1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,440 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:18,440 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:22,159 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 5 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:28,840 Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:40,640 Speaker 1: Time moves differently for everything on the planet. It's all relative. 7 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:43,760 Speaker 1: A whole lifetime for a fly is a moment for 8 00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:46,519 Speaker 1: a human, and a whole lifetime for a human is 9 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:50,160 Speaker 1: a brief blink from the perspective of geologic time. These 10 00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:52,560 Speaker 1: are the sorts of facts that we learn in grade school, 11 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:56,240 Speaker 1: but only gain weight the longer we live. And what 12 00:00:56,280 --> 00:00:59,960 Speaker 1: of the living beings that fall between human and geologic time. 13 00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:03,760 Speaker 1: Tortoises that live for hundreds of years, the greenland shark 14 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:08,880 Speaker 1: quietly prowling the ocean for centuries, Towering trees deep within rainforests. 15 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:12,520 Speaker 1: How do we measure ourselves next to them? To do 16 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:15,600 Speaker 1: so is probably a feudal effort, but is one that 17 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:19,319 Speaker 1: leads a person to some truly fascinating discoveries about how 18 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:22,720 Speaker 1: in sync the natural world is and how various species 19 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:26,200 Speaker 1: can fall out of sync throughout the millennia. For example, 20 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:30,440 Speaker 1: we all understand the evolutionary advantage of fruits, right When 21 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,760 Speaker 1: an animal eats of fruits, it inadvertently winds up spreading 22 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:36,319 Speaker 1: the seeds of that tree that produce to the fruit. 23 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:38,480 Speaker 1: But what does one do with the fruit that no 24 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:42,280 Speaker 1: animals eat? Biologists have found many examples of these across 25 00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:45,840 Speaker 1: the globe, from the Kentucky coffee tree to the honeylocust 26 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:48,880 Speaker 1: and certain strains of per simon. There are fruits that 27 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:51,800 Speaker 1: are too large for most animal species to eat practically, 28 00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:57,040 Speaker 1: so why do they exist? A particularly extreme example exists 29 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:00,480 Speaker 1: in the osage orange, a sturdy, softball sized fruit that 30 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:04,440 Speaker 1: produces a strange latex when cut open. These fruit tend 31 00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:06,880 Speaker 1: to just drop to the forest floor and rot there 32 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:09,800 Speaker 1: without any animal to come and eat them. So why 33 00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:13,959 Speaker 1: do they exist? The answer, according to many biologists, lies 34 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:16,960 Speaker 1: in the distant past of this planet, the age of 35 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,800 Speaker 1: the megafauna. Now, megafauna are exactly what they sound like, 36 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:25,480 Speaker 1: huge animals, wooly mammoths, ground sloths, and many ancestors of 37 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:29,280 Speaker 1: creatures that we can see in nature today. Creatures like 38 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:31,680 Speaker 1: these would have been able to eat the osage orange 39 00:02:31,919 --> 00:02:35,040 Speaker 1: and spread its seeds, but the vast majority of megafauna 40 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:37,880 Speaker 1: have gone extinct, leaving the trees they used to feed 41 00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:41,519 Speaker 1: on behind. Take away the mammoths or the giant sloths 42 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:43,800 Speaker 1: that would have spread them wide. The only way for 43 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:47,040 Speaker 1: the fruit to travel now is downriver and slopes, which 44 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:50,239 Speaker 1: severely limits the spread of these trees throughout the Americas. 