WEBVTT - Rafters 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.119 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.880 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.520 Everyone in Hanoi's neighborhood had a secret in their garage. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.680 Each family worked under cover of night, bringing strange materials 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.680 from their workplaces. Boil drums, styrofoam, old car engines. They 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.080 used whatever they could find. It was August of nineteen 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:57.040 ninety four in Havana, Cuba. Food and other resources were scarce. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.640 The people longed for a better life, and it was 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.680 only one hundred miles to Florida, one hundred miles of choppy, 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.279 shark infested water, but they were willing to take the chance. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.959 Many garages how secret bus us makeshift rafts that families 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.960 could use to send loved ones to America. The name 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.319 is derived from the cheap, flimsy balsa wood some Cubans 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.640 used to construct their rafts. The government didn't approve of 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.080 its citizens leaving the country, though so they kept tight 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:28.240 control over materials such as plywood and inner tubes, and 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.280 so the people used what they had. The rafts were 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.679 as numerous as they were strange. Some were barely better 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.640 than a cork bobbing in an ocean, truly just a 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.479 square of foam and aluminum, but some were more elaborate too. 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.000 Entire cars were hollowed out and then placed between two 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.040 rows of floating oil drums. Hanoi and his family members 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.120 worked on their raft in secret. They used tar as 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.760 an adhesive to attach blocks of styrofoam to a wooden frame. 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.720 An old shower curtain was used to line the interior. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.240 Hanoi would try alone in the small compartment. The thought 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.920 filled him with anxiety and despair. He might drown or 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.239 die of thirst, or be eaten by sharks. Even if 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.600 he was successful, he might never see his family again. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.480 But they wanted this for him. They wanted him to 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.840 have a future, and as it turns out, they didn't 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:21.760 have to bring the raft to the ocean. Under the 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.239 cover of night. On August eighth of nineteen ninety four, 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.720 the country's leader, Fidel Castro, lifted the emigration ban, allowing 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.480 Cuba citizens to flee on their rafts without fear of capture. 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.040 People like Hanoi and his family lined up along the 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.240 country's beautiful beaches, preparing to say goodbye. The sunrises in 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.760 Cuba are magnificent and the ocean is bright blue. But 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.520 of course you can't eat the view, and so Hanoi's 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.160 family fed him a simple meal of rice and beans, 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.160 and then helped him into the raft. They pushed him 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.400 off and into the ocean. He waved and waved, not 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.760 stopping until Cuba and his family were a dot on 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.079 the and then he got to rowing. The trip could 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.320 be completed in about a day and a half. The 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.000 shorter the better. Of course, the rice and beans were 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.240 all the food his family had. It would be his 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.400 last meal unless he could reach America. Similarly, he didn't 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.480 have any drinking water, and unfortunately, the choppy waves meant 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.959 that not even the rice and beans would stay in him. 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.960 He soon got sick and threw up over the side 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.640 of the raft, and as he traveled he could see 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.880 other rafts dotting the ocean. He and the other sailors 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.040 encouraged one another, but as night fell and darkness surrounded him, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.640 he could no longer see them. However, he could hear screams. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.360 All of these balsaros, the Spanish name for rafters, soon 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.120 found that some of the rafts were better designed than others. 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.400 Some were little more than a frame, and the blsaro's 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.720 feet dangled into the water, and at nighttime, hungry sharks 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.240 took advantage of this. More than one Balsaros lost a 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:01.080 limb or their life. When morning came, Hanoil was alone. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.800 He continued rowing, pushing himself in the heat. His mouth 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.760 was dry and his hands were blistered, but he kept 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:13.040 on rowing. Finally, mercifully, land appeared on the horizon. It 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.200 was Florida. He was nearly there, but now he was 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.720 sharing the water with a very different type of sailor. 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:23.560 The United States Coastguard descended on Hanoi and his fellow bolsaro's. 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.560 President Clinton had ordered that they be rounded up and 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.719 taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They would not be 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.159 allowed into the United States as their predecessors had in 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.880 the sixties, seventies, and eighties, The country, they seemed to say, 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.000 no longer had room for them. There were thirty thousand 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.680 detainees in total. The thought of returning to Cuba was 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.560 heart wrenching, but being kept at Guantanamo actually had its upsides. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.080 The soldiers there provided the Cuban refugees with tents, food, 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.719 and water, but it was excruciatingly boring to wait in 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.360 the hot, dry, dusty camp while the world powers argued 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.479 what to do with Hanoi and his countrymen. All he 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.840 could do was hope, and ultimately that was enough. After 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.400 nearly a year, the Clinton administration relented and allowed the 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:14.279 Cuban refugees into the United States. Hanoi's long ordeal was over. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.800 Now he could begin the equally hard work of building 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.159 a new life for himself. But that was what he 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.719 had always wanted. The ingenuity of his family and his 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:39.320 curiosity in facing the unknown finally delivered him to America. