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Welcome to the PAS report podcast.
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If you're tired of censorship, outraged by government abuses and thirsty for real
1:27
insights, then you're in the right place.
1:30
Get ready because here the fight for freedom never ends.
1:35
Here's your host, Professor Nick Geardano.
1:42
I want you to imagine its May 1777 is standing in a makeshift for crew office in Stockbridge,
1:49
Outside, the world is on fire.
1:52
The shot heard around the world was two years ago and the promise of liberty is the
1:56
word on everyone's lips.
1:59
But you, you're looking at the contract, you're 18 years old, you're a free man, you live
2:04
in the colonies that are attempting to become a free country.
2:08
You look around and see a cause built on the promise of liberty.
2:13
Even though the society around you hasn't fully lived up to that promise and you have
2:17
to decide, whether that promise is worth fighting for, even though there are no guarantees,
2:23
the choice is yours, do you walk away, do you stay safe in your community and let them
2:28
fight their own war, would you pick up a musket for a nation that hasn't fully recognized
2:34
Most people would choose self-preservation, but a young man named Agrippa Hall chose
2:40
He chose to fight for a country that existed more as an idea than a reality.
2:46
And in doing so, he helped build the nation so many now take for granted.
2:51
Welcome to the PAS Report Podcast.
2:54
This is the America's Founding Series, I'm your host, Nick Dredano.
2:57
Make sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode and share this
3:01
with three to four great Patriots out there.
3:04
Because today, we are talking about a man who lived in the shadows of the greats.
3:08
The man who proved that the American Revolution wasn't won by just the few names mentioned
3:13
in our history books, but by ordinary Patriots who rose up to do extraordinary things, who
3:19
were willing to fight for the possibility of an America that wasn't even born yet.
3:24
Agrippa Hall didn't fight for the America that was.
3:28
He fought for the America that could be, and his story, the partnership with a Polish
3:33
Patriot and his defiance of the status quo is exactly the mirror that we need to look
3:39
To understand the grip of, you have to understand the world he was born into in 1759.
3:45
He was born a free man in Massachusetts, but let's be clear, free didn't mean equal.
3:50
In colonial America, being a free black man meant walking on a razor's edge, there was
3:54
still legal discrimination as the norm, your opportunities were limited by the color of
4:00
Yet when the revolution erupts, the grip of doesn't hesitate at 18.
4:04
He enlists in the continental army and I want to poison you.
4:08
I often hear people today say, why should I care about America?
4:12
It's an imperfect system.
4:14
Now think about Agrippa Hall.
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If anyone had a right to be cynical, if anyone had a right to say this system is rigged
4:20
against me, it was him.
4:22
But he didn't wait for the perfect version of America to appear before he decided to defend
4:27
He understood something that we've forgotten.
4:30
Liberty isn't a gift you receive.
4:33
It's an investment you make, and it was worth fighting for.
4:37
The 1777, the continental army was a mess.
4:40
Hunger, disease, the looming threat of the British gallows, Agrippa stepped into that mud.
4:48
He wasn't just fighting the British.
4:50
He was staking a claim.
4:51
He was saying, this is my country too, and by my blood, I'm going to make it live up to
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And home made his mark immediately.
5:01
He wasn't just another soldier in the line for long.
5:04
He was quickly assigned to some of the most influential officers of the war, but the
5:09
most important meeting of his life happened when he was assigned as the personal orderly
5:15
to Major General Thadis Koshusko.
5:18
Now if you've been following this series, you know the name Koshusko.
5:23
We covered him in Episode 5, the Polish Patriot, the Polish Prince of Liberty.
5:27
He was a brilliant engineer.
5:29
He came to America because he couldn't stand the sight of tyranny anywhere in the world.
5:34
And while history ignores these great patriots for over six years, these two were inseparable.
5:39
They relied on each other.
5:40
They respected each other.
5:42
They understood what was at stake, and Liberty ran through their veins.
5:46
They were willing to pay the price in blood.
5:49
Imagine the scene at West Point where the heights of Saratoga.
5:52
You have a Polish noble man who hates Sarfta, a black American who hates slavery.
