American History Tellers - Civil War | Finding Freedom | 8

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

During the Civil War, Black people in America took the opportunity to free themselves and to serve the Union cause. At great personal risk, tens of thousands of refugees -- men, women and children -- fled Southern slave owners for Union lines. They enlisted in the Union Army and served as cooks, laundresses, nurses and even spies. On today’s show, Wayne State University history professor Kidada Williams joins host Lindsay Graham for a conversation about the Black experience during the Civil War. Professor Williams is host of the podcast Seizing Freedom, which tells stories of Black Americans’ quest for liberty, equality and joy.Listen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/historytellersSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's a hot, moonless night in July 1863 in Hanover County, Virginia. For years, you and your family have been enslaved on a plantation here. Earlier tonight, when a skirmish broke out nearby between Union and Confederate soldiers, you seized your chance to escape with your six children and one grandchild in tow. You're trying to flee to King William County, which is behind Union lines. But first, you'll need to cross the Pamunkey River, and the only bridge in the area has been destroyed.

You're desperate to find help, so you're leading your children to your brother John's cabin in the woods. Come on, children. We're nearly there. You and your family weave your way through the dense forest. Your hands are torn and bleeding from parting the thorny bushes in your path. And at last, you come up to a cabin in a small clearing. You turn to the children and hold a finger to your lips. All right, be quiet, all of you. You need to stay here while I go and talk to Uncle John.

Don't move a muscle until I come back. You hand the pot you've been carrying to your nine-year-old son, George, and walk into the clearing. You stop in your tracks, your heart racing as a pack of bloodhounds emerges from the trees and surrounds you. For a moment, you're sure you're about to be captured and sent back to the plantation. Quiet. But then your brother, John, emerges from the front porch and silences the dogs with a whistle. Is that you, sister? Don't be afraid of the master's dogs. They'll do as I tell them. What on earth are you doing out here at this time of night? I've got the children with me. There was a battle at the plantation. We followed the Yankees

as they retreated back to King William County. But by the time we got to the river, they had already burnt the bridge down. John looks at you and slowly shakes his head. You have some nerve. I saw a chance and I took it. Listen, John, I know you have that boat. Will you help us? Will you ferry us across the river? John rubs the back of his neck.

The overseer might realize I'm gone. At this time of night? If I'm gone for long, then this could take a snack. The overseer might realize I'm gone. At this time of night? If I'm gone for long, and this could take a while. My boat can only carry two. So you'll just have to take us one at a time. Please, John, we need your help. I can't get my family across the river without you. Someone from the plantation could be following us right this minute. Our freedom is waiting for us on the other side of that river. We just need to claim it. John gives you a small smile.

You always were the brave one. Better gather up the kids and follow me. We'll need to move fast if we want to get everyone across before sunup. You grasp his arm in gratitude. You know danger still awaits you but you won't stop fighting until you find a better life for yourself and your children kill list is a true story of how i ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger follow kill list wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid

early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Available now wherever you get your books. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham,

and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. As the Civil War raged on, tens of thousands of enslaved people fled north, seeking freedom. Most had no idea what might await them on the other side of the Union lines, but they were willing to risk everything to emancipate themselves and their families. Martha Ann Fields was just one of those refugees. In July 1863, with the aid of her brother John, Martha and her children crossed the Pamunkey River in Virginia and escaped a life of bondage. To tell the rest of Martha's story and several others is my guest on this episode, Kadada Williams,

a history professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and host of the podcast Seizing Freedom, which tells stories of how Black Americans fought for liberty and equality during and after the Civil War. Here's our conversation. Professor Williams, welcome to American History Tellers. Thank you so much for having me and for covering this topic. The Civil War ended in April 1865, and for many Americans, this was a watershed moment, a stark line of history. And for Black Americans in particular, it was. But at the same time, it really wasn't. It wasn't nearly as sharp a line as many people think. What do you think the biggest myth about the experience of Black people in the Civil War is? And what do you want to make sure people understand about the end of the Civil War? myths, actually, and both of them, I think, are tied to these mythologies that have emerged after the war. And the first is that Black people sat passively while white Americans freed them,

