African American

Section 5
Promises Deferred: African Americans

in Slavery and Freedom
Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009

Promises Deferred:
African Americans in
Slavery and Freedom
“Everybody [in the quarters] was always talking about

freedom.”
—Former slave
The institution of slavery severely restricted African

Americans’ access to the promise of American life. African
Americans’ experiences differed based on region,
occupation, age, gender, and whether they were slave or
free, but all fought to gain control over their lives.
Blacks struggled to protect their families and to attain

freedom and basic human rights. They drew strength and
guidance from their religion, from their African and
African American cultural traditions, and from the system
of mutual cooperation and assistance that was the hallmark
of African American communities.
This section of Pursuit of Promise portrays African

Americans, slave and free, who lived in Charleston, S.C.,
and the surrounding area.
Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 1

“However far the stream flows, it never forgets its source.”
—Proverb of the Yoruba people
“It’s bad to belong to folks that own you soul and body. I
could tell you about it all day, but even then you could not
guess the awfulness of it.”
—Delia Garlic, former slave
“There was no such thing as being good to slaves. Many

white people were better than others, but a slave belonged
to his master, and there was no way to get out of that.”
—Thomas Lewis, former slave, South Carolina
“All I ever wanted was to be free.”

—Former slave

small images of the paintings from Section 1,
with equality and democracy and freedom and
independence highlighted
This section of Pursuit of Promise focuses on the ways African
Americans overcame their exclusion from the promises of
equality, democracy, freedom and independence.

5G.5341 An overlooker, or driver, of other slaves on a Carolina plantation
Courtesy the Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
5G.5342 Isaac, a slave carpenter owned by Thomas Jefferson.
Courtesy the University of Virginia Library.
5G.5343 A white woman reading Bible stories to slave children
Courtesy North Carolina Collections, University of North Carolina Library,
Chapel Hill.
5G.5344 Caesar, a house servant, probably the last statutory slave in New York State
Courtesy the New York Historical Society.
5G.5345 Slave nurse with young master
Courtesy the Missouri Historical Society.
5G.5346 Families(?) outside a building [NO CAPTION]
Courtesy the Library of Congress.
5G.5347 A family of sharecroppers after the Civil War
Courtesy the Valentine Museum, Richmond, Va.
5G.5348 A young middle-class woman [NO CAPTION]
Courtesy the Tougaloo College Collection.
5G.5354 Yarrow Mamout, portrait by Charles Wilson Peale (1819)
Courtesy the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
5G.5349 An old man sitting on a tree stump [NO CAPTION]
Courtesy the Cook Collection.
5G.5350 An old man holding a book [NO CAPTION]
5G.5351 A smiling man [NO CAPTION]
5G.5352 A former slave
Courtesy the Randolph Simpson Collection.
5G.5353 A free black family in the rural South

Courtesy the Randolph Simpson Collection.
5G.5158 Slave street photo--Brookgreen
Courtesy Georgetown Public Library, Georgetown, S.C.
5M.5000 Mannequin of an old woman

Why Focus on South Carolina?
“Soon there won’t be nobody left living what was a sho’nuf
slave. It’s something to think about, ain’t it.”

—Charlie Hudson, Former South Carolina slave
Charleston, S.C., was a thriving city, home to many of the low
country’s slave-owning elite and to thousands of African
Americans. Here enslaved African Americans, free but unskilled
laborers, artisans, and a small elite of “free people of color”
lived, worked, and worshipped. Many more blacks labored as
slaves on nearby plantations.
The African American experience in South Carolina reveals
much about black American life during the 19th century. A close
look offers insights into the violence and degradation of slavery,
the racism, and the limits of freedom that most black Americans
endured before, during, and even after the Civil War. It also
reveals the resiliency of African Americans who struggled in an
oppressive system that was often geared to squeeze the labor and
the spirit out of them.

Black Charleston
African Americans, more than three-quarters of whom were
slaves, constituted more than half of Charleston’s population in
1850. They lived in almost every section of Charleston. While
most free blacks or hired-out slaves occupied the city’s eastern
neck, hundreds of household slaves lived in quarters behind their
owners’ mansions and homes.
African Americans in Charleston had somewhat more control
over their personal and work lives than the institution of slavery
formally allowed. The city allowed African Americans to
congregate in places like the African Methodist Church and the
Charleston Market. These locations featured much less direct
white control and more freedom, even if it was limited and
uncertain.
5G.5355 Map locating Charleston, showing South with slave and free black population (original art)
5G.5006 Bridger & Allen map of Charleston
Map courtesy the Library of Congress.

5G.5002 and 5G.5003
“Stopped on a Charleston street and asked to name her

owner, a black woman dropped a respectful curtsey, drew
up her head, and declared, ‘I belongs to nobody, I be a free
woman.’”
—Peter Neilson, Recollections of a Six-Year Residency in the
United States of America, 1830
“I Belongs to Nobody”: Free Blacks in Charleston
As of 1820, one-fifth of Charleston’s black population was free.
Many free blacks were emancipated on the death of their
owners—something that South Carolina law controlled more
tightly in the years just prior to the Civil War. Others “earned”
their freedom by laboring extra hours in order to accumulate
enough money to purchase their own freedom.
Most free blacks worked the city’s lowest paying, though
essential, jobs: subsistence-level day laborers, laundry women,
vendors and peddlers, and “pick-and-shovel workers.” A few
free blacks were skilled artisans such as carpenters, ironworkers,
and mechanics. These artisans, many of whom were light-
skinned mulattos, constituted the core of Charleston’s black elite.
Even Charleston’s free blacks were never free from the
proscriptive laws, customs, racial attitudes, and violence of the
slaveholding South. They could not escape white society’s belief

in slavery as the “natural and preordained” position for all
African Americans.

Free Negro Registers: Government Controls on Free Blacks
Throughout the 19th century, the number of free blacks
increased, due to both voluntary manumission on the part of
slave owners and to slaves purchasing their own liberty. This
scared many white Southerners, who believed that free blacks
worked to undermine slavery by encouraging slaves to run away
or rebel.
Until the Civil War began in 1861, white-controlled local
governments throughout South Carolina severely restricted the
rights of free blacks. To facilitate enforcement of these laws, the
city of Charleston required all free blacks to register annually by
name, occupation, and place of residence.
5A.5007 Book
Free Negro Register, 1825.
Courtesy the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

Mutual Benefit Organizations
Charleston’s free blacks created numerous organizations to
improve members’ educational, social, and economic
opportunities. Such cooperative endeavors provided members
with a safety net in the face of the free black community’s
shifting fortunes.
5A.5009 Manuscript, Friendly Moralist Society
Charleston’s Friendly Moralist Society promoted the importance
of “fellowship and moral education.”
Manuscript describing the Friendly Moralist Society

The Brown Fellowship Society provided death benefits to
members’ survivors, sponsored a school for free children of
color, and assisted in the care and protection of black orphans in
Charleston.
The existence of organizations like the Brown Fellowship
Society, with its membership limited to “brown,” or mixed-race
African Americans, reflects the class and color distinctions that
existed in antebellum black communities.
5A.5016 Brown Fellowship Society Rules/Minutes
Yearbook containing the Brown Fellowship Society’s bylaws and

minutes, 1824.
Courtesy the Robert Smalls Library, the College of Charleston.

The “Aristocracy with Calluses”
Charleston’s small black “working aristocracy” of free blacks—
the city’s “aristocracy with calluses”—carved out an important
economic niche. Many obtained real estate, developed schools
and churches, and created their own social world, Their position
afforded them more of Charleston’s promise than that available
to their slave brethren but far less opportunity than the city’s
white residents.
A few within this black elite even owned slaves. Blacks owned
slaves for a variety of reasons. Some looked to fulfill their need
for labor. Others saw a chance to display their prosperity. But
many black slave owners aspired to give their brothers and
sisters in bondage a measure of de facto freedom as whites were
increasing legal restrictions on slave emancipation.

5A.5012 Holloway Notebook (two pages shown)
The Holloways: Succeeding despite the Odds
By meeting Charleston’s growing need for skilled carpenters, the
Holloway family acquired modest wealth, property, and slaves.
Richard Holloway was a leader in Charleston’s free black
community.
The Holloway family’s notebooks reveal that they remained
mindful of the legal restraints and racist attitudes that limited
their opportunities and qualified their aspirations.
Holloway family notebooks.
Courtesy the Avery Institute of the College of Charleston.

