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Female Firsts: Belinda Sutton · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Andy and Samantha and welcome to Steff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I've never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and once
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: again we are thrilled to be joined by the talented,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the terrific Eves. Welcome hello once again for another edition
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: of Female First. We feel that we are approaching a milestone,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: but we have yet to confirm it. We're getting close.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: We're getting close to something. I'm sure and positively. Yes,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: how are you, Eves?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: How have you been?
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good today. Yeah, I think a lot
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: of stuff has been going on. But it's been a
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: good February. You know, it's been it's been a packed February,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: but it's been it's been pretty nice.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I have a like a dryer wait erase calendar that
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: gives me way more stress than it should because every
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: the beginning of every month I have to like erase
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: it and write everything that I have to do in
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the month.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And I was looking over February today, I was like, Wow,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: this was a busy month for me. They did that. Yeah,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: February did that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Honestly, That's why I gave us that that extra day
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: this month is like as much as possible in this month.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We're gonna give you an extra day to fit it all. Oda. Yes,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: well I will be doing my calendar tomorrow.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: And we were talking about before this, what sounds like
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: people are having a lot of stress dreams. It sounds
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: like that, Uh, we're all stressed out and it is
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: impacting our dreams, particularly maybe time based missing something. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: suspect daylight savings time has something to do with it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: But I love I know that it's like kind of
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: a thing people don't talk about, but I love talking
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: about dreams.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So this is really interesting.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: No, I think it's controversial, Annie, because some people like,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: nobody wants to hear your dreams. They're only interesting to
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: you because they happen in your head. And I'm like, no,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I want to hear everyone's dreams. Tell me, tell me
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: everything that's going on. And you're subconscious, Let me analyze you,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: let me judge.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: You, Let me judge you. That's the key.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, it is so fascinating. It's to me a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: thing that our brain does, and that Yeah, what does
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: that say?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: What does it say?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I had a dream last night that I got these
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: increasingly intense notes and the last one was like and
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I've been standing in front of you this whole time, and.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: There was a standing in front of mill. Wow. What
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: happened next? Did you know? You woke up?
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Wow?
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I was like, damn, yeah, I need to relax.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: What needs to happen in real life for that not
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: to happen in your dreams again?
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I've been trying to be better about like stretching more
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and taking like the time and going on walks, but
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: apparently it's not enough.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not enough, not enough.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: I had a dream that there was a crocodile in
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: my kitchen and it crocks specifically, you know, we don't
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: have crocks here in the United States. It wasn't a
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: gator though, I just I knew it was a croc
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: It was very specific.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: And I went to my sister and I was like,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: oh my god, there's a crock in the kitchen. Can
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you get it for me? And she was like, oh, okay.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: So she took a shoe in the kitchen and like
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: came back and she was like, I got it.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I was like, you did, that's great. She's like yeah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, what did you do?
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: She's like, I grabbed it by the tail and I
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: took this and I hit it in the head and
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: it died, and I was like, Okay, I don't think
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: that will work in real life, but you did that,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and I am happy about it because I'm no longer
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: in danger.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's really weird.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Weird weird things definitely around time too. So I think
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: there's something in the air. I think there's something in
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: the universe, something spinning differently.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was telling some ante recently. I've been talking
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: about all the cicadas that are coming. It might actually
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: impact our recording because they could be loud enough. They're
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: pretty loud, so we'll see. There's a lot of stuff
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: in the air, is what I'm saying. Yeah, a lot
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: of stuff coming. Is it another cicada year? Don't they
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: only come out every It's two cicadas, two roots of cicadas.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Has happened since the eighteen hundreds.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: So we are at a different time. Y'all. Be careful, y'all.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Whatever conspiracies you believe in right now, they're probably true
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and choiced on the ways that things are converging.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: All these bird things are happening, and he has made
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that intiction with the cicadas.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: I think I'm on every show for the past a
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: month now, so it's been and even like conversation, like
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: we had a business meeting, we had a team meeting,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: and immediately came out as well, and.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think you were a cicada in the past life?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I might have been, because they're very they have strings
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: like clocks and patterns, and I'm very big on like
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: timing and numbers and patterns.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I could see it. I could see it. Maybe that's
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the key.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Back when movies not really no, okay, but they have
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: some that are like, okay, I'm getting.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: We wanted to know the depth of your knowledge about
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: because we know it runs deep. It's deep.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Back when, remember when movies used to do like the
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: big websites that came out with their release. For The
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Mummy too, I took a what what were you in
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: your past life? And I got a beetle, so it
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: could be could be.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like it was. It was also very
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: thematically centered around the movie, because.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was it should have been a locust,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: species of insects and animals or whatever. There are very
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: limited options.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: It's true, all right, I guess I've taken a grain
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of salt with it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: I just made that way too, way more technical than
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: it needed to be. Sorry, I really didn't mean to
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: city bubbles there. It's you know, it was probably time
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: that bubble be first.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: The Mummy too website was not like tapping into something
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: in another realm. That's all right, all right, Well who
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: did you bring for us to discuss today?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Eves?
