Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a fascinating dude, like the way I described
Speaker 1: in The People, because I'm like, man, it's like if
Speaker 1: you took Django Unchained and Daniel Boone and like mixed
Speaker 1: it together. Right On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast,
Speaker 1: I want to introduce you to the life of the
Speaker 1: man that President Theodore Roosevelt said quote was the greatest
Speaker 1: hunter and guide I have ever known. This man has
Speaker 1: been gone from this earth since nineteen thirty six. There
Speaker 1: are no video or audio recordings of him. We do
Speaker 1: have roughly thirteen photographs, six articles written about him, and
Speaker 1: the first hand accounts of those who knew him, including
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt. Many believe this man's legacy deserves to be
Speaker 1: on the American pedestal with the likes of Daniel Boone
Speaker 1: and Davy Crockett, and some might even suggest he stand
Speaker 1: with the great African American civil rights pioneers of the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century based upon the standing he had in
Speaker 1: society and the life he lived. However, his life is
Speaker 1: riddled with mystery and controversy. But if you're like me,
Speaker 1: after you've been exposed to the energy, audacity, and bravery
Speaker 1: of this life, you'll never ever forget the name Holt
Speaker 1: call Your I'm in search of understanding who Holpe Callier was,
Speaker 1: and all the questions that will still have after we
Speaker 1: know everything we can know. I really doubt that you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to miss this one. This name whole Callier
Speaker 1: keeps coming up, and who is this person? I just
Speaker 1: I had no idea, and as I dug and Doug
Speaker 1: and I found all these other stories that were part
Speaker 1: of his life, multiple chapters in his life, the fact
Speaker 1: that he was connected to the Hinds family, that Andrew Jackson,
Speaker 1: to all the prominent families from down in the Natchez district,
Speaker 1: and nothing had ever been definitive, had ever been written
Speaker 1: about him. My name is Clay Nukelem, and this is
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant,
Speaker 1: search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell
Speaker 1: the story of Americans who lived their lives close to
Speaker 1: the land. Presented by f HF Gear American Maid, purpose
Speaker 1: built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as
Speaker 1: rugged as the places we explore. I haven't and I never,
Speaker 1: of course, no way from me ever to have even
Speaker 1: met Whole called you, but to know what kind of
Speaker 1: man he was, And I've said he was a man
Speaker 1: amongst men. I mean, to sit down with a president,
Speaker 1: to shit down with some of the titans of industry
Speaker 1: and law, business, and to be respected the way he was.
Speaker 1: That says so much to me in today's time. And
Speaker 1: I've said before, and it's something that we don't think
Speaker 1: could have happened, but it did. And it's because of
Speaker 1: the integrity and the matter and the meat of who
Speaker 1: Hope call your wash. As Roosevelt said, he was a
Speaker 1: man of sixty that couldn't either read nor write. Yet
Speaker 1: he had the dignity of an African king. And if
Speaker 1: you look at pictures of Hope, you see that in him.
Speaker 1: Throughout the course of this conversation, my hope is that
Speaker 1: will all see Holt call your I believe that within
Speaker 1: his life are the keys to some relevant lessons. I
Speaker 1: don't want to bury the hook too deep on the story,
Speaker 1: because I'm dying to tell you the bullet points of
Speaker 1: Holt's life. He was born a slave, and at the
Speaker 1: age of fourteen, he joined the Confederate Army and fought
Speaker 1: with distinction the entirety of the Civil War. And afterwards
Speaker 1: he became a market black bear hunter. After the Civil War,
Speaker 1: he killed a white man in Mississippi, but no charges
Speaker 1: were pressed, and was later accused of killing another one,
Speaker 1: but was acquitted for the murder. He hobb nobbed with
Speaker 1: some of the most powerful men in the Delta, gaining
Speaker 1: their loyalty and trust. But what he's most known for
Speaker 1: is guiding the then sitting President, Theodore Roosevelt on two
Speaker 1: bear hunts in the Mississippi Delta and gaining his friendship
Speaker 1: and respect. Holt Collier lasso to bear and tied it
Speaker 1: to the tree for the President, who refused to shoot it,
Speaker 1: and from this the press coined the term teddy bear,
Speaker 1: which has become a global term. And it would have
Speaker 1: never happened if it wasn't for the creative grit a
Speaker 1: black man from Mississippi named Holt Collyer. He was rough,
Speaker 1: but polished, ruthlessly loyal, and he navigated the Antebellum and
Speaker 1: post Bellum South with an uncanny confidence, skill and grace. Undoubtedly,
Speaker 1: holtz life doesn't fit into anybody's mold, and I think
Speaker 1: that's what qualifies him as a great American. He lived
Speaker 1: an almost unbelievable life. You could take every ten years
Speaker 1: of this guy's life and look at what he's what
Speaker 1: he was doing, and it would be you know, movie
Speaker 1: worthy or bookworthy or story worthy. And so you take
Speaker 1: his life in its entirety, especially as long as it was,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just kind of it's hard to fathom
Speaker 1: how a person puts that much stuff into a life,
Speaker 1: especially with everything you know he had going against him.
Speaker 1: Holt Collyer was born a slave in eighteen forty six
Speaker 1: in Jefferson County, Mississippi, within the floodplain of the Rate
Speaker 1: Father of Waters the Mississippi River. He appeared on planet
Speaker 1: Earth fourteen years before the Civil War, a war that
Speaker 1: would greatly impact his life in multiple ways. Time is
Speaker 1: a ruthless master, eroding the answers and shrouding the truth
Speaker 1: in a haze of mystery. We have accurate data on
Speaker 1: his life. Much of what he actually told us is
Speaker 1: the data we have, which would seemingly be enough to
Speaker 1: make some profound conclusions of his motivations. But I think
Speaker 1: we'll see that holtz world was very complex. But who
Speaker 1: was Holt Collier to describe? Hope? He was a refined man,
Speaker 1: yet could not read nor right, a superbe sportsman, a
Speaker 1: contriment outdoorsman, I will say, a gentleman, and a man
Speaker 1: among men that could go anywhere, be among any type
Speaker 1: of person. He knew what respect was and he commanded respect.
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, vonna slave yet road with the Texas
Speaker 1: Cavalry and the Confederate Armed Services during the Civil War. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was no reason for him to bow his head
Speaker 1: to anyone. And I will call you. That was the
Speaker 1: voice of writer, Delta historian, and river rat hankber died
Speaker 1: though he never knew him. He is one of the
Speaker 1: men who has worked tirelessly to preserve the memory and
Speaker 1: the legacy of Hulk Collier. The other voice you've heard
Speaker 1: is my friend and fellow are Kans and Jonathan Wilkins.
Speaker 1: He's a writer, a chef, a waterfowl outfitter who lives
Speaker 1: in hunts in the Delta. After being exposed to hold
Speaker 1: story as a black hunter in the South, he studied
Speaker 1: Holt's life with particular interests. We're going to dial in
Speaker 1: on the details we have about Holt. Here's Jonathan. I'd
Speaker 1: say that you know, Holt Collier is one of, if
Speaker 1: not the greatest American Southern big game hunter, one of
Speaker 1: the most prolific black bear hunters I think we could
Speaker 1: assume has ever lived. Born under the guise of enslavement
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty six in Mississippi. So we've established he
Speaker 1: was a black man born into slavery and became a
Speaker 1: great bear hunter. He had legitimate records indicating he killed
Speaker 1: over three thousand bears in his lifetime, presumably more than
Speaker 1: our broad Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett combined. But the
Speaker 1: wildest thing mentioned so far is that he fought with
Speaker 1: the Confederate Army, and an effort to completely over clarify,
Speaker 1: the Confederate Army was the armed forces of the southern
Speaker 1: portion of the United States that seceded from the United
Speaker 1: States on December sixty and this newly formed government was
Speaker 1: in favor of keeping the institution of slavery legal. The
Speaker 1: Northern Army of the United States was against slavery. We're
Speaker 1: going to expend a lot of energy trying to understand
Speaker 1: Holt's motivation in his unusual loyalty to the South, But
Speaker 1: to be fair, we've got to say they're all conjecture.
