EP 4 Mary Fields - Freedom Personified | Women And Resistance

This episode features the inspiring story of Mary Fields, also known as Stagecoach Mary, an African American woman born enslaved who became a legendary mail carrier in Montana. She defied racial and gender barriers, showcasing resilience, loyalty, and strength in the face of adversity.

Takeaways

*Mary Fields' early life and slavery in Tennessee
*Her journey to Montana and life on the frontier
*Her role as the first African American woman mail carrier
*Her relationships with Native Americans and white communities
*Her defiance of gender and racial norms

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Mary Fields
01:11 Mary Fields: A Life of Resilience
03:34 From Enslavement to Freedom
08:15 Friendship Across Boundaries
13:00 Challenges in the Wild West
16:23 Becoming Stagecoach Mary
24:16 Trailblazing as a Mail Carrier
26:24 The Commitment to Delivering Mail
28:11 The Importance of Community and Connection
29:43 Resilience and Overcoming Adversity
30:38 Building a Life and Community
32:32 Reflections on Identity and Humanity
34:16 Legacy and Impact
40:21 Understanding Historical Contexts
44:06 The Complexity of Freedom and Oppression
47:32 Empowering Future Generations

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

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Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:05.979)
Yes, greetings, greetings, and welcome to another episode of Women in Resistance. I am your host, Adesso G. Ginla, and with me as usual is my co-host, Aya Fobera Enelly Esquire, before she goes into character. And today we are again towing the part of another extraordinary woman. This particular individual was born enslaved somewhere in Tennessee.

She lived to become one of the freest souls to ever draw breath. But those are not our words. That's the words of Gary Cooper, another Montana native who chose to elogize a black woman. She had he had known as a neighbor since childhood. He wrote those words in Ebony Magazine, an issue released in 1959, which was more than four decades after.

Her death. But that tells you something. And today we have the honor of having Miss Fields with us. Welcome.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14.008)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17.233)
Yes. the name Mary Fields might be no news to you, but to our audience. Could you just give us a a brief introduction of who Mary Fields is?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:40.408)
Whole life. There's not a need a whole lot of need for talking. I'm the kind of woman who I get things done. Now

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:00.471)
I like my whiskey. I like my cigars. I was always told I was too big, too black, too loud. And you know what? Even though I believe I was born in 1832, and those of you who know anything about history know that.

We African Americans, as you call us today, Negroes back then, not too many of us were free. And I was born on a plantation in Tennessee, 1832. So I was an enslaved woman. But I tell you what, I'm likely to knock you flat on your back if you gave me any kind of cause.

Adesoji Iginla (02:46.449)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:57.438)
Now

My name is Mary Fields. Some call me Black Mary. The newspapers eventually, when they could no longer ignore me, because you know that's what they like to do to us black people, they called me Stagecoach Mary.

Adesoji Iginla (03:22.963)
Survey.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:23.135)
Although I was born a slave, or should I say born enslaved?

Died a free woman in Montana, the wild, wild west. And the day I died, when they had my funeral, they closed down the schools so all the children could attend. Now what happened?

In between my birth as an enslaved person, considered nothing but chattel, and what happened when I died and was celebrated, that's a long story.

Adesoji Iginla (04:09.743)
Once one second, you keep you keep your mic keep going in and out. You want to go back and come back in.

'Cause maybe that would

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:22.957)
See, back in my time, we didn't have these issues. When you talk to a person, you talk to a person, you can't hear me.

Adesoji Iginla (04:31.987)
I can hear you now.

But try again.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:36.087)
Can y'all hear me? Cause I'm not the kind of woman to have to repeat myself twice.

Adesoji Iginla (04:39.526)
Yes, I can hear you.

Adesoji Iginla (04:45.171)
We're gonna hear you now. We're gonna hear you now.

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:52.299)
I got other things to do. Y'all can hear me now?

Adesoji Iginla (04:57.639)
We can hear you loud and clear.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:00.159)
All right then. Well, like I was saying, what happened between being born a slave, as they called us, which I never did answer to. And when I died, and lived a long life. I was in my 80s when I died by my calculation. Now that's a story.

Probably one of the reasons I drink whiskey as much as I do, excuse me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:35.534)
You know, by the time I got to Montana, they didn't too much let women go into the salons, you know, being all genteel and stuff. But they made an exception for for Mary. For black Mary, they made an exception. Some folk didn't quite know how to take me. If I had an inkling, I would wear some men's pants.

I always had my pistol right tucked right into my waistband underneath my apron. And I had my shotgun too. You know what? Some legends say I even trained an eagle. And I tell you, that eagle came in handy from time to time. And then I had my good faithful dog as well. But I'm skipping all over this story.