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: So today we're going to be talking about Belinda Sutton.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: And there are some tenuous first but I think this
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: is one of those biographies that I mean, it's worth
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: talking about and a lot of times first star like that.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: So it's just kind of she was one of the earliest,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: she wrote one of the earliest known. Some people says
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: slave narratives bad African women. I think that's a little loose.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: But also petition she made has been seen by some
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: as the first call for reparations for American slavery. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: what I think I'll say here is just that she
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: wrote a pretty early petition. This was in the seventeen hundreds,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: with a call for compensation based on the free labor
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: that she did for her enslaver, and of course that's
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: worth talking about. I think in general, a lot of
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: the people that we talk about here on female first,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: they usually have something to do in terms of accomplishments
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: around the work that they do, or you know, the
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: feels that they were in, and this one is a
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: little bit different in that regard. But I just think
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: it's important to talk about the history of enslaved people
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: in general, because so much of that history has been
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: erased or not recorded at all in the first place.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: So I'm always here for talking about something in that regard.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Of course, reparations is a conversation that's been coming up
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: a lot in news media for the last decade, so
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: it's relevant in that regard. And yeah, so we've covered
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: some people who were in slaved and some people who
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: were born in times when slavery was a thing but
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: were born as quote unquote free people of color, or
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: had other circumstances around that why they weren't enslaved even
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: when it was during.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: The slavery era.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think that Belinda Sutton's history is really interesting,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: important to talk about in another one of those instances
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: where we don't know a lot about her life, but
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that we still shouldn't talk about her life. Yeah,
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: so her petition was also related to freedom suits, which
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: is a very fascinating, very fascinating history to me, one
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: of the ways that black people resisted. There are so
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: many forms of resistance that enslaved people did, but this
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: was one of the ways. And this wasn't particularly a
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: freedom suit that Belinda Sutton did. It was more about compensation,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: but it's related to that history of resistance. And I
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: won't get ahead of myself there. We'll talk about that later,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: but that's another reason I wanted to bring her. And
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: then also I'm thinking, I don't know if I'm right
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: about this. We've done a lot of episodes of Female First,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: but this might be the earliest story we've covered because
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: it's from the eighteenth century. Potentially, don't hold me to that,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: but I think it's I like that, and I want
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: to bring more people who are from earlier centuries on.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: It's just a little harder to do because the histories
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: are a little bit less recorded a.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Lot of the time.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that's it though, Yeah, And I think that
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: it is one of the fascinating and sometimes very upsetting things,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: is that something as far back as this we are
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: still talking about it is still relevant and important. So
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I do think that is the reason why we should
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: look back at these things and.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: See where we've changed and where we have it and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: all of those things.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, thank you so much for bringing mesus always.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Shall we get into some history, Yes, let's do it.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: So Belinda Sutton was born around seventeen twelve or seventeen thirteen.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: We don't have an exact date for her birth, but
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: she was born in West Africa, maybe somewhere around Ghana
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: or Nigeria. And she was captured when she was around
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: twelve years old, and then she was captured by slavers.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Of course, she was enslaved by the royals, specifically Isaac
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Royal Junior. He lived in Medford, Massachusetts, so that's where
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: the property was that we'll talk about where Belinda worked.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And he was one of the wealthiest enslavers in the
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: colony and enslaved the most people in the colony at
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: the time. It was around seventeen thirty two or so
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: when he enslaved Belinda, and this was about seven years
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: or so after she was kidnapped and arrived on the
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: other side of the Atlantic. He moved his family and
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: about twenty seven enslaved people to Massachusetts. That was around
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: seventeen thirty seven, after he had a sugarcane plantation in Antiga,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: So there's some.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Movement there after.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Isaac Royal enslaved Belinda Sutton and they made their way
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: to New England.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And she was working for him.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: So during the American Revolution, though, Isaac Royle was a loyalist,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: so he left the colonies in seventeen seventy five. First
