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Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History
The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice--and reparations
Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position.
By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912.
McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.
The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice--and reparations
Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position.
By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912.
McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.
352 pages, Paperback
First published August 7, 2019
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July 7, 2021
This book provides a nonfiction account of the remarkable life of Henrietta Wood born into slavery in about 1820, sold into the Deep South at age fourteen, eventually moved to Cincinnati by her owner where she became legally free for about seven years, then at age thirty-five she was kidnapped and sold into slavery a second time and sent to the slave market in the South. Near the end of the Civil War her emancipation was delayed by her owner taking her and many other slaves to Texas. Two years after the end of the Civil War at age 47 she managed to return once again to Cincinnati, Ohio, and soon after she filed suit against the man who had previously kidnapped her and sold her into slavery. After a long drawn out court battle—ten years in length—she won and received a settlement of $2,500, today's equivalent of about $65,000.
Of course she deserved a larger award, but what is remarkable is that she won anything at all. She may be the only American former enslaved person who has ever received substantial financial reparations for being enslaved.
A major lesson demonstrated by this story is what a difference can be made with a little financial help at the right time. After receiving the lawsuit award Henrietta Wood and her son moved to Chicago where they were able to purchase a house mortgage free. Several years later her son used equity from the house to finance his obtaining a law degree which launched him in a long legal practice in Chicago. Subsequent generations from this family have gone on to a number of accomplishments. The example of this family causes one to wonder how different things could have been if former enslaved people had been given a helping hand instead of Jim Crow.
The author can be credited with writing an interesting narrative with a surprising level of detail given the inherent difficulty of writing histories about slaves due to the paucity of information contained in records of enslaved people. By using business records of the slave owners, newspaper accounts, and descriptions given by enslaved people in similar situations the author was able to paint a vivid picture of what life must have been like for Henrietta Wood. For this particular story there were two printed newspaper interviews with Henrietta Wood and another interview many years later with her son which provided a general outline of her life. There were also some records from two lengthy court battles, one from 1855 when she was kidnapped and the other in 1868-1878 when she sued her kidnapper.
Henrietta Wood lived to the age of ninety-four, and one has to admire her endurance and persistence in the face of incredible obstacles and reversals during her life. I'm so glad that she was blessed with a long life and lived to see her son become a successful Chicago lawyer. Henrietta herself was not able to read or write. However, she obviously had a charisma that seemed to prompt respect and support from people who could help her when needed.
Even slave owners seemed to have a degree of respect for her. An example of this was when she was sold south for the second time the slave dealers were given specific directions to sell her to the cotton fields and not to be a house slave because she had the reputation for causing legal problems. So she picked cotton for a while, but after a short time she moved to house duty anyway. During the four hundred mile trip of two hundred slaves from Mississippi to Texas near the end of the Civil War, her owner wrote Henrietta's name in his diary as the person who reported to him about deaths among the slaves. The trek to Texas was their own trail of tears.
It's worth noting that the person whom she sued for improper enslavement was an individual made wealthy as a contract operator of Arkansas' post-war prisons which functioned much as slavery by another name. I can't think of a more deserving person to get sued and pay. Disgustingly, he wasn't sorry for his actions. He joked about the payment by claiming—untruthfully—that he was the last person to pay for a slave.
This book was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for history.
Of course she deserved a larger award, but what is remarkable is that she won anything at all. She may be the only American former enslaved person who has ever received substantial financial reparations for being enslaved.
A major lesson demonstrated by this story is what a difference can be made with a little financial help at the right time. After receiving the lawsuit award Henrietta Wood and her son moved to Chicago where they were able to purchase a house mortgage free. Several years later her son used equity from the house to finance his obtaining a law degree which launched him in a long legal practice in Chicago. Subsequent generations from this family have gone on to a number of accomplishments. The example of this family causes one to wonder how different things could have been if former enslaved people had been given a helping hand instead of Jim Crow.
The author can be credited with writing an interesting narrative with a surprising level of detail given the inherent difficulty of writing histories about slaves due to the paucity of information contained in records of enslaved people. By using business records of the slave owners, newspaper accounts, and descriptions given by enslaved people in similar situations the author was able to paint a vivid picture of what life must have been like for Henrietta Wood. For this particular story there were two printed newspaper interviews with Henrietta Wood and another interview many years later with her son which provided a general outline of her life. There were also some records from two lengthy court battles, one from 1855 when she was kidnapped and the other in 1868-1878 when she sued her kidnapper.
Henrietta Wood lived to the age of ninety-four, and one has to admire her endurance and persistence in the face of incredible obstacles and reversals during her life. I'm so glad that she was blessed with a long life and lived to see her son become a successful Chicago lawyer. Henrietta herself was not able to read or write. However, she obviously had a charisma that seemed to prompt respect and support from people who could help her when needed.
Even slave owners seemed to have a degree of respect for her. An example of this was when she was sold south for the second time the slave dealers were given specific directions to sell her to the cotton fields and not to be a house slave because she had the reputation for causing legal problems. So she picked cotton for a while, but after a short time she moved to house duty anyway. During the four hundred mile trip of two hundred slaves from Mississippi to Texas near the end of the Civil War, her owner wrote Henrietta's name in his diary as the person who reported to him about deaths among the slaves. The trek to Texas was their own trail of tears.
It's worth noting that the person whom she sued for improper enslavement was an individual made wealthy as a contract operator of Arkansas' post-war prisons which functioned much as slavery by another name. I can't think of a more deserving person to get sued and pay. Disgustingly, he wasn't sorry for his actions. He joked about the payment by claiming—untruthfully—that he was the last person to pay for a slave.
This book was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for history.
July 18, 2020
Excellent book and important history
November 16, 2019
I really learned a lot about US history around slavery and Reconstruction in reading Sweet Taste of Liberty, the story of Henrietta Wood who was born a slave, freed to live in Ohio, and then captured and sold into slavery on the cotton plantations in Kentucky. She remained enslaved until the end of the Civil War and sued the man who captured and sold her for reparations. She was given $2,500, of her $20,000 claim for over a decade of forced labor.
W. Caleb McDaniel writes about how reading “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates informed his research and writing of Sweet Taste of Liberty. Reading one person's story along with the historical context and the history of restitution law suits and reparations discussions made for very engaging reading. The history of penitentiaries and how White Southerners rehabilitated themselves by making slavery into penitentiaries that were as brutally abusive and as lucrative as the plantations had been, was a real eye opener for me. I also really appreciated his (meta)discussion of how the slave owners didn’t create archives etc to remember the stories of the enslaved so so much of what they went through is lost. The level of research and thoughtfulness makes this a very special book and a great read. I’m so glad that he took the time to write this labor of love.
As I read the story of Henrietta Wood, I was so saddened that there were no pictures of her at all. There were pictures of all the men who made money off her, because of course they had identities where she was property. It was nice to see her son Arthur Simms, and his wife and children, and that they had a good life thanks to the judgment for reparations (albeit inadequate) against Zebulon Ward. http://wiki.wcaleb.rice.edu/Arthur%20...
I really love “Sweet Taste of Liberty” because it gives Henrietta Wood her identity back. She was illiterate but recognized the power of having your story told, so she spoke of her experience in the court filings and to a reporter, so we have a record of who she was. She wasn’t allowed to speak in court because she was a Black woman, though the man who bought her was. And he punished her for her lawsuit by insisting on selling her to be enslaved on a cotton plantation so she couldn’t sue her new owners or have any resources to keep fighting. And yet she did. I really like her, and admire her tenacity. The deck was stacked against her and yet she kept on fighting for what was her due. She was flogged many times, suffered horrific abuse and was still an amazing mother and person. Rest in power Henrietta Wood.