Speaker 1: Here's Jonathan, you know, that's the That's the thing about life.
Speaker 1: It's rarely as binary as as human beings like to
Speaker 1: make it right. Like I, I still don't have a
Speaker 1: handle on on Collier's motivations for some of his actions.
Speaker 1: You know, I have suspicions that are you know, and
Speaker 1: these are informed by my life and my perspectives and
Speaker 1: how I understand the world. He's a fascinating dude, like
Speaker 1: the way I described the people, because I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: it's like if you took Django Unchained and Daniel Boone
Speaker 1: and like mixed it together, right, Because there's there's so
Speaker 1: many there's so many facets of the guy's life that
Speaker 1: like that don't make sense as far as kind of
Speaker 1: the assertions of himself that he was able to make right,
Speaker 1: especially you're talking about within a society that is foundationally
Speaker 1: built upon him not being able to assert himself right,
Speaker 1: him not being able to be an authority, him not
Speaker 1: being able to thrive, you know, for all intents and purposes,
Speaker 1: especially for the time period, he was more financially successful
Speaker 1: than you know, almost any other black people around. You know,
Speaker 1: he enjoyed great longevity, He enjoyed you know, kind of
Speaker 1: high social standing in a society where black men, you know,
Speaker 1: that was not something that was available to them. Then
Speaker 1: to the point that he interacts, he interacts with the
Speaker 1: seminal American figure, you know, American political figure in such
Speaker 1: an influential way that twenty one years later you have
Speaker 1: this legacy of the Teddy Bear that has touched pretty
Speaker 1: much every American you know. I'd argue probably a large
Speaker 1: percentage of the world. It's familiar with the Teddy Bearer.
Speaker 1: But again, like no one knows who this guy is.
Speaker 1: No one knows who this guy is. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of Hault Collyer. I'm walking down the street in
Speaker 1: downtown Jackson, Mississippi. The dome of the state Capitol is
Speaker 1: directly at my back. I slip a breath mat in
Speaker 1: my mouth as I push open the door of a
Speaker 1: swanky office building. I'm told by the receptionist the man
Speaker 1: I'm looking for is on the mezzanine floor, which is
Speaker 1: an odd architectural term used to describe a floor between
Speaker 1: the first and second floor as in a building. It's
Speaker 1: an odd and unfamiliar term to me, kind of like
Speaker 1: Hulk Collyer's life. I'm looking for a lawyer named minor
Speaker 1: if Buchanon. It would be easy to say that he's
Speaker 1: been the bulwark of preserving Hulk Collyer's legacy in modern times.
Speaker 1: He's traveled across the country to give presentations about Holt.
Speaker 1: He commissioned the painting of a watercolor print of Holt
Speaker 1: on his horse. But his biggest contribution is that he's
Speaker 1: written the only book in existence dedicated to hold Collier,
Speaker 1: aptly titled Holt Collier Minor. Will be our primary guide
Speaker 1: through the details of this story. Here's how he got
Speaker 1: interested in Holt. It's a circuitous tale. I am a
Speaker 1: native Mississippian, born and raised here as Holt was, and
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with his story, you know it's epic.
Speaker 1: It's an absolutely epic story. But I had never heard
Speaker 1: his name. And I was visiting with my children the
Speaker 1: Memphis Zoo in nine We got in a rush. We
Speaker 1: were in the Bay exhibit and we had to go
Speaker 1: meet somebody and we had to leave, and I was
Speaker 1: in a little bit of a hurry. So I grabbed
Speaker 1: my five year old daughter and I said, We've got
Speaker 1: to go, and she says, wait a minute, daddy, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen the Teddy Bear. She thought that Teddy Bear
Speaker 1: was real, and I didn't even think when I said,
Speaker 1: I said, honey, I'm that Teddy Bear is not real.
Speaker 1: It's just a toy. And she broke into tears. I
Speaker 1: may as well as shot the Easter Bunny in front
Speaker 1: of her, you know, and uh, she broke into tears.
Speaker 1: But when she got her composer, she said, well, if
Speaker 1: it's not real, where did it come from? Now? I
Speaker 1: had heard these human entrant stories that would get published
Speaker 1: in the newspaper, in the magazine about once a year
Speaker 1: that Theodore Roosevelt had come to Mississippi for a bear hunt,
Speaker 1: and that's where the Teddy Bear got started. But that's
Speaker 1: really all it was, ever was. So I'm I promised
Speaker 1: her I'd make a bedtime story out of it. My
Speaker 1: law offices downtown Jackson, right across street from the Department
Speaker 1: of Archives and History, and I knew those people pretty well.
Speaker 1: So sure enough, I was good for my promise and
Speaker 1: went over to the archives, walked over there, and there's
Speaker 1: a subject file on the Theodore Roosevelt hunt. As I'm
Speaker 1: getting into this subject file went on the Teddy Bear,
Speaker 1: another one on Theodore Roosevelt. This name whole Callyer keeps
Speaker 1: coming up, and who is this person? I just had
Speaker 1: no idea, And as I dug and Doug and I
Speaker 1: found all these other stories that were part of his life,
Speaker 1: multiple chapters in his life. The fact that he was
Speaker 1: connected to the Hinds family, to the Andrew Jackson, to
Speaker 1: all the prominent families from down in the Natchez district,
Speaker 1: and nothing had ever been definitive, had ever been written
Speaker 1: about him. I decided to make a book project, and
Speaker 1: it came out in two thousand two, which was a
Speaker 1: hundred anniversary of the nineteen o two Teddy Bear hunt.
Speaker 1: So this bedtime story goal turned into a book project. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was five years old when she asked me where
Speaker 1: the teddy bear came from? When when the book came out,
Speaker 1: she was a junior. She was probably satisfied that you
Speaker 1: wrote a great book on the whole thing. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: she was a freshman freshman of college when he came
Speaker 1: in in nineteen eighty nine. Miner began his research on
Speaker 1: Whole Callier and the book was sell published in two
Speaker 1: thousand two, after being rejected by a few university publishing presses,
Speaker 1: perhaps because of the controversial nature of Holtz life. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it's because he was a black man who fought for
Speaker 1: the Confederate army. That's a complex story to tell in
Speaker 1: today's society. It's very quick to see that Minor didn't
Speaker 1: write this book on a whim or with the hope
Speaker 1: of creating a New York Times bestseller. It evolved out
Speaker 1: of a genuine curiosity and morphed into a decade long
Speaker 1: project of trailing a man's life whose story was bypassed
Speaker 1: by the world. I'm incredibly grateful for those who do
Speaker 1: work like this. I've read a lot of self published books,
Speaker 1: and I was impressed by the amount of research and
Speaker 1: corroboration of the information in the book. It's well written,
Speaker 1: but still no one fully is able to understand wholtz situation.
Speaker 1: So what do we know about Wold Collyer's earliest days?