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: he went to Nova Scotia and eventually he made his
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: way to England. But after he left, of course he
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: had this estate. He had all these this property left,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: and he had enslaved people who were still left there.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So all those people they were manumitted.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: So Belinda, there's not a ton that's known about her.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: We do know that she went to live in Boston,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: and we also know that she had two children, Joseph
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: and Prine, who are recorded as having been baptized in
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: seventeen sixty eight, and Joseph may have been sold when
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: she was freed. But yeah, so there's not a ton
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: that's known about her personal life.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But a lot of what we.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Do know about her life revolves around the petition that
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: we'll talk about in just a moment. So just a
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: little bit of background. You know, Massachusetts was the first
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: colony to formally legalize slavery, and of course this all
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: of this was happening in the north, so this was
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: still a thing there.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: People were enslaved.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: But yeah, Belinda is mentioned in Isaac Royle's will that
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: was dated May twenty sixth, seventeen seventy eight, which he
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: wrote during his exile to England, and he said, I
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: do also give unto my set daughter, my negro woman Linda,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: in case she does not choose her freedom. If she
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: does choose her freedom, to have it provided that she
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: gets security that she shall not be a charge to
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: the town of Medford. So Royal told his friend Willis Hall,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: who was the executive of his will, to pay Belinda
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: thirty pounds for three years. And on February fourteenth, seventeen
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: eighty three, Belinda presented a petition to the Massachusetts legislature.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: In it she acts to be paid an annual pension
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: out of Royal's estate for her unpaid labor. So, as
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: history professor roy E Finkenbahn said in his essay Belinda's petition,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: it was quote a moral and intellectual appeal. So, well,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: I'll go through a little bit of what the petition said.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: So in the petition, Belinda talks about these fond memories
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: she has from her life in West Africa. Then she
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: talks about the white man coming to her village and
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: being kidnapped and taken across the Atlantic. Then she goes
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: into the awful conditions of being enslaved, and then builds
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: up her argument that all the labor she's put in
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: for the Royals over the years means that she's owed money.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: And finally she asked the legislators to grant her an
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: allowance from Royal's estate. So you see her building up
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: her case by talking about how difficult it was, by
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: talking about how much work that she had done, and
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: that she had earned this money, and that she was
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: now old and she was supposed to get this money.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: This money was hers and just a note on her name,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: So you'll see her referred to as Belinda, and then
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: you'll also see her referred to as Belinda Royal sometimes,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: which was obviously after her enslavers. But in twenty fifteen,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: researchers found that in a seventeen eighty eight petition she
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: called herself Belinda Sutton of Boston in the County of
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Suffolk widow and that where her name, Belinda Sutton as
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: I'm referring to her, comes from. But it is unknown
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: who or when she got married to, so that's a
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: question in her story, and researchers are still looking more
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: into her story to learn more about her. But it's
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: likely that Belinda couldn't read or write. So of course
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: we have this petition which we see was written, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: it was probably drafted by someone else. So as far
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: as what scholars have said in the research, it's surmised
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: that it could have been at big asterisks there because
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: it's not really known, but it could have been this
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: person named Prince Hall, who was a black activist in
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Boston at the time. He would have seen other and
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: be familiar with other petitions that were similar that were
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: presented to the Massachusetts legislature, and he wrote other things
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: asking for emancipation in general, like money for black folks
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: who wanted to move to West Africa and other things.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: So that's how she got this written. Obviously, this happened
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: a lot of times with people who could write and
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: who advocate it for people who were enslaved and a
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: lot of them couldn't read or write, so there were
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: people who often did this in Prince Hall was one
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: of those people. And it's just kind of an educated
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: an educated guess, because he did a lot of this
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: work all the time. So yeah, what happened was the
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: legislature did grant her and prime her child fifteen pounds
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: and twelve shillings per year, which would have been paid
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: out of the rents and profits of royal's estate. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: that sounds all well and good, like okay, yeah, but
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: two things. One, she didn't get it as she was