I can tell you who my mommy was, I couldn't tell you who my papy was.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:43.479)
But I'll tell you what I can tell you. I could outwork any man. Some folks said I was over six feet tall, over 200 pounds, wide in the hips, and loud in the mouth. Yes, sir, I could do anything a man could do. I did all their work and then some, but I was a woman. And I tell you, at one point,

after working on the on the plantation where you know it was real clear to me at a young age I was born black and I was a dark black you know I was one of them black black black folk

Adesoji Iginla (07:32.659)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:34.878)
And I was born a woman. And let me tell you, back in them days, it was bad enough you were black. To be born a woman as well, you had less rights than she you couldn't even hardly spell the word rights. You were basically nothing. But I wasn't about to accept that not then, not now.

Adesoji Iginla (07:55.004)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:01.895)
Anyway, by the time I was in my 30s, I was out. 1865 and that war hit. I found my way off that plantation. Next thing you know, I was working on this steamboat. You know who the steamboat was named for? Robert E. Lee. Now I tell you about an exciting time because the Robert E. Lee.

Adesoji Iginla (08:20.445)
No, no.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:28.673)
And the Natchez ships, steamships, thing that they well, you call them ships now. We call them steamboats back then. They decided to do a race. Boy, it was an exciting three day lit race. Cause here it was. The Natchez was fueled by coal. The Robert Ely ship. That steamboat was fueled by wood. And let me tell you.

Adesoji Iginla (08:54.62)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:56.299)
We did everything we could get to get that steam going, 'cause we were gonna win that race. I mean we threw in ham hocks, we threw in sides of hams, I mean whatever it took to keep that steam going, and you better believe I was right there working it. the excitement in the air.

And we did win. We beat that Natchez. Yes, we sure did. But you know what? In all of these travels on the steamship, I met a Judge Dunn, D-U-N-N. And like I said, I could outwork just about anybody. Shoot, I could outwork everybody if I just tell the truth. And I'm always a straight talker.

Adesoji Iginla (09:29.059)
Right done. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:40.238)
Because what you gonna do to me if I don't talk straight? Some of you out here so afraid, you're afraid of your own shadow. Anyhow, he hired me as his confidential servant, whatever the hell that meant. But what you knew about Black Mare was I like I said, I was a straight shooter and I was loyal, I had integrity, and I would get the job done.

Well, at some point I met his sister and his wife's sister. And both of them, they decided to become nuns. And that was my good friend, Dolly Nunn. And we were friends up to the end.

Adesoji Iginla (10:21.661)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:30.465)
Now, Dolly Nunn, you know, she was born in Toledo. We were about as different as night and day. I'm big, brash, loud mouthed, strong. She all genteel, white, blonde, fragile, you know, like the wind could just blow her down. But we formed a friendship. And as I was going through my travails and things like that.

When she decided to answer the call of the Jesuit priests and go west to Montana, you know, can hardly tell my story. You gotta understand the lay of the land. So it wasn't enough to have taken over the land that the white folk already had. They wanted to go west and keep pushing out and killing off the Native Americans.

Adesoji Iginla (11:27.827)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:28.081)
You know what? At one point, they couldn't get the Native Americans to surrender to them. Now, they don't tried everything. You know, the blankets with the smallpox and stuff, shooting them down, all of that. Them Native Americans, listen, they will come in at night and just steal the horses. So you know what these folk contrive to do?

Adesoji Iginla (11:50.387)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (11:54.355)
Hello?

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:56.3)
They started killing off the buffalo. You don't believe me? You go check the books y'all got. I tell you, you go look for it, you are going to see pictures of mounds of buffalo bones. They just killed the buffalo. Because, see, here, what they realized is the buffalo was key to the Native American survival.

Cause they use that buffalo from the rooter to the tutor to the everything.

You know, they were kind of like us. You figured out how to make do with what you had, but you took care of what you had. So the buffalo dung, you could use that to help build your homes, keep you warm. You could also use it for fire cooking and stuff. The hide for clothes for it, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (12:36.935)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (12:48.667)
All right. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:54.367)
Of course, the flesh you're gonna use for eating, every part of the buffalo was important, but they respected the buffalo. So you didn't kill it for sport. And when they studied the Native Americans and figured out that would be a weak area, they let the Native Americans alone and just went after the buffalo.

Now you kill enough buffalo, and folk can't cook, can't keep themselves warm, can't put clothes on their backs and all of that. Now you got them where you want them. Anyhow, they just moving west. And so here come these Jesuits priests in the name of God. Now I'm not gonna blaspheme God because in the end days I did come back to God, but there was a time when I had to take my leave. Because you know, evil just evil.

Well, them Jesuits priests they want the nuns to go out to Montana.

