100 Objects #3: The Pension Files
6/5/202643 min
What do Civil War pension files reveal about one of history's most successful slave rebellions? Historian Edda Fields-Black joins Roman to trace a story of fire, flight, and freedom — beginning on a South Carolina rice plantation in 1863, where a Union raid liberated over 700 people in a single night. By unearthing Black soldiers' testimonies buried in military pension applications, they resurrect not just the raid, but the lives and communities it transformed.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Roman Mars· Host0:29
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Etta Fields-Black· Guest1:26
The slave cabins are about a mile