I mentioned Cathay Williams in passing in my piece on New Mexico's Buffalo Soldiers a few weeks ago (and a couple of years ago). Her story is so unique that she deserves her own post.
Her father was a free man, but her mother was enslaved, and so she was born enslaved — in 1844, as nearly as anyone can tell — in Independence, Missouri. It appears she took the name of her birthplace seriously.
She spent her childhood as a "house slave" on a plantation owned by a man named Johnson, in the area of Jefferson City. In 1861, however, when she was seventeen, Union forces arrived in Missouri and took control of Jefferson City. Young Ms. Williams saw an opportunity, and she took it.
The U.S. military was busily pressing young Black men, slaves and former slaves, into service on behalf of the Union. In the U.S., some definitions of "freedom" never change. But freedwomen were regarded as suitable cannon fodder, as well, even though they were relegated to supporting, rather than combat, roles. And seventeen-year-old Cathay Williams was no exception: Because, as a slave, she was property rather than a person, she was now classified as "contraband," giving Union forces the right to seize and dispose of her as they saw fit. That "disposition" turned out the be service in the 8th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
That service was the catalyst by which Cathay Williams became William Cathay, Buffalo Soldier.