So they can build some missionaries and build some convent schools, you know, because what they were fixing to do was to take the Native American kids from their folk. And then they were going to turn them into light little white people. Make sure they don't know their language. They only speak English. They look like the that's what, and that's what they did. But anyway, my friends,

Adesoji Iginla (14:06.011)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:23.243)
Y'all still can hear me, right? okay. Just checking because I ain't gonna repeat myself now. So

Adesoji Iginla (14:24.869)
Loud and clear. Loud and clear.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:35.327)
My friend at this point, she was now a mother superior, you hear me?

And as a mother superior, she they threw so much money at this thing that she decided, even though it was a hard life out in that wild, wild west, I mean she was sleeping on the floor and everything. She decided that she would go out and that she would go up to Montana with some other nuns, and they would do what the Jesuits priest needed them to do.

In the name of civilizing the Native Americans, and then you know, providing education for the pioneers. You know, they give themselves all these kind of fancy names that really cover up what is what it is they really are about. Pioneers. Pioneers. Y'all ever listen to words and just kind of wonder how they come up with that? Anyway, so she was my friend, Dolly Nunn.

Adesoji Iginla (15:17.223)
Thirty one. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:42.237)
She was an Ursulin nun. She took the name Mother Amedias, huh?

Adesoji Iginla (15:46.257)
You're going in and out again.

You're coming in and out again, the the sound and

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:52.504)
Wow, like what's going on here? All right. Can you hear me good now?

Adesoji Iginla (15:59.068)
Okay, when you lean back, w yeah, when you lean back, it's okay. I think when you lean forward, there's there's some sort of feedback.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:05.811)
Now you're gonna control how I do my body. That's it, that ain't gonna work for me. Can y'all hear me now?

Adesoji Iginla (16:15.421)
Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:22.795)
Make me have to drink all of this stuff.

strong whiskey too. All right. So you all can still hear me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:37.835)
You can't hear me?

Adesoji Iginla (16:39.219)
Loud and clear, we can hear you. We can hear you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:42.805)
Right, because I'm gonna have to get up and get my cigar if you keep you just messing with my nerves right now. Okay, so here's the thing I was not a man, I was a worker though, and when my friend Mother Amedias, who is now Mother Superior, when she said, Hey, you know, you can come out here and help out some.

I said, well, you know, I'll I'll go on out there. But I was going to earn my way because I ain't no charity case. So I was a worker. I wasn't a nun. I wasn't about to live that life. I did the hauling. I did the building, and there was plenty of building that needed to be done because we're out in the middle of nowhere. And you know what? Out in Montana, when that winter hit, be about like negative 40 degrees.

Adesoji Iginla (17:21.639)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:40.493)
I did the repairing, I did the laundering, I did the cooking, I did the freight, everything that required muscle.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:54.732)
Did I worked hard and I kept that convent running in ways that did not get written in the official records that they write, right? But me and the mother superior, we were friends, we were real friends. I know that kind of sounds crazy because a black woman who was born enslaved and a white Catholic nun friends, and we're talking in the 1880s.

Adesoji Iginla (18:24.819)
She

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:25.089)
I'm just saying. And you know, back then the whole country was organized to keep the people, the races, separate. Everything, white only, white only, white only. What they're so afraid of, they're still afraid. But me and Mother Amadius, we were friends. I trusted her and she trusted me.

I showed up for her, and you know what? Think too many of them I can say this about. She showed up for me. So, what happened was.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:11.093)
There's a reason I had to leave where I was. Because I'd gone up and was working in Toledo with Mother Madeus before she went on up to Montana. And I was initially going to stay in Toledo. But one of the stories that is told is it was, you know, this man, white man, thought he could talk to me any kind of way.

Adesoji Iginla (19:21.661)
Turn it, okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:38.99)
And some stories said, I gave this man an understanding in terms he could not misinterpret. You know, I had to correct his understanding of who I was. And when I did that, the Bishop of Toledo heard about it, and he said, Well, you know, these actions are incompatible with the convent. He said, I had to leave.

Anyway, this is a story for another day. So, you know, I wasn't about to be disrespected. and what was my crime that I refused to be disrespected. So I I went on and I ended up in Montana, like I said, working. And at that time, with all the work I did for the comp for the convent out there, I got paid, they said, about $50 a year.

Adesoji Iginla (20:37.043)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:39.019)
Well, while I was there, I got into some more trouble, as they would say. This was the St. Peter's mission they had set up in Cascade County in a bend of the Missouri River up in Montana. And I drove wagons over terrain that would test not just men, but much younger men in any kind of weather.

Like I said, I did maintenance, I did the livestock, I did gardening, cooking, repair, whatever. I did that for almost a decade. I was about in my sixties. And then here come this bishop, got another issue with me on account of I'm uncontrollable.

Well, my friend, the mother superior, she's still looking out for me. When they put me out, I said I ain't even coming to mass no more. I'm done with the church. But she helped set me up with a restaurant in the town in Cascade County. Well, you know, the way I looked at things, we're supposed to help one another.

And so, as much as I had paying customers, I had a lot of people that I fed who didn't have nothing to pay me with. And I didn't know kind of way to do business. So my first restaurant failed. Well, Mother Superior, she came in trying to help again. I set up a second restaurant.

Adesoji Iginla (22:08.987)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:27.307)
But I hadn't changed none of my ways. And guess what? The same thing happened again. It wasn't because I couldn't cook or I couldn't do math. You know, but you can't just have food and see hungry people and just tell them they can't eat. Well, about this time, some people like get my story all mixed up.

Adesoji Iginla (22:32.392)
Failed again.

Adesoji Iginla (22:46.523)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:53.677)
Because you know, I'm going to tell about the part where I became the first African American woman we called a Negro back then to be a male carrier. Stagecoach Mary. That's where I got that name from. But before that time, I had a situation when I was working with the convent, with the mission, the St. Peter's mission, where I had some freight I had to deliver. Well,

Adesoji Iginla (23:19.099)
Thank you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:20.139)
We got into this gully, me and the horses. And it couldn't get out. It's getting nighttime. Now, one thing you're gonna know about me, I'm gonna deliver. Like I never lost no packages, no freight, no nothing, never lost no horses, neither. Well, here come the wolves. yes, sir. And it's getting dark too.

Ain't nowhere to go because I need the light to even see what the damage is to figure out how we're gonna get ourselves out of it. I have my pistol in one hand and my shutgun in the other. And you better believe people knew within 50 feet I could miss. I was that good of a marks person. I ain't even gonna call it a markswoman. Because I'm everything I need to be in any moment.

Well, I kept them wolves at bay. Another part of the story, you take it how you want to take it, is it was me and my eagle plus my dog. We were a teen. We kept those hungry wolves at bay until sunlight. And then I could see. And I got my wagon and my horses out of that gully, and we continued on our way.

Adesoji Iginla (24:22.557)
Sure.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:48.673)
People marveled, but that's just the kind of person I was. Anywho, when that second restaurant failed, it was time to figure out now what next. Now I see where they're advertising, they need a mail carrier.

You got to understand back in them days. Now I know male carriers today, they still be catching hell. Because some of you all don't got the sense God gave you. You're gonna have your wild dogs out. You know how many mail carriers done been bitten by dogs? Just trying to deliver your packages to you. You need to get some sense about yourselves. But back then, it wasn't just some dogs from some.

Folk that didn't have sense, that was the issue. We had to travel. I had my my route that I was assigned was about 19 miles. I'm talking about some rough terrain. You know what I'm saying? Men, some most men couldn't travel that. And when I went in to apply for that job, two things got me that job. One,

Adesoji Iginla (25:50.6)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:09.515)
was first the backing of my friend, Dolly Nunn, now Mother Superior Amadis. One second now.

Ha ha ha.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:28.083)
The other was, they said, well, you can't do this job.

I said, well let me prove it to you. They got all kinds of men who want the job because on the account that that job paid seventy five dollars a year. That's a good job.

Adesoji Iginla (26:47.42)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:53.183)
Well, I went to showing them how I could lasso a horse. I went to show them how I can have complete control of a stagecoach. I should. None of those men could touch me. I think they were too scared to tell me no. Because I was a psych.

Well, I got the job and I never lost not one package. You know, even times when I had situations where, the stagecoach overturned, I understood that in those packages, sometimes it was food for some children. And if I didn't get that food there, folk were gonna be in a bad way.

Sometimes it's messages from family, folk waiting to hear from. Every package was important, you understand.

So I did whatever it took to make sure that every package, I don't care whether it was a snowstorm, I don't care what kind of weather it was, sometimes I had to sleep under the wagon. But I tell you what, one of the reasons not too many people wanted to take that kind of job in that particular area.

was because you had these stagecoach bandits. Yeah. There were people who made their living off of attacking these the stagecoaches and stealing. Word soon got out don't mess with Black Mary, don't mess with Stagecoach Mary, because I would do whatever I need to do.

Adesoji Iginla (28:22.629)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:44.597)
And I will kill you dead if that's what you're asking for. That's just how it was. Now I did that job, like I said, that even young men couldn't do. I had that male route from 1895. Do the math, how old I was. I told you I was born in 1832. Don't know the date I was born because listen, when you born black and woman.

And enslaved in eighteen thirty two? Don't nobody write your b birthday? It's like just a a goat was born. Don't nobody mark it?

Adesoji Iginla (29:23.995)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:27.797)
Yeah, but I delivered that mail between Cascade and Saint Peter's Mission. One way nineteen miles and the other way I did it six days a week. Hmm.

Mm Anyway

When I got that job in 1895, I became only the second woman in all of American history and the first African American woman to carry US mail. So if you are a mail carrier today and you're black like me, you better know my name. Somebody had to first open that door. I was about.