you know, kind of out of the goodness of their hearts. And if that's who the nation was, then they could have abolished slavery any time before the war, but it wasn't. And so what we know is that African Americans used the context of the Civil War to seize their own freedom. They escaped by the thousands. They fought in the U.S. Army. They served as spies, as scouts, as liberators. They resisted slavery, even if they couldn't escape from bondage on farms and plantations where they were held. And they also emancipated all of these other people. And so this notion of passive Black people during the context of the war is a big mythology, and that also transcends or it translates over into the end of the war and Reconstruction. There's a sort of idea that Black

people were, again, passive, and that doesn't acknowledge the fact that they actively worked to make freedom real for themselves and to sort of advance more American democracy for all Americans. So those are two big mythologies about the war. And what the historical modes of activity for Black Americans during the Civil War period. There was escape that they were active in. There was rebellion that they were active in. There was combat that they were active in. many stories of many individuals who fled North or elsewhere. You mentioned one story in particular about nine-year-old George Washington Fields. Could you retell that story for us? In July 1863 in Hanover, Virginia, Union and Confederate forces were clashing. And like many enslaved people observing the war after two years, Martha Ann Fields, George Washington Fields' mother, had been sort of waiting for and looking for an opportunity to escape bondage. So all enslaved people are looking for any opportunity to escape if they can. Martha can't necessarily join the fighting in the war, but she knew about the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect in January of that year. And what makes Martha's situation a little more complicated is that she has about seven to eight

children to care for, including nine-year-old George Washington Fields. And she, like many Black mothers during slavery, couldn't conceive of being free herself and leaving all of her children behind. So she had to be on the lookout for any opportunity to get away, for all of them to get away. And so the family lives near this military camp, and they would have known about other people successfully escaping slavery and not being dragged back from the camps. They go to the camps and they stay there. So what her family does is they make a beeline. So one night they escape, Martha and eight other people, most of them her children. They go to her brother for assistance. He puts them on a boat and they sail to Fortress Monroe, which is a Union military camp.

They didn't know what to expect when they arrived at the camp. They could have been turned away. They could have been dragged back to slavery. They could have been killed, but they weren't. They're welcomed into the camp as refugees, and they joined about a thousand or so other refugees at the camp. And what we know about their experience, and we know from George's experience, is that refugee camps during the war weren't permanent places. And the Fields family were one of several hundred who have to be relocated when the U.S. Army retreats. And the family eventually moves on to start new lives in Hampton, Virginia. That's one example of escape. Well, the new life that they started turned into a prosperous life for George Washington

Field. What did he go on to do? So it takes a while for them to get on their feet. And he eventually obtained an education. He works a lot of odd jobs. And then he makes his way to Cornell Law School and becomes one of their first Black graduates. And he eventually serves in the Virginia House of Delegates. And he later wrote about his family's escape and about their history after the war. And

so that's how we know about his story. But you can see like the trajectory of his family. His mother decides to seize freedom for all of them. She's successful. They have the good fortune of arriving at a camp that will welcome them. And then they're able to transition into freedom and do quite well for themselves. And their family is still around and they know their family's history today. So I think that's a wonderful example of not only a family's seize and freedom, but keeping the memory of their family's history during the war alive. Now, you mentioned the camps and called them refugee camps. At the time, they were often known as contraband camps.

What were these camps and why were they called contraband? So I think we should get clear on one thing. They're called both, and they are called refugee camps at the time. There are refugee camps for whites fleeing the Civil War, white Southerners fleeing the Civil War, and there are Black refugee camps, and there are camps for their Black and white refugees from the conflict and the war. And so contraband becomes a very specific term that is used by some people for some camps. And that policy comes about because enslaved people are self, particularly men, are self-emancipating throughout the entire conflict. As soon as the war begins, you start to see enslaved men in to enlist, or to even work for the army so they don't have to go back to the man who's holding them in bondage. But their enslaver is hot on

their trail. He knows that one of the things that escaping people are doing is trying to make it to union lines. And so he goes to the camp and he says, essentially, give me back my slaves. And so the commander of the camp says, on what grounds? And the enslaver says, well, the fugitive slave law. And the commander says, well, excuse me, in seceding from the union, right? The fugitive slave law doesn't apply to you. You can't invoke that as your right, you know, rebelling against the government of the United States. And so what the general at the camp eventually does is he decides he's not going to send them back, especially to Confederate forces. And so he establishes this policy of contraband. And so what he establishes

