Juneteenth – Remembering Henrietta Wood

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This morning, as I was reading my copy of USA Today, I came across a piece by Nicole Carroll, the Editor-in-Chief, about “The woman who sued enslaver and won”. In the piece, Carroll relates a portion of the story of Henrietta Wood, “a former slave living in Cincinnati when the woman she worked for suggested a carriage ride across the river to Covington, Kentucky. There, she was abducted and forced into slavery–again.” You can read Carroll’s entire opinion piece here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/19/juneteenth-freed-slave-who-her-sued-her-captor-and-won/3197952001/

In the piece, Carroll explains that Henrietta Wood’s story was told in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Sweet Taste of Liberty, a True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America. Check it out on Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Taste-Liberty-Slavery-Restitution/dp/0190846992

Now, I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of Henrietta Wood’s story–but it sounds like an interesting one, and what better day to learn about Henrietta Wood than on Juneteenth?

For those of you who don’t know, Juneteenth came about in 1865. Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation two years prior, but news traveled slowly in those days, especially in areas with very little Union presence (like Texas). So it was probably a very welcome announcement for slaves in Galveston, Texas, when Union General Gordon Granger revealed Lincoln’s words to those gathered. Juneteenth originally was a Texas holiday, but it has become recognized throughout the United States as the date of the emancipation of the last enslaved Americans in the Confederacy.

So, back to Henrietta Wood. I spent some time this morning reading more about her in an article from the Smithsonian (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/henrietta-wood-sued-reparations-won-180972845/). In 1878, Mrs. Wood sued her enslaver, Zebulon Ward. According to the Smithsonian, Ward kidnapped Mrs. Wood and sold her. She ended up a slave on a Texas plantation. Imagine how relieved she must have been when the news of Juneteenth reached her ears! Her fight was far from over, though. It actually took eight years of litigation for her case to finally come to trial. She sued Ward for $20,000.

When all was said and done, the courts awarded Henrietta Wood the sum of $2,500, a fraction of what she’d asked for, but a staggering sum nonetheless (the equivalent, according to the Smithsonian, of $65,000 in 2019 dollars). It remains, to this day, the largest settlement ever awarded by the United States in reparation to a former slave.

I’d love to share a photograph of this woman with you, but alas, none have survived that we are aware of.

If you have time today, check out the story of Henrietta Wood further. It’s terribly interesting!

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