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting sometimes with these you know an
Speaker 1: enslaved person, A lot of times you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of information. But with Hope, we have a fair
Speaker 1: bit of information about his upbringing. What do we know
Speaker 1: about his childhood? Well, let me make a comment on
Speaker 1: what you just said. When somebody's born there, enslaved there,
Speaker 1: they lived during this period of time. It's hard to
Speaker 1: find information about him. It's impossible to find an image
Speaker 1: of them. For instance, Robert Johnson, the famous blues player,
Speaker 1: I think there's only one, maybe two images of him,
Speaker 1: and he lived in a time when cameras were pretty prevalent.
Speaker 1: Whole Caryer was born in eighteen forty six, died in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six at the age of ninety, and I
Speaker 1: think I found thirteen images of him. I thought was incredible.
Speaker 1: Polt lived to be ninety years old, which is hard
Speaker 1: to believe when you hear of the skirmishes with death
Speaker 1: that he avoided. I want to hear from Jonathan Wilkins
Speaker 1: about this very thing we just wrought up why some
Speaker 1: of these African American figures are so undocumented by pop culture.
Speaker 1: My personal hope is that I can truly listen to
Speaker 1: people with unique and different perspectives than mine, and over
Speaker 1: the years, Jonathan has often helped me do just that. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, that's kind of the American way, right,
Speaker 1: like we we footnote the black people in this country
Speaker 1: that have have done important things right, like he's he's
Speaker 1: he's phenomenal. But I you know, I wonder how many
Speaker 1: other phenomenal and brilliant and like just incredibly interesting stories
Speaker 1: will never know. I'll give you like a good reference
Speaker 1: point for this. So oftentimes they talk about the the
Speaker 1: first film ever made, right, and it's this little tiny
Speaker 1: snippet and it's a black guy riding a horse. All right.
Speaker 1: No one knows the black guy's name, but they preserve
Speaker 1: the horse's name. You know. I bet you that a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know that the White House was
Speaker 1: built by slaves. You know, history is written by the victors.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, it's just it's it's just
Speaker 1: kind of like it's the story of America. Really, I
Speaker 1: think what Jonathan is saying is true. It's powerful and
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. Here's how Minors started his first research on
Speaker 1: Wholk Collier. When I first started my research, I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anybody that ever heard of Whole Callier unless they
Speaker 1: were from Washington, Kent. When I first learned about him,
Speaker 1: I said, well, maybe some people in these nursing homes
Speaker 1: will remember him. Because I started my research in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine and he died in nineteen thirty six, it's
Speaker 1: possible that somebody remembers Whole care Thank god I started
Speaker 1: my research when I did, because I found about six
Speaker 1: people who remembered whole callier really who had met him,
Speaker 1: Oh knew him. They were children, they knew him as
Speaker 1: an old man. And one of them was the most amazing.
Speaker 1: His recall was perfect. He was he was as smart
Speaker 1: as a whip. He could remember everything about the whole car.
Speaker 1: His name was Pete Johnson, and Pete owned the liquor
Speaker 1: store in Los Angeles. And I had gone up to Greenville,
Speaker 1: and people knew I was doing this research and I
Speaker 1: was trying to find folks. And the first person I
Speaker 1: met was Jane Weather. She was a widow who part
Speaker 1: of the Metcalf family and she's she was ninety four
Speaker 1: years old, and she remembered Holt very well. He had
Speaker 1: lived there on their place, and she gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of information on him. Soon after that, about a
Speaker 1: month or two after that, I get this telephone call
Speaker 1: from a friend who's helped me out, and he says, Minor,
Speaker 1: you need to write this down. Pete Johnson gave me
Speaker 1: his telephone number out in Los Angeles. He had just
Speaker 1: come home to Greenville, Mississippi. He had been raised there
Speaker 1: as a child, and he was trying to get some
Speaker 1: statue or some memory or a park named after whole Car.
Speaker 1: So I got on the phone and talked to him.
Speaker 1: I ended up talking to Pete Johnson probably ten or
Speaker 1: twelve of hours interviewing him over the phone. He had
Speaker 1: been raised right next door the Whole Car. His Whole
Speaker 1: Car is an old man sitting on his front porch,
Speaker 1: telling his stories about bear hunt with Theodore Roosevelt, by
Speaker 1: the Civil War, escapades about killing men after the war
Speaker 1: and not being prosecuted for it, and and and what
Speaker 1: I loved Pete Johnson telling me was it all the
Speaker 1: children of the neighbors before television and really before radio,
Speaker 1: but all the children in the neighborhood would come up
Speaker 1: there as the son's going down and say, you know,
Speaker 1: Mr Hotels, some stories tell Uncle Holt, they call him.
Speaker 1: But before whole Care sitting on his front porch, almost
Speaker 1: blind at this say, before he would tell him the stories,
Speaker 1: he would make them put their pennies together and go
Speaker 1: down the street that you know with the little corner
Speaker 1: grocery thing, and make them buy him a plug of
Speaker 1: tobaccup and a knee high orange And when they bring
Speaker 1: that plug in the back and knee high orange. He'd
Speaker 1: sit there and talk to him for until the parents,
Speaker 1: until the parents called him home, a plug of tobacco
Speaker 1: and a knee high orange. It's stories like this that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be in the national newspaper article, but they give
Speaker 1: you a feel for the man. I'm grateful for people
Speaker 1: like Minor who took the time to document the last
Speaker 1: remaining people on planet Earth who knew Uncle Holt. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to get into Holt's early life history. Hold
Speaker 1: was born down there in Jefferson County at a place
Speaker 1: called home Hill Plantation, just a few about four miles
Speaker 1: out of Fayette. Who was born to the Hines family,
Speaker 1: best known for General Thomas Hines, who served with Andrew
Speaker 1: Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. Was uh in
Speaker 1: the United States Congress, elected in eight same year Andrew
Speaker 1: Jackson was elected president. Was was a friend of Jackson,
Speaker 1: was a friend of the all the prominent people in
Speaker 1: that area down Air Marshton Green and so Holt was
Speaker 1: born into affluent circumstances, although he's enslaved and he's part
Speaker 1: of the labor class, and his father had served with
Speaker 1: General Thomas Hines as a man servant at the Battle
Speaker 1: of New Orleans, so they were closely connected. He was
Speaker 1: not a These were not field hands and were not
Speaker 1: people working in the field. And holtz mother served the
Speaker 1: main house and I don't know as a cook or
Speaker 1: seamstress of what. And when Holt got to be old enough,
Speaker 1: they put him in charge of the horses and the dogs.
Speaker 1: They were big hunters, and that's what hold did. He
Speaker 1: started out hunting from from a very early age, and
Speaker 1: he knew the horses and he knew the dogs. Holt
Speaker 1: was enslaved, and inside that system he worked in close
Speaker 1: proximity to his slave owners, the Hines family, who were
Speaker 1: part of the powerful southern aristocracy of the region. They
Speaker 1: had even been friends with the former president Andrew Jackson.
Speaker 1: Here's Jonathan describing Holt's early life. I mean, so prior
Speaker 1: to the Civil War, he's living on this Hines plantation
Speaker 1: and this is basically a this is a Mississippi plantation
Speaker 1: that's like literally hacked out of the wilderness. Right they
Speaker 1: talk about like basically this is just a malaria infested swamp.