W. Caleb McDaniel writes about how reading “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates informed his research and writing of Sweet Taste of Liberty. Reading one person's story along with the historical context and the history of restitution law suits and reparations discussions made for very engaging reading. The history of penitentiaries and how White Southerners rehabilitated themselves by making slavery into penitentiaries that were as brutally abusive and as lucrative as the plantations had been, was a real eye opener for me. I also really appreciated his (meta)discussion of how the slave owners didn’t create archives etc to remember the stories of the enslaved so so much of what they went through is lost. The level of research and thoughtfulness makes this a very special book and a great read. I’m so glad that he took the time to write this labor of love.
As I read the story of Henrietta Wood, I was so saddened that there were no pictures of her at all. There were pictures of all the men who made money off her, because of course they had identities where she was property. It was nice to see her son Arthur Simms, and his wife and children, and that they had a good life thanks to the judgment for reparations (albeit inadequate) against Zebulon Ward. http://wiki.wcaleb.rice.edu/Arthur%20...
I really love “Sweet Taste of Liberty” because it gives Henrietta Wood her identity back. She was illiterate but recognized the power of having your story told, so she spoke of her experience in the court filings and to a reporter, so we have a record of who she was. She wasn’t allowed to speak in court because she was a Black woman, though the man who bought her was. And he punished her for her lawsuit by insisting on selling her to be enslaved on a cotton plantation so she couldn’t sue her new owners or have any resources to keep fighting. And yet she did. I really like her, and admire her tenacity. The deck was stacked against her and yet she kept on fighting for what was her due. She was flogged many times, suffered horrific abuse and was still an amazing mother and person. Rest in power Henrietta Wood.
June 10, 2021
Excellent book and deserves to be read
A difficult read about Henrietta Wood’s reenslavement by kidnapping and if you haven’t read about this time the read will be eye opening. The brutality of the time was awful. I personally learned a lot more about Reconstruction as this was a particularly shameful part of our history and glossed over by many. It also shows that direct payments in cash to families in restitution can make an enormous impact on the future wealth they can accumulate. Much of the content has direct parallels to what is happening and what is said about the topics today. Unfortunately we haven’t moved much beyond what was being said over a century ago. The arguments are the same.
A difficult read about Henrietta Wood’s reenslavement by kidnapping and if you haven’t read about this time the read will be eye opening. The brutality of the time was awful. I personally learned a lot more about Reconstruction as this was a particularly shameful part of our history and glossed over by many. It also shows that direct payments in cash to families in restitution can make an enormous impact on the future wealth they can accumulate. Much of the content has direct parallels to what is happening and what is said about the topics today. Unfortunately we haven’t moved much beyond what was being said over a century ago. The arguments are the same.
September 25, 2019
Henrietta Wood was a twice enslaved and twice freed slave who in the Reconstruction Era sued Zebulon Ward her enslaver for reparations in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1878, an all white jury returned a verdict in Wood’s favor and assessed reparations in the amount of $2,500 (far less than the $20,000 the suit demanded). To date it stands as the largest reparations judgment for slavery.
Wood was born into slavery, but in 1848 gained her freedom when her owner and recent widow brought her to Ohio (a free state) and gave her freedom papers. After living there in relative freedom for five years, she was kidnapped and forced back to Kentucky (a slave state), taken to Natchez, Mississippi, and “sold down the river” where she was bought to work the cotton fields of Texas. She remained enslaved until a few years after the Civil War when she gained her freedom a second time.
Her story is told in Sweet Taste of Liberty by Rice University historian Caleb McDaniel who has weaved Wood’s narrative into a compelling account that raises contemporary questions that continue to be asked and unsuccessfully settled. One of those questions is about reparations for slavery itself. Ward’s story reminds us of the value reparations can have for the common good far into the generations that follow, not only for the individuals themselves, but also for the value of society as a whole. I’ll allow the reader to discover what that looked like in this case.
McDaniel’s epilogue is wonderfully crafted and put a brilliant point on Henrietta Wood’s story. Not the least of which is to raise the important question that after everything was said and done: Did she win? That is a compelling question to me when viewed in different frames. McDaniel doesn’t attempt to answer that question in the end. However, it is the one that will continue to keep the important conversations happening. My gratitude for knowing her story comes from keeping those questions alive and hearing them anew in the context of a narrative that is easy to grasp.
Wood was born into slavery, but in 1848 gained her freedom when her owner and recent widow brought her to Ohio (a free state) and gave her freedom papers. After living there in relative freedom for five years, she was kidnapped and forced back to Kentucky (a slave state), taken to Natchez, Mississippi, and “sold down the river” where she was bought to work the cotton fields of Texas. She remained enslaved until a few years after the Civil War when she gained her freedom a second time.
Her story is told in Sweet Taste of Liberty by Rice University historian Caleb McDaniel who has weaved Wood’s narrative into a compelling account that raises contemporary questions that continue to be asked and unsuccessfully settled. One of those questions is about reparations for slavery itself. Ward’s story reminds us of the value reparations can have for the common good far into the generations that follow, not only for the individuals themselves, but also for the value of society as a whole. I’ll allow the reader to discover what that looked like in this case.
McDaniel’s epilogue is wonderfully crafted and put a brilliant point on Henrietta Wood’s story. Not the least of which is to raise the important question that after everything was said and done: Did she win? That is a compelling question to me when viewed in different frames. McDaniel doesn’t attempt to answer that question in the end. However, it is the one that will continue to keep the important conversations happening. My gratitude for knowing her story comes from keeping those questions alive and hearing them anew in the context of a narrative that is easy to grasp.
June 21, 2020
This was so excellent for so many reasons, not the least of which is the essay on sources at the end. I was very fortunate to take two classes (one independent research seminar) with McDaniel while I was at Rice, and his voice and pedagogical intention come across beautifully in that essay. I love that he open-sourced his sources while writing this. I love that he naturally ends with reflections on reparations and an unanswerable question: did she (Henrietta) win? I loved recognising names in his Acknowledgments; and in his Footnotes (some who I've discovered through my own networks [Lepore], some who are familiar from McDaniel's syllabi [Foner, McPherson, Blight, Manning]). But most of all, I loved the care and attention he brought to Henrietta Wood's life and story, showcasing the obvious excellence of his craft in the telling of it. A Pulitzer well-earned. I highly recommend that you read this book, and in particular, read every single footnote. I've added more books to my To Read list through reading McDaniel's footnotes than I had in the entirety of 2020 thus far. Truly a gift that gives again.
February 13, 2020
Truly very well done
August 14, 2020
This was from what I've seen others saying a decent book, but the audio version stunk.
The narration was choppy and pause filled, which adversely affected my enjoyment of this book.
The narration was choppy and pause filled, which adversely affected my enjoyment of this book.
June 7, 2020
This was a 4.5 read for me
thoughts coming shortly
thoughts coming shortly
November 20, 2020
Sweet Taste of Liberty is an unforgettable story of an enslaved woman’s fight for justice and reparations. It is well written and deserving of the Pulitzer.
Henrietta Wood was twice enslaved and twice freed slave during the Reconstruction Era. She sued Zebulon Ward, her enslaver for reparations in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1878. She was born in 1848. She gained her freedom by a widow who gave her freedom papers in Ohio after 5 years of servitude. Henrietta was kidnapped and taken to Natchez, Mississippi and “sold down the river” where she was taken to work on cotton fields. She remained enslaved until after the Civil War.
In 1869, after Wood obtained her freedom a second time and returned to Cincinnati, she sued Ward damages in 1870. After 9 years of litigation, she won her case in 1878. A Federal jury awarded her $2500 though she asked for $20,000. This was the largest amount won at the time and most important was that money was awarded for restitution.
Ward survived slavery twice and won a moral victory over oppressors. We learn how compensating freed people had a huge number of hurdles to overcome. McDaniel, a historian from Rice University wove two interviews she gave into a compelling cohesive account. It raises current questions that continue today about reparations for slavery.
The story about Henrietta Wood is horrific and a very captivating story. It is highly recommended and a must read for everyone.
