The Lowry War

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Way back in our colleague Christopher Hassiotis sent Holly and meet a note about the Lowry War as an episode suggestion. This isn't our first Christopher hassi otis episode suggestion that we've done on the show He's Got. He sends very good ideas, but it has taken me this long to do it because my short list of topics that I keep talking about has about three years of episodes on it, and then in addition to having a quote short list of three years of episodes, I also just frequently get sidetracked off of it into stuff that's not even on there. So the Lowry War is named for a group of outlaws that was headed by Henry Barry Lowry, and there are lots of different spellings for his name and consequently different spellings for the war, so you'll see it l O w r Y, l O w r I E, l o w r e Y, and l O w e r Y A lot of potential options there. Henry Verry Lowry though was Lumby and the Lowry Gang, as it became known, included other members of the Lumbi tribe as well as black and white men, and they fought against Confederate authorities in southeastern North Carolina during the U s Civil War and then during reconstruction. They came to be known or came to be viewed as either kind of Robin Hood esque folk heroes or dangerous murderers and thieves, depending on who you were asking. The Lowry War took place in and around Robinson County, North Carolina. That's in the southeastern part of the state, in a swampy region around the Lumber River. Although Lumber is the river's official name today, too many locals, including the Lumbi tribe, it's the Lumbi. The origins of that name are a little bit hazy, but it's sometimes described as coming from the Algonquian term meaning dark water, and locals were using it for the river by the early nineteenth century. This part of North Carolina has been home to indigenous peoples for nearly fifteen thousand years, and the Lumbi have lived there for centuries. The Lumbi traced their ancestry to indigenous tribes and nations from at least three different language groups who have lived in what's now eastern North Carolina, southeastern Virginia, and northeastern South Carolina. And her books on Lumby history, historian Melinda Maynor Lowry, who is Lumby, describes three hundred years of migration and cultural exchange taking place within this region. Indigenous people and people who had liberated themselves from slavery and white indentured servants and others all eventually settled and what's now Robinson County for various reasons, including fleeing from wars and diseases and persecution, and then together they formed one tribe that is deeply connected to the ideas of kinship and place. This tribe has been known by a series of names over the years. During the period of the Lowry Wars, they were often just called Indians or described as a combination of multiple races. The state of North Carolina first recognized the tribe under the name croaton in five Okay, if you're thinking, wait, isn't that a lot like Croatoan? The word that was found carved into a tree at the former site of the lost colony of Roanoke. Yes. Hamilton McMillan, who introduced the legislation for the state to recognize the tribe with this name, had concluded that they were descended from survivors of the Lost Colony, and that was based on his own research. Two other formal name changes followed this before members of the tribe chose the name name Lumby in ninetift two, drawing that name from the place that the tribe calls home. There are also people within this group who trace their ancestry back to the Tuscarora and continue to use that name. The Tuscarora were living mainly in what's now North Carolina when Europeans started arriving in North America, and many of them moved northward to join the Hood and Ashawnee Confederacy in the eighteenth century. That was after the Tuscarora War. In this episode, we're just going to stick to the name Lumby, even though we are mostly talking about a period before the tribe had chosen that name. This part of North Carolina is isolated, which made it a good place for people who were fleeing from wars or disease outbreaks, or enslavement, or any number of other things to take refuge and recover. It's also swampy, so it really wasn't very appealing to European colonists. So during the Revolutionary War era, a lot of Lumby ended up formally owning the land that they are already living on and considered there's This included being granted land by either the crown or the State of North Carolina, sometimes in exchange for service to one or the other, or for military service. By their early nineteenth century, many Lumby owned their land outright as individuals, rather than living on land that belonged to the tribe collectively or was outlined in a treaty with the United States. From about the eighteen twenties through the eighteen fifties, the US government systematically removed indigenous peoples from the eastern part of the country to land west of the Mississippi River. We have talked about this in some of our previous episodes, including our twenty eighteen episode on the Georgia gold Rush and our twenty nineteen two part