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It Took Courage: Eliza Winston’s Quest for Freedom
In 1860, Eliza Winston escaped enslavement while traveling in Minnesota, where she secured her freedom through legal appeal. Her story adds powerful testimony to African American experiences and perseverance in antebellum America.
On August 22, 1860, an enslaved woman from Mississippi named Eliza Winston petitioned for her freedom before a judge in Minnesota— and she won . After she left the state for Canada, the abolitionists who had helped her told and retold the story, emphasizing their own actions; their detractors claimed they had used Winston as a pawn. For more than 150 years, historians' accounts have emphasized the mobs who battled in the streets after the ruling, focusing on the implications of the events for Minnesota politics rather than Winston's own story. With It Took Courage, Christopher P. Lehman helps set the record straight.
Lehman uncovers the story of Winston's first forty-two years and her long struggle to obtain her freedom. She was sold away from her birth family; her husband, a free man, died before he could purchase her freedom. She labored in Tennessee, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Minnesota. For thirty-one years she was enslaved by the family of President Andrew Jackson, who bought her for his great-niece and paid a cousin of James K. Polk to hold her in trust. Winston's victory produced a compelling a woman Jackson himself had enslaved defeated a part of his legacy in Minnesota.
The survival of the remarkable story of Eliza Winston's battle for individual freedom is an important contribution to the larger understanding of what slavery meant on this continent and how it affected individual lives—in both North and South. Winston's experience demonstrates the lengths to which a person would go to escape slavery, attempting to work both outside and inside the flawed and inequitable laws of the time, until finally receiving justice. If the traditional accounts relied on stereotypical depictions of Winston as "simple-minded," in Lehman's skillful description, Winston appears as a capable, mature woman who understood her life and her values. Eliza Winston herself made the bold decision to leave behind everything she had known for an uncertain but free future.
On August 22, 1860, an enslaved woman from Mississippi named Eliza Winston petitioned for her freedom before a judge in Minnesota— and she won . After she left the state for Canada, the abolitionists who had helped her told and retold the story, emphasizing their own actions; their detractors claimed they had used Winston as a pawn. For more than 150 years, historians' accounts have emphasized the mobs who battled in the streets after the ruling, focusing on the implications of the events for Minnesota politics rather than Winston's own story. With It Took Courage, Christopher P. Lehman helps set the record straight.
Lehman uncovers the story of Winston's first forty-two years and her long struggle to obtain her freedom. She was sold away from her birth family; her husband, a free man, died before he could purchase her freedom. She labored in Tennessee, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Minnesota. For thirty-one years she was enslaved by the family of President Andrew Jackson, who bought her for his great-niece and paid a cousin of James K. Polk to hold her in trust. Winston's victory produced a compelling a woman Jackson himself had enslaved defeated a part of his legacy in Minnesota.
The survival of the remarkable story of Eliza Winston's battle for individual freedom is an important contribution to the larger understanding of what slavery meant on this continent and how it affected individual lives—in both North and South. Winston's experience demonstrates the lengths to which a person would go to escape slavery, attempting to work both outside and inside the flawed and inequitable laws of the time, until finally receiving justice. If the traditional accounts relied on stereotypical depictions of Winston as "simple-minded," in Lehman's skillful description, Winston appears as a capable, mature woman who understood her life and her values. Eliza Winston herself made the bold decision to leave behind everything she had known for an uncertain but free future.
- GenresHistory
272 pages, Paperback
Published April 16, 2024
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About the author
Christopher P. Lehman
8 books8 followersChristopher P. Lehman is a professor of Ethnic Studies at St. Cloud State University. In the summer of 2011, he was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University's W. E. B. Du Bois Center for African and African American Research.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 1, 2024
Interesting account of a relatively unknown slave woman (Eliza Winston) who won her freedom when her slave owners brought her to Minnesota from Mississippi for the summer in 1860. At times a little dry, this book offers details of Eliza's life as a slave and her courage to ask for help in obtaining her freedom.
September 20, 2024
A beautifully written and meticulously researched account of one enslaved woman's persistent pursuit of freedom and the social, political, and legal forces working both against her and ultimately for her. History every American should know, which reads like a narrative.
May 24, 2024
Amazing research to track Eliza's life.
July 28, 2024
A fascinating account of the life of Eliza Winston, the only enslaved person to win her freedom in the brand new state of Minnesota. I highly recommend this book!
November 29, 2025
Solidly researched book that demonstrates the true reach of slavery in the US (even into Minnesota).
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews