100 Objects #3: The Pension Files
Summary
Host Roman Mars and historian Dr. Etta Fields Black explore the 1863 Combahee River Raid, led by Harriet Tubman, which liberated over 700 enslaved people. The episode highlights how Civil War pension files preserved the voices of freedmen like Minus Hamilton and revealed Black soldiers' roles. These documents allowed Black to reconstruct her own family history, discovering her ancestor fought in the raid, thereby restoring names and stories often erased from history.
Topics discussed
Intro ads: Insurance and Buick
Minus Hamilton's story and the Combahee Raid
Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad legacy
Beaufort as a free community and black regiments
Tubman's spy work and the deadly rice landscape
Planning the raid and low Union morale
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The raid execution and Minus Hamilton's escape
The 'presumptuous' soldiers and Tubman's rescue efforts
756 freed people arrive in Beaufort and reunite
Pension files reveal names and family histories
Outro credits and final ads
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