🎙 Episode 1

Fort Worth Before the Myth: Slavery, Power, and the City We Inherited

Podcast: We Got The Funk

Episode Length: ~30 minutes

Format: Audio-only

📄 Episode Description

Before Fort Worth became “where the West begins,” it was a slaveholding frontier town built on forced labor, silence, and selective memory.

In this opening episode, we strip away the mythology and examine slavery in Fort Worth as it actually existed — not as a footnote, but as a foundation.

Using court records, census data, and firsthand accounts, this episode names names, tells real stories, and confronts slavery’s most uncomfortable truths — including sexual violence, mixed-race children, and the ways power protected itself long after emancipation.

This is not a general history of slavery.

This is Fort Worth’s story.

🎧 What This Episode Covers

•The largest slaveholders in early Fort Worth, including E.M. Daggett, Middleton Tate Johnson, Nathaniel Terry, and Charles Turner

• Where their names still appear today — in streets, buildings, and city memory
• The lynching of white minister Anthony Bewley, and how his wife later identified local elites as ringleaders
• “Slavery’s dirty secret”: sexual violence, coercion, and the creation of mixed-race children
• The life of Jeff Daggett — from birth into slavery, through violence, law enforcement, and public scandal, to his death
• How slavery didn’t end cleanly in Fort Worth — it evolved

🧠 Why This Episode Matters

Fort Worth did not accidentally forget its past.

It curated it.

Understanding who held power, how they used it, and who paid the price helps explain:

• Why inequality persisted after emancipation
• Why certain families retained influence
• Why some stories were preserved — and others erased

This episode sets the foundation for everything that follows in this series.

📚 Sources & Research

This episode draws heavily from:

• A History of Fort Worth in Black & White
• Census records and slave schedules
• Court transcripts and newspaper accounts
• Reconstruction-era documentation

Additional sources and visuals will be shared on social media.

🔔 Subscribe, Support, Share

If this episode gave you language, clarity, or discomfort — that’s the point.

• Follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening
• Rate & review the show to help others find it
• Share this episode with someone who loves Fort Worth — or needs to understand it better

To support the research and production of this podcast, check the links below.

In 1849, the U.S. Army left Fort Worth.

Most frontier settlements didn’t survive moments like that.
No soldiers meant no safety. No safety meant no future.

Fort Worth was supposed to become a ghost town.

Instead, a small group of people made a quiet, dangerous decision — they stayed.

In Episode 6 of We Got The Funk, we uncover the real beginning of Fort Worth, long before cattle drives, railroads, or legends. This episode tells the story of the merchants, doctors, teachers, builders, and families who refused to abandon an empty military post and turned it into a living community.

You’ll meet:
- Press “Pressley” Farmer, the first civilian settler whose family proved Fort Worth could exist without soldiers
- Henry Clay Daggett and Archibald Leonard, the businessmen who organized trade before government arrived
- Ephraim Merrell Daggett, the strategist who fought — and won — power for Fort Worth
- Dr. Carroll Marion Peak, the frontier doctor who kept people alive long enough for the city to grow
- John Peter Smith, the educator and mayor who planned for generations
- Julian Feild, the industrial builder whose mill helped create Mansfield and expand North Texas

This episode breaks down a truth most history books skip:

Fort Worth wasn’t saved by generals or politicians.
It was saved by ordinary people who believed in a future before there was proof.

If you’ve ever wondered how a city survives after power leaves — this is that story.

Welcome back to We Got The Funk.
This is Fort Worth’s foundation.

Before Fort Worth was a city, and before settlers moved in, there was violence, displacement, and an attempt to clean it all up with paperwork.

In Episode 5 of We Got The Funk, DonTheBarber breaks down the Treaty at Bird’s Fort—the who, the what, the when, the where, and most importantly, the why behind one of the most overlooked moments in North Texas history.

After the Battle of Village Creek in 1841, the Republic of Texas sought “peace” with Native nations through a treaty signed in the woods along the Trinity River. On paper, it promised peace and friendship forever. In reality, the frontier kept moving, the violence didn’t stop, and the treaty revealed more about power, fear, and expansion than reconciliation.

This episode explores:

• Why the treaty happened after violence, not before
• How slow communication shaped frontier decision-making
• The role of Edward H. Tarrant and other Republic officials
• Why Bird’s Fort mattered as a meeting place
• How treaties often managed consequences instead of preventing them
• Why Fort Worth could only be built after Village Creek and Bird’s Fort

This is not the textbook version.

This is the barbershop version—context, consequences, and honesty.

Episode 5 also sets up what comes next:

When the Army abandoned Fort Worth in 1853, civilians stepped into the space left behind—and that’s where the real city begins.

🎧 Subscribe to We Got The Funk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, or wherever you listen, and don’t miss Episode 6 as we dive into the settlers who built Fort Worth after the soldiers left.