Twice Enslaved: Liberty and Justice for Henrietta Wood

Many children’s picture books have been written about the enslavement of Africans in the context of the history of the United States. Numerous accounts speak of the brutality meted out on slaves by their owners, the escape of enslaved people to the North, and the role the Underground Railroad played to help secure their freedom. However, very little has been written about freed slaves who received, through legal channels, reparations for the damages their owners inflicted on them. The reason? Because so few slaves received the just and financial compensation due to them.

But Henrietta Wood was an exception! Thought to have been born in 1820, Henrietta was sold away from her enslaved family when she was 14 years old. Henrietta knew the sting of the overseer’s whip and the physical trauma of captivity. Just as difficult, if not more, was the deep heartache and loneliness she lived with after being separated from her family.

Henrietta’s faith in God brought her to her knees, asking the Lord for what seemed impossible---her liberty. When her prayers were answered and she was set free, she assumed that her freedom papers ensured she would never be sold into slavery again. But she was mistaken. A nefarious plot to capture her set her on a hellish journey on which she was sold again and again.

When, by God’s grace, Henrietta received her freedom a second time, she felt convicted of what she must do. Zebulon Ward, her fiercest and most dangerous tormentor, must be legally brought to justice and pay reparations for her capture as a freed woman and the ensuing years of suffering she had endured. Though the road ahead was fraught with new dangers, Henrietta succeeded!

In an afterward to this beautifully illustrated picture book for children ages 9-12, written in lyrical free verse, author Selene Castrovilla writes, “Henrietta Wood sued Zebulon Ward for $20,000. The jury awarded her $2,500, a fraction of what she asked for and deserved. Although this sliver of justice, recorded for posterity, does not begin to make up for the injustices Henrietta suffered, to date it is the largest financial award granted by an American court as reparations for enslavement.”

Christian adults who share this book with children will have an opportunity to lament the enslavement of human beings---in the past and still happening in the world today. They will also have the chance to point out how Henrietta’s reliance on the Lord through prayer formed the bedrock for her courage and strength during her years of enslavement and in the better future God granted her.

(Calkins Creek)