Freedom without Being Free
From restricted mobility to limited employment opportunity to
legal and political exclusion, free blacks faced constant threats to
their freedom.
A few free blacks felt so overwhelmed by these burdens that
they resorted to such extreme and unlikely measures as their own
re-sale back into slavery. In her petition for re-sale into slavery,
Lucy Andrews, a free woman of color, claimed that “feelings
against her class [the free blacks] were so strong that she [was]
unable to labor or to take care of herself.”
Most free blacks chose to weather their burdens because they felt
that freedom was too precious to lose.
5A.5020 Andrews Petition (rotate with repro.)

“Like Looking into the Night”:
City Slavery
“Slavery time was tough. It’s like looking back into the dark—
like looking into the night.”

—Amy Perry, former slave in Charleston
Charleston’s enslaved black population provided the foundation
for the city’s economy and profoundly affected its political and
social order. The 24,000 enslaved residents of Charleston in
1820 answered the city’s need for labor most often as domestic
slaves, manufacturing and industrial workers, or skilled artisans.
Some slaves, including carpenters and blacksmiths, were rented,
or “hired out,” to perform a specific service for a defined period
of time.
Like their rural counterparts, urban slaves relied upon their
cultural traditions, religion, and strong community structure to
cope with their bondage.
5G.5044A Map of the City of Charleston, 1844

5G.5273 Photo of Children in front of Quarters
Children near their slave quarters, Savannah, Ga., 1886.
5G.5025 Street vendors
A Confluence of Cultures
19th-century Charleston was a meeting place for African,
American, Caribbean, African American, and other cultures.
Visitors frequently observed traditional African practices such as
that of carrying objects on one’s head.
Courtesy Helena Wright.
5G.5005 Omar Ibn Said
Keeping Tradition Alive
Omar Ibn Said, a slave imported into Charleston in 1807, was a
Fulbe Moslem from the Sudan who spent his life in America as a
field slave. After almost 70 years in America, Said, who had
converted to Christianity, still retained aspects of his Islamic
heritage, including his headgear.
Courtesy North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Owen Family
Papers.

5a.5028/5A.5314] 2 Slave tags
5G.5029A Photo of 3 slave tags
Slave Tags: Suppressing the Labor Force
White officials in Southern cities from Richmond to New
Orleans created legal and practical controls to regulate and
restrict the labor and lives of all African Americans.
Early-19th-century Charleston law compelled all owners to
register their slaves and all slaves to wear tags. Slave tags were
designed to eliminate the “undue freedoms” of “hired-out” slaves
who often earned a small percentage of the labor fee negotiated
by their masters.
Charleston city officials aimed to limit blacks’ autonomy and
hence their ability to dismantle the very institution of slavery.
Courtesy the Charleston Museum.

5A.5032 Deed of Emancipation (4 pages; photo of 2, double-sided)
5A.5031 Bill of Sale
Out from Slavery
In 1803 Lucy Wilkinson and her infant daughter, Flora, were
sold for $420, (about $6000 in 1996 dollars). Lucy spent the next
17 years earning money working as a domestic and
washerwoman in order to purchase their freedom.
Deed of Emancipation and Bill of Sale given to Flora Wilkinson by her

mother, Lucy, as a wedding gift, 1820.
Courtesy Edwina Whitlock.

5G.5024
Slave Hiring Certificate for Charles King, Jan. 1, 1845
“Hiring Out”
The practice of “hiring out” slaves allowed owners to increase
their revenues by renting a slave’s labor for a fee. “Hired-out”
slaves were generally able to retain a small percentage of these
fees and often used the pittance to purchase their own or their
family’s freedom. The practice also afforded slaves somewhat
greater autonomy and the hope of eventual freedom.
Slave hiring certificate for Charles King, Jan. 1, 1845.

The Charleston Market
The Charleston Market:
Common Ground
Established in 1807, the Charleston Market was the city’s

center of commerce and a hub of African American life
throughout the 19th century. Free people of color and
hired-out slaves operated stalls. Some slaves were able to
earn enough money at the Market to buy their freedom.
In the Market, African Americans from different

backgrounds created a common ground where they could
begin to build a true community of their own. Household
slaves who bought food for their masters’ households from
black entrepreneurs such as butcher George Shrewsbury
and caterer Charles Tull gained insights into the lives of
African Americans who had achieved a greater degree of
autonomy and freedom.

“Buy While You Can”
Throughout the year, from dawn to sunset, Charlestonians could
rely on the Charleston Market for a wide array of produce, cut
flowers, baskets, textiles, and handmade tools and utensils.
5G.5043 Charleston Square
Charleston Square, 1871, by C. J. Hamilton.
Courtesy the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Va.
5G.5044B (Map) Plan of the City of Charleston, 1844
Charleston Market as it appeared in the Plan of the City of Charleston

map, 1844.
5G.5047 Going to Market
Traveling to Market
Blacks from the border area between Georgia and South
Carolina often traveled to sell their wares in the Charleston
Market.

5G.5048 Charleston Market Hall, about 1903
A Typical 19th-Century Design: Charleston Market
The Charleston Market Hall, built in 1841 with black labor,
included three blocks of enclosed stalls stretching to the
wharves. It follows the pattern of many public urban
marketplaces in America.
Market hall, about 1903.

MANNEQUIN #2
5M.5052 Woman shopping at market
5G.5049 3 post-war images from Leslie’s, June 19, 1869;
5G.5050 Oct. 27, 1866;
5G.5260 Dec. 15, 1866
“[In the market] Negroes use so much ceremony with one

another, bowing and curtseying . . . and expressing every
last mark of politeness to each other. On Sundays they are
tolerably well dressed, some richly . . . on holidays they
have hats of the richest materials. To judge from
appearances . . . they seem to be very clannish and words

‘madam,’ ‘sir,’ ‘mister,’ . . . and such like kindly and polite
terms are bandied about.”
—Peter Neilson, Recollections of a Six Year Residency in the
United States of America, 1830

Sights and Sounds of the Market
Inside Charleston Market one could hear the diverse voices of
slaves and free blacks from Charleston and the surrounding
countryside.
The call of vendors predominated. At a lower pitch was the
constant hum of animated conversations. The occasional lilt of
Caribbean-accented English provided a counterpoint to the
frequent rhythms of the African American vernacular of Gullah.
(Gullah, spoken by blacks who lived in South Carolina and
Georgia’s coastal and island communities, combined English
vocabulary with the grammatical structures of African
languages.)
Buyers and sellers laughed, joked, argued, and bargained
together in a community atmosphere seldom experienced outside
of prayer meetings, church services, and the meetings of mutual
aid organizations.
5G.????
Caption??

Regulating “Dangerous Freedoms”
Aware that the “dangerous freedoms” experienced by African
Americans in the Charleston Market constituted a potential
threat, the City Council sought to restrict black assembly. The
Council also established the Home Guard, a group of white
residents paid to patrol and to maintain order.
Any infraction of the laws could result in whipping or
imprisonment. But because consistent enforcement would have
interfered too much with crucial black economic activity, the
Council’s measures were enforced only sporadically. The laws
served primarily to remind blacks that whites controlled the city,
its government, and its laws.
Restrictive measures intensified after the attempted Vesey black
rebellion of 1822.

5A.5055 Charleston city ordinance-- open to page 18
City Ordinances
In the years prior to the Civil War, the Charleston City Council,
which was dominated by a slaveowning elite, passed various
racial ordinances. Such ordinances sought to limit the liberties of
slaves in the Market, to curtail the economic opportunities of the
free black, and to restrict the possibility of meetings that might
lead to challenges of the institution of slavery.
Charleston City Ordinances
Courtesy the Charleston City Archives.

header/soffit
Slave Rebellions
“Vesey said the negroes were living such abominable lives

they should rise up. I said I was living well—he said
though I was, others were not.”
—Anonymous free black, 1822
“The Charms of Liberty”: Denmark Vesey’s
Revolt
“Slavery is, however, but a bitter pill and negroes are not
insensible to the charms of liberty, as is apparent by . . . the
repeated attempts at insurrection.”
—Peter Neilson, Recollections of Six Years Residence in the
USA, 1830
Some free blacks, like the skilled carpenter Denmark

Vesey, believed that no one could be truly free so long as
slavery existed. In July 1822 Vesey and fellow conspirators
Peter Poyas, Rolla Bennett, Mingo Hearth, and Gullah Jack
enlisted both slave and free-black artisans in a well-planned
plot to seize Charleston. Vesey’s references to
Christianity—in particular, to the delivery of the children
of Israel from Egyptian bondage—and Gullah Jack’s
African mysticism captured the imagination of recruits.