on the occupation of Alcatraz. This process involved federal laws such as the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty and multiple Supreme Court cases and exploitive treaties between the United States and indigenous nations, and forced displacements. During this period, multiple indigenous nations that had historically lived in what's now North Carolina were forced to move, sometimes literally at gunpoint. This included the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations, who were forced to move more than two thousand miles to what's now Oklahoma. Although some resisted and stayed behind. This removal was an active genocide, and nearly a quarter of the people who were forced to move died as a result of it. The Lumby, however, were largely protected from this removal. Many of the nations that the federal government forcibly removed during this period were living on land that was valuable in some way, so there was gold there or timber or prime farming land. But the Lumby were mostly living among the swamps on land that wasn't considered particularly valuable, and as we've said, a lot of them owned that land outright as individuals through documentation that the government recognized as legal. That didn't make it impossible for anybody to take their land, but it did make it more challenging to do so, and also from a legal perspective, at this point, the Lumbie weren't legally classified as Indians. North Carolina revised its constitution in eighteen thirty five, and under that constitution and various laws, the Lumby were considered free persons of color. So even though they weren't forced off their land as many other tribes were, they also were not treated as equal citizens of the state. For example, free people of color were not allowed to vote in North Carolina, and although this law didn't specifically mentioned the indigenous people of Robinson County, a lot of people interpreted this provision as applying to them. In eighteen fifty four, North Carolina also passed a law that voided marriages between a white person and a free person of color if that marriage had taken place since eighteen thirty nine. That applied to a lot of Lumby marriages. These and other laws followed Nat Turner's Rebellion of eighteen thirty one, which was an uprising of enslaved people in Virginia. Authorities were deeply fearful of a similar uprising taking place in other slave states, and so they passed a lot of laws to restrict any kind of rites that free black people might have, and then more broadly free people of color. When the US Civil War started in eighteen sixty one, North Carolina was a slave state, but the state and the people living in it were divided over whether to secede and support the Confederacy or to remain part of the United States, and this included the Lumby Although at least one Lumby family had historically owned slaves, most Lumbi supported the Union, even though free people of color had to have a special permit to carry web in North Carolina. Lumby people served on both sides of the war. Some went to another state or passed for white to enlist, and some may have just found a recruiter who didn't know or didn't care about that prohibition. In eighteen sixty two, the Confederate Army started fortifying Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Pier River as protection for the nearby port of Wilmington's. This was an earthen fortification, so it's construction and maintenance were both labor intensive and dangerous. At first. A lot of this work was done by Confederate soldiers and enslaved Africans. Diseases were rampant, especially malaria, dysentery, and yellow fever, which could be deadly. Eventually, landowners started refusing to send their enslaved labor to work on the fort because of all this, and at that point the Confederates started conscripting indigenous people to do it, particularly the Lumbi. Although there were a few you lumby who willingly went to work on the fort, most did not want to be forced to travel to the coast to do difficult, dangerous work for a military they didn't even support, and possibly get sick or die in the process. So many responded by lying out in the swamps. As we said earlier, the swamps were easy to hide in, especially if you had lived there your whole life and had your own ancestral knowledge to help you navigate. But this made life difficult for the men who were lying out and for their families. Whether you usually worked your on your own land or somewhere else, you couldn't if you were hiding out from the Confederates. All this fed directly into the Lowry War, which people gets you after a sponsor break. During the Civil War, Alan and Mary Lowry were two of the most affluent and prominent of the Lumby people in Robinson County. Their family was large. They had twelve children, almost all of them were sons. Allan was a church leader and also ran a successful farm, but he was also under a lot of suspicion from the Home Guard. The North Carolina General Assembly had established the Home Guard in eighteen sixty three, and it was made up of men who for whatever reason, were exempt from military service. The Home Guard was tasked with things