Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Rooting for Freedom

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Rooting for Freedom · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: The things that we endure shape our identities, for better
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  Speaker 1: or for worse. What we go through influences our future decisions.
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  Speaker 1: If we don't learn from our mistakes, history is bound
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  Speaker 1: to repeat itself. During one of the darkest periods in
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  Speaker 1: American history, one young girl refused to let injustice sully
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  Speaker 1: her spirit. It all began on an afternoon in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty five, twelve year old Aramenta entered a bustling shop
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  Speaker 1: in Maryland. As she stood near the counter, she noticed
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  Speaker 1: a plantation overseer arguing with a teenage boy. The Civil
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  Speaker 1: War hadn't broken out in the US yet, and the
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  Speaker 1: boy was enslaved, just like Aramenta. She couldn't help but
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  Speaker 1: listen in on their dispute. Apparently, the boy had run
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  Speaker 1: away from the plantation. Now it was the overseer's job
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  Speaker 1: to bring him back. Their arguments escalated, and the man
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  Speaker 1: lunged to grab the boy, but the boy turned and ran,
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  Speaker 1: evading the man's grip by a hare. In a fit
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  Speaker 1: of rage, the overseer grabbed a two pound brick from
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  Speaker 1: a nearby shelf and he hurled it toward the boy,
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  Speaker 1: but his aim was off. Instead, it struck Arimenta on
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  Speaker 1: the head with a sickening thud. She collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
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  Speaker 1: Blood trickled from the wound as she lay motionless. Indifferent
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  Speaker 1: to her condition, the overseer left Aramenta to be helped
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  Speaker 1: by others. Floating between life and death, she was sent
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  Speaker 1: to her mother's home to heal. When she finally regained consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: the world seemed blurry and distant. Her head throbbed with
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  Speaker 1: every heartbeat. For months, her mother nursed her back to health.
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  Speaker 1: Aramenta recovered for the most part, but the injury was
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  Speaker 1: life changing. From that day forward, she suffered from severe
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  Speaker 1: headaches and seizures, but she was resilient. After this traumatic event,
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  Speaker 1: Aramenta wanted to ensure that others didn't suffer the way
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  Speaker 1: that she did, so she turned to the art of
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  Speaker 1: healing in order to become an expert healer. Aramenta started
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  Speaker 1: learning everything she could about plants and herbs. Enslave people
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  Speaker 1: often relied on plants for medicinal purposes, drawing on traditional
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  Speaker 1: knowledge passed down through generations. She had learned many of
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  Speaker 1: these skills from her mother. She could treat infectious diseases,
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  Speaker 1: including smallpox, with a home brew Aramenta was also in
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  Speaker 1: a unique position because she spent more time away from
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  Speaker 1: the plantation than others were able to. Therefore, she could
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  Speaker 1: explore and experiment with plant life. Thereby perfecting her recipes.
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  Speaker 1: Aramenta became famous among other enslaved people or her medical acumen.
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  Speaker 1: Eventually she gained attention from people outside her community. After
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War broke out in eighteen sixty one, the
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  Speaker 1: Union Army asked her to join their efforts as a nurse,
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  Speaker 1: and this was a huge deal for someone who had
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  Speaker 1: lived most of their life on a plantation. But Aramenta
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  Speaker 1: was one of the lucky few who could leave, so
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  Speaker 1: she slipped away to join Union forces. It was risky,
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  Speaker 1: but Aramenta had survived scary things before. She was brave.
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  Speaker 1: In her new role. She used herbal remedies to treat
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  Speaker 1: wounded soldiers. Even though she was in a new environment
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  Speaker 1: and still suffering from her head trauma, she quickly learned
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  Speaker 1: to forage for the kinds of plants she needed. Because
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  Speaker 1: of this, one colonel noticed how well equipped she was
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  Speaker 1: out in the rugged wilderness, so he came to her
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  Speaker 1: with a daring request. He wanted her to help raid
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  Speaker 1: nearby plantations and free the enslaved people there. Aramenta was
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  Speaker 1: more than ready for the challenge. Throughout the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the war, she helped rescue over seven hundred people. She
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  Speaker 1: was a hero, and she did it all while managing
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  Speaker 1: headaches and seizures. As heroic as she was, Aramanta couldn't
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  Speaker 1: go on living like this. She had so much more
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  Speaker 1: she wanted to do in life. Following the war, many
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  Speaker 1: freed people still needed medical care, and countless families hoped
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  Speaker 1: to reunite. Araminta could help them, but she needed to
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  Speaker 1: put an end to her own pain first, so she
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  Speaker 1: traveled to Boston for brain surgery. She was eager to
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  Speaker 1: get it over with, but once she went into the
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  Speaker 1: operating room, there was a problem. Modern comforts for pain reliefs,
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  Speaker 1: such as anesthesia, weren't available. Resourceful as ever, Araminta asked
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  Speaker 1: the doctor for a bullet. He was naturally confused, so
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  Speaker 1: she explained that during the war she had seen soldiers
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  Speaker 1: bite down on bullets as a way to cope with
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  Speaker 1: painful procedures. So this was how Aramenta withstood brain surgery
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  Speaker 1: and survived. Go ahead and add that to the list
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  Speaker 1: of courageous feats, right. Aramanta went on to continue healing
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  Speaker 1: people just like she wanted, except no one called her
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  Speaker 1: Araminta anymore. That's because earlier in her life, after escaping enslavement,
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  Speaker 1: she marked the occasion with a new name. She took
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  Speaker 1: her mother's first name and her husband's last name, and
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  Speaker 1: that's how she became known as Harriet Tubman. Confidence is key,
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  Speaker 1: whether you're going into an interview for a new job
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  Speaker 1: or climbing Mount Everest, it's important to put faith in yourself.