Speaker 1: You know, essentially what is a you know, American jungle, right,
Speaker 1: So human beings have to go in there and cut
Speaker 1: and hack and channelized stuff and drain it out. And
Speaker 1: so he's born to servitude. You know, his family has
Speaker 1: been enslaved for multiple generations by the Hines family. He's
Speaker 1: born into that family. He's born into that system of enslavement.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess on the plantation his family had,
Speaker 1: you know, a slightly higher position than maybe some of
Speaker 1: some of the other enslaved people, which is, to my
Speaker 1: mind is a is a very dangerous distinction to make
Speaker 1: because it and imply is that it makes a situation
Speaker 1: not what it was. Right. But he's kind of this
Speaker 1: family of house slaves, you know, I guess we'd be
Speaker 1: the colloquialism for it. And around ten years old he
Speaker 1: kills his first bear. So even for that to happen,
Speaker 1: he's got to have some access that other enslaved people
Speaker 1: don't have, right, He's got to have access to weapons.
Speaker 1: He's got to have access, you know, or the ability
Speaker 1: to go out into the wilderness. And so I think
Speaker 1: he's he's probably showing himself to be an extraordinary human
Speaker 1: being from a very young age. Killing a bear that
Speaker 1: young is an impressive feat from a sportsman standpoint, But
Speaker 1: of more note is that a young slave boy would
Speaker 1: have had a gun and been able to hunt. Here's
Speaker 1: Minor developing the context for holtz life. One of the
Speaker 1: unusual things about the Mississippi Delta is it flooding almost
Speaker 1: every every year, which prohibited raising any kind of livestock.
Speaker 1: There was no meat source, but you had this labor
Speaker 1: coming in and they had to be fed, so you
Speaker 1: had to get this protein the food through hunting. And uh.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Holt goes up there and he's, uh, this
Speaker 1: is about eighteen fifty six, and he's given a shotgun
Speaker 1: hist his instructions. After he takes care of the dogs
Speaker 1: and the horses, his instructions will go out into the
Speaker 1: woods and kill anything and everything that's edible, whether it's
Speaker 1: an alligator, whether it's a duck, whether it's a bear.
Speaker 1: He killed his first bear at an age of ten,
Speaker 1: and that was his job. Here's Jonathan with more details
Speaker 1: of where this wild game meat went. In very short
Speaker 1: order in his life, basically becomes a meat hunter for
Speaker 1: this plantation. So he's doing two things. He's procuring what
Speaker 1: would be considered top shelf meat for the plantation owners
Speaker 1: and then like the leftovers and the less desirable meat
Speaker 1: is being used as a way to supplement the foodstuffs
Speaker 1: of the enslaved people there, right, So Holt is getting
Speaker 1: an education and horsemanship, being a houndsman, shooting and being
Speaker 1: a general hunter in the swamps of Mississippi. Later in
Speaker 1: this series, we're going to learn that this was common
Speaker 1: for some sector of the slaves to become incredible hunters.
Speaker 1: Here's minor turns out Holt was a heck of a shot.
Speaker 1: So that's what hold did. Then, how he became such
Speaker 1: a proficient marksman that when his right shoulder would be
Speaker 1: too sore and he'd complain about it, Howard Haines made
Speaker 1: him shoot with his left shoulder. Became a proficient marksman
Speaker 1: his right shoulder and his left shoulder. There were times
Speaker 1: how Heins, on a yearly basis, would travel up and
Speaker 1: down the river to go up into Kentucky. But how
Speaker 1: Haines was a gambler and a sportsman, and that he
Speaker 1: always went to the races and they always had shooting events,
Speaker 1: clay pigeon type shooting events, and Holt and how Heins
Speaker 1: had this routine where the men would challenge each other
Speaker 1: to a shooting contest and how Hens would shame somebody
Speaker 1: who's willing to bet money and saying, hey, my my
Speaker 1: servant boy over here is only ten years only he
Speaker 1: can outshoot you and old and they would build odds
Speaker 1: and then Hold go out there and beat him and
Speaker 1: make howl. Henes a lot of money. And we were
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to find that documentation. And uh, they dressed
Speaker 1: Hold up and find clothing, bought him good boots and
Speaker 1: hold in his later interviews in life, would tell about
Speaker 1: how when he'd get up there to Cincinnati, Ohio and
Speaker 1: places like that, he actually the city went to Brighton
Speaker 1: Beach one time, which was in New York. Uh. He
Speaker 1: says that people would try to get him to run
Speaker 1: away because he's in a free state and he could
Speaker 1: run away, and he always refused. He says that there's
Speaker 1: no way I could have a better life up here
Speaker 1: than I have down there. And that's that's that's Holds
Speaker 1: interviews when he's in his eighties, he's telling Holt was
Speaker 1: interviewed later in life, and it is the subject of
Speaker 1: I believe it's six or seven major magazine articles during
Speaker 1: his lifetime, and that would have been prior to the
Speaker 1: Great White Hope Jim Johnson, the boxing great. I always
Speaker 1: hear that he's he's the first man of African descent
Speaker 1: sportsman to become a national figure. But hold, these magazine
Speaker 1: articles actually came out on the hold. The first ones
Speaker 1: came out immediately after the nineteen o two hunt, and
Speaker 1: there's a second hunt in nineteen oh seven. Magazine articles
Speaker 1: came out then, So hold was well, well say, well, no,
Speaker 1: he was in the articles that I read in nineteen
Speaker 1: or to a nineteen o seven There's more. Just Holts
Speaker 1: mentioned more in those articles, and Roosevelt is Minor is
Speaker 1: saying that Holk Collyer was potentially America's first African American
Speaker 1: national sporting figure. Why don't we all know who this
Speaker 1: guy is? Let's now begin to answer an even bigger question.
Speaker 1: How did a fourteen year old Hulk Collyer end in
Speaker 1: the Civil War? This is the way Holt told the story.
Speaker 1: Here's Minor the time the Civil War broke out. Howell Haines,
Speaker 1: who's adult in his forties. Now, Howell has his young
Speaker 1: son named Thomas Haines would be a junior named after
Speaker 1: his grandfather, who's in his twenties. Will both of them
Speaker 1: sign up to join the Confederacy and Hold because of
Speaker 1: the stories he's been told by his father following his
Speaker 1: master into battle. Being a man servant, Holt wants to go.
Speaker 1: He desperately wants to go with Howel and Thomas Haines
Speaker 1: into the Confederacy and served as a as a valet. Well,
Speaker 1: they told him he couldn't go. He was a very
Speaker 1: small frame kid, and uh, and they just told him
Speaker 1: he's not going. He saw them leave the plantation and
Speaker 1: he's and he's just not gonna put up with it.
Speaker 1: So he puts together a little sack of belongings. There
Speaker 1: are a string of riverboats on the landing in Greenville,
Speaker 1: which is where the Hineses are going to report, and
Speaker 1: Hold makes his way through the swamp to get to
Speaker 1: that landing because he doesn't want to get caught. He's
Speaker 1: down runaway slave, and so he gets on one of
Speaker 1: those riverboats and he becomes a stowaway. He talks about
Speaker 1: how somebody allowed him to be a stowaway, and they
Speaker 1: go up river to Memphis, Tennessee, and so you've got
Speaker 1: no telling how many steamboats are pulling up there, and
Speaker 1: how Heins and Thomas Heimes are standing there talking to
Speaker 1: some Confederate general and Thomas Nudges is how how heines
Speaker 1: and says, Dad, look at that, you're not gonna believe it.
Speaker 1: And they see Hold walking up to him, and they realize, well,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna send you back, so you're gonna be
Speaker 1: the days of travel away from his home, right, So
Speaker 1: they said, okay, Hold, you can have your way. You're
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead, and so he becomes in essence of Valet.
