55. Cloe - Forced Resistance

Lucy Worsley looks at the crimes of women from the 19th and early 20th centuries from a contemporary, feminist perspective.

In this episode, we hear the story of Cloe, a black enslaved teenager who lives with the Carothers family, Andrew, Mary and their 11 children, on their farm in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

Cloe is worked to the bone, constantly beaten by her mistress and sneaked on by the children. Over the course of a week, she drowns two of the family’s youngest children, Lucetta and Polly.

Were Cloe’s actions those of a cold-blooded killer or an act of desperate resistance against brutal oppression? We get to hear Cloe’s motives in her own words - that she wants to heap misery on her mistress so the beatings will stop.

Lucy is joined by Dr Nikki M Taylor, Professor of African American History at Howard University in Washington DC and the author of Brooding Over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women’s Lethal Resistance.

Nikki travels to Simmons Creek, the site of the murders and visits the Cumberland Historical Society to find out more about Cloe’s fate.

Back in the studio, Nikki challenges the idea that enslaved women only took part in secret, non-violent forms of resistance, when they often seized justice for themselves. Cloe’s story opens a window into the lives and philosophies of enslaved women who have their own ideas about justice and how to achieve it.

Justice and humanity is denied to Cloe, but is this still happening today? And are black women still being treated unfairly by the American justice system?

Producer: Julia Hayball
Readers: Moya Angela and Ruth Sillers
Sound design: Chris Maclean
Executive Producer: Kirsty Hunter

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4