is that they are enemy property and they're designated as enemy property because they are being used in service against the government of the United States in the war. So it's not a blanket emancipation policy. It essentially says that if you are enslaved or if you're held in bondage by Confederates and you can make it to the camp, you will not be free necessarily, but we won't return you to slavery. And it becomes like this kind of holding policy or this holding pattern that union forces have on the ground. And that's largely because neither the United States government nor the Confederate Confederate rebels anticipates what enslaved people are going to do in the context of the war. They just think, well, this war isn't about abolishing slavery, so they're going to stay put.

I mean, it's a foolish idea on both parts. But for the Lincoln administration, this war isn't about abolishing slavery, so they're going to stay put. I mean, it's a foolish idea on both parts. But for the Lincoln administration, this war isn't about abolishing slavery. So, you know, he's not trying to decide, you know, agree with the abolitionists who say, well, you should free all the slaves, you should take the Confederates' best resource and use it against them. Lincoln doesn't want to do that because you've got the border states and he doesn't want them to secede because they have remained loyal. And so what you get is this contraband policy on the ground for a time. And eventually Congress is going to catch up. Eventually President Lincoln is going to catch up to establish a much larger emancipation policy. But for a time, they are designated as contraband, these people in the camps,

until Congress or the Lincoln administration determines their fate. This is the emergency broadcast system. A ballistic missile threat has been detected inbound to your area. Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert. What do you do next? Maybe you're at the grocery store. Or maybe you're with your secret lover. Or maybe you're robbing a bank. Based on the real-life false alarm that terrified Hawaii in 2018,

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Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C True Crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. Let's talk about conditions in the camps themselves. What awaited any former slave as they reached one of these Union camps? Were they treated well? It varied from camp to camp, from region to region. A lot of their experience had to do with where they were. Were they deep in the Confederacy? Were they along

freshwater sources? Was there a lot of fighting in the region? And it also had to do with the individual commanders and their own investments in white supremacy and anti-Blackness. And so what we see is that the treatment that people received or their experiences in the camp very significantly. If the commander of the camp was accommodating the understanding of self-emancipating people's experiences, understood their needs. They had an actually rather decent time, but if they weren't, then they didn't. And so you can give like two contrasting examples. In Camp Corinth, which is in Mississippi, which is along the Mississippi River, self-emancipated people were able to thrive there. They didn't have to worry about a lot

of infectious diseases. For a time, the camp was a union stronghold on the Mississippi River. We know that the size of the camp grew to up to 6,000 people at one point. The reports show that they build these neat orderly communities with 100 or so cabins. They farm 500 acres of land, growing food and cotton, and they're growing food for themselves and for the Union forces. But part of what happens is that as the Union forces start to get a bigger stronghold, a bigger foothold in the region, the value of Camp Corinth goes down in their minds. And so this camp, which was really, really successful, is evacuated and then burned to the ground when the union forces move on. And so all of those people in the camp are, or the people who decide to go are relocated to

Memphis. And so they have to start that process of making freedom all over again. So while they're building these cabins, they also build a store and churches. And what you see in these churches and in these spaces are also schools. So what's happening in the camps is people are actively in the process of making freedom real in the camps before the war is even over. So that's one camp. Another camp, Camp Nelson in Kentucky, you've got a completely different experience. And a lot of that has to do with the hostility of the commander of the fort towards self-emancipating people. He ejects them from the camp in the middle

of a November storm and countless people die. One entire family dies and it's the family of a Black Union soldier named Joseph Miller. So two completely different experiences in the camp, but a lot of it has to do with the reality that union forces are there to fight a war, to fight the rebellion against the government of the United States. They're not anticipating to have to deal with a refugee crisis, particularly one of Black people, because they think Black people, this is an award to destroy slavery, so Black people are just going to stay put. That's not what happens. And it takes Union forces a while to adjust to that reality. But the eviction at Camp Nelson happens in 1864,

so that's after the Emancipation Proclamation, when you have an even larger population of people trying to escape slavery. So it sounds like the experiences were quite varied across the board, but you mentioned how these self-emancipated people assisted themselves and also the Union in its war effort. Could you be more specific about what assistance these newly freed Black people gave to the Union's war effort? Sure. So you've got the people in camps who are building the camps, who are maintaining the camps. And so there's work that white union soldiers don't necessarily want to have to do. They don't want to have to do