Speaker 1: So Holt was left in Mississippi but snuck to the
Speaker 1: battleground following how heinz and he is allowed to stay.
Speaker 1: Hold then travels with the army into Kentucky and has
Speaker 1: given a job as a hospital orderly and as he
Speaker 1: told the story, one day he was working and he
Speaker 1: heard some gunshots in the distance, so he grabbed a
Speaker 1: gun and ran towards the gunfire. He proceeds to actively
Speaker 1: partake in the battle with the men in his company
Speaker 1: and immediately gained their respect. The story goes on, and
Speaker 1: they allowed him to carry a long gun with him
Speaker 1: from then on, and they made fun of him because
Speaker 1: he was, you know, where's that little kid going with
Speaker 1: that big long gun kind of thing. He worked proudly
Speaker 1: and he was at Shilloh. His description of the Battle
Speaker 1: of Shallow is dead on. You know, Holton never learned
Speaker 1: to read write, so who ever could even write his
Speaker 1: own name, never could even write his own name sign
Speaker 1: it with an next. So when I'm reading an interview
Speaker 1: of Whole Carrier late in life and he's describing the
Speaker 1: death of Albert Sidney Johnson, which was well documented in
Speaker 1: multiple sources, and he describes exactly what happened, there's no
Speaker 1: question in my mind that he's telling the truth. That
Speaker 1: he actually all Outbret Sidney Johnson. He didn't read it anywhere,
Speaker 1: He didn't read it anywhere. As a historical writer, Minor
Speaker 1: was interested in getting the story right. Often in history,
Speaker 1: much of what we have to go on is simply
Speaker 1: oral stories passed down which we know can easily be
Speaker 1: shifted over time. Again, lucky for us, Halt was interviewed
Speaker 1: multiple times later in his life. So after after Shallow,
Speaker 1: both howl Heines and young Thomas Hains were there with
Speaker 1: him at Shallow, and howl Heins and Young Thomas Hains
Speaker 1: have seen enough. If you're familiar with the Battle of Shallow,
Speaker 1: it was an absolute blood bath. Nothing had been seen
Speaker 1: like that on the North American continent. Nothing had been
Speaker 1: saying like that since the age of Napoleon. And it
Speaker 1: was just it was horrible. Even Grant said, you could
Speaker 1: walk across the field, you know, a hundred yards without
Speaker 1: stepping on anything but dead bodies. The brutality of the
Speaker 1: Civil War was unprecedented in modern war on the North
Speaker 1: American continent. And I say modern war because it's believed
Speaker 1: that as many as twenty million Native Americans died from
Speaker 1: disease after the arrival of the Europeans. Modern estimates of
Speaker 1: the Civil War believed that six hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty thousand Americans died during that five
Speaker 1: year period. In the past, it was believed to be lower. Oddly,
Speaker 1: the casualties of the Union Army were substantially more than
Speaker 1: the Confederate army, but records during the time give dim
Speaker 1: light to the facts. The bottom line is that holtz
Speaker 1: life was impacted by the difficulty of this time. So
Speaker 1: on with the story, how and Thomas Hines leave the battlefield?
Speaker 1: How requests from his personal friend Jefferson Davis, the President
Speaker 1: of the Confederacy, to be made Provost Marshal of Jefferson
Speaker 1: County and Thomas his son basically deserts the Confederate Army.
Speaker 1: This is where things get interesting because they give Holt
Speaker 1: a decision, and they looked at Holt and said, who
Speaker 1: do you you? Which one of us do you want
Speaker 1: to go with or do you want to stay? Well,
Speaker 1: at that point in time, since he had been in
Speaker 1: Corinth for several weeks, he admit this group of young
Speaker 1: soldiers who had come in from Texas, and he had
Speaker 1: gotten to be buddies with him. These are all fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kids who joined the Confederacy. They were
Speaker 1: under the command of Van Dorn and holding. These kids
Speaker 1: got to be friends, and they said, I'd rather stay
Speaker 1: with these Texas boys. Isn't that an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: agency that they would have given Holt For an owner
Speaker 1: to tell someone, you know, an enslaved person, Hey, what
Speaker 1: do you want to do? You want to go back
Speaker 1: with us? Do you want to stay here and fight?
Speaker 1: I think at that point in time, it's very possible
Speaker 1: that the Times said, if we can't contribute to the
Speaker 1: Confederate College, we can give this boy up to fight
Speaker 1: for the Confederation and that'll be that will be our contribution.
Speaker 1: And I have no idea what motivated them, and I've
Speaker 1: had the same question as crossed my mind. But they
Speaker 1: allowed him to stay, so he stayed with not only
Speaker 1: allowed can not only allowed him to stay, Holines gave
Speaker 1: him a horse and gave him a side arm. And
Speaker 1: from that moment forward, you got this young black kid
Speaker 1: armed with his own horse in the Confederacy. This is
Speaker 1: a wild image in a critical moment and Holp Collyer's life.
Speaker 1: He joins the ninth Texas Cavalry, which is a horseback
Speaker 1: roving unit of the Confederate Army, and they become a
Speaker 1: notorious outfit. I want to read some quotes from your
Speaker 1: book about these guys. There were multiple descriptions of what
Speaker 1: they did. One guy said that they were the best
Speaker 1: horseman in the world. That was a quote. Another quote
Speaker 1: was that they were common guerrilla outlaws and that they
Speaker 1: were they were rude flists towards Union sympathizers. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: these guys were pretty bad, dude. If you were a
Speaker 1: Yankee sympathizer, it's very likely you would be tried and executed.
Speaker 1: And when they would execute somebody, they were disposed of
Speaker 1: the body by throwing them in the swamp and covering
Speaker 1: the body up with some cut cane. When somebody find
Speaker 1: a body disposed of like that, they knew that company
Speaker 1: out of the night Texas cab had been through there,
Speaker 1: and there would be a reason. But they didn't like sympathizers.
Speaker 1: But these guys kill their own. There's one account where
Speaker 1: two young men from Texas have robbed a citizen, which
Speaker 1: is not unusual, but they lined them up on creek
Speaker 1: back and shot him. Their all men, So they treat
Speaker 1: everybody equally. I'll give them that. Here's hankberd Dye with
Speaker 1: information on a very interesting request to hold from a
Speaker 1: very powerful Confederate general. He had been asked by Nathan Bedford,
Speaker 1: ours General Farrest, to ride with him. He won't hold
Speaker 1: a ride with him. He heard about holding Colonel hin
Speaker 1: whoever worded at the time, said that's up to Hope
Speaker 1: Holt soldier. I can't say what he does, what he's
Speaker 1: gonna do, that's up to him. And when the request
Speaker 1: got down to Hope, Hope sent the answer or demeral
Speaker 1: farre should he appreciated awful, but he'd already ride when
Speaker 1: the bars from Texas. He thinks he's just gonna tick
Speaker 1: with them. There are so many unique overlaps of Holtz
Speaker 1: life with odd characters in history. Nathan Bedford Forrest is
Speaker 1: an extremely controversial figure, but he can't be understood in
Speaker 1: the sound bite. So here's what I've got for you.
