Historic Figures
WITH THE NAME FREDERICK
Buffalo Bill Cody was born in Iowa in 1846 (the same year Iowa gained Statehood into the Union) but moved to Kansas as a young boy (his Canadian-born parents were vehemently against slavery). Before the age of 25 it seems Cody had already ridden the Pony Express, fought in the Civil War, scouted Indians on behalf of the U.S. Army, and worked as a bison-killer, a fur-trapper and a stagecoach driver. In fact, Bill Cody responded to a Pony Express advertisement at the age of 14; the ad called for "skinny, expert riders willing to risk death daily." That must tell you something right there. Obviously from this vantage point, Cody would have seen a lot of the Old Rugged West. A man with a colorful personality and a penchant for storytelling, Buffalo Bill Cody brought the Wild West Show to eager audiences across the eastern United States and Europe. The rogue cowboy themes of his show delighted audiences everywhere for four decades; Wild Bill Hickok, sharpshooter Annie Oakley and Indian Chief Sitting Bull performed for him. Buffalo Bill Cody was a real legend – his character, love of excitement, infectious personality and pioneering spirit has come to represent everything that is the Old West. He lives on in our imagination…
Buffalo Bill Cody was arguably the most popular and colorful American of his times. He was born in the Iowa Territory to parents who were outspoken abolitionists, which often led to the family being ostracized by others. It does not appear to have had any ill effects on young William, who seems to have taken life into an enormous embrace. At various times, he was a soldier, an Army scout, a fighter in the Civil War, a rider for the Pony Express, a buffalo hunter, and – foremost – a showman of the highest caliber. He won the Medal of Honor and he was a 32nd degree Free Mason. It is said that William Cody earned his nickname after singlehandedly taking out almost 4,300 head of bison in an eighteen month period. We cannot accuse him of wanton slaughter, however, since they were killed for food, and they numbered in the millions at the time (although they are almost extinct now). He seems to have been a respectful emissary to the Indian nations, and he employed many willing Native Americans in his “Wild West†shows, which toured all over the United States and Europe to great acclaim, including command performances before crowned heads. All over Europe, as well as in America, people clamored to see this embodiment of a dying era in frontier history. When he died of kidney failure in 1917, he was widely mourned, and since that time his legend has dimmed little with the years.
Frederick Douglass is the protagonist of his own memoir, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, penned by the famous former slave and orator himself and published in 1845, greatly influencing the abolitionist movement. He describes the evils and brutality of the slave system into which he was born, he knows not what year. Very possibly the son of the plantation owner, Frederick never really knows his mother, having been separated from her at a very young age. Frederick paints a picture for us of a world cruelly experienced, of a world in which one human can be owned by another, in which overwork and beatings are the everyday norm. From such oppressive beginnings, the mighty spirited Frederick rises to undreamt of heights, self-educating and paving the road to personal enlightenment. Never does he stray from his commitment to assisting those whose fate matched his own and to abolishing the demonic system that allowed it to be so.