
Right after sunset, three boats sailed towards the rice plantations on the Combahee River. Harriet Tubman knew they had to hurry - they only had six hours before the changing tide would make it very difficult to get away.
Loading summary
Phoebe Judge
Support for criminal comes from ADT. ADT's trusted neighbor sets a higher standard for home security systems. In the ADT plus app, you can give immediate or scheduled access to your home to neighbors and friends. You can also let people know when a package has arrived or an alarm is going off. And you can set limited access windows for planned guests like a dog walker, all without interrupting your day. Visit ADT.com when every second counts. Count on ADT requires ADT Complete Pro monitoring plan and compatible devices. Copyright 2025 ADT LLC. All rights reserved.
Etta Elfields Black
What are your grand ambitions? Your greatest goals? If you're someone who's always striving, always looking to reach the impossible, there's a vehicle for people like you. It's called the Defender. The Defender has been reimagined for a new generation of explorers with a new, thoroughly modern design. With its tough, rigid body, you can explore with confidence, off road and on, without sacrificing luxury. You can embrace the impossible with an icon of adventure, the defender. Visit land RoverUSA.com to learn more about the full Defender family. It was 4am and the people were in the rice fields.
Phoebe Judge
The people working in the rice fields on that day in 1863 were enslaved. They were working on one of several rice plantations on the Cumbee river in South Carolina. One of the men working in the field, Minus Hamilton, later described that morning.
Etta Elfields Black
And he says that from the slave cabins they walked about a mile in the darkness when they could not see their hands in front of their faces and there were plenty of copperheads and water moccasins, you know, that they could have stepped on into the rice field, stood ankle deep in muck. The official term is pluff mud, I. E. Muck and hoeing rice. You know, with their backs bent at about a 45 degree angle with long handled hoes and hoeing rice for hours.
Phoebe Judge
Etta Elfields Black is a historian and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Minus Hamilton lived with his wife, Hager, and some of their adult children were enslaved on the same plantation. In 1863, minus Hamilton told someone that he was 88 years old and that.
Etta Elfields Black
He knew he was 88 years old because he was born on Old Master Lowndes Plantation. And when the slaves came to the Age of Sense, as he called it, when they caught sense, they would write their own ages down in the Big Book. So he says that's how he knows how old he was, that he was 88 years old.
Phoebe Judge
He had grown up on another plantation in the area and came to this plantation with his wife and two adult children after they were sold. It was about a year before the start of the Civil War. Minus Hamilton had been working on this plantation for a few years. And on that June morning, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Etta Elfields Black
People who were strong and young and able bodied would end up helping elderly relatives and or children, their own children, who after maybe 9 or 10 years old, would have their own tasks to work. And I like to point out at 4am as people are standing in these rice fields, the children would have been in a task probably adjacent to their parents. Again, you can't see your hands in front of your faces. And they're alligators in the rice fields. Even today there are alligators in the rice fields. So you're standing among alligators and snakes that you can't really see, and you're hoeing rice at 4am but then they.
Phoebe Judge
Heard a boat approaching on the water. The night before, right after sunset, three boats had left the wharf of nearby Beaufort, South Carolina. They were headed for the Comby River. It was high tide, so it was less likely for the three Union army ships to run aground. But to get to the Combi river, they had to first sail through another river, the Coosa River.
Etta Elfields Black
This was risky. The Coosa river is notorious for its sandbars. And it was, you know, they're navigating in the dark under the light of the full moon.
Phoebe Judge
But there were men aboard the boats who knew these rivers well. Some of them were formerly enslaved men who had grown up in the area and had freed themselves. And they'd been recruited by a Union spy to help the army navigate. Her name was Harriet Tubman. She was on one of the boats going up the river. The boats only had six hours before the low tide would make it very difficult to sail back.
Etta Elfields Black
But one of the three boats runs aground. They did not know that the Confederacy, you know, didn't have boats in the water and wasn't, you know, ready to pick them off. And so they left it behind. And with it, they left behind half of their carrying capacity. And they proceeded that. The two boats proceeded up the river. They swing into the Combahee river, you know, now they're headed up to the Combahee plantations, the rice plantations. The first plantation they would have encountered was where Minus Hamilton was enslaved. And one of the commanders says that he could, see, quote, woolly heads at work in the rice fields. And we know that one of them was Minus Hamilton.