their own laundry, wash their uniforms, clean their bedding. And so what you'll have are people in the camps, particularly women in the camps, who will do that work for them for pay, of course. And so you've got that kind of work. They are growing food for Union forces. They are, you know, serving as scouts and spies. A lot of white Union soldiers, they are not from the South necessarily, or they're not from the communities where they may be serving. So they don't know anything about the region, but locally enslaved people do. So they're providing intelligence on the war. They're serving as spies. They're revealing information about troop movements and whereabouts. And they're doing this because, you know, enslavers themselves, in starting the war, they create what one historian calls a two-front war. They have to fight the Union army in the front and the slaves army in the rear, that army of people who are doing whatever they can to get out of slavery or assist the Union army effort with the hope that they'll be free at the end of the war. I'm glad you mentioned the role of Black women in this assistance of the

Union, because in your podcast, you mentioned one in particular who you call an all-around badass, Susie King Taylor. Can you tell us who she was? Susie King Taylor was born in Georgia, and she secretly learned how to read and write. She's taught to read and write in these two clandestine schools. And in 1862, when she's about 15 years old, Susie's family, her entire family, successfully escapes bondage in Georgia, and they make their way to Fort Pulaski.

And while they're there, Susie works for the army. She starts off nursing soldiers, doing laundry, cooking, teaching newly freed people in the camps. And what she ultimately does is travel with a Black regiment, and this is the 33rd U.S. Colored Regiment, to South Carolina and Florida and other places. And so she sees battles and their consequences. So she's doing this work. But like many, she wasn't paid for all of the work that she did for the Union Army. And so she's one of the many women who are sort of doing this service. And the service doesn't come without costs or consequences for women and girls who are doing this kind of work for the Union Army. What we know is that enslavers retaliated against the families of men, of Black men who enlisted in the Army,

and many women and children are tortured and killed. Women and girls who are working within union camps also experience a lot of sexual predation by union soldiers, so much so that under the Lieber Code, what the union forces will essentially have to do for the first time in U.S. history to recognize rape of Black women and girls as a crime. You mentioned the consequences to families back on plantations of Black men who enlisted, but that didn't happen until very late. They weren't allowed to. So let's discuss a little bit about the movement of the union towards allowing the enation were of men who escaped and then those who enlisted. So it's both. So that sort of torturing of families didn't start in 1863 when Black men were, when self-emancipated men were finally allowed to enlist. That happened as soon as they escaped. But in terms of Black military service, in terms of formal service, free Black men,

and they're often discounted by people who don't know the history of Black folks in America, free Black men volunteered to serve as soon as the war began. And so these were men who had either self-emancipated, who self-purchased, or who had been freed by gradual emancipation laws in a lot of the Northern states. They volunteered immediately. And what Lincoln and what a lot of the state governors said was, you know, this isn't a Black man's war. This isn't a war about abolishing slavery. And so what Black people, both free and enslaved, know is something that Lincoln, Confederates, and other Americans, other white Americans don't know, which is that Black people would do anything to get out of slavery. And free Black people, even in the Northern and Western states, would do what they could to help. So you have those free Blacks in the North and in

the West, which often gets ignored. You've got those Black Northerners and Westerners who volunteer for service immediately. And Lincoln says, no, we don't need you. I can't let you fight. But what Black people know, what Black soldiers knew was that that's the same story that the U.S. government had said, you know, dating back to the revolution. But eventually they ended up using and needing Black men to fight in those wars. And so they're turned down for service. And what you see in places like South Carolina is that they start drilling. They start preparing for war because they know they're not simple. Free Black men are actually authorized to fight in 1862. So that's a year into the war. It's not

as late as some people think. And this is through the Militia Act of 1862. Self-emancipating men, those men who had been enslaved before the war began, they're not authorized to fight until the Emancipation Proclamation. So a lot of people know only certain aspects of the Emancipation Proclamation. But one of the clauses in there is that men who escaped slavery during the war would now be allowed to formally enlist. They had been working in the camps all along, but now they're able to enlist in the military. So that's the sort of trajectory. And we know that upwards of 180,000 men serve in the Union Army and in the Navy during the conflict. Let's investigate some specific examples of Black men who enlisted eventually in the Union Army. One is prior to any allowance for Black individuals in the Army,