45 00:02:50,639 --> 00:02:53,400 Speaker 1: They survive, for sure, but they no longer travel like 46 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:56,600 Speaker 1: they once did. The osage orange is an example of 47 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:01,000 Speaker 1: what's known as an evolutionary anachronism. It's a relatively new concept, 48 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:04,400 Speaker 1: with its earliest proposals coming in the nineteen seventies and eighties, 49 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:07,600 Speaker 1: and the best examples happen to be plants with particularly 50 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:11,760 Speaker 1: inedible fruits due to what we know about seed dispersal. However, 51 00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:14,680 Speaker 1: there have been several proposals to list certain animals on 52 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:17,640 Speaker 1: the list too, animals that had to adapt their natural 53 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:20,080 Speaker 1: ways of feeding in order to make up for a 54 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 1: missing evolutionary partner. Take, for example, the Helactoplurus giganteus, the 55 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:29,840 Speaker 1: largest dung beetle in Matagascar. This creature seems to entirely 56 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:33,360 Speaker 1: depend on human feces to survive, even though their existence 57 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:37,080 Speaker 1: on the island of Madagascar predates animal arrival. It's been 58 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:40,280 Speaker 1: proposed that maybe they once use giant lemur feces for 59 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:44,640 Speaker 1: the same purpose. Also on Madagascar, some smaller lemur species 60 00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:48,280 Speaker 1: still display weariness toward birds of prey, training their young 61 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:51,840 Speaker 1: to hide themselves from the sky, even though no currently 62 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:55,080 Speaker 1: living bird in Madagascar is large enough to prey on 63 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:58,920 Speaker 1: a lemur. None of these animal examples have been proved definitively. 64 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:01,720 Speaker 1: After all, how do you measure the behavior of species 65 00:04:01,720 --> 00:04:05,360 Speaker 1: that no longer exist? The educated guesses of biologists, though, 66 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:09,280 Speaker 1: continue to try and fill in the blanks of natural history. Nature, 67 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:13,800 Speaker 1: in its complex web of relationships, can inadvertently preserve memory 68 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:17,839 Speaker 1: of something, even if it's unclear what that something originally was. 69 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:22,120 Speaker 1: It seems that we carry our evolutionary anachronisms with us, 70 00:04:22,320 --> 00:04:25,240 Speaker 1: and that's what allows us to study evolution, even though 71 00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:29,240 Speaker 1: its progress is measured in generations rather than moments. As 72 00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:47,279 Speaker 1: a famous scientist once said, life finds a way. Pompey 73 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:50,720 Speaker 1: Mansfield surveyed the scene in front of him. Dozens of 74 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:53,919 Speaker 1: men and women gathered on his North Boston property that 75 00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:58,240 Speaker 1: late spring afternoon in celebration of their most anticipated event 76 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:01,880 Speaker 1: of the year, election Day. It was a time when 77 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:06,039 Speaker 1: families and individuals, both enslaved and free, came together on 78 00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:10,240 Speaker 1: the official Massachusetts election day for their own referendum. The 79 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:12,960 Speaker 1: group would vote for and crown a king who would 80 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,760 Speaker 1: provide wisdom and insight to the black community during his reign. 81 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:21,680 Speaker 1: Families and friends relaxed on blankets overlooking the sunlit river. 82 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:25,840 Speaker 1: But despite the joyful scene, Pompey was anything but relaxed. 83 00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:30,239 Speaker 1: His chest swelled with pride and nerves. This year's picnic 84 00:05:30,279 --> 00:05:32,800 Speaker 1: was unlike any other. For its host, it was the 85 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:36,000 Speaker 1: most important one yet. Pompey, like most of the people 86 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:39,159 Speaker 1: gathered on his property that day, had been trafficked across 87 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,640 Speaker 1: the Atlantic and brought to New England as an enslaved person. 88 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:46,159 Speaker 1: Born in West Africa in the early eighteenth century, he 89 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:48,560 Speaker 1: had been sold to a wealthy mill owner in Lynn, 90 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:52,320 Speaker 1: Massachusetts as a young man. In seventeen forty five, he 91 00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:55,280 Speaker 1: married an enslaved woman named Phyllis from the nearby town 92 00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:58,960 Speaker 1: of Reading. In seventeen fifty eight, following the death of 93 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,440 Speaker 1: that mill owner, Pompey began working as a clovier. No 94 00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:05,760 Speaker 1: surviving records document how long it took to purchase his 95 00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:09,000 Speaker 1: own freedom, but by seventeen sixty two he had earned 96 00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:12,480 Speaker 1: enough to purchase a small property ten miles outside of Boston. 