Speaker 1: Forrest was known as a brilliant Calvary strategist, and he
Speaker 1: once also took some heat for killing some Union soldiers
Speaker 1: after they had surrendered. But the biggest strike on his
Speaker 1: record is that he was the first grand Wizard of
Speaker 1: the clue Klux Klan and originally helped the organization grow,
Speaker 1: but as a green check on his record, years later
Speaker 1: he withdrew from the KKK and he issued a letter
Speaker 1: calling for the dissolution of the clan, and he denied
Speaker 1: that he'd ever been a member, and in a public
Speaker 1: speech in eighteen seventy five in Memphis, he said he
Speaker 1: believed that black should be able to vote and their
Speaker 1: lives elevated. I don't know, but I do know that
Speaker 1: he requested our Brohlt Collier to ride with him because
Speaker 1: Holt was bad to the bone, and this twenty year
Speaker 1: old black man turned him down. I like the boldness
Speaker 1: of it. Here's more from Hank on the ninth Texas Cavalry.
Speaker 1: Now the beauty of Holt riding with the ninth Texas Covery,
Speaker 1: holy little guys out of Texas. They were the wildest, wiriest,
Speaker 1: craziest little things you've ever seen. Could ride a horsh
Speaker 1: like lightning. One of the things that they did they
Speaker 1: would urdle a tree with two six shooters as they
Speaker 1: would run around the tree at a wide open galloping space,
Speaker 1: shooting into the tree. I hope you gotta understand and
Speaker 1: remember that he was running the best horsemen around. He
Speaker 1: raised on a horse. He would he would go and
Speaker 1: race horses all up in Kentucky and definitely, and he
Speaker 1: was in charge of He worked at a stable when
Speaker 1: he was young, and he took care of hounds. But
Speaker 1: he also he was in charge of him. He was
Speaker 1: the hustler, hustler so to speak, which takes care of
Speaker 1: all the animals on the place. Plus he was given
Speaker 1: that Webley Scott shotgun to kill as much game as
Speaker 1: he could to feed the plantation. And he was an
Speaker 1: expert marksman. Hold wasn't a great big man. He wasn't
Speaker 1: a slight man, but he wasn't a huge big, bulky
Speaker 1: kind of guy. He could get around, and he did.
Speaker 1: Holtz involvement with this rough gang of horsemen out of
Speaker 1: Texas Impacts, and this was a wild and chaotic time period.
Speaker 1: Once Holt went under cover like Brent Reeves to bus
Speaker 1: some bad outlaws, there's a wonderful story. It was just
Speaker 1: outlaw haveing back then. You didn't know who to trust.
Speaker 1: You'd be lucky to get to go to bed at night.
Speaker 1: There were outlaws roaming everywhere. And there was a fellow
Speaker 1: who lived on an island seventy six. And the islands
Speaker 1: are numbered in the Mississippi River, and they're numbered going
Speaker 1: down river up from where the confluence of the Ohio
Speaker 1: River and the Mississippi River. So the first island south
Speaker 1: of that would be number one, and then the second
Speaker 1: island would be number two, et cetera. Coming on down,
Speaker 1: there's a fell out there who's who sells timber that
Speaker 1: you got all these Union gunboats coming up and down
Speaker 1: the river, and and he's he's going he's making raids.
Speaker 1: He's an outlaw, and he's making raids into the interior
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi Delta, stealing livestock, stealing the slaves, of
Speaker 1: burning houses. And they approached company out of the night
Speaker 1: Texas Cavalry, and they say, we got to do something
Speaker 1: with this felt. It's kind of a reunion with how
Speaker 1: Heinz and whole car here. And they come up with
Speaker 1: a plan and they say, well, let's put Hold out
Speaker 1: there on this island and he'll be a spy and
Speaker 1: he'll come back into two or three days and tell
Speaker 1: us where all the buildings are, where everybody is, where
Speaker 1: the weapons are kept. That kind because there would have
Speaker 1: been there would have been slaves on that island, and
Speaker 1: Holt could come in acting like a runaway, acting like
Speaker 1: a runaway, and that's exactly what happened. Hope went out
Speaker 1: there and he stayed with on this island for two
Speaker 1: or three days, and he came back and he gave
Speaker 1: his report, and then Hold went in with him, and
Speaker 1: how the Hens joined him, and they went in on
Speaker 1: these very quiet at night, and it was a raid
Speaker 1: and they killed a bunch of people, and they took
Speaker 1: the four main characters who lived on the island who
Speaker 1: were part of his outlaw gang, and and strung him
Speaker 1: up and hum And that was in of Milford alan
Speaker 1: Co I believe his name was Holtz saw some wild
Speaker 1: stuff in the ninth Texas Calvary, and you can infer
Speaker 1: it's influenced by the gunfights he get into later in
Speaker 1: his life. Here's the end of Holt's career as a soldier.
Speaker 1: At the end of the war, Holt says that, uh,
Speaker 1: he he mustered out in Vicksburg, and uh, I have
Speaker 1: no reason to doubt that he ends up going back
Speaker 1: to What does that mean? Well, you muster in and
Speaker 1: you must out. That's what you're signed in. And he
Speaker 1: signed out. And now I know that that's a very
Speaker 1: highly debated issue about blacks and the Confederacy, but I
Speaker 1: found several accounts of it out of northern newspapers, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know where where the Union soldiers were right back home,
Speaker 1: they've they've encountered black Confederates. I don't I don't question
Speaker 1: that it happened. If they exist, didn't I think they did.
Speaker 1: They were all brought in as his servants and ended
Speaker 1: up with. As Shelby Foote would say, why are you fighting?
Speaker 1: It has nothing political other than the fact it because
Speaker 1: you've invaded us, and that Farewell could have been the
Speaker 1: motive behind it. Hold service with the Confederacy went from
Speaker 1: day one to the very end. He never left him.
Speaker 1: He never was a wall. He followed orders. He never
Speaker 1: got any kind of commission, obviously, and he never had
Speaker 1: a uniform, but he had a Confederate hat. And we
Speaker 1: had many photographs of him in that Confederate hat. And
Speaker 1: if you read the narratives from the Ninth Texas Cavalry,
Speaker 1: they wore they had in a very unusual way, and
Speaker 1: that was with the front turned up. In all of
Speaker 1: these pictures of Hope wearing his Confederate hat has the
Speaker 1: front turned up just exactly the way the Ninth Texas
Speaker 1: Cavalry narratives describe it. And Hope wore that hat to
Speaker 1: his death bed. He he loved that hat, and in
Speaker 1: his many of his photographs in later life he's wearing
Speaker 1: that still. That whols involvement in the Civil War is
Speaker 1: one of the most mysterious parts of his life, at
Speaker 1: least as we would look at it from today's perspective.
Speaker 1: I think it made complete sense to him, and on
Speaker 1: the surface it seems simple. He was endeared to the
Speaker 1: people that owned him, and an army had invaded the
Speaker 1: area he called home, and perhaps it was even the
Speaker 1: naivety of his youth thrown in there and him not
Speaker 1: understanding the bigger picture. Regardless, Jonathan has some insightful ideas
Speaker 1: on Holt's involvement in the Civil War. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that that Collier's involvement is a civil war is
Speaker 1: the main place that that I take some umbrage with
Speaker 1: the way the story is told about him, because what
Speaker 1: are the what's the actual motivations behind that. So this
Speaker 1: idea of like the loyal slave is problematic to me
Speaker 1: because one, it completely ignores the fact that you're dealing
Speaker 1: with people that have no choice. I don't think that
Speaker 1: the motivations could possibly be as as simple or as
Speaker 1: buying area. As he loved the people that enslaved him
Speaker 1: and enslaved his mother and either and everyone he ever
Speaker 1: knew and cared about so much that he was willing
Speaker 1: to put his life on the line to protect them,
Speaker 1: it is possible for a situation to be more complex
Speaker 1: than the summation of all the information we have. I
Speaker 1: think Holt deserves more than turning this story into a
Speaker 1: story about race. All of us simply wants to celebrate
Speaker 1: the life of an incredible man, but the story of
Speaker 1: race is the backdrop of his whole life, So in
Speaker 1: an effort to understand his context, we owe it to
Speaker 1: halt to talk about it. Jonathan and I have a
Speaker 1: lot of rapport with one another and have always been
Speaker 1: able to have productive conversations about tough subjects. Here's Jonathan again.