5:58
They are building the fortifications that will literally save the American Revolution.
6:03
There's an incredible anecdote from the time together.
6:08
In the camps, officers were orphaned shocked by how Koshusko treated Hall.
6:13
He didn't treat him as a servant.
6:15
He treated him as a confidant, and equal.
6:18
They shared meals together.
6:19
They shared strategy.
6:22
When other officers looked at Hall and saw a subordinate, Koshusko looked at him and
6:27
saw a brother in arms, and it was in those trenches that the American promise was actually
6:34
Not in the halls of the Continental Congress, but between a pole and a black man from Massachusetts,
6:40
working together to build a fort that the British could never take.
6:45
You want to talk about what makes America America.
6:50
His engineering helped secure the American position at Saratoga, a victory that would ultimately
6:55
convince France that the American cause could succeed, who's worth getting behind, and
7:01
There is no Yorktown.
7:02
Without a grip of Hall, the map of the world may look very different today.
7:06
But as we're about to see, the end of the war was only the beginning of a much larger struggle
7:12
That liberty universal.
7:14
Now we need to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to dive into
7:17
the remarkable post-war life of a grip of Hall, a forgotten, legal battle that involved
7:22
Thomas Jefferson, and it could have changed the course of American history, so everyone
7:26
can hang tight, and we'll be right back.
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Whether you're into unsolved mysteries, solved mysteries, or creating your own mysteries,
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Welcome back to the America's Founding Series, part of the PAS Report Podcast.
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Now don't forget to share this episode with three to four people, you know, because we
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owe it to those who have sacrificed so much for our great nation to tell their story.
8:16
And before the break, we looked at the incredible military bond between the grip of Hall and
8:21
General Thaddeus, Casusco, two men from completely different worlds, united by a singular
8:29
When the decisive victory at Yorktown came in 1781, and the Treaty of Paris was signed
8:34
in 1783, the victory may have been won, but the harder a revolution was still being
8:40
thoughtful, winning independence is one thing.
8:43
But deciding whether the new nation would live up to its principles was something else.
8:47
And while many soldiers returned to a nation that was eager to return to the status quo,
8:52
a grip of Hall returned to Stockbridge.
8:55
He placed a claim as a citizen in the Republic that he helped save.
9:01
He became a successful farmer.
9:02
He was a pillar of the community, but the bond with Casusco never broke.
9:08
As he built his life as a free landowner, a dramatic final gesture from his old friend
9:13
Casusco would set the stage for a massive confrontation between the ideals of the revolution
9:19
and the reality of American politics.
9:22
When Casusco eventually left America, he left behind a document that should be famous
9:27
in every household, but it isn't.
9:29
We don't really learn about this document at all, and it was his last will and testament
9:34
regarding his American assets.
9:36
He left his fortune, the money that he earned fighting for all freedom, to be used to purchase
9:42
the freedom of enslaved people, and provide them with an education so that they could
9:49
They could be self-governing citizens that could think for themselves, that could make
9:53
choices for themselves.
9:55
And who did he ask to carry out this noble world-changing test?
9:59
None other than Thomas Jefferson.
10:01
Jefferson, the man who wrote all men or created equal, was selected to execute the will,
10:06
but Jefferson claimed it was too complicated, and he let the money sit there for a long.
10:11
And for all of Jefferson's brilliance, his flaws were just as real.
10:16
It's one of those times where Jefferson failed to meet the moment, and we have to acknowledge
10:22
We can't sweep it under the rug.
10:23
The gripper hull knew this.
10:25
He lived through the contradiction.
10:27
He saw the man he called the greatest man I haven't knew in Casusco.
10:32
And he wanted to finish the work of the revolution.
10:35
He saw some of the American leadership stumble, and he wanted to step in and say, we're here
10:41
And he is the king.
10:43
How didn't let that failure turn him into a bitter man?
10:47
He didn't engage in the grievance culture that exists today.
10:52
He spent the rest of his life as a living testament to black excellence and citizenship.
10:57
He proved the promise was real.
10:59
Even the men who made it were floored, it didn't matter.
11:04
And this brings us to the why, why of today's episode, why a gripper hull, why now?