The rebellion failed. The plotters were arrested in the midst
of making weapons and recruiting others after informers
alerted city officials.
The Vesey revolt sparked fear among Southern whites, who

intensified their controls on the black population.

Whites Respond to the Vesey Revolt
Thirty-five blacks involved with the Vesey plot were hanged.
The condemned men followed Peter Poyas’ wish “to die silently
as you will see me do.” Other convicted plotters were sold south,
or punished so that their owners would not be deprived of
valuable “property.” Charleston passed laws that hampered
private gatherings of African Americans and gave greater power
to police organizations such as the Home Guard.
Vesey’s rebellion proved the unsettling notion that African
Americans did not accept their lot. The growing Northern anti-
slavery movement in the North aggravated white Southerners’
fears.
5G.5258 Trial Paper

To Be Free
John, the slave of Elias Horry, was asked by his disbelieving
master, “Are you guilty,” to which he replied, “Yes.” When
asked, “What were your intentions?,” John replied, “To kill you,
rip open your belly, and throw your guts in your face.”
5A.5036 Lock (cat.#301843.2 C.L.)
Prisoner locks.
5A.5035 Shackles
Shackles.
Courtesy the South Carolina State Museum.

Aftershock of Vesey’s Revolt
Many Southerners saw a connection between Congressional
debates on slavery in 1820 and the Vesey rebellion. They
lobbied to keep the federal government from discussing the issue
of slavery.
Black Charlestonians felt the aftershock of the Vesey rebellion
for the next 30 years, until the Civil War. In Charleston officials
closed free-black churches, restricted contacts between enslaved
and free African Americans, and further curtailed the freedoms
of all black residents.
Nonetheless, enslaved and free African Americans continued to
work, worship, and congregate together. They also continued to
resist the institution of slavery in various forms of day-to-day
resistance.

Slave Revolts in the Antebellum South
“Freedom is worth it all.”

—Moses Mitchell, former slave
From the moment of their enslavement, slaves struggled to
challenge the owner’s control, restrict the abuses of slavery,
assert individual and community autonomy whenever possible,
protect and maintain their families, and gain freedom. Most
slaves embarked on a day-to-day resistance to slavery that
ranged from subtle deceptions to open challenges.
Unlike in the plantation system in Latin America and the
Caribbean, slave revolts rarely occurred in North America. This
was due to the significant white presence on this continent and to
the fact that by the mid-18th century most slaves here had been
born into bondage. Yet some African Americans viewed a
violent challenge to the institution of slavery as the only means
to assure immediate and lasting freedom. They risked their lives
in an attempt to destroy the system that held millions in bondage.
Some Slave Rebellions, 18th-19th Century
• Stono Rebellion, South Carolina, 18th century
• Gabriel Prosser’s planned insurrection, Richmond, Va., early
19th century

• Denmark Vesey’s planned revolt, Charleston, S.C., 1822
• Nat Turner’s fight for freedom, southern Virginia, 1831
5G.5274
Background, Bird’s-eye View of the Palmetto City

Fortress of Fear
Southern plantation owners, in particular those who were
significantly outnumbered by slaves, saw the possibility of slave
revolt as certain death. Slave revolts also challenged the popular
mythology of happy slaves, content in their bondage. It raised
the chilling specter that masters really did not “know and
control” their slaves.
Slave owners deployed “patrollers” to enforce curfews, respond
to potential disturbances, and limit slaves’ mobility and violently
intimidate them on occasion. These patrollers were
commissioned to protect the institution of slavery.
5G.5038 Brewton house with fence
Charleston, S.C., home of planter Miles Brewton, showing

fortifications against possible slave revolt.
Courtesy the Charleston Museum.

[5P.5039] Model of Charleston treadmill
Legal Torture
Southern white fear following the attempted Vesey rebellion led
to harsher civic controls in general. In 1825, as a result of
discussions between planters and Charleston city officials, the
local jail installed a treadmill to discipline inmates. Prisoners
climbed the treadmill’s steps for hours at a time, furnishing
power for the jail’s gristmill. The treadmill was used until the
1840s, when it came to be seen as “cruel and unusual
punishment,” even for slaves.

Limiting Freedom
The Vesey rebellion heightened white Charlestonians’ fear of the
free black as well as of the slave. Shortly after the revolt, city
officials passed laws that increased fines and made re-
enslavement possible if free blacks possible did not register with
the city and wear tags. Like many other such ordinances, the
laws were unevenly invoked and primarily pointed reminders of
white domination in the city.
5G.5029B Free Black tag photo
Free-black tag.
Courtesy the Charlston Museum
5A.5294 Slave tag
Slave tag.

Southern Slave Trade
Although the importation of Africans for sale was banned in
1808, the US internal slave market remained a thriving enterprise
until slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment in 1865.
Every Southern city from Washington, D.C., to Charleston to
New Orleans maintained slave markets that catered to the
plantation economy’s perpetual need for slave labor.
Each year from 1820 to 1860, Charleston’s slave traders dealt in
thousands of slaves, including unskilled young bondsmen,
women of childbearing years, artisans, domestic servants, and
slaves skilled in rice cultivation. In January 1860 alone, traders
sold 2,200 blacks at auction in Charleston.

5G.5359 maps showing lateral slave trade, 1810-1860
Internal Slave Trade
Being “sold south” through the internal slave trade meant the
possibility of permanent separation from family and from all of
the familiar aspects of a slave’s existence. Slaves sold south
found themselves on developing “frontier” plantations in Texas,
Louisiana, or Mississippi that required labor in extremely
difficult if not life-threatening conditions.
The development of farm lands into large cotton and sugar
plantations in the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas,
Texas, and Louisiana sparked a surge in the internal slave trade
beginning in the 1820s. As the productivity of older plantations
in Delaware, Maryland, and the Carolinas declined due to soil
overuse, owners profited handsomely from the sale south of
surplus slaves.

Going on the Block
“See um sell slaves? I see um. Dey put them on a table and sell
them just like chickens. Nigger ain’t no more than chickens and
animals.”
—Former slave, South Carolina
“[After I was sold,] I ain’t never seen nor heard tell of my ma
and paw, an brothers an sisters, from that day to dis.”

—Mary Ferguson, former slave
“Dey bought negroes from states like Virginia and drove them
through the country like a bunch of hogs. . . . In town they have
big Negro sellings, and all the massas from all over the
countryside be dar to bid on em. Dey puts them on the block and
hollers about what they can do and how strong they was. ‘Six
hundred [the auctioneer yelled], yip-yip, make it six fifty.’”

—George Fleming, former slave, South Carolina
For many African Americans, “going on the block” was one of
the most horrific aspects of the slave experience. Slaves were
prodded and inspected. After being sold, they were separated
from family, friends, and the lives they had previously known.
Years after her sale, a former slave remembered how “[my] heart
was completely broken.”
5G.5061
Slave auction, Old Exchange Building, Charleston, S.C., 1853.