Speaker 1: There's no denying the fact that he fought for the Confederacy,
Speaker 1: and not only fought, but did so with the distinction
Speaker 1: to the point that he was able to apply for
Speaker 1: and receive a Confederate pension, which is mind boggling. But
Speaker 1: to me, that speaks more to the extraordinary nature of
Speaker 1: the man, much more so than this idea that he
Speaker 1: so loved his you know, his brutalizers. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 1: it's certain that Hult Collier was an outlier. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't he the one that told us why he did
Speaker 1: what he did? Yeah, So that's a good point, and
Speaker 1: I and I would actually argue that that is further
Speaker 1: evidence of him being in an extraordinary person and an outlier.
Speaker 1: I think it would be anyone who understands Collier's story
Speaker 1: would be hard pressed to say that he wasn't incredibly capable,
Speaker 1: naturally intelligent, politically adapt and if you think about the
Speaker 1: time that this man lived in, he never was free
Speaker 1: of the yoke of white supremacy at any point. Right,
Speaker 1: the argument could actually be made, and I think pretty
Speaker 1: pretty astutely, that the South was a much more dangerous
Speaker 1: place for black people after the Civil War than it
Speaker 1: was before because that social order had been so upended
Speaker 1: that there was a brutality that was that was instituted
Speaker 1: to try and hold onto the vestiges of that social order. Right. So,
Speaker 1: what I would say about whole Collier telling these stories
Speaker 1: in the way that he did, explaining his motivations, there's
Speaker 1: kind of two possibility. It's either that everything he's saying
Speaker 1: and putting out there into the cultural zeitguys is true
Speaker 1: that he loved these people that he hated Yankees, or
Speaker 1: he's a person who spent his whole life within these
Speaker 1: systems and he understood that for him to to have
Speaker 1: some sort of quality of life, it was necessary for
Speaker 1: him to ingratiate himself to the people around him that
Speaker 1: had power, and to ingratiate himself to a social narrative
Speaker 1: that provided comfort to those people that were in a
Speaker 1: powerful position. Very interesting thoughts a black man getting a
Speaker 1: Confederate pension is incredibly rare and only documented a few times. Basically,
Speaker 1: the United States government gave money to Confederate soldiers injured
Speaker 1: in the Civil War in hopes to help rebuild the South.
Speaker 1: It's unclear if and how Halt was injured, but he
Speaker 1: did get a small Confederate pension. Tighten up your belts, brothers,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna get even deeper. This is bear grease, folks.
Speaker 1: We ain't scared of this kind of talk. I'd argue
Speaker 1: that what allowed him to endure was his understanding the
Speaker 1: people around him so intimately that he was able to
Speaker 1: manipulate them into allowing him to take advantage of opportunities
Speaker 1: that virtually no other black men around him were able
Speaker 1: to access. So does that make him a problematic figure?
Speaker 1: I mean, because it it feels like what you're saying
Speaker 1: means that he was being disingenuous through his whole life.
Speaker 1: So if that were the k is he is he
Speaker 1: a hero? Or is he a villain? Oh? Man? I
Speaker 1: think that, again, rejecting the buying area, I don't think
Speaker 1: you can say either, right, I think that Do you
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying? No, I totally I totally get
Speaker 1: what you're saying, because if I mean, if you thought
Speaker 1: that train of thought, it feels like you're saying, if
Speaker 1: he was being true to himself and true to his people,
Speaker 1: he should have been outwardly against all these people. No,
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that so one
Speaker 1: at one point in my life I would I might
Speaker 1: have been implying to say that he was a traitor
Speaker 1: or sellout or whatever, And now I'm kind of more
Speaker 1: implying to say that he's a complicated human being, which
Speaker 1: we all are. Right. What I'm saying is that his
Speaker 1: circumstances were so different than the ones we live in
Speaker 1: today that it's difficult to to bring all of our
Speaker 1: sensibilities and understandings to those interpretations, right, which is I'm
Speaker 1: not playing a moral relativism game here, but I am
Speaker 1: saying that when you're dealing with a system that is
Speaker 1: completely devoid of honor, completely devoid of righteousness, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I can fully criticize somebody who finds a
Speaker 1: way to survive and in some ways thrive within it.
Speaker 1: And you know, honestly, that's one of the more interesting
Speaker 1: things about Collier's life. To me is how complicated it
Speaker 1: really had to be. That's one thing that's for sure.
Speaker 1: The South after the Civil War was a complicated place
Speaker 1: and time. I now want to dive into two unbelievable stories.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one and I'll let Minor tell you
Speaker 1: the other. Shortly after the war, when Holt was nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, He's still living and working for his former owner,
Speaker 1: how Heinz. They're trying to order an uber of the time,
Speaker 1: which was a pay for horse on coach, and the
Speaker 1: white driver of the uber refuses to let Holt, a black,
Speaker 1: emancipated freed slave, ride the coach. Hol Hins objects and
Speaker 1: gets in a physical altercation with the uber driver and
Speaker 1: old how was a fighter with a short fuse, and
Speaker 1: the coach driver pulls out a knife and is about
Speaker 1: to stab how when Holt, who is armed, pulls a
Speaker 1: pistol and shoots the guy in the hip. Holt would
Speaker 1: later say that he didn't want to kill the man,
Speaker 1: but just keep him from killing how. The gunshot ends
Speaker 1: the fight, and in an almost unbelievable outcome, how and
Speaker 1: several other influential people on the coach tell the authorities
Speaker 1: what happened and no charges were ever pressed on this
Speaker 1: nineteen year old kid that shot a white man in
Speaker 1: Mississippi shortly after the Civil War. That is a wild story.
Speaker 1: Here's my miner talking about the most trouble that whole
Speaker 1: would ever get in. It involved the killing of a
Speaker 1: former Union officer. He ends up going back to Greenville, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: where howl Haines ends up going back. And the South,
Speaker 1: not just the Greenville or Fayette or but the entire
Speaker 1: South now is occupied in what is known as the
Speaker 1: Reconstruction era, and economically it's a terribly depressed time. But
Speaker 1: the Union soldiers are still here. They're in occupying for
Speaker 1: the wars over. The slaves are emancipated. Slaves are emancipated.