Harry Jarvis. What was his story? So, Harry Jarvis' story is that he self-emancipates in Virginia. He makes his way to a Union camp. He knows that his enslaver is hot on his trail and is going to try to drag him back to bondage. And he appeals to the camp commander to allow him to enlist in the army. And the commander says, no, this isn't a Black man's war. And Harry Jarvis says, it'll be a Black man's war before it's through. So the commander didn't initially let him enlist. He let him stay in the camp and he worked in the camp. But Harry Jarvis did go on to serve once you've got the Emancipation Proclamation and self-emancipated men are now allowed to enlist in the army. Okay. Well, let's go on to another example, someone who enlisted later in the war, Joseph Miller. So Joseph Miller enlists in the war. And one of the things that often gets ignored, one of the main things that self-emancipating men do is they are freedom fighters before they even formally enlist. And Joseph Miller is one of many who don't wait until the 13th Amendment.

They insist on their families being freed and welcomed into camps before they agree to fight. It becomes a condition of their willingness to fight. And the Union Army is increasingly desperate for laborers and for soldiers. So they're willing to accommodate self-emancipated men who are willing and able to enlist their demand that their families be freed or at least welcomed into the camps. And so his family is initially welcomed into the Camp Nelson, but they're injected in November 1864 in the middle of a storm by Speed S. Fry, the commander of the camp, who is grossly indifferent to the plight of self-emancipating people in the camp. And Joseph Miller's entire family dies in that eviction. And he later dies within like a year or so of the eviction at the camp. But before he died, he was able to tell his story. He protested the treatment he and his family experienced in the camp while he was still expected to continue serving in the army.

So there clearly wasn't equal treatment of white and Black Union soldiers by experience, but was there at least equal pay? There wasn't, at least not initially. Pay varied from camp to camp, from region to unit to soldier. And what we know is that Black soldiers often received only about a third of the pay of white soldiers in the beginning as soon as they enlisted. And as you can imagine, they protested that injustice. And the records are full of their protests. And what's very clear from those records is that this isn't just about money, although it is about money, as it is about money for people today. But it was about the indignity of unequal pay for the same work and the same kind of

sacrifice. And this causes a lot of conflict behind union lines, so much so that the Union army eventually concedes and agrees to equal pay. But this lower pay kind of, it's not even for an equal sacrifice. It's probably for higher stakes. Because what happened to Black prisoners of war that rebels caught? So you're absolutely right. Black men are even more vulnerable to being killed by Confederates. In 1864, Confederates established a policy that any Black soldiers, whether they had been free or enslaved before the war, could be enslaved or re-enslaved or killed, even if they were surrendering. And so we know President Lincoln promised to retaliate if captured Black soldiers weren't treated respectfully as prisoners of war.

But as is often the case, there is a gap between pronouncements and actions. And so they were more vulnerable. Their families were more vulnerable to being tortured or killed during the war. American History Tellers is sponsored by BetterHelp. In drama, in the stories we read or watch, it's very rarely a real problem that's the problem. I mean, is Character X really

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And if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and entirely online. Fill out a short survey and get matched with a therapist ready to help you with your issues. Call, text, or video chat, whatever suits you and your schedule, and switch therapists anytime. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit BetterHelp.com slash tellers today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Tellers. So let's talk about the end of the war in April 1865. After a series of Union victories and

increasing desperation in the Confederate South, the war comes to an end and kind of fits and starts. But eventually there's a gentleman's agreement that brings the hostilities to an end. The Confederate leaders and troops go home. There is no large destruction of their fighting force or incarceration of those involved in the rebellion. What do we know about African Americans? They're thinking of the agreement at this time. So by the time the war is over, you've already got the Emancipation Proclamation, you've got a number of people who've been liberated from slavery, and you've got support for the 13th Amendment, which has been introduced and is slowly making its way to becoming the law of the