“The time has been . . . that the farmer could kill up and wear out
one negro to buy another; but it is not so now. Negroes are too
high in proportion to the price of cotton, and it behooves those
who own them to make them last as long as possible.”
—Unknown planter, 1851

Coffles
Travelers in the rural South in the 30 years prior to the Civil War
commonly witnessed slave traders leading a small group of
chained slaves known as a coffle. Coffles testified to the need to
replenish slave labor due in part to the high death rate among
slaves caused by the harsh and dangerous nature of the work. To
slaves coffles symbolized the limitations on controlling their
own lives.
5G.5063 Slave trader, sold to Tennessee by Lewis Miller, 1853, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Collection
Slave trader, sold to Tennessee, by Lewis Miller, 1853.
Courtesy the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Colonial Williamsburg.
5G.5277 A Slave market in America, Virginia Historical Society
“A Slave Market in America,” by Leverev J. Cranstone, 1862, based on

the Richmond, Vir., slave market.
Courtesy Virginia Historical Society
5G.5281 Sarah, Mulatto Girl Advertisement, Howard University
Advertisement
Courtesy Howard University

“Oh that was a terrible time. Ole Marsta come around the
fields with a man called the speculator. Dey walk around
just looking. . . . Den the speculator sees who he wants . . .
and dey slaps the handcuffs on that slave and take him
away to the cotton country. Even if the slave didn’t want to
go, the speculator would thrash them, then tie them behind
the wagon and make them run until they fall on the ground.
Then he thrash them till they go without no trouble.”
—Marjorie Jones, former slave

header/soffit
Plantation Slavery
Low-Country Plantation Slavery
“One mornin’ a couple married, an’ de next mornin’ de

boss sell de wife.”
—Susan Hamilton, former slave
The lives of slaves on low-country plantations reflect the

struggles, hopes, and experiences faced by most antebellum
African Americans.
Forced to labor in a physically and socially hostile

environment, slaves from different parts of Africa strove to
retain their individual African cultural identities and to
develop a new sense of African American community
based on their diverse tribal values. Cultural continuity
served as a powerful force against the worst, most
dehumanizing aspects of slavery.
5G.5106 Hauling the whole weeks’ pickings
Hauling the Whole Week’s Pickings, by William Henry Brown, about

1842.
Courtesy the Historic New Orleans Collection, Museum and Research Center.
5G.5071 planting sweet potatoes
Planting sweet potatoes, James Hopkinson Plantation, Edisto Island,

S.C., 1862.
Courtesy ???

Friendfield and Other Rice Plantations
Located in the fertile Waccamaw Neck northeast of Charleston,
Friendfield Plantation was one of about 40 antebellum
plantations in that region that produced the bulk of the US rice
crop from 1675 to 1860.
Blacks at Friendfield and other low-country estates far
outnumbered whites and had contact with few white people other
than overseers. Such isolation fostered the survival of African
customs as well as the development of new cultural attributes,
notably the Gullah language.
The large number of black slaves contributed to a very real fear
of slave revolt.
5G.5282 Exterior, main house, Bishopville, S.C., Rice Plantation
Rice plantation, Bishopville, S.C.

Absentee Owner
“There were a lot of Alstons—all of them mean.”

—Former slave, Friendfield Plantation
Friendfield was one of several rice plantations in the isolated but
fertile Waccamaw Neck northeast of Charleston, S.C. Like many
plantations, Friendfield was modeled on the orderly landscaping
patterns of stylish European estates.
In the 1840s Friendfield was owned by William A. Alston, Jr.,
an absentee planter. Like many other absentee owners, Alston
spent most of his time in Charleston, avoiding his plantations
especially during the fever season from June through September.
5G.5059B Photo: Slave Quarters Friendfield Plantation about 1905
Slave street at Friendfield Plantation (as it appeared in the early 20th

century), with 30 slave cabins, a slave chapel, and a sickhouse, 1905.
Courtesy the Belle Baruch Foundation and the Georgetown Public Library,
Georgetown, S.C.
5G.5066 Map of All Saints Parish (Friendfield highlighted)
In 1840 half of the nation’s rice crop was produced on large
plantations like Friendfield.
All Saints Parish, Waccamaw Neck, S.C.

South Carolina’s Slave Majority, 1860
On the eve of the Civil War, South Carolina had one of the
largest percentages of slaves in proportion to the entire
population of any Southern state. In 1860 South Carolina’s black
population was 412,000, while the white population was
291,000.
5G.5067 Slaves in 1860 map [NEW ART REQUIRED]

header/soffit
The Essential African
“Only the [labor of the] African race could have made it

possible and profitable to clear the dense cypress swamps
and . . . fields from the river by canal ditches or floodgates,
drawing off the water when necessary and leaving these
wonderful rice lands dry for cultivation.”
—Elizabeth Pringle, daughter of an All Saints Parish planter,
about 1850
“All them rice fields been nothing but swamps. Slavery

people cut kennel (canal) and cut down woods. All been
clear up for planting rice by slavery people.”
—Gabe Lance, a former slave on Waccamaw Neck, interviewed
in the 1930s

5G.5068 Returning from the fields
Traditional Work Styles
Work—whether for themselves or for the master—dominated the
lives of slaves. Even though the workday was structured by the
plantation owner, slaves used work methods that derived from
their native African cultures.
Returning from the Fields, 1870s.

Combining European and African Work Methods
On rice plantations like Friendfield, the plantation owner
structured the workday. Following a European-based task
system, each slave worked at a specific daily task, such as
digging trenches or sowing seeds. When the daily task was
completed, usually after nine hours, slaves could cultivate their
own gardens or perform other personal chores.
African Americans—particularly those from rice-producing parts
of Central and West Africa—applied traditional African work
strategies to their tasks. Their knowledge of African-based work
methods made them highly efficient and productive laborers. In
addition to their regular tasks, slaves also worked to supplement
their food rations and clothing allotments.
5G.5069 Photo, “In the Yard”

“They worked . . . from can to can’t, from the time they
could see until the time they couldn’t.”
—Abbie Lindsay, freed slave
Working the Rice Fields
African American rice workers toiled in swampy lowlands
infested by snakes and insects. The climate was hot and
unhealthy. Each phase of the annual work cycle featured its own
grueling challenges.
Despite these extraordinarily difficult conditions, slaves
transformed miles of cypress swamps into long series of square
fields, each consisting of from 12 to 20 acres.
5G.5072 mending a rice field bank
“Mending a Rice-field Bank,” by Alice R. H. Smith.
Courtesy the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S.C.
5A.5084 Hoe head
Hoe head used by slaves to weed rice fields, 19th century.
5A.5088 Sickle
Rice sickle used to cut rice, similar to those used on Friendfield

Plantation.
5A.5091 Threshing stick
Threshing, or flailing stick, used on Friendfield Plantation.
5A.5094 2 Fanner Baskets
Fanner baskets made of long-stemmed and sea grasses coiled and rolled
in the traditional African manner, 19th century.
5A.5095 Mortar and pestle
Slaves used mortars and pestles to remove the husks from the rice.
5A.5092 shaking rice backdrop

“Shaking the Rice”
Courtesy Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S. C.

Flipbook
cover
Spring to Fall
Sowing and Reaping
The cultivation of rice required many slaves and constant
attention for almost nine months.
5G.5284 Rice culture on Cape Fear River, N.C., Leslie’s , Oct. 20, 1866
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
March: Plowing the Field
In March the slaves began to prepare the fields for planting by
harrowing, trenching, and plowing. This photograph, taken in the
1930s, conveys a sense of the work required.
5G.5081 Photo of plowing
Photograph courtesy Brookgreen Gardens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
April: Women Planting
By April, “the best hands [were] chosen to sow rice.” These
women relied on the traditional African method of using the foot
to press a hole in the trench and to cover the seed with dirt.
5G.5284A Women planting (in the field sowing)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
May–July: Hoeing
From May to July, the slaves weeded the fields with hoes like
the one above, using African work songs to set a rhythmic pace.
The fields were then flooded until harvest.
5G.5284B Hoeing
Illustration from A Woman Rice Planter, by Alice R. H. Smith.
Courtesy the South Carolina Historical Society.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
August-September: Cutting
Men and women used rice sickles to cut the long stalks of rice.
The laid them out to the side in preparation for harvesting and
tying into sheaves
5G.5073
5G.5248C detail of image used in March section
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.
September: Rice Harvest
In September rice was harvested and tied into sheaves. The
sheaves were taken by canal barge to the threshing area.
5G.5248D tying rice into sheaves
Courtesy Brookgreen Gardens and the South Carolina Library.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.