like finding deserters and guardings strategic points within the state, helping to protect the local people, but in some areas they really had a reputation for harassing or even terrorizing the local community. This is a big plot point in the book and movie Cold Mountain if anyone is familiar with that. The Home Guard accused Alan Lowry and other Lumby of harboring Union sympathizers and Confederate deserters and of things like stealing, and some of this really was going on. For example, Lumby Territory wasn't far from a stockade in Florence, South Carolina, and Union soldiers who escaped from there often wound up with the Lumby, including with the Lowry's. In December of eighteen sixty four, someone stole two pigs from James P. Barnes, who was a wealthy landowner and a slaveholder and a Confederate official. Barnes didn't live far away from Alan and Mary Lowry, and he thought one of the Lowrys had done it. Basically they didn't have food because they were lying out in the swamp, and said they stole his pigs. Possible culprit in Barnes's mind was their son, Henry Barry Lowry, who at about eighteen, was one of their youngest children. Barnes supported the Home Guard and trying to round up the Lowry's, many of whom were lying out in the swamp. On December one, eighteen sixty four, Barnes was shot in an ambush, and before he died he said that Henry Barry Lowry and two other men had done it. Not long after Barnes was killed, j Brantley Harris, known as Brandt, shot and killed Jarman Lowry, who was one of Henry Barry Lowry's cousins. Harris was a conscription officer for the Home Guard, and while the details on all of this are a little fuzzy. He seems to have mistaken German for one of the other Lowry's. Two of Jarman's brothers, Wesley and the Lalon, had been working at Fort Fisher and they came home on furlough. Harris claimed that they were both deserters, and so when both of them were killed, most people thought Harris was the person responsible. Although a grand jury charged Harris and their deaths, he wasn't arrested for it, so the Lowry's and a lot of the other lumby were outraged. Then on January sixty five, Brant Harris was killed, presumably Henry Barry Lowry or one of his brothers, in retaliation for Harris having killed Jarman. Wesley, and little Allen Lowry had done it. In some accounts, this all circled back to the pigs that had been stolen from James p Arns, and Harris had been investigating that theft when he was killed. After this, Henry Barry Lowry and some of his brothers stole some guns and ammunition, and they turned their attention to the wealthy white farmers of the area, especially wealthy white farmers who were clearly supporting the Confederacy. On February eighteen sixty five, a group of Flowers, along with some escape Union soldiers, raided one of the wealthiest farms in the area, which belonged to the McNair family. Some of that family were at home, along with several Confederate soldiers, and although there was an exchange of gunfire during all of this, it doesn't appear that anybody was killed. The McNair's and their guests eventually surrendered, and then the gang stole things like food, blankets, and other supplies from the farm and then distributed them to the poorest people in the area where they lived. At this point, that area had been given the derisive nickname of Scuffletown, although the lumby usually called it the Settlement. On March three, the Home Guard rallied a mob of about one hundred people and went to Alan Lowry's home. The Home Guard claimed to find stolen property there, and they put Alan Lowry on trial along with his sons, Calvin Sinclair and William, and one of their neighbors. The Home Guard held Allan's wife, Mary and some of the other women in the family captive in a smoke house. During and after the trial, questioning them about the whereabouts of other Lowry's. After this sham trial, everyone but Allen and William was allowed to go, but the Home Guard executed Allen and William by firing squad Henry Barry Lowry reportedly witnessed this execution from the bushes. At this point, General William T. Sherman and the Union Army were moving north. This was after Sherman's march to the Sea at the end of eighteen sixty four and his capture of the South Carolina capital of Columbia in February of eighteen sixty five. Around Mark ninth, the army was near Lumby Territory, bogged down by heavy rain in the swampy terrain, some of the Lumbi, including some of the Lowry gang, guided Sherman's troops through the swamp and across the Lumber River. After the army had moved through, a Lumbie man named Hector Oxendine was murdered by White planters for having helped them. General Robert E. Lee surrendered on April ninth, eighteen sixty five, which is often marked as the end of the Civil War, even though the fighting continued for some time. After that, Henry Berry Lowry and his gang continued to rob wealthy planters and raid their farms, and they evaded capture for months. On December seven, eighteen sixty five, Lowry got married to Rhoda Strong, whose father was Scottish and whose mother was Lumby, and the militia tried to take him into custody at his own wedding, falsely