Henrietta Wood was twice enslaved and twice freed slave during the Reconstruction Era. She sued Zebulon Ward, her enslaver for reparations in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1878. She was born in 1848. She gained her freedom by a widow who gave her freedom papers in Ohio after 5 years of servitude. Henrietta was kidnapped and taken to Natchez, Mississippi and “sold down the river” where she was taken to work on cotton fields. She remained enslaved until after the Civil War.
In 1869, after Wood obtained her freedom a second time and returned to Cincinnati, she sued Ward damages in 1870. After 9 years of litigation, she won her case in 1878. A Federal jury awarded her $2500 though she asked for $20,000. This was the largest amount won at the time and most important was that money was awarded for restitution.
Ward survived slavery twice and won a moral victory over oppressors. We learn how compensating freed people had a huge number of hurdles to overcome. McDaniel, a historian from Rice University wove two interviews she gave into a compelling cohesive account. It raises current questions that continue today about reparations for slavery.
The story about Henrietta Wood is horrific and a very captivating story. It is highly recommended and a must read for everyone.
July 24, 2020
McDaniel did an excellent job putting together a complex, compelling, heart-rending story of one woman's fight for justice. His descriptions of the environment surrounding the Ohio-Kentucky border really brought the fragility of black Americans' pre-Civil War freedom to bright light. Even if you were legally free, you could be kidnapped and re-enslaved to the darkness of deep Mississippi where escape was virtually impossible.
The legal arguments of Wood's reparation suit were fascinating and McDaniel did an excellent job of preventing the average reader from getting lost in the miasma of legal terminology and obfuscation. Still, at the end when she won her lawsuit and received a monetary judgement, you didn't know whether to celebrate or mourn. You'll have to read the book to find out why.
I also enjoyed the epilogue and the Appendix in which we got a better view of the complexity of McDaniel's research and the challenge facing all who wish to bring biographies of enslaved peoples to the light. I don't always say this, but the book truly deserves the Pulitzer Prize that it won.
The legal arguments of Wood's reparation suit were fascinating and McDaniel did an excellent job of preventing the average reader from getting lost in the miasma of legal terminology and obfuscation. Still, at the end when she won her lawsuit and received a monetary judgement, you didn't know whether to celebrate or mourn. You'll have to read the book to find out why.
I also enjoyed the epilogue and the Appendix in which we got a better view of the complexity of McDaniel's research and the challenge facing all who wish to bring biographies of enslaved peoples to the light. I don't always say this, but the book truly deserves the Pulitzer Prize that it won.
June 15, 2021
Caleb McDaniel won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 in the history category for his book, "Sweet Taste of Liberty, A true story of slavery and restitution in America". The story is about Henrietta Wood, a slave in 1848 in Ohio who was freed. Then in 1853 she was forcibly taken to Kentucky and re-enslaved. In 1870 Henrietta regained her freedom and sued Zebulon Ward for $20,000 for the amount she could have earned as a free citizen. The case Wood v Ward gained national attention. The book is also an interesting history lesson of slavery and the Civil War. The legacy of Henrietta Wood lived on through her son Arthur who became a prominent lawyer in Chicago. I give this book 5 stars.
August 4, 2020
It is clear why this book was chosen as a Pulitzer Prize winner. McDaniel crafts an amazing story of Henrietta Wood, a freedwoman who received manumission before the Civil War, moved to a free state but was captured and put back into slavery for 15 years until emancipation. She subsequently sued the men who captured her once she was finally free. The author follows Wood from Virginia, Ohio, New Orleans, Texas, and Chicago, detailing her life from freedom, slavery, and freedom once again. The story was based on two news articles by Lafcadio Hearn in which Wood was interviewed and told her story. Some details conflicted between the articles, and McDaniel did an excellent job of research to clarify the story and Wood's legal battle for restitution.
June 13, 2020
This book by Rice University Professor of History, W. Caleb McDaniel, was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History. If the author had made up this story and then published it as a novel, people would have scoffed and said, “Not believable. Could never have happened.” Yet it did happen. It is an unbelievable, but true story. (The professor backs it up with 70 pages of Notes.) In 1878, a sixty-year old ex-slave, Henrietta Wood, after eight years of litigation, won her case for restitution in a Federal court. The jury awarded her the amount of $2,500, which in 2020 would be worth $64,000. This is the largest amount ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery.
Henrietta was born into slavery about 1819 in the slave state of Kentucky. She was taken across the Ohio River to Cincinnati, in Ohio, which was a free state. There she was legally freed in 1848 by her owner. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward conspired with Wood’s employer, kidnapped her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, toiling on a Mississippi cotton plantation. At some point she gave birth to a son. In 1865, at the end of the war, Henrietta obtained her freedom a second time, and returned to Cincinnati. There, in 1870, she sued Ward, who was now a multi-millionaire, for damages. She lived until 1912. Her son became a prominent African American civil rights lawyer. One of her great-grandsons was a Tuskegee airman in World War II.
Professor McDaniel’s historical study is timely. Henrietta’s story was basically forgotten, until the professor did an incredible amount of research to bring her back to life, so to speak. During the time, before the Civil War, police were mostly slave patrols, hunting down escaped slaves, both in the South and the North. After the Civil War, for a hundred years, police in the South were mostly used to enforce Jim Crow laws, by beating and imprisoning black men for any “disrespect” of white folks. Even looking at white woman could lead to lynching, supervised by the local police. The laws and law enforcement, before and after the Civil War, both North and South, were a means of perpetuating white power and white supremacy. But until recently, history books have ignored the reality of slavery, the use of prison labor—almost always black men—and the use of police to prevent change. Henrietta’s true story vividly illustrates what white people do not want to see and know about the history of black people in this country.
And the question of “reparations”? Henrietta was one of the few ex-slaves who was able to get reparations. The core of her suit was that she was owed back wages for the time from 1858 through 1865, when she was illegally picking cotton for free. She was a free woman who had been abducted by Ward and sold “down river” to one of the largest and most brutal cotton plantations in Mississippi. Most ex-slaves got nothing from their ex-masters. The economic inequality that exists in America today between blacks and whites can be traced to slavery and the failure of government to award restitution to freedmen.
Henrietta was born into slavery about 1819 in the slave state of Kentucky. She was taken across the Ohio River to Cincinnati, in Ohio, which was a free state. There she was legally freed in 1848 by her owner. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward conspired with Wood’s employer, kidnapped her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, toiling on a Mississippi cotton plantation. At some point she gave birth to a son. In 1865, at the end of the war, Henrietta obtained her freedom a second time, and returned to Cincinnati. There, in 1870, she sued Ward, who was now a multi-millionaire, for damages. She lived until 1912. Her son became a prominent African American civil rights lawyer. One of her great-grandsons was a Tuskegee airman in World War II.
Professor McDaniel’s historical study is timely. Henrietta’s story was basically forgotten, until the professor did an incredible amount of research to bring her back to life, so to speak. During the time, before the Civil War, police were mostly slave patrols, hunting down escaped slaves, both in the South and the North. After the Civil War, for a hundred years, police in the South were mostly used to enforce Jim Crow laws, by beating and imprisoning black men for any “disrespect” of white folks. Even looking at white woman could lead to lynching, supervised by the local police. The laws and law enforcement, before and after the Civil War, both North and South, were a means of perpetuating white power and white supremacy. But until recently, history books have ignored the reality of slavery, the use of prison labor—almost always black men—and the use of police to prevent change. Henrietta’s true story vividly illustrates what white people do not want to see and know about the history of black people in this country.
And the question of “reparations”? Henrietta was one of the few ex-slaves who was able to get reparations. The core of her suit was that she was owed back wages for the time from 1858 through 1865, when she was illegally picking cotton for free. She was a free woman who had been abducted by Ward and sold “down river” to one of the largest and most brutal cotton plantations in Mississippi. Most ex-slaves got nothing from their ex-masters. The economic inequality that exists in America today between blacks and whites can be traced to slavery and the failure of government to award restitution to freedmen.