5G.5075
September: Barging and Transporting from the Fields
The sheaves were piled on a flat-bottom boat and taken tto the
threshing floor.
A Rice Flat in one of the Canals, by Alice R. H. Smith.
Courtesy The Gibbes Museum Of Art, Charleston, S.C..
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September: Threshing—Separating Heads of Rice from

Stalks
Slaves, usually women, separated the heads of rice from the
stalks by using flailing sticks as they walked past rows of
bundled rice stalks. In the mid-19th century, planters replaced
hand threshing with steam-driven threshing mills. .
5G.5079 threshing floor
A Woman Rice Planter, by Alice R. H. Smith.
Courtesy the South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.
September: Winnowing (“Fanning”)
In late September, slaves began to separate the grain from the
chaff using a traditional African agricultural tool, the fanner
basket. They “fanned” the threshed grain in the wind by using
large, flat baskets with slightly slanted rims. The baskets had
been crafted by skilled slave basket makers. Both the baskets and

the technique were direct links with African rice-producing
traditions.
5G.5092B Shaking rice . . . after threshing. Watercolor
Illustration from A Woman Rice Planter, by Alice R. H. Smith.
Courtesy the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S.C.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.
October: Pounding
By October, slaves began the final step in the production of rice:
pounding the grain. They poured the “fanned” rice into a mortar
made from a hollowed log and removed the grain husks. To
accomplish this, they used a pine pestle and the same rhythmic
motion practiced by their ancestors in Africa. Removing the
husks without damaging the grain was a highly prized skill
transported from Africa.
5G.5070: G - Photo “pounding rice”

Photo of Colonel Wigglesworth’s Cook, 1894 [5.G5105]
Slaves Who Did Not Work in the Fields
Plantations were so complex that their organization and demand
for specialized labor resembled those of a small town.
Planters looked for slaves who had mastered non-agricultural yet
essential aspects of plantation work. While most African
Americans toiled in the fields, slaves also worked as carpenters,
blacksmiths, cobblers, butchers, cooks, weavers, and nurses, as
well as in other skilled occupations.
Some of the skills these slaves used had been brought over by
them or by their ancestors from Africa.

5A.5331-5A.5334 blacksmith tools:
5A.5331 anvil
5A.5332 ballpeen hammer
5A.5333 file
5A.5334 tongs
5A.5335 glazier’s tools
5A.5340 1840s iron
5A.5341 rug beater
“Some women were assigned to the job of cooking for the field
hands. But mostly they stayed in the field. Women worked in the
field same as men. Some of them plowed just like the men.”
—George Fleming, former South Carolina slave

Women’s Work at Home
Slave women fulfilled many roles on Southern rice plantations in
addition to their work as field hands hoeing, planting, and
harvesting rice. They served as cooks, household servants,
seamstresses, nurses, personal servants, keepers of the plantation
owner’s children, and weavers.
Because most slaves’ clothes were hand-me-downs, slave
women spent countless hours making, altering, and mending
clothing for the enslaved community.
5A.5122 button
5A.5131 thimble
Buttons and thimbles used by women at Waccamaw Neck in, near

Friendfield Plantation, 1860s.

FLIPBOOK: Life on the Plantation
Aren’t I a Woman: Black Women and Slavery
“Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns. . . . Aren’t I a woman?. . . I
can work as much and eat as much as a man [when I can get it] and I bear the lash as well—and
aren’t I am woman? I have borne 13 children sees em most all sold off into slavery, and when I
cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard, and aren’t I a woman?”
—Sojourner Truth, Women’s Rights Convention, 1851
“Slavery is terrible for men: but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden
common to all, they [women] have wrongs and sufferings and mortification peculiarly their
own.”
—Linda Brent, former slave, 1861
While the lives of male slaves centered on work, female slaves struggled to balance the often
conflicting needs of work and family.
Using the minimal time they had for themselves, slave mothers transmitted religious beliefs and
values and reinforced a sense of identification and community with other slaves on the plantation.
They conveyed the desire for freedom and the importance of education, They also taught survival
skills that gave children a way to view and interact with whites.
Slave women made their lives manageable by giving each other psychological and practical
support that slave women provided each other. These networks acknowledged the limits of their
authority and the owner’s control of their lives and built on the joys and sorrows of their shared
experiences as black women. This extended family ensured that despite the capricious nature of
plantation life, “no child was truly motherless.”

Women and children
Throughout 19th-century slavery, one-fifth of all female slaves aged 15 to 44 bore a child
annually. This meant that much of a woman’s time was spent pregnant, recovering from the birth,
or caring for children, even while she was expected to work in the field or the “big house.”
Most slave women spend many of their child-bearing years pregnant or busy caring for children,
even while performing chores. Reminiscences by former slaves are full of descriptions of
“women with little babies going to work in the morning, and then rushing back to nurse and talk
to the baby, and then returning to the fields” or of how a “mother had little time in which to give
attention to the training of her child during the day. She snatched a few minutes for our care in the
early morning before her work begun, and at night after the day’s work was done.”

Exploitation and Resistance
“If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands
adoration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave.”
—Linda Brent, former slave, 1861
One of the most difficult aspects of the slave experience was the sexual exploitation of slave
women. Because few laws or moral strictures protected black women, many slave women were
raped by whites or forced into difficult situations in order to survive or to protect their family.
Slave women were also pressured into unwanted partnerships with male slaves by masters who
sought a continuing source of labor through the birth of enslaved children.
In the absence of power and freedom, slave women invented ways to provide themselves and
their families with greater dignity and opportunity. Some slave women struck out violently,
usually with arson or poison. But many more waged a contest on the margins that allowed them
to manipulate their circumstances. Many used birth control and abortion as a means to frustrate
the owner’s plans. In 1857 a slave on a low-country plantation was sold as “barren and unsound.”
Once the women received her freedom, she gave birth to three children.
Despite their best efforts, in the words of a former slave rang true, “[us] colored women had to go
through aplenty.”

None but Jesus Heard: African American Religious Life
“Then my troubles will be over, bye and bye, bye and bye.
I will sit along side my Jesus, bye and bye, bye and bye.”
—“Land of Canaan,” spiritual
“I found that when I called on God in my trials, he sent comfort to my heart and told me that the
time would come when I would be free in this world.”

—William Webb, former slave
“Dey gets in the ring dance, it is just a kind of shuffle, then it gets faster and faster and they gets
warmed up and moans and shouts and claps and dances. Some gets exhausted and drops out and
the ring gets closer. Sometimes they sings and shouts all night.”
—Former slave describing the ring shout
“On Sundays, we would meet at the cabins for worship, as we didn’t have no churches. The
slaves like to get together and praise the lord. They would set for hours on straight, uncomfortable
benches and planks, while some would be seated on the ground or standing. They would hum
deep and low in long mournful tones, swaying to and fro. Others would pray and sing soft, while
the brudder preacher was delivering the humble message. The songs was old Negro spirituals
sung in the deep rich voice of our race. We didn’t have no songbooks, nor could we read them if
we had them.”
—Slave worship, described by former slave Steve Weathersby
Religion was the central and guiding force—an “anchor in the storm”—in the lives of most
slaves. Using their religion, slaves developed a sense of moral beliefs and a world view that gave
them spiritual independence from white oppression, hope that freedom and salvation were

possible on Earth or obtainable in Heaven, and a means to understand and cope with the trials and
difficulties of slave life.
Slaves rejected white owners’ and preachers’ notions of obedience and found solace in the
examples of the Israelites who were delivered from bondage. As Wes Brady recalled, “You ought
to hear that [white] preaching, obey your massa and missy, don’t steal chicken, eggs and meat,
but not nary a word about having a soul to save.”
Religion allowed slaves to remain optimistic and hopeful that the day of freedom or “Jubilee”
would come. Yet it also allowed them to express and release anger through the biblical
admonitions about divine retribution. One slave who was sold away from her family at the age of
13 took solace in her belief that “her owner would boil in hell for his actions.”

Making Use of Leisure Time
“[Some masters] allowed us generally to do as we pleased after [the slave’s] own work was done,
and we enjoyed the privilege granted to us.”

—Elijah Marrs, former slave, South Carolina
“Saturday night and Sunday too, young girls on my mind,
Monday morning way before day, Ole marster got me gwine.”

—Song sung in slave quarters
“There was something about that gal, dat day I met her, that attracted me to her lak a fly would
sail around and light on a molasses pitcher. I kept Ashford Road hot til I got her.”
—Peter Clifton, former slave
Slaves believed that while the daylight hours belonged to the master, the time from sunset to
sunup belonged to them. They fought to obtain and maintain this time because of the
psychological and physical release it lent from the repetitive, intrusive, and oppressive nature of
slave labor.
Much of the slave’s free time was actually spent enriching the food or clothing supply or
otherwise improving their family’s condition. . Cleaning, laundry, and home maintenance were
typical Saturday tasks.
Slaves also used this time to chat, gossip, and laugh in the cabins or on the slave street, or to
court, talk with their children, and build and maintain the family. As one slave remembered, “We
were always excited about Saturday night because that was when our father would come to visit.”
Slave husbands and wives used these moments to strengthen their own bonds, discipline and
encourage the children, and plan for the future.