land. And so for African-Americans, the end of the war and freedom was what they wanted, was their main thing. But they also knew that freedom was the beginning. So they're less interested in retaliation against the people who held them in bondage. They're less invested in whatever kind of punishment the U.S. government may have in mind for Confederate forces. They care more about building a more just world after slavery. What you have is African-Americans seizing freedom. They're doing what they can to make freedom real. They're relocating kids, right? They are securing housing. They're securing paid work. They've got a constellation

of things they need to do all at the same time to make freedom real. What was the state of family and family reunification? Family reunification varied significantly. Everyone wants to relocate people who have been separated from them either through the slave trade before the war or through the slave trade and refugee. And so refugee becomes this policy where Confederates are forcibly marching and relocating the people they hold in bondage along the Eastern seaboard and in the upper South, they're forcibly relocating them further South and further West into places like Texas. And so you've got a lot of disruption of families

during the war too. And so what most people want to do is to relocate their kin, to go and find their people. So you've got all of these newly freed people searching for mothers, fathers, husbands, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers. There will be these information

wanted ads where newly freed people or previously free people will place an ad with a description of the person who was sold away from them and details about the last time they saw them. And these ads were published in newspapers across sympathetic newspapers across the country. And some families, a small fraction of families, they were able to reunite. But the vast majority of people weren't able to find loved ones, especially if they had been sold several states away. You've got people who died before the war or died during the war. You've got misinformation. But what's very clear is just

how important family was to them. So you've got people who are willing to work and do what they can to relocate the lost son or the lost daughter or the husband or wife in order to try to rectify some of the wounds of slavery. We started this conversation discussing, you know, some of the myths of the Black American experience during the Civil War. I wonder, 150 years later, how your students, as they take your history classes, how they react to learning more about the Civil War and slavery in particular. Are there things that surprise them or maybe things that surprise you? That's a great question. One of the biggest things my students communicate to me is their deep frustration with the single kind of simple stories they got about the Civil War and about slavery in high school. We came around to calling them these kind of kindergarten histories

because it's the kind of history that's, you know, easily digestible for a kindergartner, but it's the same history that students will get over middle school and high school. So by the time they get to college, they are deeply frustrated because they recognize that the history is a lot more complicated than they thought, and they feel deprived of it, and that deprivation makes it harder for them to understand the world we live in today. So when they get a much more complicated history of the Civil War and Reconstruction, where they know about different experiences in camps, when they know about unequal pay, when they know about those things, then the world we live in today and the fights and how we got here make much more sense to them.

I have really, really diverse classes. My students across the board have a greater sense of pride in the nation and sort of frustration and disappointment. And that pride in the nation, I think, so there are two kinds of pride. There's a sort of pride and respect for Black people. And what I mean by that is them understanding that Black people didn't just sort of sit passively and wait for someone to free them, wait for white people to free them. So that's one part of the history. The other part of the history is knowing that even for all of the shortcomings of Reconstruction, for however short it lasted, what they know is that the United States attempts to do one thing that no other country in the West tried to do once abolishing slavery, which was try to integrate newly free people and all Black people into the nation, into the body politic.

And so there's a kind of respect for that. They also understand that through Reconstruction, African-Americans and their allies play a significant role in expanding American freedom and democracy more than it had ever been done before to more Americans, and then laying the foundation for the civil rights that many Americans enjoy and take for granted today. So there's a great admiration and respect, but also frustration for the ways that Reconstruction policies weren't honored and the fact that we're still dealing with some of these issues today. Professor Williams, thank you so much for speaking with me on American History Tellers.

Thank you so much for having me. That was my conversation with Professor Kadada Williams, host of the podcast Seizing Freedom. She's also author of the books They Left Great Marks on Me, African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I, and the forthcoming I Saw Death Coming, a history of terror and survival in the war against Reconstruction. From Wondery, this is the eighth and final episode

of The Civil War from American History Tellers. In our next season, in the decade before the Civil War, America was expanding rapidly, but for one ambitious mercenary, it wasn't fast enough. His name was William Walker, a failed lawyer turned soldier of fortune who briefly declared himself president of Nicaragua, only to see his would-be empire crumble around him. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by

filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Voice acting by Ace Anderson and Cat Peoples. Additional writing by Ellie Stanton. This episode was produced by Polly Stryker and Peter Arcuni. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marshall Louis for Wondery.

In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn. And it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10

that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse

and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitink of extinction.