Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

And this is part two of our episode on William Freeman with Robin Bernstein of Harvard. So to bring us up to

speed, it is 1846 in upstate New York. William Freeman suffered

abuse in his time in the for-profit Auburn Prison. And now it's a few months after being

released and he has committed a gruesome, random murder, an act of terrorism, as Robin put it,

in part to try and raise awareness about the slave labor conditions

inside the prison. He's now been arrested and the trial is beginning, and as you'll hear,

the trial is a sensation, and it brings up all sorts of larger questions about not just the prison,

but the effectiveness of Freeman's shocking act and the larger anti-slavery movement

will pick this story up with William Henry Seward entering the picture.

Now, you may know that name because he would soon be Secretary of State,

but in 1846, he is a prominent lawyer in upstate New York,

and he picks up the case defending Freeman.

So, anyway, here are me and Nicole Hammer of

Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley talking to Robin Bernstein. This starts with

Nikki's question about the trial. So ultimately, William Freeman is arrested and he's put on trial.

And this is fascinating to me that William Henry Seward shows back up at this moment. Doesn't intervene in that earlier period. But in

this moment, he steps up to defend William Freeman. How does that happen? Well, it happens

through a whole lot of mechanisms by white people.

It involves Seward. It involves his wife. It involves a local minister named John Austin.

Basically, all of these people come together to decide that Seward should defend Freeman pro bono. Now, what's really important here is that

Seward did not defend Freeman because Seward actually respected the claim that Freeman was making.

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