Leisure
“[I] sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m sad.”

—Spiritual
Slaves participated in numerous leisure activities, some drawn from their African origins, others
shaped by the circumstances of their enslavement. Storytelling, whether about dealing with
ghosts, fooling the master, outrunning the patrollers, enduring the pain of the lash, or
experiencing the secrets of courting, was one of the staples of slave life.
Music was a central feature of slave life on the plantation. Slave songs ranged from music that
celebrated love, children, and family, to songs that echoed the sadness and sense of hopeless that
often permeated the lives of slaves, to songs that told of freedom and religious salvation.
Slaves also enjoyed dancing. Whether at organized activities like harvest celebrations or at
informal gatherings, dances, which often consisted of “shuffling of the feet, swing of the arms
and shoulders in a peculiar rhythm.” Dances were usually tests of physical endurance—a means
to win praise and obtain status in the quarters while enjoying emotional and spiritual release.
End of Flipbook

header/soffit
At Home in the Slave Cabin
At Home in the Slave Cabin
The slave cabin was the center of slave life. Here, in

sparsely furnished quarters, slaves prepared their meals,
slept on palettes or crude bunk beds, mended clothing,
stitched quilts, and rested from the day’s labors.
Different generations came together to speak about the

things that mattered to them. They transformed traditional
African folktales into contemporary stories that commented
upon their own lives. On occasion they held prayer
meetings. And, as often as possible, they gave each other
emotional support and worked to keep their family
structures intact.
The slave quarters were key to the development of an

African American culture.
5G.5159C Friendfield image

Returning to Quarters
During evenings at home, slaves obtained and produced the
food—vegetables, fish, or game—that supplemented the family’s
rations. After satisfying such basic needs, family members and
friends could share news or a laugh, find joy among themselves,
or prepare for the next day’s demands.
5G.5118 Slave family
Slave family in front of a cypress cabin similar to those at Friendfield

Plantation, near Beaufort, S.C.
5M.5168 and 5M.5169 Manikins: two children in rafters: 1 shelling peas, 1 playing with a doll. Audio? will deal with death, folktales, and role of
religion. Daytime. We want to make the audience aware of: the importance of work (even the children were required to work), and what childhood was
like in slavery.

Just outside the Cabin
By using the front yard, porch, garden, and surrounding land,
slave families could expand their living space. Children played
on the porch and in the yard while grownups repaired tools and
clothing, worked in the vegetable garden, or socialized.
Saturday afternoon at Friendfield was cleaning time. Women
“hard swept” the grounds of all grass and vegetation, to keep
fleas, snakes, and other pests from nesting in the tall grass.
5G.5119 Photo of cabin exterior
Courtesy Georgetown Library, Georgetown, S.C.

Gathering around the Hearth
Family activities centered around the hearth, the only source of
warmth and a main source of light in the slave cabin. Cooking
and sewing utensils rested on the mantel or were stored in small
pine chests. Clothes hung from wooden pegs in the sleeping area.
Cabins provided some protection from the elements, but their
shuttered windows were no barrier to the cold of winter or the
insects of summer.
5G.5046 Fisherman at home
Fisherman at Home, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1871.
Cabin interior artifacts: iron pot with handle [5A.5113], tin mug [5A.5114], two tin cups [5A.5115/5A.5116], an iron skimmer [5A.5117], an iron ladle
[5A.5109]
Also props to be added.
Housewares: Homemade and Hand-Me-Down
In addition to ceramic and other household items they crafted
themselves, slaves obtained worn and chipped hand-me-downs.

Supplementing the Diet
Fishing played an important role in allowing slaves to
supplement their diets whenever they could. Like working on the
family garden, gathered berries and herbs, and hunting, fishing
was generally a Saturday afternoon activity.
Relaxing
Smoking was among the few forms of relaxation available to
enslaved African Americans.
5A.5137 fishing hooks
5A.5132, 5A.5133, 5A.5134,.5A.5135 pipes
Clay pipes and fishing hooks

superquote
“[My parents] used to teach [me] how to listen, hear, and keep
[my] mouth shut.”

—Former slave
superquote
“The one doctrine of my mother’s teaching that was branded on
my senses was that I should never let anyone abuse me.”

—Former slave

Childhood on the Plantation
“Us learned to count by playing games like ‘Old Hundred.’”

—Anna Parkes, former slave
Slave parents and plantation owners regarded childhood on the
plantation as a time to prepare African American children for the
lives they faced as slaves. While whites saw childhood as a time
to teach efficient work habits and discipline that would ensure
that the black child would grow into “good hands,” slave parents
aimed to teach children the skills needed to survive their
enslavement.
Parents taught their children the importance of religion, a sense
of self worth, ways to deal with “white folks,” the need for
maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of slave activities,
and the central role of family and community. Using African and
African American folk tales, religious teachings, games, and
songs, they also passed on family and cultural traditions and
gave children the strength and skills needed to cope with life as a
slave. Most importantly, parents used time together to strengthen
the family bonds and to convey their love to their children.
Male slaves played an important but often less central role in
their children’s lives than did female. This was a result of the
forced separation of families due to the sale of slaves to other
plantations or regions and to the significant number of “abroad
marriages,” where slaves lived on separate plantations. These

factors affected the amount of time the father spent with the
family and the belief among the slaves that child rearing was
“women’s work.”

Children in Slavery
“Slaves started to work by the time they were old enough to tote
water and pick up chips to start fires with. Some of them started
in the fields by the time they were ten.”

—Former slave, South Carolina
Before 1865, most African American children born in the United
States were slaves. After foreign slave importation was banned
in 1808, plantation owners viewed the children of slaves as a
continuing source of labor and profit. Enslaved children
experienced virtually the same restrictions as adults.
From an early age, slave children were expected to perform
chores around the plantation. They usually took their place in the
fields at 14, depending on the type and size of the plantation. By
16 slave children were expected to be as productive as the adult
slaves or they would risk whipping or other punishment.

Distractions and Lessons
“[Children] played together on the street that ran the length of
the quarters. We throwed horseshoes, jumped poles, played
marbles, jumped rope, and had a mighty lot of fun.”

—Charlie Davenport, former slave
Some children’s games, such as marbles, ball games like “anti-
over,” and clapping contests like “Molly Bright,” were primarily
diversions that helped children develop a sense of community.
Other games allowed children to confront slavery’s fears and
horrors. In the game of Slave Auction, children imitated the sale
of enslaved individuals. In Hide the Switch, players tried to find
the master’s whip. These children’s activities afforded the
youngest community members a means to come to grips with
unwanted possibilities.
5A.5171,2,3,4,6,7 marbles
5P.5170A and B prop dolls
Dolls and marbles

“Massa pick out de fam’ly that got de mos’ chillun an’ say,
‘Fo’ God, nigger, I’m goin’ to sell all dem chillun o’ your’n
lessen you keep ’em quiet.’”
—Cornelius Gardner, a former slave
on reader rail:
5G.5267A, 5G.5267B South Carolina views
5G.5285 Noon on the Plantation
Noon on the Plantation, by William Ward, 1871.
Courtesy Historic New Orleans Collection, Museum/Research Center.
5G.5178 girls gathering water
Children under 14
Most children under the age of about 14 did not work in the
fields but were expected to help in maintaining the plantation.
Their tasks included bringing water to field hands, cleaning the
yard, gathering wood, looking after livestock, caring for smaller
children, tending the plantation gardens, and assisting house
slaves in their daily duties.
Courtesy the New York Historical Society.

Resistance to Slavery
“Lawd, I heard the nigger hounds yelping before day many

times. Dat was the bloodhounds dey sicked on the
runaways.”
—George Fleming, former slave
African Americans never accepted their lot as slaves. They
persisted in their struggle for freedom, resisting the will of

their masters at the risk of whipping, mutilation,
imprisonment, or sale away from their families.
A few slaves attempted escape, braving dogs and armed

patrols to “follow the North Star” to freedom and a new
life. The Underground Railroad, a network of free blacks
and sympathetic whites, assisted thousands of African
Americans in their perilous bid. By 1860 countless escaped
slaves lived in Northern states and cities. More than 40,000
escaped slaves lived in Canada, where African American

men could vote and own property.