Adesoji Iginla (30:16.125)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:19.595)
Sixty three years old when I got that job.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:25.909)
What you want to do and who telling you that you're not the right gender, not the right race, not the right age, and what you believe about yourself.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:39.937)
Federal contract at sixty three from enslavement. Hm Well.

Let me tell you a little bit about the work and then I'm gonna shut up so you can ask me some questions if you want to. It's a horse-drawn carriage, you understand? Before dawn, you have to go and harness your horses. Gotta feed them, you gotta take care of them, right? Then you gotta load the mail.

Adesoji Iginla (31:10.673)
Shoes and everything.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:16.875)
Make sure you got an accounting for everything. The roads were rough. Creek crossings were unpredictable. Now the landscape I gotta tell you though, that is God's country. It was something to behold. And I won't lie, I did enjoy myself out there in the wild open.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:41.545)
Now in the autumn we wear on horseback mostly.

It was lighter, it was faster, but now you were exposed. So I didn't rightly wear this hat during that time. I had my big white, white brimmed hat, that's what I would wear.

But by October in Montana, you know that winter is on its way. And when the snow came deep enough to stop the horses, guess what I had to do to deliver that mail? Get off the horse and I walk. I strap on snowshoes and I carry that mail on my back. And I walked those miles through the blizzard every time.

Adesoji Iginla (32:20.721)
What did you do?

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:35.691)
Because I said I would.

Eight years, not one missed day. I ran that route for eight years from 1895 to 1903. Through Jim Crow, through the lynchings, I knew what was going on. I'm delivering the mail. I see, I hear.

I never missed a day of of of getting the mail. Whatever they gave me to deliver was gonna get to where it was supposed to.

Hold on to that number, that eight years. I didn't miss nothing. Not for the weather, not for illness, not for the exhaustion that comes from spending your 70s doing physical labor. Now you tell me what you're complaining about, because I know some of you were just complaining before you came here to hear me talk.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:41.931)
I didn't miss not for despair, not for bad luck, not for any of the thousand reasons a person might have to stop. I showed up every day.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:59.756)
I made a promise when I took that oath, when I took that contract, and I kept it. Now I'm not asking you to make no contract with the government. We see how they're still treating us after all these many years. But I'm gonna ask you something. I'm gonna ask you can you make a contract with yourself by how you fixing to show up and live your life?

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:31.272)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:41.729)
That mail, there weren't no telephone. We did kind of have telegraphs, but not quite in done areas. And even that had to go through us. If you were waiting for a letter from your mother in Ohio or from your son who had gone east, or even from a lawyer handling your claim, or from the doctor you had written to about your baby feeling some kind of way, you were waiting for me.

Who waiting on you and what you're supposed to be doing? And what happens when you don't show up? Because you got every excuse in the book. Let me tell you about community. I knew every family on that route. I knew who was sick. I knew who was waiting on news. I knew whose husband had been gone too long.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:42.06)
And I always had a bag of sweets which I would give to the children. And they called me Aunt Mary. See, don't take a person and just take one side of a person. Because I was a complicated kind of woman. One time I'm in the salon, right? And just me and the fellas. We're drinking and smoking and and and

Guess y'all call it gambling.

Up I pushed myself up from that table. Got up and got outside real quick. Chased this man down. When I caught up to him, OW Decked him one real good, he fell back.

Came back into the salon. I said, the de the we settled now, we even now. You know what happened was.

After nineteen three.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:46.197)
I gave up that job.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:51.021)
But I still needed to make a living.

So I opened me what y'all call a laundromart. But the laundromart at that time, that was you washing the clothes. You understand? Now maybe you could hire a couple of folk to help you, and weren't no machines. And on the account of all the relationships I had built, now that business prospered. Built me a house.

Adesoji Iginla (37:05.939)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:24.363)
And I was doing good. Now, this gentleman that I was just telling you about, he had the nerve to come and avail himself of my services and then skipped out of town and didn't pay Black Mary.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:43.66)
And then showed up a couple years later. Yeah, I decked him real good. We even now. Though nobody mess with me. Well, you know, as life sometimes will happen.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:02.911)
My house burnt down.

And you know what the community did? They came together, they brought the materials, and they brought their labor, and they built my house back up for me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:23.443)
Now, it's a lot that was going on during this time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:29.843)
I know all about Harriet Tubman and what she was doing. I knew all about Sojourner Truth. I understood Harriet Tubman when she said she never lost a passenger. See, that's the kind of metal we used to be made of. I believe we still got it in us. You just gotta tap into it. Too many of you.

I guess y'all wanna be white and genteel.

How'd that working out for your freedom?

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:11.477)
Alright. Well, now that I'm living the softer life, I ain't on out the out in the roads anymore. I'm just washing clothes. Doing well, like I said. I would always be kind to them kids. You know life was tough.