Phoebe Judge
When the people on the rice field saw the first boat, Minus Hamilton said that the plantation overseer started shouting at them.
Etta Elfields Black
The overseer was in the rice fields on horseback, and the overseer shouted to the people to run to the woods and hide. He said that the Yankees had come and would finally sell them to Cuba. They should run and hide. And everyone ignores him. And everyone went straight to the boat.
Phoebe Judge
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. Harriet Tubman was born around 1822.
Etta Elfields Black
She was born enslaved in Cambridge County, Maryland, to a large and very close family. Her parents were committed to one another even though they were not allowed to legally marry.
Phoebe Judge
They had nine children. From the time she was five years old, Harriet Tubman watched her younger siblings while their mother was forced to work. When she turned 6, Harriet was sent to work for a neighboring family, and she had to live with them. Leaving her own family, she was living.
Etta Elfields Black
In the house with them. And that is not what she wanted to do. And she expressed this in her own way. You could say that this was really her first act of resistance to not, you know, try to endear herself in any way to the slaveholder and the slave mistress of the plantation.
Phoebe Judge
Harriet Tubman later described how, as a child, she felt humiliated when she was forced to stand up in front of the white family in a special petticoat made for her.
Etta Elfields Black
She did not want to be in that close proximity. And so she is then sent outdoors to do things like check muskrat traps, which she does in very bad weather, wet, cold, damp.
Phoebe Judge
She was hired out to another family to take care of their baby. Harriet was so small that she couldn't hold the baby, but had to sit on the floor with it in her lap. If the baby cried, she had to stay up all night. And if the baby's mother woke up from the noise, she would whip Harriet. She was eventually sent to a farm to work as a field hand.
Etta Elfields Black
Another act of resistance is she was sent to the store, sort of the general store in Dorchester, Maryland, and. And another overseer was chasing and attempting to brutalize an enslaved boy who was in the store with Tubman. And Tubman kind of stood between them, and the overseer picked up an iron weight and hurled it at the boy. And it ended up hitting Tubman in the head and fracturing her skull.
Phoebe Judge
She had to be carried back to the farm, but no one called a doctor. The next day, she was sent to the field to work, but was so injured that the man she worked for said she was, quote, not worth a sixpence.
Etta Elfields Black
So she was incapacitated for a long period of time and was sent back to be cared for by her mother. But this led to a very serious brain injury. And something that plagued her, really, for the rest of her life.
Phoebe Judge
Throughout her life, Harriet Tubman suffered from seizures and could suddenly lose consciousness. She experienced visions which she interpreted as prophecies. She described how she would sometimes hear angels singing. Or felt like she was floating above the earth. When she was a teenager, the slaveholder tried, but failed to sell her. And so Harriet offered to pay him every year if she could decide who she worked for and what she did. He agreed. She started working in a store and in Wheaton corn fields. And gave most of her wages to the slaveholder.
Etta Elfields Black
As she got older and got stronger, she was sent to work primarily with her father and. And to work out of doors as a field hand. And often, even though she was quite a petite woman, Often did the work of men outdoors. In terms of chopping wood and driving steers and things like that.
Phoebe Judge
She used part of her earnings to buy her own cattle, who helped make tasks like plowing easier. She went to live with her father, and they spent a lot of time outdoors.
Etta Elfields Black
She learned about really surviving in the outdoors, Learning which plants to eat and which plants not to eat, which animals to hunt, you know, at certain times of the year where certain edible roots and fruits could be found. Learning where to hide and conceal herself.
Phoebe Judge
Etta Fields Black writes that Harriet Tubman had a, quote, gift for reading the landscape. Her father taught her how to use the North Star as a guide. She noticed the way moss grew on trees. And she knew the different kinds of plants in the forest. In her early 20s, she married John Tubman, who is a free black man. But if they had children, they would be born into slavery because Harriet was enslaved. After their wedding, Harriet had visions of mothers and children being separated. She worried this was a warning of what was to come.
Etta Elfields Black
Something that I think really impacted her and her family for the rest of her life Is that two of her older sisters were sold away from the family by the person who held them in bondage and sold to the Deep south, so possibly Alabama, Mississippi area. And they were never seen again.
Phoebe Judge
Both of her sisters had children. One of them was just a baby. The children stayed behind when the two women were sold to a chain gang.
Etta Elfields Black
And this is something that, I think haunted Tubman in many, many ways.