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: supposed to get it over the course of the years.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: And two, it wasn't like Massachusetts was doing this because
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: they were.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Just so progressive.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: It was probably because he was a loyalist, and obviously
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Massachusetts wasn't rocking with loyalists, the people who were loyal to.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: England and the crown.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: And also the money was coming out of his estate,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: so it's not like it was really coming out of
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: their pocket, so it was just kind of like a
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: win win and could be seen as a punishment for
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: the estate of the royal family, like you left us
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: behind and the state seized the property after he fled,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: so it was theirs to do with what they wanted to.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And June eighteenth, seventeen eighty three, the petition was reprinted
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: in the New Jersey Gazette. The editor of that publication
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: was a Quaker, and plenty of anti slavery writing was
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: printed in the publication, and it was reprinted in other
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: publications as well. So you can't go online and read
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: the petition itself. But yeah, some of those narratives that
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: were reprinted and those other publications were the people who
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: reprinted them took a lot of liberties with it. Let's
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: say that they changed the narrative to be able to
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: fit their narratives, which was an anti slavery narrative. So
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: the petition in his reprints made its way overseas to Britain,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: and there were a lot of people who were up
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: for the anti slavery cause over there on moral grounds
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: and things like that, and they took their liberties to
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: be like, Okay, these are things I'm going to add
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: to the story that I'm going to put my little
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: my essay on the side, or my opinion piece on
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: the side to go along with this petition or make
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: it seem like this was written in a more first
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: person narrative kind of way to say, look, how terrible
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: slavery is, and you know, take this story to be
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: able to understand why you should be a part of
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: the anti slavery cause as well, of course them leaving
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: out that royal was a loyalist and had those ties
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: back to England a lot of the time. But yeah,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: they failed to pay the pension after the first year,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: and this is where we'll see her continuing to petition
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: over the year since seventeen eighty seven. In seventeen ninety
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: three was her last known petition, she would ask for
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: her pension to be reinstated, and she got the money
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: until seventeen ninety the estate refused to pay. So there
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: was a lot of back and forth over the years,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: but what it comes down to is that she didn't
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: get all the money that she had been granted and
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: that she wanted, and she continued to say, I'm old,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I'm not doing that well economically and I could really
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: use this money.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So she died in the seventeen nineties.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: It's not completely clear exactly when she died, but it's
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: known that it was probably in the seventeen nineties because
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: there was a petition that was filed where the Royal
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: family said, Belinda's died, we're asking for the money back
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: that have been set aside for her. So yeah, very interesting.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: There were other people who petitioned for compensation, and many
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: of them were men, but a lot of them didn't
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: get anything from it. But in the end it was
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: on the record. Belinda continued to try and say that
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: this is what I'm owed, this is what I deserve,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: and even though she probably knew, even though she was
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: granted it, even though she probably had an idea that
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I might not get this at all, she continued to
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: press someone for it. So the Massachusetts government determined that
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: like the enslaved, people who were left behind by loyalist
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: enslavers might be granted money from their enslavers confiscated property.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: So it wasn't like this was an unprecedented judgment, like
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: this was something that the Massachusetts government was already thinking
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: about because Royal wasn't the only loyalists who fled and
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: left behind property and the people that he considered property.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: But Royal didn't fulfill his duty to take care of that,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: so the state would have to do the job. So yeah,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: it's it. It's not wholly just it's not something that
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: was unprecedented. It was interesting that she took this anti
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: slavery angle in this angle of reparations in terms of like,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: this is unpaid labor and I need my back money,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I need this money that I'm owed. But it was
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: also like the other element of that was that the
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: person who was quote unquote caring for her in the
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: government's eyes, who was supposed to take care of her
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: monetary she wasn't there. So there were other people who
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: could take care of themselves. But then when there were
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: elderly people, are people who were sick, who had more
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: difficulties taking care of themselves. Now the state was like, Okay,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: what are we going to do about this? And Belinda's