July 7, 2020
This was an eye opening book. I appreciate McDaniel's efforts to capture the story of Henrietta. A brief intro: Henrietta was a slave at birth, freed for a short time as an adult, then stolen and sold into slavery again. She fought for and was finally paid a trivial amount in reparations years after the civil war endend. I am glad I read this book. I feel it also shed light on and gave the history of current issues in Chicago.
June 1, 2020
This is the second book I have listened to through audible. I think if I had actually read the book, it would have been 5 stars. Being able to read and reread sections, check out the notes while reading would have helped me. I will probably end up buying a print version and reread sections so I could use some of this material when teaching.
July 16, 2020
Part biography and part civil war history, this book is excellent. In a way that doesn’t simply re-tell past events but engages one’s imagination, McDaniel weaves the fascinating and heart-breaking story of Henrietta Wood into the larger story of slavery in the American South. I learned so much from this and recommend it to all who wish to deepen their understanding of America’s history.
January 8, 2024
Great bit of research and a robust book that was able to take a limited amount of surviving documentation (are there any circa 1840-1880 courthouses that didn't burn down?) and create a compelling and readable narrative.
I had a basic outline understanding of Henrietta Wood's life, but was still surprised about the amount of "due process" that was afforded her following her abduction and re-enslavement.
The last and second to last chapters are McDaniel's notes on research and personal feelings about modern implications of the failures of reconstruction. The notes on research and speculations he didn't include in the book were fascinating, but the personal observations not-so-much.
Added a lot to my expected Cincinnati trip, whenever that happens. Also added The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform to my daily price-hunting list.
I had a basic outline understanding of Henrietta Wood's life, but was still surprised about the amount of "due process" that was afforded her following her abduction and re-enslavement.
The last and second to last chapters are McDaniel's notes on research and personal feelings about modern implications of the failures of reconstruction. The notes on research and speculations he didn't include in the book were fascinating, but the personal observations not-so-much.
Added a lot to my expected Cincinnati trip, whenever that happens. Also added The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform to my daily price-hunting list.
February 6, 2021
By any standards, Henrietta Wood was a remarkable woman, born into slavery in Kentucky, freed in Ohio, kidnapped and sold to slavers and ultimately freed again by the Union army. That she then turned around and sued one of the men who snatched her from Cincinnati and put her back in chains merely proves that this woman had a strength that's worth remembering.
What is even startling is that W. Caleb McDaniel managed to scour the archives and dredge up a couple of truly obscure newspaper stories to bring Wood's story to life. He is both a fine writer and gifted historian. He takes the reader back to a place utterly different than our own and yet still totally recognizable. He pierces the veil that surrounds slavery to show that it wasn't merely a monstrous black evil -- though it was that -- it was also an institution that had real people within it, not just victims and oppressors.
I don't want to give anything away. I'll just urge anyone who thinks it may be worth picking up this book, which won a Pulitzer for history, to do so. If you care an iota for history, be sure to admire the craft of it all as you read it.
What is even startling is that W. Caleb McDaniel managed to scour the archives and dredge up a couple of truly obscure newspaper stories to bring Wood's story to life. He is both a fine writer and gifted historian. He takes the reader back to a place utterly different than our own and yet still totally recognizable. He pierces the veil that surrounds slavery to show that it wasn't merely a monstrous black evil -- though it was that -- it was also an institution that had real people within it, not just victims and oppressors.
I don't want to give anything away. I'll just urge anyone who thinks it may be worth picking up this book, which won a Pulitzer for history, to do so. If you care an iota for history, be sure to admire the craft of it all as you read it.
July 30, 2020
Best book I've read in a while. McDaniel does an excellent job weaving the limited sources he has to tell the amazing story of Henrietta Wood. I get excited about books quite a lot, and I know if anyone asks me for a recommendation in the near future, this will be at the top of my list, even for those not interested in history.
April 16, 2020
A well researched account of an extremely brave woman. McDaniel brings Henrietta Wood and her fascinating story to life. He also does a good job of contextualizing Wood's story in both the antebellum and reconstruction periods of the United States. In many ways, this book is a tale of what could have been in reconstruction in this country had not failed. Perhaps more former slaves would have been able to recoup money, property, and dignity owed to them due to America's original sin.
December 18, 2020
I picked up this book from the list of 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners and the book did not disappoint at all. Its a lovely narrative that artfully lays bare the extent of the American "original sin". Strongly recommended!
February 15, 2023
Over the past decade, beginning with the police murders that triggered the Black Lives Matter movement, discussion of reparations for slavery has surfaced in public discourse across the United States. After all, some four million African-Americans were enslaved in 1860. And their descendants, the overwhelming majority of the forty-two million Black people in the USA today, live with that legacy.
To many of us—a clear majority of African-Americans and more than a quarter of the US population as a whole—agree that that legacy affects Black lives a great deal today. Its central pillar—systemic and pervasive racism—has held back generations of African-Americans for four centuries. Many know now that reparations could begin to reduce the damage.
But reparations are far from a new idea. They were a subject of debate in the nineteenth century even while slavery was still in force. And historian Caleb McDaniel’s masterful, Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, Sweet Taste of Liberty, brings that debate to light. It seems especially fitting to recall all this now during Black History Month.
THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF A FREED SLAVE
In Sweet Taste of Liberty, McDaniel relates the extraordinary story of Henrietta Wood (c. 1818-1912). Born into slavery in 1818 or 1820, she was freed in 1848 and experienced life as a free woman for five years in Cincinnati. Then the daughter of a former owner connived to take her back to Kentucky, which was then a slave state. There, a gang of slave traders kidnapped her. They sold her “down the river,” and Henrietta ended up on an industrial-scale cotton plantation near Natchez, Mississippi.
She labored in the fields for a time before the owner ordered her into his home, where she worked as a laundress, housekeeper, and nanny. When Federal troops menaced the city during the Civil War, the owner fled to Texas with hundreds of his slaves, including Henrietta. There, she remained in bondage until long after the war and emancipation. Eventually, however, Henrietta made her way back north. A friendly abolitionist attorney back in Cincinnati helped her file suit against the man who had orchestrated her kidnapping and sale. McDaniel tells the story of that lawsuit, which captured headlines all across the United States.
THE LAWSUIT THAT ELEVATED DISCUSSION OF REPARATIONS
McDaniel gives us convincing portraits of several key figures in his story. Henrietta, of course. The French immigrant, William Cirode, who owned her in Lexington and New Orleans before her emancipation. Gerard Brandon, owner of the Mississippi plantation. George B. Kinkead, the prominent antislavery attorney who arranged her lawsuit. But, most convincingly, Zebulon Ward, the sociopath who arranged for her kidnapping and sale. The author describes Ward’s long career as warden of the state penitentiaries in three states (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas). In those hugely lucrative posts, he presided over a regime of terror and cruelty that established the character of the convict licensing system present in the South for decades thereafter.
However, Sweet Taste of Liberty is above all the story of the lawsuit that Henrietta waged for nine years in Federal court to secure compensation for her re-enslavement. It’s a stirring and ultimately inspiring tale. Against all odds, she won her case. But the compensation fell far short of the $20,000 she had demanded (roughly $700,000 today) for the kidnapping and sixteen years of slave labor. In 1879, the federal District Court in the Southern District of Ohio ordered Ward to pay her just $2,500 (the equivalent in 2023 of about $74,000 after inflation). Newspapers across the United States, which had been following the case closely since its inception, complained that the amount was far too low. And that recognition brought into greater prominence the public discussion of reparations that had surfaced from time to time in previous years.
SETTING THE PRECEDENT FOR REPARATIONS
“Before abolition,” McDaniel observes, “freedom suits in the slave states had sometimes included claims for monetary damages, but the amounts paid or even requested in such suits had never been as high as five figures. And although some abolitionists and radical Republicans had advocated reparations of some form to the enslaved, previous efforts had fallen short.” Still, in isolated cases, former slaves did win restitution in court. And the precedent was set.