Day-to-Day Resistance
While the isolation of plantations like Friendfield limited the
number of slave runaways and revolts, daily acts of slave
resistance were a constant reality. Slaves could, for instance,
deliberately break or lose tools, or pretend not to understand
instructions as forms of protest. Field workers could sing slow
songs as they labored in order to slow down the rhythm of their
work. Some slaves acted more forcefully against the institution
of slavery and against their masters through arson, abortion,
suicide, or poisoning.
Striking these blows against the institution of slavery gave many
African Americans a much-needed sense of psychological
release.
5G.5180 work photos
PROP: broken hoe

Punishments
“I have seen slaves whipped. Dey took them into the barn and
whipped ’em wid a leather strap called the ‘cat of nine tails.’
Dey hit ’em ninety-nine licks. Dey [whites] would say, ‘Are you
going to work? Are you going visiting without a pass? Are you
going to run away?’ Dese are the things they would ask as dey
are whipping him.”

—Alex Woods, former slave
“The last whipping Old Mis’ give me, she tied me to a tree
and—oh my Lord—she whipped me that day. . . . I cried, I
bucked, I hollered, until I couldn’t. I gave up for dead, and she
wouldn’t stop. I stopped crying and said to her, ‘If I were you
and you were me, I wouldn’t beat you this way.’”

—Sarah Douglas, former slave
5A.5162 slave whip
Plantation owners and overseers used whippings and the
application of slave collars and leg-irons as punishments.

Slave Gordon
Abolitionists used this image of a slave named Gordon to show
the cruelty and the violence that African Americans experienced
in bondage. While most slaves were not whipped as severely as
Gordon, nearly all experienced the pain of the lash or the paddle
during their lifetimes. Violence was an essential element in the
plantation system of the antebellum South.
5G.5325 photo of Slave Gordon

header/soffit:
Civil War and Reconstruction
superquote
“Let the black man get upon his person the brass letters
‘US,’ let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his
shoulder . . . and there is no power which can deny that he
has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.”
—Frederick Douglass
When Freedom Came
“Down in their hearts, all slaves were hoping an’ praying

for the day dat freedom may dawn.”
—Israel Nesbitt, former slave
The coming of the Civil War in 1861 and the onset of some
of the experiments of Reconstruction provided many
Southern blacks with the hopes of freedom, citizenship, and
sharing in America’s bounty. But when Reconstruction’s
legislative advances for African Americans were no longer
enforced after 1875, many African Americans felt bitterly
disappointed. Even their most modest hopes remained
largely unfulfilled for most of the next 100 years.
5G.5323 Emancipation
Emancipation, by Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, Jan. 24, 1863.
Courtesy Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
5G.5182 Irrepressible conflict

The Irrepressible Conflict—Charleston, South Carolina, by A. R.
Ward, Harper’s Weekly, June 24, 1866.
5G.5356 illustration of black artillarymen
Battery A, Second US Colored Light Artillary, training in Tennessee,

1864
Courtesy ChicagoHistorical Society
5G.5357 image of 1st vote Harper’s Weekly, 16 Nov., 1867
“First Vote,” date to come

Congressman Robert Smalls
Born a slave in Beaufort, S.C., in 1839, Robert Smalls became a
Union navy hero, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of
1868, a member of the Republican state house and senate, and a
US Congressman. Although Smalls taught himself to read and
write, he helped institute South Carolina’s first free educational
system. As Congressman from 18?? to 18??, Smalls fought for
passage of civil rights legislation.
5G.5358 black Congressman, Robert Smalls

header/soffit
The “Sable Arm”
The Sable Arm and the 1st South Carolina Volunteers
“Until [the nation] shall make the cause of their country the
cause of freedom, until they shall strike down slavery . . . they
don’t deserve the support of a single sable arm.”

—Frederick Douglass
After at first refusing to “enroll Negroes,” the realities of war
compelled the US War Department to allow slaves and free
blacks to serve in the armed forces. 178,975 African Americans,
many motivated by a desire “to strike a manly blow for the
liberty of the race,” signed up to serve in the Union army.
One of the earliest black military units to serve the United States
was the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. This “Sable Arm” was
composed of former slaves from the plantations near Charleston
and Hilton Head, S.C. The members of this unit wanted not only
to participate in the “War between the States” but also to prove
that they were worthy of the freedom that a Union victory would
ensure. By the end of the Civil War, 178,975 African-American
men had served alongside approximately 2 1/4 million white
Union army soldiers.
5G.5198A 5G.5198B “A PRIVATE OF THE 1ST S.C. COLORED REGIMENT CAPTURING A CONFEDERATE LIEUTENANT”]
“A Private of the 1st S.C. Colored Regiment Capturing a Confederate

Lieutenant”
Courtesy Smithsonian Institution Libraries

“I have the honor to report that the organization of the 1st South
Carolina Volunteers is now complete. The regiment is light
infantry composed of ten companies of about eighty-six men
each, armed with muskets, and officered by white men. In
organization, drill, discipline, and morale, this regiment is not
surpassed by any white regiment in this Department.”

—Brigadier General R. ?? Saxton, in a letter
to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Jan. 25, 1863
5G.5193 The Negro in the War - Sketches of Various Employments of Colored Men in the US Armies
“The Negro in the War - Sketches of Various Employments of Colored

Men in the US Armies,” from Leslie’s Illustrated, 1864
5G.5191 Photo, 1st S.C. Vol. dress parade
1st South Carolina Volunteers dress parade.
Courtesy the National Archives.
5G.5183 Escaped slave in Union army
“Escaped slave in the Union army,” Harper’s Weekly, 1864.
5A.5187 sergeant’s uniform
5A.5189 sergeant’s cap
5A.5190 rifle (AFH#47226-247434)
5P.5201 guidebook
Sergeant’s uniform and Springfield rifle musket of the type issued to

members of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. Black soldiers’
uniforms were usually handed down from white units
Courtesy Howard University.
5P.5200 enlistment papers
Enlistment papers of a volunteer in the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops

5G.5290 Douglass
Sgt. Maj. Lewis Henry Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, 54th

Massachusetts Volunteers.
Courtesy Howard University, Moorland-Springard Collection
5G.5288 4th US Colored Infantry, Fort Lincoln, Md.
Members of the 4th Colored Infantry at Fort Lincoln, Md.
Courtesy the Chicago Historical Society.
5G.5289 “A Black Corporal in the Union army”
Courtesy the Chicago Historical Society.
5G.5197 drilling Negro recruits
“Drilling Negro Reruits for the 1st S.C. Regiment,” Beaufort, S.C.

84th Infantry
Black soldiers faced extensive discrimination. They could not
serve as line officers, were often relegated to construction
battalions and fatigue detail, initially received lower pay than
their white counterparts, and were denied the right to surrender
by Confederate officers.
Nonetheless, many black units fought and served with
distinction. The 84th Infantry, composed of free blacks who
were originally part of Louisiana’s elite Corps d’Afrique, fought
in the Western campaigns. Their Red River campaign is credited
with keeping Mexico out of Texas at the end of the Civil War.
The 84th served from Sept. 24, 1863, to Mar. 14, 1866.
5P.5203 Flag, 84th reg. US Col. Infantry (replica)
Regimental colors of the 84th Infantry (replica), 1866.
5A.5194 enrollment book
5P.xxxx (2) prop graphic pages (repros. of National Archives/prop pages)
Enrollment books listed the names and residences of those who joined
the Union army. These pages list some of the former slaves who
voluntered.
Reproduction pages courtesy the National Archives.

“They used to sell us and whip us . . . now we ain’t afraid,
if they meet us, to turn the bayonet through them.”
—Prince Rivers, 1st South Carolina Volunteers
Provost Sgt. Prince Rivers: Military Hero
Born in 1822, Prince Rivers was a former plantation house slave
who enrolled in the Union army in Beaufort, S.C., in 1862.
Rivers served as a provost sergeant for more than three years.
When he mustered out at Charleston in 1866, Rivers found a rare
opportunity to put his leadership skills to effective use. He
served in the South Carolina State Assembly from July 1868
until March 1874.
5P.5202 Rivers’ records (3 pages)
Pension records for Prince Rivers.
Courtesy the National Archives .