And I started a whole other thing. I figured since I didn't know my birthday, I have a birthday whenever I please. So about two times a year, I declare it was my birthday. And they will let the kids out of school early, sometimes cancel school altogether. I always had candy for them kids. I started to plant a garden. Mm.

You know, one time, you know, I told you I left that church on the account of they didn't accept my full humanity. Well, one time I did get thrown off, got thrown out of that stagecoach. I was hurt pretty bad. This was much later. And my friends, the Mother Superior and the nuns, they did help nurse me back.

Adesoji Iginla (40:11.41)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:32.511)
And so I decided to give that church, that mission another chance. And you know what? I would grow the most beautiful flowers in my garden. And I would always provide the flowers for Mass. And I would always provide flowers to my neighbors as well.

Adesoji Iginla (40:50.619)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:53.301)
Well, can't nobody live forever? Not even Stage Coach Mary. And it got to time. They said I was suffering from something, what they call it, edema. I knew my time was coming. And I didn't want to be no bother to nobody. You know? It was getting cold outside. There was one of them Montana winters coming along the way. And

I decided I'm just gonna take myself out in the fields and just lay down and wait for my maker to come take me.

So I bundled up some of my blankets and I in the night I just snuck out and found my way to a field. I was just gonna lay down and just die without no fuss. But here come these three children. They now grown. I had babysat some of them. And I don't know how those young men found me up in them grasses. I don't know what business they had out there.

But when they realized it was me and saw how poorly I was, they carried me and took me to the little hospital we had. And the doctors did everything that they could. But a couple of days later, I dead pass, comfortable. And when I died, everything stopped for Black Mary's funeral.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:45.587)
I was large, larger in spirit than I was in body, though, like I said, some said six feet tall, some said taller. The number just changes depending on who's doing the remembering. I was broad-shouldered and strong in a way that decades of fiscal labor makes a person strong. And I had a way of walking into a room, you were going to notice.

I wore men's clothing most of my whole adult life, but the one time when I went back to Mass after they had helped take care of me, I did wear this blue dress and I put on them one of them veils that the woman, the hats with the veil the woman put on their face. You women get into all kinds of things. I did it that one time. But it was trousers and heavy boots and a long coat in the winter and my white hat.

Now in the summertime I look more kinda like this. Hmm. I wore whatever I want to because I decided that nobody had the authority to tell me what to do with my body.

Adesoji Iginla (43:55.883)
yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:56.96)
And because the clothing for the women back in that time period was not built for someone who was gonna spend their day working and hauling stuff, it just didn't make no kind of sense wearing that stuff.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:12.653)
I smoked them cigars, good ones when I had the money, cheaper ones when I didn't. And I genuinely did not care what you thought about me. I tell you that the mayor of Cascade made an official declaration about my right to drink in the town salons. Absurd. It didn't matter whether he declared nothing or not. I was gonna do it. It's just what it was.

Adesoji Iginla (44:33.927)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:43.091)
And like you said, different people remember me how they can, but you read about what Gary Cooper had to say. I guess he's some kind of fancy somebody now. And I appreciate what he had to say.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:58.113)
But that was my life.

And if I had to do it today with all y'all got going for you, and nothing stopped me then, and nothing would have stopped me today. So I'm gonna stop right there. See what question you got for me, if anything.

Adesoji Iginla (45:22.618)
Hmm. yes, questions.

First would be, you talked about your relationship with Mother Madeus.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:34.764)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (45:36.475)
Was it I mean, you pointed out it was quite a unique relationship. Did you then see similar type relationships created or grow amongst the population that you were around?

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:51.726)
Like I said, back then everything was separate. They worked on the account of keeping the black folk and the white folk separated, and Mexicans too. Now, the little Native American kids they would take from their families and then try to make them into something else.

So, no, our relationship was quite unusual. The way white folk like to deal with us was that we were less than. But on account of that, even they relied on me for some of the work that I did. And even they benefited, I would say they gave me a different kind of respect, you understand. Plus, I wasn't scared of nobody.

Mind my business, but if you want some of Black Mary, you can have some of Black Mary. That's how I felt about it.

Adesoji Iginla (46:53.811)
Okay. So, I mean, you've just said you weren't scared of anything. so you spoke about the frontier, about the quote-unquote extermination of the buffalo. Question is, did you have any interactions with the Native Americans?

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:13.997)
Well, yeah, interacted with everybody. I mean, right out there, that I tell you it was the wild, wild west for real. Now, you know, I had a number of thoughts about a number of things. When you out there just riding, just you in the open sky, it gives you an opportunity to think, you know, to to observe, to to turn things around in your mind.

Adesoji Iginla (47:21.491)
huh.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:41.77)
Never did understand how people say they love God and they want to do good, but the same creations, all people created by God, now you want to put divisions. And so I saw how the Native Americans were hunted and driven from their land. I saw the sadness of those children.