“Enslaved people—women in particular— had always understood slavery as a crime that demanded reparation,” McDaniel writes. “Near the close of the American Revolution, for example, a manumitted woman named Belinda had successfully petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for a small pension paid out of the estate of her former owner on the grounds that his wealth had been partly ‘accumulated by her own industry,’ as the petition stated, and ‘augmented by her servitude.’ Now, seven decades later, many formerly enslaved people were arguing the same thing.”
In the commentary that swirled around the decision in Henrietta’s case against Zebulon Ward, the New York Times raised “some difficult questions about the nation’s ‘unsettled account’ with the formerly enslaved. As the Times noted, ‘former Confederates and Democrats could still be heard arguing, on occasion, that they were owed compensation for the loss of their slaves or forgiveness of their debts from the war. To them, the Times asked, what about compensation to ex-slaves?”
“JUNETEENTH,” EXPLAINED
Many African-Americans, especially those whose roots lie in Texas, celebrate Juneteenth. The date, June 19, commemorates the freeing of slaves in Texas in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Although enslaved persons throughout the Confederacy had been “freed” in 1863, only the arrival of Union troops made the order a reality. And that didn’t happen in Texas until months after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Even so, slavery persisted in areas of the vast state distant from the major cities. And “as Wood later recalled in 1879,” McDaniel writes, “[Gerard Brandon] kept his slaves working on his rented plantation for three more years.”
SLAVERY WAS, INDEED, THE CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR
To this day, many stubborn Southerners insist that slavery was not the cause that animated the Confederacy. McDaniel makes clear in passing that their objections are so much flimflammery. “By 1860,” he writes, the nearly four million people enslaved in the United States would be worth an estimated $3 billion to their owners, more than all the factories, railroads, and banking capital in the country combined. White fears over the threats to all that wealth would soon spark a civil war.” And a great many Southerners were well aware of that reality at the time. As the war wound on, complaints were heard among Confederate soldiers that the conflict was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
At Rice University in Houston, Texas, W. Caleb McDaniel focuses his research and teaching on the nineteenth century, the Civil War Era, and the struggle over slavery. Currently, he chairs the Department of History and serves as co-chair of the university’s Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice. McDaniel was born and raised in San Antonio. He received BA and MA degrees from Texas A&M University and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University.
To many of us—a clear majority of African-Americans and more than a quarter of the US population as a whole—agree that that legacy affects Black lives a great deal today. Its central pillar—systemic and pervasive racism—has held back generations of African-Americans for four centuries. Many know now that reparations could begin to reduce the damage.
But reparations are far from a new idea. They were a subject of debate in the nineteenth century even while slavery was still in force. And historian Caleb McDaniel’s masterful, Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, Sweet Taste of Liberty, brings that debate to light. It seems especially fitting to recall all this now during Black History Month.
THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF A FREED SLAVE
In Sweet Taste of Liberty, McDaniel relates the extraordinary story of Henrietta Wood (c. 1818-1912). Born into slavery in 1818 or 1820, she was freed in 1848 and experienced life as a free woman for five years in Cincinnati. Then the daughter of a former owner connived to take her back to Kentucky, which was then a slave state. There, a gang of slave traders kidnapped her. They sold her “down the river,” and Henrietta ended up on an industrial-scale cotton plantation near Natchez, Mississippi.
She labored in the fields for a time before the owner ordered her into his home, where she worked as a laundress, housekeeper, and nanny. When Federal troops menaced the city during the Civil War, the owner fled to Texas with hundreds of his slaves, including Henrietta. There, she remained in bondage until long after the war and emancipation. Eventually, however, Henrietta made her way back north. A friendly abolitionist attorney back in Cincinnati helped her file suit against the man who had orchestrated her kidnapping and sale. McDaniel tells the story of that lawsuit, which captured headlines all across the United States.
THE LAWSUIT THAT ELEVATED DISCUSSION OF REPARATIONS
McDaniel gives us convincing portraits of several key figures in his story. Henrietta, of course. The French immigrant, William Cirode, who owned her in Lexington and New Orleans before her emancipation. Gerard Brandon, owner of the Mississippi plantation. George B. Kinkead, the prominent antislavery attorney who arranged her lawsuit. But, most convincingly, Zebulon Ward, the sociopath who arranged for her kidnapping and sale. The author describes Ward’s long career as warden of the state penitentiaries in three states (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas). In those hugely lucrative posts, he presided over a regime of terror and cruelty that established the character of the convict licensing system present in the South for decades thereafter.
However, Sweet Taste of Liberty is above all the story of the lawsuit that Henrietta waged for nine years in Federal court to secure compensation for her re-enslavement. It’s a stirring and ultimately inspiring tale. Against all odds, she won her case. But the compensation fell far short of the $20,000 she had demanded (roughly $700,000 today) for the kidnapping and sixteen years of slave labor. In 1879, the federal District Court in the Southern District of Ohio ordered Ward to pay her just $2,500 (the equivalent in 2023 of about $74,000 after inflation). Newspapers across the United States, which had been following the case closely since its inception, complained that the amount was far too low. And that recognition brought into greater prominence the public discussion of reparations that had surfaced from time to time in previous years.
SETTING THE PRECEDENT FOR REPARATIONS
“Before abolition,” McDaniel observes, “freedom suits in the slave states had sometimes included claims for monetary damages, but the amounts paid or even requested in such suits had never been as high as five figures. And although some abolitionists and radical Republicans had advocated reparations of some form to the enslaved, previous efforts had fallen short.” Still, in isolated cases, former slaves did win restitution in court. And the precedent was set.
“Enslaved people—women in particular— had always understood slavery as a crime that demanded reparation,” McDaniel writes. “Near the close of the American Revolution, for example, a manumitted woman named Belinda had successfully petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for a small pension paid out of the estate of her former owner on the grounds that his wealth had been partly ‘accumulated by her own industry,’ as the petition stated, and ‘augmented by her servitude.’ Now, seven decades later, many formerly enslaved people were arguing the same thing.”
In the commentary that swirled around the decision in Henrietta’s case against Zebulon Ward, the New York Times raised “some difficult questions about the nation’s ‘unsettled account’ with the formerly enslaved. As the Times noted, ‘former Confederates and Democrats could still be heard arguing, on occasion, that they were owed compensation for the loss of their slaves or forgiveness of their debts from the war. To them, the Times asked, what about compensation to ex-slaves?”
“JUNETEENTH,” EXPLAINED
Many African-Americans, especially those whose roots lie in Texas, celebrate Juneteenth. The date, June 19, commemorates the freeing of slaves in Texas in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Although enslaved persons throughout the Confederacy had been “freed” in 1863, only the arrival of Union troops made the order a reality. And that didn’t happen in Texas until months after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Even so, slavery persisted in areas of the vast state distant from the major cities. And “as Wood later recalled in 1879,” McDaniel writes, “[Gerard Brandon] kept his slaves working on his rented plantation for three more years.”
SLAVERY WAS, INDEED, THE CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR
To this day, many stubborn Southerners insist that slavery was not the cause that animated the Confederacy. McDaniel makes clear in passing that their objections are so much flimflammery. “By 1860,” he writes, the nearly four million people enslaved in the United States would be worth an estimated $3 billion to their owners, more than all the factories, railroads, and banking capital in the country combined. White fears over the threats to all that wealth would soon spark a civil war.” And a great many Southerners were well aware of that reality at the time. As the war wound on, complaints were heard among Confederate soldiers that the conflict was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
At Rice University in Houston, Texas, W. Caleb McDaniel focuses his research and teaching on the nineteenth century, the Civil War Era, and the struggle over slavery. Currently, he chairs the Department of History and serves as co-chair of the university’s Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice. McDaniel was born and raised in San Antonio. He received BA and MA degrees from Texas A&M University and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University.