Phoebe Judge
She later said that after she saw what happened to her sisters, she was always afraid that. That she might get sold, too. And prayed several times a day that it wouldn't happen. And then when Harriet Tubman was in her 20s, she started suspecting that she and her brothers were going to be sold, and so they decided to run away. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Quints Every once in a while it's nice to treat yourself, but a lot of times that comes with a high price tag. Quince says that when you shop with them, you can get quality luxury essentials at affordable prices, like their sweaters made of Mongolian cashmere that start at just $50. They also have sweaters made of organic cotton and they sell 14 karat gold jewelry, including gold hoop earrings, one of my favorites in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I've tried some things from Quince myself, like their cotton relaxed oxford shirt. The fabric is sturdy and crisp and holds its shape. I've washed it so many times and it still looks good and I like that I can dress it up or down, whatever you're looking for. All of Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. You can give yourself the luxury you deserve with quince. Go to quince.com criminal for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I-N-E.com criminal to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com criminal support for criminal comes from Ritual Spring is a good time to think about any new additions you'd like to make to your routine. My routine always shifts slightly with the seasons and the weather, like when it gets too cold to swim outside. But I always take a multivitamin. Ritual's Essential for Women. I've been doing this every day for more than a year now. You take two capsules a day, and they each have nine key nutrients, including omega 3, vitamin D, magnesium and boron. They're designed with something called delayed release so that your body absorbs the nutrients just when it needs them throughout the day. And Rituals Essential for Women is USP verified. That's a certification that proves that every ingredient listed on the bottle is actually in the vitamin you take. Rituals Essential for Women 18 is a multivitamin you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com criminal start ritual or add Essential for Women 18+ to your subscription today. That's ritual.com criminal for 25% off. In 1849, Harriet Tubman and her brothers started planning their escape.
Etta Elfields Black
The first attempt she made with her brothers and her brothers became frightened and pressured her to return to the plantation.
Phoebe Judge
But a few days later, Harriet Tubman tried Again, alone, she couldn't tell any of her family members or even her husband what she was planning to do. It was too risky. She walked off the plantation singing to herself and kept walking for about a mile until she reached the home of a Quaker woman. She hid in the backyard waiting for the woman's husband to come home.
Etta Elfields Black
Ann pretended to be doing housework and yard work until her husband came and put her in the wagon and drove her to the next house.
Phoebe Judge
She made two stops on the Underground Railroad, which was well established by the 1840s.
Etta Elfields Black
It's interesting. We often think of the Underground Railroad as being the Quakers as being primarily white. There were a lot of free black people who were hiding slaves as well and helping them get to freedom.
Phoebe Judge
And then Harriet Tubman kept walking. She knew she needed to get to Pennsylvania, the nearest free state. She used the North Star as a guide, as her father had taught her, and she followed the rivers what she knew ran north. Eventually, she made it to Philadelphia. But in Philadelphia, Harriet Tubman received a message that her niece was going to be sold. And Harriet decided to turn around to get her out. It worked. The next year she did the same thing for her youngest brother. The family decided to move to Canada together. Philadelphia had become too dangerous after the passing of the Fugitive slave Act in 1850, also called the Bloodhound Act.
Etta Elfields Black
The Fugitive Slave act basically said that any enslaved person or person who was perceived to be enslaved could be re enslaved. And it deputized, if you will, the federal government, even in free states, and made them responsible to return these people to slaveholders, people who claimed to own.
Phoebe Judge
This basically meant that any black person could be kidnapped, accused of being a runaway slave, and sold into slavery in the South. So Harriet Tubman left the country and.
Etta Elfields Black
Then she works her way back to Maryland. And she continues to rescue people and then send them to Canada where they would be safe and she would go back and rescue more people.
Phoebe Judge
She developed her own routes and strategies that she would share with people. She learned that Saturdays in winter were the best days for an escape. Enslaved people often had Sunday off, so slaveholders wouldn't know they were gone until Monday. And the long winter nights gave them more time to walk in the dark. She tried to get people out before the holidays. Slaveholders often sold enslaved people at the end of the year to pay off debt. Edda Fields Black writes that the Christmas holidays were known as the weeping time. When she walked, Harriet Tubman would rub red onions on her feet so bloodhounds couldn't pick up her scent. And she carried a loaded gun.