Until they turned them into something where they couldn't even recognize who they were, didn't even know who their people were and what their names were. I bet you quite a few white people walking around right now thinking they white and they really native. Of course, we know they're white people who claim they native and they ain't. But

Adesoji Iginla (48:28.091)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:32.107)
It was a complicated time because if you really study our history, you see how sometimes the black people and Native Americans work together, but how sometimes, on account of everybody trying to fight for some freedom, I believe they would be manipulated into working against each other.

So, you know, we like to talk about the Buffalo soldiers, and they were some courageous men, but sometimes you know they were on the front lines of attacking the Native Americans on the behalf of white folk. We still doing it today. All of y'all in the army, in the military.

You go and fight wars against people who ain't done nothing to you. Matter of fact, you have more in common with those people than people sending you to go fight. And that's what I'm talking about, turning things over in your mind. So I saw that. And then I also saw the white people. Now understand there is complexity to this thing.

Adesoji Iginla (49:42.717)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:44.866)
There's greed. And then there are some who just wanted to be able to live. And there's many who, on account of wanting to live, were convinced that the only way to live and live good is to stand on the heads of black people and anybody else who don't look like them.

Adesoji Iginla (49:52.04)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:12.705)
So as they were going west, some of them coming west because they want to make sure with their the black people that now this was this was before the Emancipation Proclamation. Many of them going west was on account of they want to get more land that they can work with the people they've enslaved. Because you know back then they used to call it headship, right? Something like that.

And for a white man, he gets so many acres of land from the government free. And for every Negro he had working for him, they gave him additional acres of land. So you see where they got convinced in their minds that their survival and their wealth was based on.

Adesoji Iginla (51:04.955)
It's depend the number of enslaved persons they have.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:10.379)
On refusing to see our humanity. But you know what I say to them? I think all of that twisted something on the inside of them. Because you can't be that evil to other people and it not do something to you. You see what I'm saying? When we talk about racism, we like to talk about it as how the victims just being black people or

Adesoji Iginla (51:27.699)
Sure. True.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:40.35)
Any person who ain't white. But I tell you, in my opinion, from what I observed, they bigger victims than we than we was. Because they couldn't rightly like themselves. Think about the Jesuits priests. You're gonna spend all this money, build this mission, all of that. But is that the mission of God? It was the mission of man having power over people.

Adesoji Iginla (51:52.755)
Hm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:10.967)
Just like they thought they were gonna have power over me, talking about I can't defend myself, I gotta sit around and get disrespected. Not Black Mary. Anyhow. So, to answer your question, it's a complicated thing. And I don't rightly think that white folks sit around enough to see how they have done messed up their own spirits. But it's that guilt.

Under everything that makes them feel like they can't tell the whole history of this country. Because I understand y'all are about to celebrate 250 years here of this here, United States of America. How you declare independence and say you're fighting for liberty, but in your very thing that you wrote, now I didn't grow up reading, but I did learn to read eventually.

Adesoji Iginla (52:55.507)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:10.057)
In that very first document you wrote, ain't but a handful of people free. And that's white men with land. Everybody else ain't got no rights. What kind of liberty was that? And then everybody says, it's a democracy. Democracy for what? So, see, this fight here has been from the beginning. And so some of y'all black folk who think you ain't got the fight today.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:41.153)
You must be drinking something stronger than this my here whiskey.

Adesoji Iginla (53:45.159)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:48.014)
Or you need to get you some better whiskey because you know you drink the right kind of whiskey, clear your eye. You get a better understanding. Yeah, that's what I believe. Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (54:01.272)
Mm-hmm. Yes. that said, that's my final question. for the audience,

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:13.483)
You know what? Why you keep laughing? I'm saying something funny.

Adesoji Iginla (54:19.099)
No, I I'm just thinking about the salient points you're dri driving with regards to the hypocrisy of declaring freedom. Yet freedom belongs to only a couple of people. And then and then they get and then they get the population to actually buy into that's why I was laughing. That's

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:34.317)
Mm-hmm. Still is that way. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:42.655)
And they're still working on our oppression because they still believing the key to their survival and their wealth is to oppress us.

Adesoji Iginla (54:46.151)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (54:51.557)
And you will still find some people who say, Well, the founding fathers said this. The founding fathers said

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:56.909)
I don't know who father they were. Like I said, I don't know my papy, I don't know my mommy, but I know they ain't my founding father.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:06.093)
I don't know why you keep laughing. I ain't trying to be funny. That ain't even who I am. All right. What other question you got?

Adesoji Iginla (55:06.202)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (55:16.135)
So yes, one final one final question. And the question is you when you went in for the job of the male runner, the mail coach.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:31.127)
This is some real good whiskey, by the way. Yes, what's your question?