December 28, 2020
Often times history merely retells well-known events or persona, sometimes perhaps offering new and unique perspectives. However, history can also uncover and bring to light otherwise forgotten lives. In a Sweet taste of liberty Caleb McDaniel recounts the story of Henrietta Wood who was born into slavery, granted her freedom and then abducted and sold back into slavery. After the civil war she sues Zebulon Ward, her perpetrator, and wins a $2500 settlement, far less than the $20000 she was seeking but still the equivalent of about $60k in today's exchange. Zebulon's lawyers had argued the case should be dismissed on the grounds of an earlier lawsuit filed on her behalf shortly after her abduction. In a truly ironic twist of logic the judge in the subsequent trial ruled the earlier case had no merit since, according to the Dred Scott decision, blacks were not citizens and thus could not bring suit.
I can definitely see why this won a Pulitzer prize. Caleb is a great writer, and this is a beautifully told narrative. It certainly resonates today with so much discussion on how to handle the sins of our past and the still lasting effects of slavery and Jim Crow.
I can definitely see why this won a Pulitzer prize. Caleb is a great writer, and this is a beautifully told narrative. It certainly resonates today with so much discussion on how to handle the sins of our past and the still lasting effects of slavery and Jim Crow.
October 7, 2020
This is an amazing account of a horrific return to slavery. The Half Has Never Been Told is another great read on the ‘tween’ years when some states were free and before the Civil War. Slave owners did everything they could to hang on to their human capital. Some went even so far to take freed men and women and sell them back into slavery. What could they possibly do? Poor, usually uneducated, fighting a system that sees them, for the most part as sub-human. What a horrific part of our history that we still, to this day, refuse to acknowledge.
The author’s ability to piece together a saga like this is monumental. The story is true and strong, even with some facts missing. The fact that the story was told is itself amazing, to document how a woman, so grossly wronged, did, in the end, get some benefit from the fight.
The author’s ability to piece together a saga like this is monumental. The story is true and strong, even with some facts missing. The fact that the story was told is itself amazing, to document how a woman, so grossly wronged, did, in the end, get some benefit from the fight.
April 16, 2020
The historian as Sherlock Holmes ... Professor McDaniel tracked down the story of former slave Henrietta Wood, who received her freedom in 1848, was kidnapped, re-enslaved, and sold down the river to bondage at Brandon Hall of Mississippi ... But Wood fought back: she sued her abductor, Zebulon Ward, after the Civil War for $20,000.00 in reparations ... detailed research, fluid prose, and point-blank analysis make this a phenomenal read ... a finalist for the 2020 Lincoln Prize ...
November 4, 2019
This enthralling story of Woods a woman who was twice enslaved and twice set free told by Caleb McDaniels. She won a case in federal court against one of her former masters, which gives us some small insight into how reparations might affect communities today. Caleb has brought this story out of the dust by weaving together newspaper accounts and court cases involving Woods.
September 27, 2020
Sweet Taste Of Liberty, by W. Caleb McDaniel, which won a Pulitzer Prize this year, is the remarkable story of Henrietta Wood. born into slavery., then freed by her owner, only to be kidnapped back into slavery. She was free again after the Civil War and decided to sue the man who kidnapped and sold her, Zebulon Ward. Amazingly in court with a white jury and judge, she won. She didn't get nearly as much as she wanted, but the money remains the highest amount ever won for restitution for slavery.
Wood was living free in Cincinnati when the woman she worked for (who was undoubtedly in on it) asked her to accompany her on a carriage ride that led to Kentucky, where she was abducted. She was sold down the river to Natchez, Mississippi, and when the war started her owner took all his slaves to Texas, so they would not be confiscated.
Wood had sued Kentucky for her freedom in the 1850s, but lost. Starting in 1870, with the help of sympathetic lawyers, her case was being heard by the Southern District of Ohio. Due to stalling tactics by Ward and incorrectly filed paperwork, the case didn't go to trial until 1879, when Wood was about sixty years old (she never knew her actual age, nor could she read and write). Astonishingly, she won $2500, far less than the $20,000 in lost wages that she claimed she could have earned in the thirteen years she was improperly enslaved.
Ward joked that he was the last man to pay for a slave: "The true story, the one that Ward did not want to tell, was that of a black woman who survived enslavement twice—and then made a powerful white man pay." He was a scoundrel, who operated prisons in three different states, making money by leasing black prisoners for labor. After slavery ended, their was a new kind of slavery, where black men were given long sentences for minor crimes, if they were even guilty in the first place: "The Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery made an exception for involuntary servitude imposed as punishment for crime. Southern states took full advantage of that loophole by crowding their prisons with black prisoners."
McDaniel leaves Wood's story often to give a larger picture of slavery. He notes that Kentucky, which never did secede from the Union, nonetheless loved slavery. They didn't ratify the Thirteenth Amendment until 1976. Toward the end of the book, when the trial is discussed there are so many details, such as the instructions given to the jury and the decision by a second judge not to grant a new trial, that it can make one's head swim. But these are necessary details, and McDaniel does his best to make them understood.
The biggest takeaway is that Wood was a remarkable women, who was largely lost to history, so this is a worthy volume to bring her pack to prominence.
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Friday, September 25, 2020
Lured
How's this for a wacky quartet of actors given top billing: Lucille Ball, George Sanders, Charles Coburn, and Boris Karloff. I dare say it's the only film co-starring Lucy with Karloff. This was before her TV days, 1947, when she was an ingenue, although there is plenty of evidence of her comedic gifts, even if it is a film about a serial killer.
It was directed by Douglas Sirk, who went on to make several acclaimed films, but this one somehow escaped the notice of Alfred Hitchcock, for it's right up his alley. He would have made a far better film, with at least one set piece. Sirk mainly stays out of the way, although he does make frequent use of shadows and silhouettes.
There is a killer loose in London. He murders young women, posting ads in the personal column. He also taunts the police by sending poems, in the style of Baudelaire, before he commits the crime without enough information to let them know who he's going to kill.
Ball plays a taxi dancer, and when one of her friends goes missing after answering an ad, the police, in the form of Coburn, recruits her to go undercover to act as bait. This is implausible, but a requirement for the film to keep going. She meets a few men, none of them the killer, but including Karloff in a bizarre cameo as a paranoid fashion designer who gives shows in front of an audience of dogs and mannequins. He suspects Ball of being a spy for a rival designer and attacks her with a sword. But she has an inspector tailing her, and she is rescued.
She then meets Sanders, a nightclub owner who is smitten. He wears her down and they are engaged, but on the night of their engagement party she finds a picture of her friend and her charm bracelet in Sanders' desk. There is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, such as the typewriter used to write the poems is his. Is he being framed? The savvy viewer will have this figured out.
Lured is a so-so picture that could have been far more interesting. It just kinds of lays there, methodically crawling along to the climax. But all the performances are worth watching. My regular readers may know that Sanders is one of my favorites, and he improves any movie he's in.
Wood was living free in Cincinnati when the woman she worked for (who was undoubtedly in on it) asked her to accompany her on a carriage ride that led to Kentucky, where she was abducted. She was sold down the river to Natchez, Mississippi, and when the war started her owner took all his slaves to Texas, so they would not be confiscated.
Wood had sued Kentucky for her freedom in the 1850s, but lost. Starting in 1870, with the help of sympathetic lawyers, her case was being heard by the Southern District of Ohio. Due to stalling tactics by Ward and incorrectly filed paperwork, the case didn't go to trial until 1879, when Wood was about sixty years old (she never knew her actual age, nor could she read and write). Astonishingly, she won $2500, far less than the $20,000 in lost wages that she claimed she could have earned in the thirteen years she was improperly enslaved.
Ward joked that he was the last man to pay for a slave: "The true story, the one that Ward did not want to tell, was that of a black woman who survived enslavement twice—and then made a powerful white man pay." He was a scoundrel, who operated prisons in three different states, making money by leasing black prisoners for labor. After slavery ended, their was a new kind of slavery, where black men were given long sentences for minor crimes, if they were even guilty in the first place: "The Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery made an exception for involuntary servitude imposed as punishment for crime. Southern states took full advantage of that loophole by crowding their prisons with black prisoners."