11:10
Well the reason is that we live in an age of professional victimhood, oppressive or
11:16
Everything's grievance, where it's all bitterness.
11:18
We're told that if the system isn't perfect, it needs to be torn down.
11:22
We're told that if the founders were floored, the foundation is rotten, and we need to undo
11:27
everything they did.
11:29
The gripper hull is the antidote to that poison.
11:32
It's the antidote to that logic.
11:34
Maybe he lived in a time of genuine legal systemic oppression that you can't even imagine
11:42
Yet he didn't burn it down.
11:49
He understood that the American experiment is exactly that, an experiment, and it requires
11:54
Now ask yourself, how are you participating?
11:58
Are you spectator thrown stones at the people who are trying to build the fortifications?
12:04
Are you someone that just wants to put blame grievance on a past history?
12:11
And I want you to think back to yesterday's episode, where most Americans can't answer
12:15
What does it mean to be American?
12:17
What makes someone American?
12:19
See Hall knew the answer today.
12:21
His life tells us that we have a responsibility.
12:23
We have an obligation to our nation.
12:26
He didn't wait for permission to be American.
12:28
He took the musket.
12:31
He took his place in history.
12:33
He didn't ask for any safe spaces.
12:36
He made a space for himself in a republic that desperately needed his character.
12:42
And nearly two centuries later, after Gripahol took his last breath in Stockbridge, a
12:48
President of the United States stood before the crowd and echoed the very reality that
12:53
Hall lived every single day.
12:56
Freedom is a fragile thing, and it's never more than one generation away from extinction.
13:03
It is not ours by way of inheritance.
13:06
It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once
13:13
And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it
13:22
Following this, it's hard to explain those among us who even today would question the
13:30
people's capacity for self-government.
13:33
I've often wondered if they will answer those who subscribe to that philosophy.
13:40
If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity
13:46
to govern someone else?
13:49
A Gripahol was that generation that fought for freedom.
13:52
He didn't inherit a perfect nation, none of us did.
13:55
Instead, he joined a band of forgotten patriots to build a republic based on the radical
14:01
idea of self-government, based on principles of liberty, based on the concept of freedom.
14:08
He understood how important it was.
14:11
He understood that it was a cause that was much greater than himself.
14:16
Now if we lose that, if we become too cynical to fight for the possibility of America, then
14:21
we're not just failing ourselves.
14:23
We're failing people like a Gripahol.
14:26
We're failing the man who stood in the shadows and it's great generals that did the work
14:32
that made the victories possible.
14:35
This is why I do the P.A.S. report podcast.
14:39
It's because I have hope.
14:40
It's because I'm optimistic.
14:42
It's because despite all the challenges that we face, I do believe that there's still
14:46
time for redemption that we can rise up.
14:49
History may have forgotten a Gripahol for a time, but the liberty you enjoy today rests
14:54
on the shoulders of men just like him.
14:57
Men who did not wait for America to be perfect before defending it.
15:02
Men who believed in the possibility of America, and it's time we bring their names out of
15:08
It's people like a Gripah that created the American identity.
15:12
It's stories like these that define American as exceptionalism, and by knowing our past,
15:17
it gives us a different perspective on a founding, and that's why I encourage you to share
15:22
the P.A.S. report podcast with others.
15:24
I also encourage you to go back, listen to the Koshu Skull episode, listen about the Polish
15:31
It's time we bring these names out of the shadow.
15:32
I want to thank you for joining me and I'll be back next week with more great episodes
15:37
in the P.A.S. report podcast.
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Whether you're solving murders during breakfast, cracking cold cases on your commute, or playing
15:45
amateur detective at bedtime, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting.
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Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts,
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ad-free, included with Prime.
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Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing, another checkered flag for the books.
16:03
Time to celebrate with Chamba.
16:05
Jump in at chambacasino.com.
16:08
Thank you for listening to the P.A.S. report.
16:18
Don't forget to rate, share, and hit that subscribe button.
16:21
That way you'll never miss an episode.
16:23
For more exclusive content and updates, visit us at P.A.S. report.com and follow Professor
16:31
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