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  Speaker 1: Like the Little Engine that Could always said I think
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  Speaker 1: I can. I think I can. In fact, sometimes confidence
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  Speaker 1: can help us achieve great things when the deck is
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  Speaker 1: stacked against us. It's the boost that we need to
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  Speaker 1: overcome the odds and achieve greatness. And when we're confident
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  Speaker 1: in our skills, we have no problem taking on a
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  Speaker 1: difficult task without question. We might even tell the other
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  Speaker 1: person that we can do it with one hand tied
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  Speaker 1: behind our backs. Well, for some people, that extra challenge
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  Speaker 1: isn't so many metaphorical. For one woman, it was her
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  Speaker 1: daily life. Her name was Anastasia Amelianova Igorova and she
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  Speaker 1: was born in the Soviet Union in nineteen twelve. Her
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  Speaker 1: young life was plagued by tragedy, with her father dying
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  Speaker 1: when she was only nine. She was left at an
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  Speaker 1: orphanage by her mother just a few years later. Anastasia
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  Speaker 1: grew up committing crimes both large and small to get by.
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  Speaker 1: She stole and she panhandled. But in nineteen twenty seven,
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  Speaker 1: her whole life changed. A tragic fall from an automobile
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  Speaker 1: left her permanently disfigured, unable to secure help from the government,
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  Speaker 1: and refusing to become a collective farm worker for the
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  Speaker 1: Soviet Union, Anastasia did what she always did. She found
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  Speaker 1: a way to survive. She set out on her own,
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  Speaker 1: traveling despite her injuries. But this wasn't something really done
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  Speaker 1: by people in her condition or in her country. But
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  Speaker 1: Anastasia wasn't like anyone else. She was fiercely independent, choosing
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  Speaker 1: to venture out into the world and overcome her circumstances.
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  Speaker 1: She traveled throughout Ukraine and the Caucuses, covering much of Russia,
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  Speaker 1: with little to her name except her will and her wits.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen forty five, toward the end of World War II,
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  Speaker 1: she found her way into Poland. Of course, Anastasia didn't
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  Speaker 1: speak the language, but she managed to skirt by and
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  Speaker 1: make her way to Austria, now Allied territory. It was
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  Speaker 1: here where she was temporarily imprisoned in a refugee camp
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  Speaker 1: for displaced persons before she was released. Back on the road,
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  Speaker 1: she traveled to Yugoslavia. Her final stop was Italy. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: she experienced a decline in her mental state that resulted
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  Speaker 1: in being committed to a facility in Naples. That's where
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  Speaker 1: the Soviets rediscovered her. Their plan was to take her
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  Speaker 1: back to her home country as part of an initiative
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  Speaker 1: to search for and retrieve former citizens for repatriation. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Anastasia knew what would happen if she told them the truth,
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  Speaker 1: so she fed them a line about being taken by
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  Speaker 1: the Germans and shuttled all over Europe. And Asia, satisfied
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  Speaker 1: with her tale of woe, the Soviet authorities whisked her
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  Speaker 1: back home and placed her in the custody of her
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  Speaker 1: mother and brother, people she had seen in years, and
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  Speaker 1: that's where her story pretty much ends. Little is known
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  Speaker 1: of her life after her epic journey had come to
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  Speaker 1: a close. The Soviets instituted a number of rules and
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  Speaker 1: laws to prevent tramping the vagrant kind, not the levacious kind,
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  Speaker 1: so it's likely that Anastasia settled down and lived the
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  Speaker 1: rest of her life in her homeland. It's a shame
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  Speaker 1: that more people don't know about her trek across multiple
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  Speaker 1: continents because the car accident she survived didn't just injure her.
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  Speaker 1: It had taken something from her. That fall from the
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  Speaker 1: car had damaged her leg so badly it had to
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  Speaker 1: be amputated, but she never let it keep her down.
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  Speaker 1: Anastasia managed to travel thousands of miles on one leg,
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  Speaker 1: using various crutches and walking aids. There were no prosthetics
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  Speaker 1: available to her, so she may do with what she
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  Speaker 1: had and came back with a heck of a story
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  Speaker 1: to tell her estranged family. She had survived on her
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  Speaker 1: own as a one legged traveler, kicking but metaphorically, of course.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.