McDaniel, W. Caleb
Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
Oxford (New York)
2019
OUR SYNOPSIS: W. Caleb McDaniel tells the story of Henrietta Wood, a Black woman who was born into slavery in Kentucky, sold multiple times, freed, then kidnapped in 1853, re-enslaved, sold again, freed after the Civil War, and then sued the man who kidnapped her back into slavery. His name was Zebulon Ward and when he lost the suit and paid Wood damages, he claimed it made him the last American to pay for an enslaved person. More accurately, he was ordered by the court to pay reparations for re-enslaving a free person. The $2,500 paid to Wood “remains the largest known sum ever awarded by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery.” (4) She bravely shared her story in interviews, which McDaniel foregrounds to amplify her voice. Part of what makes the court money so significant is that throughout this story Wood’s freedom is shown to be tenuous. Her freedom papers once burnt in a courthouse fire. In another instance, her freedom papers were stolen. She tasted liberty, but it was taken away. Now, with slavery over and her courtroom victory, she possessed finality on her freedom.
BIG QUESTIONS:
What might have motivated Henrietta Wood to share her story throughout her life?
How can Wood’s successful claiming of reparations for slavery inform present day discussions about potential reparations for slavery?
FEATURE QUOTES:
“Contrary to what Ward later would claim at the St. James Hotel, he was not the last American to pay for a slave. He was among the few, and perhaps the very last, to pay a former slave for having enslaved her. 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.” (7)
“One option was to try to regain her freedom, to fight her abduction even to the death. A different kind of struggle was already familiar: the daily fight to live as freely as she could within slavery. The taste of liberty lingered; Cincinnati was nearby. But if she had any hopes of returning across the river, she knew that she would have to defy her captors’ threats. She would have to tell her story.” (15)
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