claiming that they had a warrant for his arrest. There were about two hundred guests at that wedding and a lot of people left after the militia five, but this still turned into a standoff in front of a crowd. It ended when the Justice of the Peace, who was officiating the wedding, that was a white man named Hector McLean, offered to be arrested along with Lowry, and both of them were escorted away. The militia did not think the local jail was secure enough, so they took Lowry to nearby Whiteville. Turned out that jail was not secure enough either, because he escaped from it. According to some accounts, Rota brought him a cake with a file in it. At this point, the United States was moving into the post war reconstruction period with attempts to both recover and rebuild after the war and to rectify the inequities that resulted from the institution of slavery. Congress passed laws and constitutional amendments to try to protect the civil rights of previously enslaved people and others of African descent. Since North Carolina had seceded from the United States, it was required to write a new state constant tuition and to ratify the Thirteenth and fourteenth Amendments to the U s Constitution before it could be readmitted to the Union. A lot of the indigenous people living in and around Robinson County thought their lives would get better during this process. A lot of them, even most of them, had supported the Union even after North Carolina had succeeded. People in the tribe had also sheltered escaped Union prisoners of war. They directly aided Sherman in his move through the area, and there were some changes. The Reconstruction Acts of eighteen sixty seven required the new state constitutions to include universal manhood suffrage, so North Carolina's eighteen sixty eight constitution restored voting rights for Lumbie men. There was a pause in the Lowry Gang's raids around this time. The general conclusion is that Lowry and others hope that by being able to vote, they would be able to make the changes they wanted to see in the government and in their own line house. But at the same time, the Lumbi were also largely excluded from the Reconstruction era policies, programs, and assistance that were meant to help bring racial, economic, and political equality to the newly freed people. Overall, radical Republicans who were driving these kinds of programs were focused on people of African descent rather than on indigenous people, and even though some of the Lumbi did have some African ancestry, and there were people living at the time who thought that the tribe as a whole were mixed race or even black, they were largely overlooked. So by late eighteen sixty seven, as North Carolina's new constitution was still being drafted, the Lowry Gang, presumably frustrated by this lack of progress, went back to rating. Or at least somebody started robbing stores and plantations in the area, and most people thought it was the Lowry's. People started demanding that the Lowry Gang be declared outlaws and brought to justice Henry Berry. Lowry events we agreed to turn himself in after being promised a fair trial, but soon there were rumors that he was going to be killed, that basically a lynch mob was going to get him out of his cell and drown him. Somehow he managed to get a knife and a gun and he broke out of jail on December twelfth, eighteen sixty eight, when he was brought his evening meal. After Lowry's escape, the situation became increasingly violent after the deaths of James P. Barnes and Brant Harris in late eighteen sixty four. In early eighteen sixty five, no one had been killed in the gang's raids, but between January of eighteen sixty nine and June of eighteen seventy one, multiple prominent people in and around Robinson County were killed, and those murders were pinned on the Lowry Gang. This included Robinson County Sheriff Reuben King, who was killed in March of eighteen sixty nine, and Colonel Owen Normant who was killed in March of eighteen seventy. At least twenty deaths are attributed to the regang during this period, the vast majority of them Democrats or former Confederate officials, Although many were believed to have been involved in the execution of Allen and William Lowry, or we're bounty hunters trying to bring the Lowry's in, or were spies trying to infiltrate the gang. A few were essentially bystanders. We get to how the Lowry War ended after another sponsor break. By eighteen sixty nine, opinions about the Lowry Gang were divided. Too. Many of the poorest people in Robinson County they were Robin hood asked heroes, not only robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, but also exacting vengeance from people who had been oppressing them. Wealthy white landowners, on the other hand, generally thought they were murderous thieves. The Republican Party, which was in charge of the North Carolina legislature at this point, was divided as well. Some vehemently denounced the violence and especially the killing, while others saw it more as the inevitable outcome of the long history of oppression in the area, and even as something that might be necessary for the lumby to reach their political goals. In the