Etta Elfields Black
She knew how to read the environment, how to remain safe on it, how to navigate through it. And of course, not only herself, but a group of scared, desperate, frightened freedom seekers finding safe places to conceal them while she foraged for food.
Phoebe Judge
One journalist later wrote that she, quote, possessed a miraculous geographical instinct, never forgetting any detail of a route. She got her parents out of Maryland. They were in their 70s and unable to walk the long distance. So Harriet built a type of horse drawn carriage for them. She tried four times to get her sister Rachel and Rachel's children out, but never succeeded. She became known as Moses. People didn't know her real identity. Many slaveholders assumed Moses was a white man. And then the Civil War broke out in South Carolina. The Union or the U.S. army occupied Beaufort and surrounding areas. Edda Fields Black writes that Harriet Tubman would almost certainly have been following the news about what was happening.
Etta Elfields Black
It's during this time that Tubman is sent by the governor of Massachusetts down to serve as a spy for the Army.
Phoebe Judge
She was going to be spying on the Confederacy. Why do you think that she was recruited as a spy? I mean, what were they looking for?
Etta Elfields Black
They were looking, I think, for people who knew how to navigate safely within Confederate territory, people who could learn the land, people who were used to operating in disguise and in plain sight. These were all things that Tubman did on the Underground Railroad. I also think they were looking for a certain level of fearlessness. She risks everything to come South. I call it the belly of the beast, if you will, to South Carolina to, you know, participate in the liberation of people she doesn't even know.
Phoebe Judge
Harriet Tubman gathered intelligence from people who'd escaped slavery and were now living in a type of refugee camp.
Etta Elfields Black
And she interviewed people. She talked to the people who came from Confederate territory. These people had often seen all kinds of things. They knew where Confederate troops were stationed, what were their movements, what were their troop strengths, their armaments. And she would get that kind of information from them and give it to the U.S. army commanders. We know, for example, that Tubman's intelligence gathering, her espionage gathering, led to finding the people, the enslaved people, who were forced to mine the Combi river with torpedoes. And she led a ring of spies, scouts and pilots, all men formerly enslaved. She and her men went to the Combahee river and removed those torpedoes and they opened the river to the U.S. army.
Phoebe Judge
And Harriet Tubman also recruited men who knew how to navigate a boat up the river. And so after sunset on June 1, the three boats were ready to go headed for the rice plantations.
Etta Elfields Black
They were planning to go up the river, liberate as many enslaved people as they could to help fill out the second South Carolina Volunteers Regiment and to cut the supply line. The Confederacy was using the rice grown in this region to feed its military and to feed its civilians. It was also selling the rice and exporting it to Europe.
Phoebe Judge
As the boats got close to each of the seven plantations on the Combi river, rowboats were put in the water to transport people to the boats. When Minus Hamilton saw the boat, he went straight for it.
Etta Elfields Black
Every person in the rice fields dropped their hoes and and everyone went straight to the boat. Hamilton tells us what he and his wife had on. He had on only a pair of pantaloons and she had on a single frock with a handkerchief on her head. He regretted that he could not go back to the slave quarters and get the only things he had, which were two blankets. But he said he was going to the boat and he says that, you know, the people behind him are warning him and his wife Hager that the rebels are coming. They've got to hurry up. And then she says, tell him to come on, tell them to come on. You know, we're going to the boat. We're not afraid of them.
Phoebe Judge
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Hungryroot Meal prep can take a lot of coordination and planning, especially if you have certain health goals and dietary restrictions. Hungryroot can help make things simpler, providing meal recommendations as well as the groceries themselves. All you need to do is let them know your dietary preferences and they'll fill your cart with recipes you can look forward to, then deliver the groceries to your door. Hungryroot helps you eat high quality, nutritious food while also meeting your dietary goals and needs like gluten free, dairy free or high protein and others. For me, they recommended a dinner of Caesar chicken, baby broccoli and herb potatoes. It was quick and painless to make. I liked it so much that I've ordered it again. You can take advantage of this exclusive offer for a limited time. Get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to hungryroot.com criminal and use code criminal. That's hungryroot.com criminal code criminal to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your Choice for Life. Hungryroot.com Criminal Code Criminal support for criminal comes from ADT. ADT's trusted neighbor sets a higher standard for home security systems in the ADT plus app. You can give immediate or scheduled access to your home to neighbors and friends. You can also let people know when a package has arrived or an alarm is going off. And you can set limited access windows for planned guests like a dog walker, all without interrupting your day. Visit ADT.com when every second counts. Count on ADT requires ADT complete pro monitoring plan and compatible devices. Copyright 2025 ADT LLC. All rights reserved. Plantation owners and their overseers tried to force or convince enslaved people to hide from the US Army. But Etta Fields Black says people watching the boats approaching knew why they had come.
