What really matters in life? Family, love, kindness, freedom…? And if you had to pick just one, which would it be? Caty Taylor, enslaved at Montpelier Plantation, had to choose. Her brother was sold, her sister joined the largest escape attempt in American history… but Caty stayed. They all took different paths but – miracle of miracles – found a happy ending.

Learn more about Caty and many of the plantation’s other enslaved residents at Montpelier’s wonderful Naming Project. Discover more amazing art by Mera MacKendrick, who created our incredible Caty Taylor illustration, on her website or her Instagram. Read the full text of “Fugitives of the Pearl" here (read for us by James Henderson). Special thanks to Kate Stewart and Caleb Slama.

Guest Hilarie M. Hicks is the Director of Museum Programs at James Madison’s Montpelier. She served on the research and writing team for the award-winning exhibition The Mere Distinction of Colour, and is currently writing biographies of the enslaved for The Naming Project on Montpelier’s Digital Doorway website. Hilarie previously served as Curator of Interpretation at Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens (New Bern, NC) and Executive Director of the Rosewell Foundation (Gloucester, VA). She is an alum of the College of William and Mary (B.A.), the Cooperstown Graduate Program in History Museum Studies (M.A.), and the Seminar for Historical Administration.

Music for this episode was provided by Emmit Fenn, I Think I Can Help You, and the Library of Congress.

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