end, though, the Republican Party took a law and order approach, focusing on the need to end the violence and to bring the Lowry Gang to justice, and they made their arguments with some false equivalence, drawing parallels between the Lowry Gang and the Ku Klux Klan, equating the gang's targeting of former Confederate officials with the clan's campaign of intimidation and terror against the state's non white population. On March five, eight sixty nine, Judge Daniel L. Russell Jr. Issued a proclamation of outlawry. It declared that quote one Henry Barry Lowry one, Andrew Strong one Boss Strong, one, Shoemaker John one, John Dial one William Chavis of Robinson County have committed sundry and diverse murders, burglaries, robberies and other felonies. And that said Henry Berry, Lowry, Andrew Strong, Boss Strong, Shoemaker, John John Dial and William Chavis do conceal themselves and evade arrest and service of the usual process of law. Now Therefore, I the said Daniel L. Russell Jr. Judge, as aforesaid, by virtue of the authority vested in me by an Act of the General Assembly in such case made and provided, do issue this my proclamation hereby requiring the said Henry Berry, Lowry, Andrew Strong, Boss Strong, Shoemaker, John John Dial, and William Chavis, and each and every one of them forthwith to surrender themselves to the Sheriff of Robinson County or to any other sheriff or lawful officer of the state. And I do also empower and require the Sheriff of Robinson County or of any other county where the said felons are to lurk and conceal themselves, to search for and pursue with all power of the county and effectually apprehend said fugitives from justice. It went on to say, quote, and I do further declare that if the said fugitives, or any of them continue henceforth to stay out, lark, or conceal themselves, and do not immediately surrender themselves, any citizen of the State may capture, arrest and bring them or him to justice, And in case of flight or resistance, after being called on and warned to surrender, may slay them or any one of them, without accusation or impeachment of any crime. Bounties were announced for the Lowry Gang, including one of twelve thousand dollars for Henry Barry Lowry, who was to be brought in debt or alive. The Governor of North Carolina also asked for help from federal troops, and those troops arrived in November of eighteen seventy A posse was also formed hunt for the gang, and there was a series of shootings, ambushes, and other violence. In February of eighteen seventy one, Henderson Oxendine was captured within the Lumbi community. He's believed to have intentionally allowed himself to be caught with the hope that he could take the blame for the gang's activities. He was tried, convicted, and executed for killing a man named Steve Davis, who had been killed during a confrontation with the gang. Later in eighteen seventy one, Francis Marion Wishart captured the wives of several members of the Lowry Gang, basically holding them hostage unless the gang surrendered themselves. Henry Berry Lowry and some of the other men replied to this threat with a note on July fourteenth, demanding that the women be released by that Monday morning, otherwise quote, the bloodiest times will be here than ever was before, the life of every man will be in jeopardy. And the end the women were all let go, and to like that attempt to arrest Henry Berry Lowry at his own wedding. This whole incident wound up bringing the Lowry Gang even more popular appeal. On February sixteenth, eighteen seventy two, there was a raid on Pope in McLeod's store in Lumberton, North Carolina, and thieves also stole a safe from the sheriff's office. Together they got away with about twenty thousand dollars and Henry Berry Lowry disappeared. Not long after that, word spread that he had died, possibly by an accidental self inflicted gunshot, but there were also a lot of stories about a possible escape and where he may have gone afterward. In one he went all the way to the West coast, was part of the Modoc War between the Modoc people in the U. S. Army in eighteen seventy two. In eighteen seventy three, regardless, he was never captured, and that twelve thousand dollar reward went unclaimed, although the violence continued in North Carolina after Henry berry Low's disappearance. Over time, most of the rest of the gang either disappeared or were killed or captured. Francis Wishart was killed in May of eighteen seventy two after having agreed to a meeting with Stephen Lowry and Andrew Strong. The end of the Lowry War is usually marked us sometime in February of eighteen seventy four, when Steve Lowry was killed by a bounty hunter. A year after that, Mary C. Normant, who was the widow of Colonel Owen Norman, who the gang had previously killed, she published a history of the Lowry Band, which is both the earliest written account of all this uh and also really unfavorable in the treatment of the Lowry's, unsurprisingly given that they murdered her husband. Over these years, the Lowry Gang had become famous notorious outlaws. Frank and Jesse James claimed to be members. At some point their activities were covered in national newspapers