Adesoji Iginla (55:34.227)
When you went in for the job of the male runner, and like you said earlier, you became one of only two people of the female gender who got a role as a male. In the course of your life, did you subsequently see women take up that role? And they did. What was their impression of what it was like doing the rounds that you did?

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:03.575)
Can't rightly say that in my day that I did see any black women or any other woman in that area where I was. Now you know I was in my 70s by the time I gave up that that route, and I settled down right there in Cascade County. So I didn't see it with my eyes, but what I did know from the the life I had lived is once one person

Adesoji Iginla (56:11.123)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (56:16.499)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (56:29.319)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:32.641)
Has opened that door, other folk gonna pass through. Now, so for the US male, right? The government, the people making these decisions, since they've had first the white woman, then me, and we did our job with excellence, then it make the path easier for anybody else. And like I said, that was good money. So I didn't see it, but I know.

Adesoji Iginla (56:47.613)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:02.849)
That other women were going to follow because anything I did, I did on the account of my freedom, but I also had an eye too. We got to change things. I understood, having been born into slavery, that that only changed because we made that change. Otherwise, them folks still have us up in chains.

Adesoji Iginla (57:04.753)
Would have tried.

Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (57:16.888)
Mm, mm.

Adesoji Iginla (57:30.851)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:31.071)
on their plantations. And so any change that was going to happen, any freedom we were going to carve out, crawl out of that, you know, in in this in in this here United States of America, we had to work for. I was clear on that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:51.809)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (57:52.66)
Okay, yes, so that's my final question. we thank you for coming through. And just like somebody said in the chat, they knew of stage your background, but didn't quite know your story. And I'm sure the last one hour has been truly informative and insightful. That said, we've come through to this week's.

The end of this week's episode of

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:22.733)
If I may say something. So there are many books about me. You know, the information, some folk trying to just add some stuff to it. For the little kids, I like this one. She does kind of put some additional stuff into the story, but it's okay. Because you know what? They put stuff in their stories all the time.

Adesoji Iginla (58:25.021)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:45.419)
What what's that one y'all talk about? One of them they're found them fathers in my father in my poppy. in a blossom tree, something like that. And the other one y'all say gravity, some apple fell on somebody's head and all of that. They tell their story. So listen, I don't feel no type of way, but this one is called Fearless Mary. And Tammy Charles wrote it. So you know.

Adesoji Iginla (58:58.159)
Isaac I Isaac Newton.

Adesoji Iginla (59:05.507)
Right. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:12.651)
This this this lady on here, she got some lipstick. Black Mary didn't ever put no lipstick on, but you know, it's okay. Now there's some other little books that have some stuff about me. Here's another one. It's called African American Woman of the Old West, and I ain't the only one. But you know what sometimes gets on my nerves? Like this here book. This it's not one of us writing. Now anybody can write about me, but you know, I really would like.

Adesoji Iginla (59:40.775)
The story to be yeah, to take a story. Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:40.952)
For us to write about ourselves too. Now, Tonya Bolden, she wrote a book, she could a little small book, The Book of African American Women, 150 Crusaders, Creators, and Uplifters. And it ain't long. She just write about a lot of different people. Some of them you all already talked to. Talk to you, y'all don't talk to talk to them here. Many y'all ain't talked to yet. I don't know if you're gonna get to all of them or not, but

Adesoji Iginla (59:55.579)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:09.614)
that I'm in here too. So look for some of these books, read and let the young people know because the young people they really need some

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:21.093)
Guidance.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:23.223)
Well they need to know that

Tough times don't call for us to curl up in the ball and give up.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:37.906)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:39.671)
Tough times mean you find what you made of and you make of your life what you want it to be. That's that's why that's why y'all that's that's the only le reason I I I said, okay, I'm I'll come talk to you tonight. Just a reminder.

Don't be sitting somewhere just crying and woe is you and they took your job and you know your man left you, all of that stuff. No. You got to know what we've been through and how we came through, and understand you can too. So thank you for having me. I'm gonna finish my drink.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:19.411)
No, thank you for coming. Thank you for coming through. That said, we've come to the end of this week's episode of Women in Resistance. I hope it's been informative for you as you listen to us. if you do like what you've heard, do like, share, subscribe. Just like Fairless Mary said, yeah, take the story out there and bring people to.

So come and share what you're currently gaining. That said, next week it will be the turn of Josephine Baker. So next week it will be.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:58.635)
Y'all is funny. She gon' come with the banana skirt? I dun heard about her.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:05.605)
It will be the turn of Josephine Baker. we'll try and get her to be what's the word? prime and proper to come on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:16.973)
I won't wear no skirt like that, but I will eat a banana now.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:21.341)
Prime and proper. And that said, yes, thank you. any final thoughts?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:27.955)
No. I rightly enjoy talking with y'all. Now y'all go do something with your lives.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:34.693)
Okay. That said, thank you to our audience, community out there, thank you for the gifts and until next week, it's good night and God bless.