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: story has come up in recent years. For the last decade,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: as I said before, there have been a lot of
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: talk around reparations, how reparations would look, essays written about reparations,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people arguing on the internet about who
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: deserves reparations and whether anybody deserves reparations at all. All
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: of those things, you know, I don't have to go into.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: But one thing that did come up is Isaac Royal
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: and the money that he donated to Harvard that helped
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: contribute to the establishment of the law school. There was
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: stuff named after Royal there, and Harvard renamed a courtyard
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: for Belinda Sutton instead in commemoration of her and all
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: the others who labor for the Royals for free. And
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Harvard also established the Belinda Sutton Distinguished Lecture and the
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Blenda Sutton Academic Conference, and they said that it quote
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: featured speakers and topics that advance our understanding of the
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: legacy of slavery and expropriation and the ongoing pursuit of
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: racial justice. So that is the story of Belinda Sutton.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And like you said, I'm so glad that people are
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: doing this research even though it's hard to find things,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: because it is so important is ongoing. And I'm glad
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: that you bring these topics to us too, because it
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: can be so difficult to track down these the details
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and piece together someone's life when so much has it
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: been recorded or has been raised. So I just really
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: appreciate the people doing that research and for you Eves
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: to bring it to us as well.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm happy too, and I think it's cool to
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: see how things have changed over time, like seeing that
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen they learned a little bit more about
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: her last name. It's just when we see things like
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: that now we can understand that. Okay, it's not like
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: all hope is lost, like we won't be able to
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: find anything else about her. There's still more that can
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: be uncovered. All the people who are still working at
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: the Royal House and slave quarters in Massachusetts and the
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: people who are doing work there and doing intentional work
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: about finding out more about the people who were enslaved
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: there because they literally built the state, you know, like
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: we're the reason for all of this wealth that the
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: royal family had, and that work is ongoing, Like it's
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: it's nice that people are able to dedicate their time
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: to that because it's such important research.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is true, Like we just did an
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: episode on Savor on Melinda Russell, who is considered the
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: first black American woman to publish a cookbook, and that
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: discovery was in twenty eighteen, I think, like very recent.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It was two thousand and seven, but they're still looking
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: into it and it's very very recent, and they were
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: just like pieces of her, like scraps of her, but
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: people were determined, like we've got to get to the
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: bottom of this cookbook. It was almost like mythical, but
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: then they did. So it's true, like there is still hope.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: And even if it is like difficult and so long
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: ago and can feel like, well, I'm never going to
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: find this, I just have so much respect for people
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: who are like, no, I'm going to keep looking and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: we're going to at least be able to like put
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: this story together and maybe expound on this person's life.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: It can give context to what we already know. So
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I really I appreciate people who do that work so much. Yeah,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: me too, Yeah, and we appreciate you. Eves, Yes, thank
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: you so much for coming on. I know we have
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: a milestone of some sort coming. Where can the good
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: listeners find you?
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: You can find me on Instagram at not Apologizing. You
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: can also just go to my website Eves Jeffcoat dot
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: com and find me from there. And you can also
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: listen to On Theme, which is a show that our
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: co host with Katie Mitchell, and it's about black storytelling,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: so you can hear lots of stories there. And you
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: can also find me on many many other episodes here
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: on Sminty of female First talking about people who did
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: things in history that were amazing, that are worth talking
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: about and their accomplishments.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, definitely check out all that stuff. If you
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: have not already listeners, we hope that you have. Yes,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: thanks for coming on. Thank you listeners. If you would
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: like to contact us, you can our email step at
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or in instagrament TikTok at
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: stuff I Never Told You. You have a t folk
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: store and we have a book you can get wherever
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: you get your books. Thanks as always to our super
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: producer Christina, our executive producer May and our contributor Joey.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: For listening Stuff I'll Never Told You to the production
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you
• 27:22
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• 27:24
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