like The New York Times and Harper's Weekly published a write up on March thirtieth, eighteen seventy two. In more recent years, The musical drama Strike at the Wind made its debut on July one, nineteen seventy six, after years of work on it. It was written by a white playwright, but it involved the work of a tri racial organization and planning committee, and it was a mostly Indigenous production. There were other dramatic productions before this point, but most of them were biographical treatments focused on Henry Berry Lowry, and this was focused more generally on the Lowry War. The hope was that this play would provide a sense of cultural cohesion and pride among the Lumby and educate non Lumby about Lumby culture and history, and there were hopes that it would become an ongoing tourist attraction, like some of North Carolina's other outdoor historical dramas. This includes The Lost Colony, which started in the thirties, and Unto These Hills, which is about Cherokee history up through the removal, and that was first performed in the fifties, although that didn't happen, and the play was performed annually for about ten years, and then it returned in seventeen after a ten year hiatus. Yeah, I think if either is being performed or has been performed for some showings this year. Um I do not remember if that was before or after this episode will be out there. Some historians have concluded that the Lowry Gang and the government's response to the gang had an enormous impact on North Carolina politics towards the end of the nineteenth century, with the Republican Party's division over how to handle it, and then the ultimate decision to take a law and order approach, leading the Lumbi vote to swing towards the Democrats and then hastening the Democrats returns to power in North Carolina, and the Lumbi tribe continues to be influential in North Carolina politics. North Carolina is a swing state, and the tribe has been described as a group of swing voters within that state. In there were so many news reports about how Robinson County had been quote a Democratic stronghold before voting for Donald Trump in and electing Trump by an even larger margin in One of the factors that was cited in this Trump's announcement that he supported the Lumby Recognition Act. That's an act that would grant the tribe full recognition by the federal government. Because currently the Lumbi tribe is not fully federally recognized. In ninety six, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law that recognized the Lumbi as an Indian tribe, but quote nothing in this Act shall make such Indians eligible for any services performed by the United States for Indians because of their status as Indians, and none of the statutes of the United States which affect Indians because of their status as Indians shall be applicable to the Lumbi Indians. This makes the Lumbi the largest non federally recognized tribe in the United States, with fifty five enrolled members and seventy thousand people identifying as Lumby or part Lumby in census records. Although many Lumbi live in and around Robinson County today, there are also significant Lumby communities in other parts of the US, including Baltimore, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Although that nineteen fifty six legislation barred the Lumby from most federal programs, many took part in the Urban Relocation Program that was a federal program to move indigenous people out of reservations and into cities. This was another attempt to get Indigenous people to assimilate with white society. Today, Baltimore is home to the largest Lumbi community outside of North Carolina as a result of that program. The idea of federal recognition for the Lumbi tribe has been controversial. Legislation has been reintroduced at the federal level a couple of times over the last few years, and each time there have been vocal opponents to it, including in some cases from the leaders of other indigenous nations. For example, in twenty Principal Chief Richard's Need of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians argued against federal recognition for the Lumbi before the House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples. Sneed cited a number of reasons for this opposition. One of the tribes earlier names that we talked about in the top of the show was the Cherokee Indians of Robinson County, a name that was outlined in a law introduced by a white legislator, but also had the support of some members of the tribe. Another reason is that federal law generally recognizes indigenous nations that have a governing body and political structure that predates the establishment of the United States, but the Lumby have described themselves as an amalgamation of multiple tribes and language groups that came together in one geographic area. Sneed's testimony before the House also contends that the Lumby have no indigenous ancestry. Obviously very complicated. Sneat is not the only person who has um spoken out against this recognition. That is just the congressional testimony that I had access to. Most recently, this legislation to recognize the Lumbie has passed the House. It was received