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:46.159 On December twentieth of eighteen sixty, South Carolina seceded from 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.160 the United States. They was the first of eleven states 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.320 to secede, which would form the Confederate States of America 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.760 and kick off the American Civil War. Their secession, by 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.360 the way, was all because they wanted to keep owning 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.719 and enslaving other human beans, beans, refusing them rights and 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.640 dignity and freedom. You'll often hear it said that the 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.640 Civil War was about states' rights, but folks who say 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.480 that rarely elaborate. The state right that South Carolina and 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.760 all the others wanted to protect was their right to buy, sell, 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.600 and use other human beings. South Carolina said so right 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.480 in their declaration of secession. The fourth state to secede 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.320 was Alabama on January eleventh of eighteen sixty one. The 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.600 vote in Alabama was sixty one to thirty nine in 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.600 favor of secession. However, when the vote was secured and 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.520 the state officially decided to leave the Union, there was 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.679 one holdout in the Alabama House of Representatives. Christopher Sheetz, 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.119 a school teacher in his early twenties, refused to sign 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.239 the ordinance. He was the sole representative of Winston County 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.760 and his county did not want to secede. The push 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.880 towards secession was driven by slaveholding plantation owners, and Winston 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.240 County was not a large participant in that system. A 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.760 county of less four thousand people, it only had fourteen 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.000 slaveholders in around one hundred and twenty enslave people within 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:10.160 their county lines, a vanishingly tiny portion of their already 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:15.200 small population. Christopher Sheets was ultimately imprisoned for treason against 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.840 the Confederacy for this, but spent the entire war awaiting trial. Meanwhile, 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.200 his home county became an ideological battleground in the middle 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.000 of a civil war. Not long after Alabama's secession, Winston 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.480 County residents loyal to the Union gathered in Looney's tavern, 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.080 where they declared it the Free State of Winston. The gathering, 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.360 while informal, declared Sheets a hero for opposing secession, and 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.360 said that if Alabama could secede from the United States, well, 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.280 then Winston County could secede from Alabama. That same year, 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:49.240 an opposing gathering of Confederate sympathizers occurred, where they wrote 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.920 a petition to the governor asking for his support to 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.400 quell the growing Union sentiment in their county. They said 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.320 that citizens needed to be forced to swear a loyalty 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.320 oath to the Confederacy. Starting in eighteen sixty two, the 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.520 Confederate government attempted to force Winston County residents, even those 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.800 who supported neither the Union nor the Confederate sides, to enlist. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.880 Many wound up fleeing north, joining the first Alabama cavalry 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.720 with the Union Army. Enough farmers fled conscription that Winston 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.320 County farms struggled to grow enough food for their remaining residents, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.600 a problem that worsened when Confederate soldiers confiscated food for 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.480 their own use as they passed on through. For the 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.040 next several years, conflicts broke out across the county. It 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.640 was the target of several raids from both Union and 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:41.000 Confederate units. Neighbors turned against neighbors. There was little strategic 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.400 value to this northern Alabama county, nor were there any 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.880 huge political values to its capture. All the same, the 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.720 county became a microcosm for the war itself. Families found 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.480 themselves split down the middle, and even after the end 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.440 of the war in eighteen sixty five, when the South lost, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.160 tensions remained between neighbors who had served on opposite sides 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.160 during the conflict. Christopher Sheetz was let out of prison 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.760 and attempted a rocky return to politics that concluded with 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.240 him serving in the House of Representatives in the eighteen 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.120 seventies and briefly served as the US ambassador to Denmark. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.079 Like the rest of the country, Winston County did its 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.480 best to move on from the turmoil of Civil War, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.000 but the reminders of its particular role in the conflict 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.160 remained to this present day, most prominently in a memorial 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.280 statue in front of their courthouse. The statue depicts a 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.680 Civil War era soldier whose uniform is split down the middle, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:37.320 half Union, half Confederate. The statue bears the title Dual Destiny. 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.079 There's a lot to say about the Free State of 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.400 Winston and its unique history. If the rallying cry of 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.200 the South in the Civil War was states' rights, it 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.080 should be abundantly ironic that they tried so hard to 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.480 suppress a county that asserted its own independence in the 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.040 face of a state in active rebellion. The county never 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.680 actually seceded from the Confederacy. It remained officially Confederate territory 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.280 until the end of the war, but not by signing 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.640 a single piece of paper. Sheets determined that his county 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.439 would retain its integrity after the war. In the long 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:15.040 arc of history, a rebellion, even a symbolic one, can 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:22.000 carry real weight. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.560 through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.760 me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts researched and 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.320 written by the Grim and Mild team and produced by 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.200 Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.320 who make it over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.920 You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:46.079 Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.840 as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.160 ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.920 same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.920 Learn more and sign up over at patreon dot com 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:06.839 slash Grimanda and until next time, stay curious. Mm hmm.