McDaniel leaves Wood's story often to give a larger picture of slavery. He notes that Kentucky, which never did secede from the Union, nonetheless loved slavery. They didn't ratify the Thirteenth Amendment until 1976. Toward the end of the book, when the trial is discussed there are so many details, such as the instructions given to the jury and the decision by a second judge not to grant a new trial, that it can make one's head swim. But these are necessary details, and McDaniel does his best to make them understood.
The biggest takeaway is that Wood was a remarkable women, who was largely lost to history, so this is a worthy volume to bring her pack to prominence.
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Friday, September 25, 2020
Lured
How's this for a wacky quartet of actors given top billing: Lucille Ball, George Sanders, Charles Coburn, and Boris Karloff. I dare say it's the only film co-starring Lucy with Karloff. This was before her TV days, 1947, when she was an ingenue, although there is plenty of evidence of her comedic gifts, even if it is a film about a serial killer.
It was directed by Douglas Sirk, who went on to make several acclaimed films, but this one somehow escaped the notice of Alfred Hitchcock, for it's right up his alley. He would have made a far better film, with at least one set piece. Sirk mainly stays out of the way, although he does make frequent use of shadows and silhouettes.
There is a killer loose in London. He murders young women, posting ads in the personal column. He also taunts the police by sending poems, in the style of Baudelaire, before he commits the crime without enough information to let them know who he's going to kill.
Ball plays a taxi dancer, and when one of her friends goes missing after answering an ad, the police, in the form of Coburn, recruits her to go undercover to act as bait. This is implausible, but a requirement for the film to keep going. She meets a few men, none of them the killer, but including Karloff in a bizarre cameo as a paranoid fashion designer who gives shows in front of an audience of dogs and mannequins. He suspects Ball of being a spy for a rival designer and attacks her with a sword. But she has an inspector tailing her, and she is rescued.
She then meets Sanders, a nightclub owner who is smitten. He wears her down and they are engaged, but on the night of their engagement party she finds a picture of her friend and her charm bracelet in Sanders' desk. There is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, such as the typewriter used to write the poems is his. Is he being framed? The savvy viewer will have this figured out.
Lured is a so-so picture that could have been far more interesting. It just kinds of lays there, methodically crawling along to the climax. But all the performances are worth watching. My regular readers may know that Sanders is one of my favorites, and he improves any movie he's in.
May 16, 2023
SUMMARY: A masterfully researched reverie on the impacts of reparations based on the remarkable story of an extraordinary American woman, born into slavery, who eventually escapes and successfully sued her captor for reparations
The Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America (Oxford University Press, 2019/2022) is the epic story of Henrietta Wood, who was born into slavery in Kentucky sometime around 1820, freed in Ohio, then kidnapped five years later, sold and re-enslaved during the Civil War and for two years afterwards before being freed once more. After regaining her freedom for the second time, she sued her captor. It took ten years of litigation to obtain justice but finally, in 1878, an all white jury in Cincinnati, Ohio, returned its verdict in Ms Wood’s favor, assessing reparations from Zebulon Ward, who kidnapped and enslaved her. The jury awarded $2,500 to Ms Wood for her thirteen years of forced labor (far less than the $20,000 she demanded). But surprisingly, Ms Wood actually received the settlement, a sum that is the equivalent to about $65,000 today. To date, this is the largest reparations judgment for slavery.
This meticulously researched book is more than a biography or a personal history. It demonstrates the powerful impact that cash payments — even small payments — can make in the lives of people, especially when well-timed. In Ms Wood’s situation, she used her award to purchase a house, mortgage free, after relocating to Chicago. Interestingly, despite being illiterate herself, her son, Arthur Simms, was highly educated. He eventually used the equity in his mother’s house to finance his law degree and then to launch his very successful legal practice. This one remarkable family has continued its legacy of achievements through its generations, which makes one wonder how different things could have been for even more formerly enslaved people if they also had received reparations.
The author of this haunting book is US historian W. Caleb McDaniel, a professor and chair of the Department of History at Rice University, and co-chair of the Rice University Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice. In this book, Professor McDaniel states that reading “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates inspired and informed his own research and writing of Sweet Taste of Liberty. Further, Mr Coates also recommended Professor McDaniel for the fellowship that enabled him to write this book.
Much of Professor McDaniel’s painstaking research into the basic outline of Ms Wood’s life story was provided by two newspaper interviews with Ms Wood herself by journalist Lafcadio Hearn and another interview conducted many years later with her son. Professor McDaniel also retrieved and investigated surviving records from Ms Wood’s two court battles, one from 1855 after she was kidnapped and the other in 1868–1878 when she sued her kidnapper. Additional details of what daily life might have been like for Ms Wood were provided by reports from other enslaved people living nearby and doing similar tasks at the time. Ironically, slave owners’ business records, which were created to document financial losses for posterity also provided additional details about the lives of enslaved people.
One discussion in this book that further confirmed my own growing suspicions about American penitentiaries was the historic overview of how they were intentionally structured to mirror slavery on plantations, particularly its brutalities and injustices, to create an emotionally satisfying income stream for vindictive white southern ‘gentlemen’. This further solidifies the shameful connection between between white greed, slavery and America’s high rate of incarceration of Black Americans.
I admire Ms Wood’s tenacity and her astonishing faith in the white people around her who volunteered to help her fight against a cruel and immoral system. Professor McDaniel’s captivating and thoughtful book goes a long way to argue for the immense value of reparations and to put a personal face on the history of 19th century America. This book also reclaims the incredible story of Henrietta Wood, who is a true hero, from being forever forgotten by the American public.
Highly recommended.
Note: this book won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Originally published at Forbes.com on 15 March 2023.
The Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America (Oxford University Press, 2019/2022) is the epic story of Henrietta Wood, who was born into slavery in Kentucky sometime around 1820, freed in Ohio, then kidnapped five years later, sold and re-enslaved during the Civil War and for two years afterwards before being freed once more. After regaining her freedom for the second time, she sued her captor. It took ten years of litigation to obtain justice but finally, in 1878, an all white jury in Cincinnati, Ohio, returned its verdict in Ms Wood’s favor, assessing reparations from Zebulon Ward, who kidnapped and enslaved her. The jury awarded $2,500 to Ms Wood for her thirteen years of forced labor (far less than the $20,000 she demanded). But surprisingly, Ms Wood actually received the settlement, a sum that is the equivalent to about $65,000 today. To date, this is the largest reparations judgment for slavery.
This meticulously researched book is more than a biography or a personal history. It demonstrates the powerful impact that cash payments — even small payments — can make in the lives of people, especially when well-timed. In Ms Wood’s situation, she used her award to purchase a house, mortgage free, after relocating to Chicago. Interestingly, despite being illiterate herself, her son, Arthur Simms, was highly educated. He eventually used the equity in his mother’s house to finance his law degree and then to launch his very successful legal practice. This one remarkable family has continued its legacy of achievements through its generations, which makes one wonder how different things could have been for even more formerly enslaved people if they also had received reparations.
The author of this haunting book is US historian W. Caleb McDaniel, a professor and chair of the Department of History at Rice University, and co-chair of the Rice University Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice. In this book, Professor McDaniel states that reading “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates inspired and informed his own research and writing of Sweet Taste of Liberty. Further, Mr Coates also recommended Professor McDaniel for the fellowship that enabled him to write this book.
Much of Professor McDaniel’s painstaking research into the basic outline of Ms Wood’s life story was provided by two newspaper interviews with Ms Wood herself by journalist Lafcadio Hearn and another interview conducted many years later with her son. Professor McDaniel also retrieved and investigated surviving records from Ms Wood’s two court battles, one from 1855 after she was kidnapped and the other in 1868–1878 when she sued her kidnapper. Additional details of what daily life might have been like for Ms Wood were provided by reports from other enslaved people living nearby and doing similar tasks at the time. Ironically, slave owners’ business records, which were created to document financial losses for posterity also provided additional details about the lives of enslaved people.