Etta Elfields Black
I think that By June of 1863, people on these plantations would have known the difference between the Union and the Confederacy, and they knew that freedom was in Beaufort. When the soldiers actually arrive, they, first of all, the boats are carrying the US Flag. The soldiers are blowing horns and waving flags at the people.
Phoebe Judge
The soldiers on the boats were black men from the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers Regiment. And so some of the soldiers were familiar to people on the rice plantations. Harriet Tubman later described how she saw people running to the boats.
Etta Elfields Black
She described people running for their lives and carrying anything they possibly could. And this included things like pots, it included pigs, it included their children, and that women just had children clinging to them from all sides to their legs, to their skirts, to their backs. They had children on their shoulders. She spoke of one child who was riding on his mother's shoulders, and the mother had a steaming rice pot on her head. And so the child is eating rice in flight as they're running to freedom.
Phoebe Judge
Hundreds of people rushed to the riverbanks to make it onto the boats. Harriet Tubman said it was like there was a, quote, mysterious telegraphic communication between people in the area telling them to run to the river. Someone described how the crowds extended in every direction as far as the eye could see.
Etta Elfields Black
One can just imagine the sounds of the raid of people shouting and running and calling out to family members. Tubman talks about, you know, pigs grunting and chickens squawking and children crying and, you know, just all of this confusion as people are trying to get their families together and get everyone down to the river and onto the boat. You think about elderly people, disabled people, people who had different kinds of mobility challenges, trying to get down to the boat as fast as they possibly could, and other people trying to help them. Harriet Tubman herself actually goes onto the plantations and in one account, goes to slave quarters and coaxes people to come to freedom. Tubman helped women carry things, particularly a poor, sick woman. She Said the woman had two pigs, and so she's helping people carry things and run.
Phoebe Judge
And then the union commanders ordered everyone back on the boat as fast as possible.
Etta Elfields Black
There are some very strong, prickly, I don't know, stalks in the rice fields. They kind of grow up out of the rice fields. And Tubman's long skirt gets caught on some of these, and she talks about, you know, just getting caught and stepping on her skirt and trying to get out, and. And basically her skirt gets nearly ripped off as she's trying to get out of the terrain.
Phoebe Judge
The soldiers started setting fire to the plantations. Minus Hamilton later described watching everything burn.
Etta Elfields Black
The slaveholder's house, all the buildings on his plantation, the rice that was stored in the barn, the rice that was growing in the fields, watching all of that be destroyed. And he says he didn't care anything at all about that. He was going to the boat.
Phoebe Judge
But there is a problem. Since one of the three boats had run aground and never made it to the plantations, there wasn't enough room for everyone.
Etta Elfields Black
There were people hanging on to the rowboats. You know, people are trying to prevent the rowboats from leaving without them.
Phoebe Judge
The crew in the rowboats had to hit people's hands with their oars to get them to let go. One person described the people left by the river as, quote, the saddest sight of the whole expedition. But the sun was coming up, and they had to hurry. As the boats pulled away, the riverbanks were full of personal belongings that people hadn't been able to bring.
Etta Elfields Black
Just mounds of things, whether they're clothes or pots or kettles that were left behind on the riverbank after the boats took off.
Phoebe Judge
On one of the boats, a white union commander, colonel Montgomery, asked Harriet Tubman to, quote, speak a word of consolation. But Tubman and the newly freed people could barely understand each other.
Etta Elfields Black
They were speaking a dialect which becomes the gullah language. And Harriet Tubman and people in the Maryland eastern shore would have been speaking a different creole language, which is closer to standard English, minus Hamilton and his.
Phoebe Judge
Wife, Hager had made it onto the boat.
Etta Elfields Black
He was in complete awe of the black soldiers. You know, to see young black men in uniform is likely something that he never thought he would live to see. Hamilton also tells us that, you know, the old folks like himself and his wife had to go slowly, but the young people could go by force. And if you think about people like minus Hamilton and his wife, who couldn't run, you know, as he talks about how he thanks the young people who can go by force, I wonder if they weren't carried down to the river by some of these black soldiers for whom he had so much awe.
