Edda Fields-Black

The slave cabins are about a mile from the rice fields.

They would have walked a mile through grass and moss infested with snakes in the dark.

And then they would be standing in the rice fields, which were infested with alligators.

Minus Hamilton sees the U.S.

Army gunboats coming up the river.

Minus Hamilton sees young black men in uniform for the first time.

And he's completely awestruck by this.

To see these armed black men who have come to liberate him.

And he identifies them as the BRAC soldiers, so presumptuous.

He talks about their stature, how they hold their heads up.

This is an 88-year-old man born in bondage who likely thought he would die in bondage and someone who has spent his life in a subservient position.

And now he sees these young, armed black men who hold their heads up and they march onto the plantation and begin to burn down everything that the man who held him in bondage owned.

Minas Hamilton basically says, Lord, I didn't care nothing at all.

I was going to the boat.

I realized that he's actually talking about the Combee Raid, the largest and most successful slave rebellion in U.S.

history.

And I found the voice of Minus Hamilton.

It was so striking, and it wasn't the complete account, but it was enough to really tantalize me.

This was a formerly enslaved man who was telling the story of his own liberation.

So that was enough.