97 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,960 Speaker 1: There he built a stone house by hand for him 98 00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:19,400 Speaker 1: and his wife, and eventually Pompey and Phyllis joined a 99 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:22,200 Speaker 1: group of black Americans who had begun celebrating an event 100 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:27,120 Speaker 1: called Black Picnic approximately twenty years prior to seventeen forty one. 101 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:31,479 Speaker 1: This act of unity was a rebellion against their circumstances 102 00:06:31,600 --> 00:06:34,200 Speaker 1: and an assertion of civil rights. More than two hundred 103 00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:37,000 Speaker 1: years before black Americans secured the right to vote in 104 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,880 Speaker 1: general elections. Those gathered at Pompey's property knew that their 105 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:45,160 Speaker 1: ideas and opinions mattered, even if the colonial government said otherwise. 106 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:49,960 Speaker 1: For many, pompey story represented an ideal future, a free 107 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:53,080 Speaker 1: man who worked hard to provide for himself and his family, 108 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:57,280 Speaker 1: he owned property, supported nearby black communities by helping others 109 00:06:57,320 --> 00:07:00,560 Speaker 1: assert their personhood, and after years of attention the Black 110 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:04,160 Speaker 1: Election Day celebrations in other parts of Massachusetts, he had 111 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:08,480 Speaker 1: offered to host the event at his home. Just before sunset, 112 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,320 Speaker 1: a hush fell over the crowd. It was time to 113 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:14,520 Speaker 1: announce the new king. Pompey fought to keep his hands 114 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:18,400 Speaker 1: at his side, his face impassive. His wife Phyllis, placed 115 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:21,920 Speaker 1: a hand over her husband's pounding heart. Pompey squeezed his 116 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:26,440 Speaker 1: eyes tight shut, and then they announced his name. After 117 00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:31,280 Speaker 1: decades of degradation, hard work, and dehumanization, he'd regained the 118 00:07:31,320 --> 00:07:34,440 Speaker 1: dignity and respect that were taken from him by slavery. 119 00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:37,480 Speaker 1: For years, Pompey had told people that he came from 120 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:41,320 Speaker 1: a line of West African royalty. Now, in spite of 121 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:45,360 Speaker 1: his trafficking and enslavement, his peers had recognized him as 122 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:50,440 Speaker 1: a leader. Moreover, they chosen him to be theirs. Throughout 123 00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:54,119 Speaker 1: his year as king, Pompey continued his work empowering black 124 00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:58,960 Speaker 1: families and individuals. He settled disputes, lent an understanding ear, 125 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:02,560 Speaker 1: and offered whiz to anyone who asked. By all accounts, 126 00:08:02,560 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 1: Pompey was an esteemed leader and venerated in the years 127 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:09,880 Speaker 1: both before and after his reign. Today, Black Election Day 128 00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:14,080 Speaker 1: is still celebrated in Salem, Massachusetts, every year. Now held 129 00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:17,440 Speaker 1: on the third Saturday in July, the event still resembles 130 00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:20,680 Speaker 1: those first gatherings in many ways, with people from all 131 00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:25,560 Speaker 1: over Massachusetts coming together to assert their civil rights. Nowadays, 132 00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:28,920 Speaker 1: the picnic is much bigger and is accompanied by a parade. 133 00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:33,800 Speaker 1: Instead of electing a monarch, community awards are given for advocacy, wisdom, 134 00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:38,360 Speaker 1: and outstanding citizenship. We may never know for certain whether 135 00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:42,240 Speaker 1: Pompey came from African royalty, but in Massachusetts there is 136 00:08:42,280 --> 00:08:46,080 Speaker 1: no question that he was and always will be, a king. 137 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:52,440 Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet 138 00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:56,360 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn 139 00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:59,960 Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot org. 140 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,560 Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership 141 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:07,920 Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show 142 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:12,040 Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, 143 00:09:12,320 --> 00:09:15,160 Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore 144 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:19,520 Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.