Phoebe Judge
756 people got on the boats that morning. Edda Fields Black calls it one of the most successful Union expeditions of the entire Civil War.
Etta Elfields Black
When people got on the boats and the boats went back to Beaufort overnight and arrived the next morning on June 3, there was a crowd. People turned out to see the Cumbee freedom seekers on the morning after the raid. And from the wharf in downtown Beaufort, they marched down the main street in what one of the newspapers called the dirty gray field suits that they wore in the rice fields the morning before. And people cried to see these people who were fresh out of bondage, fresh off the plantations, you know, who were skin and bones with all kinds of injuries and misfortunes, but they had their freedom. And many of them were reunited with family members who were already free in Beaufort. The morning after the raid, about 150 men from the Cumbee enlisted in the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, which was the same regiment that brought them to liberation. We know that from their wives primarily that they knew their husbands were going to war. That when the U.S. army showed up and they got on the boats, they said, we're going to Beaufort and our husbands are going to war.
Phoebe Judge
Etta Elfield's Black's book is Harriet Tubman, the Cumbee River Raid and Black Freedom during the Civil War. While researching the book, Etta says she was surprised to find documents, soldiers pension files with new details about the men who fought in the raid and their families. And she found one of her ancestors in the records.
Etta Elfields Black
I learned that my third great grandfather, Hector Fields, fought in the Comby raid. Hector was probably on a plantation in the area. He must have liberated him and then enlisted in the second South Carolina.
Phoebe Judge
After the raid. Minus Hamilton told his story to a Union commander. After that, we don't know what happened to him, but we do know a little bit about his daughter, Bina.
Etta Elfields Black
She purchased land in downtown Beaufort and she opened a freedman's bank account. And it's really through her freedmen's bank account that I and my research team began to identify her as Minus Hamilton's daughter. She names her father as Minus. She says that he's dead by the time she opens that freedmen's bank account. And that's the only record that we have of Minus Hamilton's death.
Phoebe Judge
Harriet Tubman lived to be 91. Do you think that it's possible that Harriet Tubman and Minus Hamilton might have met on the boat.
Etta Elfields Black
I love that. Yes, I think it's possible. I definitely think it's possible. Now they would have been on separate boats, but they could have met in Beaufort. They certainly they must have met at the church where the freedom seekers were taken the morning after the raid. They may have walked down Bay street together from the boat parked at the wharf in downtown Beaufort. Minus Hamilton and Harriet Tubman.
Phoebe Judge
Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them@thisiscriminal.com and you can sign up for our newsletter@thisiscriminal.com Newsletter we hope you'll join our new membership program Criminal Plus. Once you sign up, you can listen to Criminal episodes without any ads, and you'll get bonus episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lauren Spohr, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com plus we're on Facebook and Twitter criminalshow and Instagram criminalpodcast. We're also on YouTube@YouTube.com criminalpodcast criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great shows@podcast.voxmedia.com I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Support for criminal comes from ADT. ADT's trusted neighbor sets a higher standard for home security systems. In the ADT plus app, you can give immediate or scheduled access to your home to neighbors and friends. You can also let people know when a package has arrived or an alarm is going off. And you can set limited access windows for planned guests like a dog walker, all without interrupting your day. Visit ADT.com when every second counts count on ADT requires ADT Complete Pro Monitoring Plan and compatible devices. Copyright 2025 ADT LLC. All rights reserved. Times a single performance can define an artist's legacy. Think about Hendrix's fiery Woodstock national anthem or Beyonce's homecoming at Coachella. Coming up on Switched On Pop, we're exploring artists who've had recent transformative live shows. First is Missy Elliott, who recently put on her first world tour, where she taught everybody to get the freak on. And then there's her collaborator Timbaland, who recently evolved from beat maker to orchestra conductor at the Songwriter hall of Fame. And then Lady Gaga, whose Chromatica Ball featured a theatrical museum of brutality revealing the darker side of Gaga's mayhem. Listen to these live moments on Switched On Pop wherever you get podcasts brought to you by Defender.
Criminal Podcast Episode Summary: "High Tide"
Podcast Information:
In the "High Tide" episode of Criminal, host Phoebe Judge delves into a pivotal moment during the American Civil War, focusing on Harriet Tubman’s daring Combahee River Raid. The episode intertwines historical narration with insights from historian Etta Elfields Black, offering a comprehensive look at Tubman's strategies, motivations, and the profound impact of her actions on the fight against slavery.