Speaker 1: They come under the jurisdiction of something called the Freedman's Bureau,
Speaker 1: so organized and it's control and it's run by the
Speaker 1: Union Army. The captain, the commander at Greenville is a
Speaker 1: guy named James A. Keen from Newton, Iowa. And he
Speaker 1: was born and raised an abolitionist, and he fought the
Speaker 1: entire war for the Union Army. And he's been given
Speaker 1: this command and his command is basically manage and control
Speaker 1: the entire former slave labor force and negotiate contracts with
Speaker 1: what remaining plantations that owners there are, so that he
Speaker 1: can collect the money and then spread it out among
Speaker 1: the labor force. At the end of the season and
Speaker 1: the hinds and still have land. They're devastated financially, but
Speaker 1: they still got a piece of property had been taken
Speaker 1: away from him. Yet they end up losing it at all.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen sixty six they negotiate with James A. King,
Speaker 1: so many bills per aker, They'll pay him whatever those
Speaker 1: bills of country bales of cotton. At the end of
Speaker 1: the season, they give him the money and he's to
Speaker 1: disperse it well. James King, as you might imagine, didn't
Speaker 1: have a very good reputation among the locals. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was accused of stealing money. Was it was, It was
Speaker 1: pretty common. As I said, Howell Hinz has been wounded
Speaker 1: twice during the war, and so he and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say it was an envelope, but he was a
Speaker 1: crippled man. And Holt tells later in life about the
Speaker 1: fact that James King had picked several fights with Howell Haines,
Speaker 1: and Holts says it's a good thing he wasn't there
Speaker 1: because he would have killed him on the spot. So
Speaker 1: there's bad blood between James A. King and Howell Haines,
Speaker 1: and being true to his past, Holt had threatened to
Speaker 1: kill King. And the money comes in. The cotton crop
Speaker 1: is sold, and in Natchez and New Orleans. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but young Thomas and Howell Haines A Holts going into town,
Speaker 1: right into Greenville for some reason. It says, stop by
Speaker 1: James King's wherever you can find him, tell him the
Speaker 1: money is here, to come on out. And so Hope
Speaker 1: goes to the boarding house, tells James King the money
Speaker 1: is at at home at plumber Its plantation for him
Speaker 1: to come pick it up. And the hole goes on
Speaker 1: about his business, and James came in. This money is
Speaker 1: money that has been so there's been work done by
Speaker 1: this cotton has been sold and now this money James
Speaker 1: King gets us. How is going to give King this
Speaker 1: money to distribute to the former slaves. That's so James
Speaker 1: King makes two mistakes. He goes out that evening. It's
Speaker 1: obviously he's gonna be coming back in the dark. And
Speaker 1: he goes along and his body has found three days later,
Speaker 1: his horses. His horses found rider list the next morning
Speaker 1: in Greenville, and so the search party goes out and
Speaker 1: they find his body and it's covered by Kine in
Speaker 1: the same manner that the company I have, the Knight's
Speaker 1: Texas Cavalry used to cover the bodies and people, as
Speaker 1: we discussed earlier. And so they immediately they went out
Speaker 1: and question the hind Us, and they immediately zero in
Speaker 1: on Hold and they arrest Hold, charging him with the
Speaker 1: murder of James King. It's one year after the Civil
Speaker 1: War and Holt is charged with murdering a white guy
Speaker 1: who was a Union officer. And don't forget he's already
Speaker 1: shot another white guy. There's no way this is to
Speaker 1: end well. Holt never confesses. It's a big mystery. Who
Speaker 1: killed James King. They take Hold down to Vicksburg, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and then the old courthouse which is still there, the
Speaker 1: Warren County Courthouse. They have a military court martial of
Speaker 1: a civilian for the murder of this Union officer, and
Speaker 1: it's uh. He's found not guilty. Many of the prominent
Speaker 1: people of Greenville, Mississippi, come down for this hearing and howl.
Speaker 1: Heinz scratches up enough money to hire William Alexander Percy,
Speaker 1: who is known as the Gray Eagle of the Delta.
Speaker 1: His son made great famous Leroy Percy, a United States
Speaker 1: Senator and friend of the the big time lawyer, the best,
Speaker 1: and uh there was no There was nobody to compare
Speaker 1: to William Alexander Percy. But fortunately as as anybody in
Speaker 1: criminal law in those of the convictions, because somebody talks,
Speaker 1: assume their version of the prosecution as correct. Ho would
Speaker 1: have been the only one there. And James King was
Speaker 1: killed he never talked. Holtz acquittal, meaning he was found
Speaker 1: not guilty, is almost unbelievable. William Alexander Percy was the
Speaker 1: best lawyer in Mississippi and wielded incredible power in the Delta.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to consider why he'd take the case of
Speaker 1: a young black man that everybody knew was guilty. Later
Speaker 1: we'll learn that the Percy family fought adamantly against the
Speaker 1: klu Klux Klan and had an uncommon vision for the
Speaker 1: reconstructed South. Wholes acquittal is one of the greatest examples
Speaker 1: of the uncommon nature of his life. He had a
Speaker 1: way of gaining people's loyalty here's Hank Berdine with the
Speaker 1: story behind the story about the trial. They took him
Speaker 1: to Vicksburg, had him arrested for the murder of Captain King.
Speaker 1: Mr Pressure went DNA representing him and all these other folks. When,
Speaker 1: as his character witnesses, the court house is still down there,
Speaker 1: the courtrooms on the second floor. He was acquitted, and
Speaker 1: there was a reporter there from up north, whether it
Speaker 1: was a carpet bagging reporter or whatever, and said to
Speaker 1: the judge, says, judge, why did you let that man go?
Speaker 1: You know he was guilty. And the judge says, would
Speaker 1: you walk over to that one and look out on
Speaker 1: that front yard? And the guy did, and he looked
Speaker 1: out in the front yard of the court house at
Speaker 1: Warren County in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the banks of the
Speaker 1: Mississippi River, and there stood six of the Ninth Texas
Speaker 1: Cavalry cowboys and there were seven horses. He said, they
Speaker 1: were gonna get him anyway, no mind of what. So
Speaker 1: his buddies in the Ninth Texas Cavalry knew he was
Speaker 1: going to trial, and basically, if he was convicted, they
Speaker 1: were going to take him by forest and bust him
Speaker 1: out of there, and they looked at the world back then.
Speaker 1: Was that unstable? That that was a real thing. I
Speaker 1: mean it was like this was that this was right
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, This this place was just chaos,
Speaker 1: us down here, and so I mean this, this wasn't
Speaker 1: just an idle threat. And when you had six of
Speaker 1: the ninth Texas after much, they couldn't do what't much
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do. If Holt had a bumper sticker slogan,
Speaker 1: it might have been ready to roll. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: good descriptor of him. In everything he did, he didn't
Speaker 1: seem to let much hold him back. In this first episode,
Speaker 1: we've covered only the first twenty years of holtz life
Speaker 1: and he lived to be ninety, so we've got an
Speaker 1: interesting journey ahead of us. Like Jonathan Wilkins said, holtz
Speaker 1: life can't be understood in a binary way, meaning that
Speaker 1: there are only two options. It wasn't just black and white.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we can fully understand him, but
Speaker 1: we're going to do our best to do it. His
Speaker 1: wholehearted engagement in the Civil War is shooting of multiple
Speaker 1: white men shortly after the war, and not get and
Speaker 1: in trouble for it. It's wild. It's clear that he
Speaker 1: had an incredible drawl to his life that overrode the
Speaker 1: predominant relational themes of the time. It's a shame that
Speaker 1: America doesn't know the story of Whole Call. You're on
Speaker 1: a broad scale, and I think we can make this
Speaker 1: statement that it's definitely a complicated story, but that's exactly
Speaker 1: why it needs to be told. I can't wait for
Speaker 1: episode two. I can't thank you, guys and gals enough
Speaker 1: for listening to Bear Grease. We've got some very interesting
Speaker 1: episodes coming up as we continue to explore the incredible
Speaker 1: life from this man. So do me a favor. Tell
Speaker 1: a body about this podcast, leave us a review on iTunes,
Speaker 1: Go check out the meat eater dot com for some
Speaker 1: Bear Grease merch, and I can't wait to talk all
Speaker 1: this over with the Render crew next week. M