![[photo, Frederick Douglass statue, Holmes Hall, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland]](/msa/mdmanual/25univ/morgan/images/1198-1-482b.jpg)
Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, February 1817. Although a slave, he escaped north and became an abolitionist and champion of universal suffrage.
c. 1,500 B.C. Oysters became an important food resource.
c. 1,000 B.C. Native-American introduction of pottery.
c. 800 A.D. Native-American introduction of domesticated plants; bow and arrow came into use.
c. 1200. Permanent Native-American villages established.
1498. John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) (c.1450-1499), Venetian navigator and explorer, sailed along Eastern Shore off present-day Worcester County.*
*The Juan de la Cosa map of the world (1500) indicated that Cabot, the only explorer sailing the North American coast at that time under the British flag, may have coasted as far south as Cape Hatteras.
1524. Giovanni da Verrazano (1485-1528), Florentine explorer, led expedition that passed mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and explored lower Eastern Shore.
1572. Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spanish governor of Florida, explored Chesapeake Bay.
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