Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel Angela Boswell Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America. By W. Caleb McDaniel. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 340. Illustrations, notes, index.) Sweet Taste of Liberty, which won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2020, is a brilliant melding of meticulous research with engaging storytelling. The book follows the lives of the freedwoman Harriet Wood and enslaver and businessman Zebulon Ward, as well as the story of the research McDaniel conducted to reveal these accounts. [End Page 214] Harriet Wood was born into slavery on a northern Kentucky farm and then, like so many other enslaved children, she was sold away from her family before reaching her teens. She lived in both Louisville and New Orleans as the property of the Cirode family. Jane Cirode moved to Cincinnati in the free state of Ohio and later brought Wood there as well, granting her freedom. In 1853, Zebulon Ward, who eventually made fortunes by leasing state prisons in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas and exploiting and abusing prison laborers, conspired with members of the Cirode family to kidnap Harriet Wood and sell her back into slavery. Appeals to her jailors fell on one sympathetic ear, leading to a legal hearing, but the court refused to recognize Wood's freedom. She was transported south and sold to the owner of a Mississippi cotton plantation, where she remained for over a decade more (including two years in Texas during the Civil War). Several years after emancipation, Wood finally returned to Cincinnati, where she filed suit against Ward, demanding compensation for the time and potential wages she lost while she was enslaved after the kidnapping. She was awarded only $2,500, which was far less than the $20,000 she demanded, but is still a larger restitution than any other formerly enslaved person received in a U.S. court. W. Caleb McDaniel's research began when he found two newspaper interviews with Wood published in the 1870s, which ultimately inspired him to visit archives in nine states. He weaves together the pieces of Wood's and Ward's stories, carefully claiming only what can be proven through primary sources, but he supplements this with the rich background of historical context. As a result, the reader not only follows the fascinating narrative of a woman who lost her freedom, but also learns of the intricacies of slavery in a border state like Kentucky, the pain of separation from loved ones, and the ordeals of being sold "down the river," surviving on a large cotton plantation, and being an enslaved refugee in Texas during the Civil War. Although the portion about Texas is brief, it is an enlightening account from the point of view of an enslaved woman about the arduous trip—and the subsequent years—that many enslaved people were forced to endure by their masters to avoid their being liberated by Union armies. Overall, Wood's story and court case are intrinsically fascinating and deserve wider historical recognition. McDaniel, though, has turned these into a captivating account of this period, revealing how the legal and economic aspects of the institution of slavery interacted in very personal and human ways with those who were kept enslaved. [End Page 215] Angela Boswell Henderson State University Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association