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Reparations · Law

1878 · Cincinnati, Ohio

A formerly enslaved woman won the largest known restitution payment for slavery — in 1878.

Henrietta Wood was kidnapped from freedom in 1853 and sold back into slavery. After emancipation she sued the man who took her — and a federal jury awarded her $2,500. It remains the largest known sum a court has paid a single victim of American slavery in restitution.

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