thought that there was going to be a lot
more about Ignacious Sancho's stage career, when really that was
(01:50):
like a sentence. Yeah, I UM, I have a folder
of those episodes that I have started and halted for
whatever reason. But there are times when I go back
it was like I did, like I have no recollection
of ever starting particular ones. Yeah. Occasionally when I go
clean up my bookmarks, UM, I find stuff like that
(02:11):
and I collected altogether. And so I have this, um
a folder called potential topics that is stuff that I
have started researching but have never gotten around to you
and looking at it right now, it actually has a
folder on the Black Sox scandal. So we've done that.
I can take that out of there. Um. And I
also have one called probably Not, which is things that
(02:31):
I started researching thinking that it was gonna work and
then was like, oh, I don't think this is gonna
probably not. Yeah, that's very funny. Um. I really really
enjoyed this. I'm glad you picked this one one because
his story is so interesting too. I it's funny, And
I'm glad that you specifically talked about his writing style.
(02:52):
I love his writing style. I do too, like you
and I both have worked for long years as copy editor,
and we what's funny is that sometimes people, when they
email us will say, like, I'm nervous about emailing you
because I know you and a coup. I don't think
either of us cares particularly about whether or not your
(03:13):
punctuation and grammar are perfect. We've said it before, like
the longer you work as a copy editor, the more
you realize one that everybody makes errors and it's no
big deal. And to that, like, everybody has their own
style that reflects the way they speak often and ideally, like,
to me, that is a more enjoyable way to read
(03:34):
than like a perfectly constructed uh paragraph that where all
of the grammar is ideal and all of the punctuation
is is textbook perfect. UM one. It's just a little
more interesting to you get a better sense of who
the writer is. And so I really really like the
way he cuts his phrases with dashes in some places,
(03:54):
because you it it reads like casual speech, which I of, yeah,
And I mean if you just look at it, if
you look at a page of a letter that has
been rendered as you know, a type base, but punctuated
as he punctuated it, just glancing at it, it can
kind of look like somebody just like shook a shaker
of of dashes on. But I find it really really
(04:19):
fun to read UM, and I don't think I have
I've seen people make comparisons to various other letter writers
UM in the eighteenth and maybe nineteenth centuries. UM. But
what it reminded me of a little bit was was
actually Peep's diary in terms of like the random things
(04:40):
that he was observing around him in London, and sometimes
the tone that was just uh like rye and witty
sometimes like it's it's definitely not a complete one to
one comparison because it was letters rather than a diary,
But like I feel like it has some of the
same flavor from time to time. See that. It's very cool.
(05:02):
I very much enjoyed this one. Thank you again. I'm
glad you liked it. One of the subjects we talked
about this week was free Frank McCarter, which is in
some ways a wonderful story and in many ways a
heartbreaking story because you want to cheer for him because
he overcame so much, but it sucks that he had
to overcome so much. Yeah, he had to overcome all that.
(05:24):
And then also, like we said in the episode very briefly, like,
there's also the part that we did not really get into,
which is like the exploitation of indigenous people and the
land that they were living on. Because anytime we talked
about somebody buying land from the government, that's what we're
talking about. Yeah, that's that's how the government got it.
You mentioned too at the end of the episode, the
(05:45):
really difficult topic of of sometimes people who were enslaved
and even after they had gained their freedom, had to
kind of buy into that system that was enslaving people
in the first place in order to make a difference,
which is a really stinky paradox to be in and
(06:05):
like the part of it when I was researching that
really struck me in regards to that, and that really
broke my heart was when he was getting ready to
move to Illinois but had to like make nice with
everybody who still enslaved his kids and be like, no, no,
I promise you, I promise you. I'm going to come
back and purchase their freedom. We're good, right, Like he
(06:26):
had to completely reassure the people who held his children
in such an awful situation that he was trustworthy, and
it yea makes me like angry, cry and clench my fist.
I want to punch things. Yeah, yeah, he he really was,
like he was having to not only save up the
money to do this, but also like plague hate and
(06:50):
manage the feelings of white people. Uh huh. There is
a part of me, though, that really really loves the
idea that all of these people thought he could do
what he wanted to do in saving up this money,
in securing his family's freedom. And I just sort of
wish like we could get a snapshot of their faces
(07:12):
when they realized that they had put every obstacle in
his path and he still was like, Okay, good, I'm
ready to make this transaction. Now, um, uh, that's just
a little a little historical schadenfreude for me. Uh yeah.
So in your research, did you find anything regarding his
(07:32):
his sort of thinking behind establishing New Philadelphia as an
integrated community. Um, there really isn't. That is the trick
with Frank mccorder is that he was not, to the
best of our knowledge, like keeping a diary. His internal
thoughts were not really recorded. Um, even as he was
(07:54):
running the community, there's not a lot of documentation about
his point of view as a leader. I think it
was one of those cases where one because of the
nature of the community he had lived in from the
time he was eighteen in Kentucky, which obviously was a
(08:16):
slave state. There are a lot of histories that talk
about the fact that even though it was a slave
state and obviously there is an imbalance of power, there
was a certain a different sort of relationship in some
of these frontier areas that were small communities where uh,
some you kind of had to rely on each other
(08:38):
enough that some of those boundaries got a little blurrier um,
which is I think evidenced in the fact that like
he was left behind by the person who enslaved him
to run things and was trusted to run things, which
also meant that that mcquarter was trusting Frank to handle
things like business transactions with white people at that point
(08:59):
on behalf of him. So there is clearly some level
of that being a normal state of affairs for Frank,
I think. And so when he started selling plots of land,
I don't I would guess, and again speculation. I can't
imagine it was an issue for him one way or
the other. Really, he just wanted like a place where
(09:19):
he and his family could live, and everybody else who
wanted to come there that was okay with him because
he saw them as all kind of just wanting a
new start. Again, that is my speculation, um, but I
do think that's probably part of the result of being
in that frontier space where where he was. And again,
he was running a business completely illegally if you think
(09:41):
about it, his Saltpeter business, Like, he was not legally
allowed to have any sort of contract, so any of
that would have been not legal, even though everybody was
was entering into those sales transactions with him. Um, So
there is sort of some fuzziness in all of that
in terms of like one the rights and legal abilities
(10:07):
of an enslaved person at that time in that community
that I think informed his his later life behaviors and adventures.
So yeah, that is our casual Friday hope. If you
work a regular work week that heading into the weekend,
you have a good one. If you would like to
write to us, you could do so at History Podcast
at i heart radio dot com. You can also reach
us on social media as missed in History, and if
(10:29):
you like to subscribe, it's super easy. You could do
that on the I heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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