One discussion in this book that further confirmed my own growing suspicions about American penitentiaries was the historic overview of how they were intentionally structured to mirror slavery on plantations, particularly its brutalities and injustices, to create an emotionally satisfying income stream for vindictive white southern ‘gentlemen’. This further solidifies the shameful connection between between white greed, slavery and America’s high rate of incarceration of Black Americans.
I admire Ms Wood’s tenacity and her astonishing faith in the white people around her who volunteered to help her fight against a cruel and immoral system. Professor McDaniel’s captivating and thoughtful book goes a long way to argue for the immense value of reparations and to put a personal face on the history of 19th century America. This book also reclaims the incredible story of Henrietta Wood, who is a true hero, from being forever forgotten by the American public.
Highly recommended.
Note: this book won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Originally published at Forbes.com on 15 March 2023.
April 29, 2023
What an excellent and disturbing book.
If you want a true-life tale that also brings into sharp relief the current debate over reparations for slavery, this is your choice.
Sweet Liberty tells the saga of Harriet Wood, a slave born in Kentucky, separated from her family as a teen, and eventually sold to a French-born businessman named William Cirode, who moved to New Orleans, where Harriet worked as a maid and laundress. When Cirode fell on hard times and moved back to France, his wife took Harriet with her to Cincinnati, where she eventually freed her, even recording the act in court papers.
Harriet eventually left Cirode, who rarely paid her, to work for a rooming house owner. One day, the owner asked her if she would like a break from her labors and would accompany her to Covington, KY, across the Ohio River. Harriet was put in a carriage with fabric buttoned over the windows, and when she arrived, men she didn't know seized her and sold her back into slavery. For the next several years, Harriet labored for a series of owners, most notably a wealthy Mississippi planter named Gerard Brandon.
Harriet had been a house slave up until that point, but Brandon put her to work in the punishing cotton fields, until eventually agreeing to let her resume her old role. As the Civil War neared its end, Brandon took Harriet and scores of other slaves and fled west to Texas, hoping to escape confiscation of his "property." The book reveals that many slave owners took the same course, and despite the Emancipation Proclamation, were able to keep their slaves working on fields in Texas much as they had before. It would take Harriet three years to return to Texas. She had a son, Arthur, by that time, and eventually, possessing only $25 in savings, she was released from her contract to Brandon and made her way back north to Cincinnati.
There, she took the action for which she became famous. She sued Zebulon Ward, the man who had engineered her kidnapping, for restitution, seeking $20,000 for the wages she had lost by being re-enslaved. The case took years to come before a jury, and it appeared doubtful she would win. But finally, in a highly unusual outcome, the jury ruled in her favor, although it reduced her award to just $2,000, the equivalent of about $60,000 in today's money.
McDaniel goes on to speculate that Harriet used some of that money to help her son Arthur buy a house in Chicago, and Arthur went on to become one of the first Black lawyers in Illinois, and her descendants made a name for themselves as college graduates and achievers in many different fields.
That money, as much of a pittance as it was, may have been critical in helping Harriet's family pass along wealth to future generations in a way many Blacks were never able to do. In the years immediately after the Civil War, there were several proposals for paying reparations to former slaves, but none took hold. There were also equally strong arguments made for paying reparations to former slaveholders. That didn't happen, but the swift dismantling of Reconstruction after the war ensured that the Southern aristocracy were able to remain atop the economic heap and continue to exploit Blacks much as they had before emancipation.
One way that happened directly involved Zebulon Ward, who made most of his money by running state penitentiaries, which were operated as for-profit labor farms. After the war, Ward ran the Arkansas State Penitentiary, and it was filled with Black men who were given long sentences for petty crimes like theft and vagrancy, and then were used as free labor to plant crops, build roads and carry out other tasks. The money for all those ventures was paid to Ward and his staff, and it made him a wealthy man. While he eventually paid Harriet's court award, it hardly dented his riches, and he was hailed in his later years as a raconteur and horse racing man about town.
Harriet somehow lived until the age of 92. Hers is a remarkable and deeply disturbing story, and if nothing else, McDaniel makes a strong case for how the system of slavery and the parallel forms it took after the war have persisted until this day, playing a large part in the continued disadvantage Black Americans face.
The idea and justice of some form of reparations will not seem so far-fetched once you've finished this book.
If you want a true-life tale that also brings into sharp relief the current debate over reparations for slavery, this is your choice.
Sweet Liberty tells the saga of Harriet Wood, a slave born in Kentucky, separated from her family as a teen, and eventually sold to a French-born businessman named William Cirode, who moved to New Orleans, where Harriet worked as a maid and laundress. When Cirode fell on hard times and moved back to France, his wife took Harriet with her to Cincinnati, where she eventually freed her, even recording the act in court papers.
Harriet eventually left Cirode, who rarely paid her, to work for a rooming house owner. One day, the owner asked her if she would like a break from her labors and would accompany her to Covington, KY, across the Ohio River. Harriet was put in a carriage with fabric buttoned over the windows, and when she arrived, men she didn't know seized her and sold her back into slavery. For the next several years, Harriet labored for a series of owners, most notably a wealthy Mississippi planter named Gerard Brandon.
Harriet had been a house slave up until that point, but Brandon put her to work in the punishing cotton fields, until eventually agreeing to let her resume her old role. As the Civil War neared its end, Brandon took Harriet and scores of other slaves and fled west to Texas, hoping to escape confiscation of his "property." The book reveals that many slave owners took the same course, and despite the Emancipation Proclamation, were able to keep their slaves working on fields in Texas much as they had before. It would take Harriet three years to return to Texas. She had a son, Arthur, by that time, and eventually, possessing only $25 in savings, she was released from her contract to Brandon and made her way back north to Cincinnati.
There, she took the action for which she became famous. She sued Zebulon Ward, the man who had engineered her kidnapping, for restitution, seeking $20,000 for the wages she had lost by being re-enslaved. The case took years to come before a jury, and it appeared doubtful she would win. But finally, in a highly unusual outcome, the jury ruled in her favor, although it reduced her award to just $2,000, the equivalent of about $60,000 in today's money.
McDaniel goes on to speculate that Harriet used some of that money to help her son Arthur buy a house in Chicago, and Arthur went on to become one of the first Black lawyers in Illinois, and her descendants made a name for themselves as college graduates and achievers in many different fields.
That money, as much of a pittance as it was, may have been critical in helping Harriet's family pass along wealth to future generations in a way many Blacks were never able to do. In the years immediately after the Civil War, there were several proposals for paying reparations to former slaves, but none took hold. There were also equally strong arguments made for paying reparations to former slaveholders. That didn't happen, but the swift dismantling of Reconstruction after the war ensured that the Southern aristocracy were able to remain atop the economic heap and continue to exploit Blacks much as they had before emancipation.
One way that happened directly involved Zebulon Ward, who made most of his money by running state penitentiaries, which were operated as for-profit labor farms. After the war, Ward ran the Arkansas State Penitentiary, and it was filled with Black men who were given long sentences for petty crimes like theft and vagrancy, and then were used as free labor to plant crops, build roads and carry out other tasks. The money for all those ventures was paid to Ward and his staff, and it made him a wealthy man. While he eventually paid Harriet's court award, it hardly dented his riches, and he was hailed in his later years as a raconteur and horse racing man about town.
Harriet somehow lived until the age of 92. Hers is a remarkable and deeply disturbing story, and if nothing else, McDaniel makes a strong case for how the system of slavery and the parallel forms it took after the war have persisted until this day, playing a large part in the continued disadvantage Black Americans face.
The idea and justice of some form of reparations will not seem so far-fetched once you've finished this book.
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