The episode begins by painting a vivid picture of the hardships endured by enslaved individuals working in the rice fields of South Carolina. Phoebe Judge introduces Minus Hamilton, an elderly enslaved man, whose experiences underscore the brutal reality of plantation life.
Etta Elfields Black (00:41): "From the slave cabins they walked about a mile in the darkness... hoeing rice for hours."
Minus Hamilton, alongside his wife Hager and adult children, worked under harsh conditions. Despite the overseer's attempts to instill fear, the family's resilience is evident as they prepared for the uncertain future on the brink of the Civil War.
As tensions mount in 1863, the Union Army, aided by former enslaved individuals like Harriet Tubman, plans a significant raid on the Combahee River plantations. Tubman, renowned for her role in the Underground Railroad, transitions into a spy for the Union, leveraging her deep knowledge of the local terrain and her unyielding courage.
Phoebe Judge (04:51): "Harriet Tubman was born around 1822... she was going to be a spy for the Army."
Etta Elfields Black explains Tubman’s recruitment, highlighting her adeptness at navigating Confederate territories and her fearless commitment to liberating others.
Etta Elfields Black (21:11): "They were looking for people who knew how to navigate safely within Confederate territory... fearlessness."
Tubman meticulously planned the raid, understanding the strategic importance of disrupting the Confederacy’s supply lines. The operation aimed to free as many enslaved individuals as possible and bolster the Union forces in South Carolina.
Etta Elfields Black (23:17): "They were planning to go up the river, liberate as many enslaved people as they could... to cut the supply line."
Utilizing her networks, Tubman developed routes and strategies, such as timing the raids on Saturdays to exploit windows of opportunity when slaveholders were least vigilant.
On the morning of June 1, 1863, three Union boats, including one commanded by Tubman, set sail under the cover of night. The first boat, unfortunately, ran aground, reducing the mission’s capacity. Nevertheless, the remaining boats swiftly approached the plantations along the Combahee River.
Etta Elfields Black (27:22): "People watching the boats approaching knew why they had come."
As the Union soldiers, many of whom were black enlisted men from the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers Regiment, arrived, the enslaved individuals exuded a mix of fear and hope. Minus Hamilton recounts the chaos and urgency as families rushed to the boats, often leaving behind personal belongings in their haste to attain freedom.
Minus Hamilton (24:04): "We're going to the boat. We're not afraid of them."
The raid proved to be one of the most successful Union operations of the Civil War, liberating approximately 756 individuals. Many of the freedmen enlisted in the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, directly contributing to the Union’s war efforts.
Etta Elfields Black (34:07): "756 people got on the boats that morning... one of the most successful Union expeditions."
The emotional reunion in Beaufort, South Carolina, where freed individuals congregated, illustrated the profound impact of the raid. Families were reunited, and the local community celebrated the newfound freedom, despite the lingering trauma and loss many had endured.
Historian Etta Elfields Black provides a scholarly perspective on Harriet Tubman’s role in the Combahee River Raid. Her research uncovers personal accounts and military records, including the involvement of her own ancestor, Hector Fields, who fought in the raid.
Etta Elfields Black (36:00): "I learned that my third great grandfather, Hector Fields, fought in the Comby raid."
Black emphasizes the strategic brilliance of Tubman and the collaborative efforts of freedmen in executing the raid, highlighting the intersection of personal resilience and collective action in the fight against slavery.
The episode concludes by pondering the possible personal interactions between Harriet Tubman and Minus Hamilton, suggesting that their paths may have crossed during or after the raid, symbolizing the interconnectedness of their struggles for freedom.
Etta Elfields Black (37:22): "They certainly they must have met at the church where the freedom seekers were taken the morning after the raid."
Through "High Tide," Criminal not only recounts a significant historical event but also honors the enduring legacy of Harriet Tubman and the countless others who fought against oppression. The episode serves as a testament to the power of courage, strategy, and unwavering dedication to justice.
"High Tide" masterfully blends narrative storytelling with historical analysis, providing listeners with an engaging and informative experience. By spotlighting Harriet Tubman’s strategic genius and the collective bravery of those involved in the Combahee River Raid, the episode underscores the profound impact of individual and collective actions in shaping history.