in the Senate in November one. This legislation would strike out section two of that act that had been signed into law in nineteen fifty six. That was the section that specified that the recognition didn't extend to the tribe receiving any benefits as an indigenous nation. So this would extend federal recognition to the tribe and quote all laws and regulations of the United States of general application to Indians and Indian Tribes shall apply to the tribe and its members. As a side note, something else that has been on Tracy's shortlist forever is the Battle of Hayes Pond. That is the name given to a nine eight incident in which the ku Klux Klan was planning a rally in Maxed in, North Carolina, which is partly local aided in Robinson County. Fifty or so klansmen arrived for the rally, where they were vastly outnumbered by hundreds of Lumbie, many of them armed. After someone shot out the one light bulb the clan had for illumination, they fled and although other gunfire was exchanged, no one was killed. Yeah. One of the reasons that's never made it into a full episode is that, um that's without all the context that we just covered here. That is, uh, that's most of the story. But it is one that the Lumby take a whole lot of bride in and is generally described as like the Lumby running the clan out of North Carolina. So that is the Lowry War. Do you have a listener, Manil as well? I do. I have listener mail from a net. Annette wrote and said, Hi, Holly and Tracy, my husband and I have the good fortune but to be traveling to Germany in Austria in September, and I wondered if there are a past podcast related to Munich Salzburg Halstat milk Abbey, the Habsburg's Vienna. It's ra I missed the archive. I also wanted to share a couple of things related to recent podcasts I think you will find interesting. The first item relates to William marsh Rice. My husband and I are both alumni of Rice University and have been following with interest the work of Rice's Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice. One of the co chairs, Alex Bird, is a friend of ours. Among the task forces changes was what to do with the Founder's statue that is in the main campus quadrangle. You can read more at the links below. The second item is a sculpture that was inspired by the Laocoon. The work is by the South African artist when both the end is entitled Prism ten Dead Laocoon. We've seen it a two different hotels. It's very powerful, sea below and attached REALOK. Forward to another live show in Houston when you're touring again. I was the one who gave you a postcard from the Mutual Museum. This is from Anette, so thank you so much. Annette. I wanted to read this because number one I had missed that update. About Rice University's decision to move the statue of the founder William marsh Rice to another place. That is something that we had talked about briefly in that episode, and so that is a decision that was made earlier this year to relocate that statue. Uh. The other thing is I also missed the archive, even though our old website went away at this point, I feel like three or four years ago. It was before the pandemic that the old website went away. We'll still occasionally get emails from folks saying something like, what happened to the old website and we no longer have it? And it was it was not within our ability to change. We also missed the archive, but our archive wasn't quite granular enough to have made it I think easy to find episode podcasts related to these particular places related to German in Austria. UM so I did dig up a few. We have stuff on Rudolph the second of Austria and Empress Cissy Lola Montez tangentially related also a fun listen uh, and then Maria Anna Mozart would be classified as related to that. Also. We've said this before on the show, but at this point, the easiest way to find episodes on specific topics is either to use a podcast player that's searchable, because our our website is not, or to google the topic that you're looking for along with the words stuffy miss in history class. I have found that recently the Google algorithm just as also wants me to have the word I heart in there, because nothing can be easy. Um so that would bring up things like Germany and Austria if they were referenced in the episode description. The tags that we used for the episodes were not ever something that was part of the actual RSS feeds, So even though they were are part of the old website, it's not a thing that is like facing users anymore. And it also wasn't quite as granular as the topics that Annett asked for suggestions related to. So thank you again, Annette for this hope that folks are looking for old episodes of the show, we're able to find them by something more searchable than our website, which is not searchable. If you would like to write to us, we're a history podcast that I heart radio dot com. We're all over social media ad missed in History. That's where you will find our Facebook Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeart Radio app and wherever else you'd like to get podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from i Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.