What US Military Service Meant to Black Soldiers
The nearly 200,000 African Americans who fought, labored, and
died as part of the US armed forces during the Civil War did
more than contribute to the war effort. Serving as soldiers helped
to convey the idea that blacks actively participated in gaining
their own freedom. Freedom and citizenship were not simply
given; they were earned.
The process of becoming soldiers and enduring combat also
helped to speed the transition from slave to freedman. After the
war, many former soldiers became the vanguard for change in
the South and in the nation.
Entrance of 55th Mass [5G.5207] (LC-US262-33247) and 2 recruitment broadsides [LC-USZ-62-2048 (image is text only)5G.5206/5G.5205]
55th Massachusetts Regiment marching into Charleston, S.C., Feb. 21,

1865.
Courtesy the Library of Congress and the National Archives.

header/soffit
The Fleeting Promise of Reconstruction
The Fleeting Promise of Reconstruction
Most African Americans rushed to participate in the

revolution that Reconstruction appeared to be. But the
period following the Civil War proved to be a bittersweet
time in the history of African Americans.
Some African Americans sought to create black

communities in which they could exercise influence free
from white control. But most hoped to benefit from passage
of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments—acts that
bestowed freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote for
African American men. They also put their faith in the
Civil Rights Act of 1875, economic assistance from the
Freedmen’s Bureau, and emerging political power in the
South as means to share in the promise of American life.

The Reconstruction Town of Mitchelville
The story of Mitchelville, S.C., follows Reconstruction’s

general pattern of initial success and subsequent decline.
The village flourished from its founding in the early 1860s

until the 1870s, as one group of former slaves pursued its
version of America’s promise. Yet Mitchelville’s period of
growth ended abruptly, and the hopes of its residents were
ultimately frustrated.
Like other Reconstruction towns, Mitchelville flourished

for an instant in history, before the hope of America’s
promise began to recede.
5G.5209 Mitchelville, Leslie’s, Feb. 7, 1863
5G.5211A Mitchelville
Mitchelville, S.C.,1863, from Leslie’s Illustrated, 1863

“A piece of ground has been selected for a Negro village.
The Negroes are to build their own homes . . . they are
to be left to themselves as much as possible.”
—New York Times, August 1862
“The people are contented and industrious.”

—Levi Coffin, a Union army soldier, 1868
Mitchelville
In December 1861, hundreds of former slaves—known as
“contrabands”—left their plantations and converged on the
Union encampment at Hilton Head, S.C. The Northern soldiers
built camps to accommodate the refugees.
General O. M. Mitchel, commander of Fort Beaufort, South
Carolina, agreed that the African Americans could create their
own village on the site of the contraband camp. By March 1863,
former slaves had completed their first single-family homes,
modeled after slave cabins. Within a few years, 1,500 former
slaves lived at Mitchelville and the area was dotted with small
stores, farms, and churches. Many residents farmed, and many
participated in the local black-run government.
By the mid-1870s, antebellum plantation owners began returning
to claim much of low country’s fertile land. Many of
Mitchelville’s residents drifted away or entered into
sharecropping in order to survive.

Although the village existed well into the 20th century, it never
recaptured the optimism and working-class prosperity of the
Reconstruction years.
5G.5213 “New Gov’t buildings”
“New Government Buildings at Hilton Head,” Leslie’s Illustrated,

1862
5G.5211B Michellville map (possibly to be redrawn??)
Mitchelville village, Hilton Head Island, 1864.
5G.5212 barracks-style dwellings
Original barracks-style dwellings at Mitchelville, 1866.

US Army Presence
Union army soldiers maintained a presence at Mitchelville for
several years.
5A.5214 and 5A.5215minie bullets
5A.5216, 17 and 18 three military buttons
5A.5219, rosary
.58-caliber “minie balls,” military uniform buttons, and a rosary

fragment, Mitchelville, 1870.
Courtesy the Hilton Head Museum.

Making a Living at Mitchelville
Many Mitchelville residents earned their living by providing for
the needs of the hundreds of soldiers, both black and white, who
were stationed in the area.
5A.5224/5225/5226 Scissors
5A.5227/5228 Thimbles
Thimbles and scissors, Mitchelville.
5A.5252-.5253 hinges
5A.5251 Tobacco bowl
Clay pipe and carpenter’s ruler hinge, Mitchelville.

A Census in Shards
The remains of ceramics, utensils, and African-American-made
colonoware testify to of about 1,500 people at Mitchelville in
1866.
5A.5229-.5244 Pottery fragments, Chicora
Pottery fragments.
5G.5220 one lonely house with fenced garden
5G.5221 people 2 buildings
Dwellings built by former slaves at Mitchelville.

conclusion
Though Reconstruction promised the black community a

sense of control over its own destiny—economic and
educational opportunities, social mobility, and access to
political power—the moment was fleeting. Within a few
years, violence, intimidation, and fraud had stilled the
African American political voice. Many farmers became
bound to the land as sharecroppers, a form of economic
slavery that would ensnare many blacks well into the 20th
century.
The unfinished struggle for freedom and equal rights of the

19th century became one of the cornerstones of 20th-
century America. African Americans still ask: When will
the promises of freedom and equality, progress and
opportunity, come to pass for us?

5G.5360 Sharecroppers (#1 in text interpolation)
5G.5363 Sharecroppers (#2)
5G.5361 Shores family (#3, sod house)
5G.5364 Singleton and McClure (#4, exodusters)
5G.5362 Nat Love (#5)
5G.5365 Urban individual
“The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of

the color-line.”
—W. E. B. DuBois, 1905
“Though de slave question is settled, the race question will

be wid us always. . . . It’s in our politics, in our justice
courts, on our highways, on our sidewalks, in our manners,
in our religion, and in our thoughts, all de day and every
day.”
—Cornelius Holmes, former slave.
END OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SECTION

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Section 5

Promises Deferred: African Americans

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009

Slavery and Freedom

“Everybody [in the quarters] was always talking about

The institution of slavery severely restricted African

Blacks struggled to protect their families and to attain

This section of Pursuit of Promise portrays African

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 1

“There was no such thing as being good to slaves. Many

“All I ever wanted was to be free.”

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 2

with equality and democracy and freedom and

This section of Pursuit of Promise focuses on the ways African

Americans overcame their exclusion from the promises of

equality, democracy, freedom and independence.

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 3

Courtesy the Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

5G.5342 Isaac, a slave carpenter owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Courtesy the University of Virginia Library.

5G.5343 A white woman reading Bible stories to slave children

Courtesy North Carolina Collections, University of North Carolina Library,

Courtesy the New York Historical Society.

5G.5345 Slave nurse with young master

Courtesy the Missouri Historical Society.

5G.5346 Families(?) outside a building [NO CAPTION]

Courtesy the Library of Congress.

5G.5347 A family of sharecroppers after the Civil War

Courtesy the Valentine Museum, Richmond, Va.

5G.5348 A young middle-class woman [NO CAPTION]

Courtesy the Tougaloo College Collection.

5G.5354 Yarrow Mamout, portrait by Charles Wilson Peale (1819)

Courtesy the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

5G.5349 An old man sitting on a tree stump [NO CAPTION]

Courtesy the Cook Collection.

5G.5350 An old man holding a book [NO CAPTION]

Courtesy the Cook Collection.

5G.5351 A smiling man [NO CAPTION]

Courtesy the Cook Collection.

5G.5352 A former slave

Courtesy the Randolph Simpson Collection.

5G.5353 A free black family in the rural South

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 4

5G.5158 Slave street photo--Brookgreen

Courtesy Georgetown Public Library, Georgetown, S.C.

5M.5000 Mannequin of an old woman

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 5

“Soon there won’t be nobody left living what was a sho’nuf

slave. It’s something to think about, ain’t it.”

Charleston, S.C., was a thriving city, home to many of the low

country’s slave-owning elite and to thousands of African

Americans. Here enslaved African Americans, free but unskilled

laborers, artisans, and a small elite of “free people of color”

lived, worked, and worshipped. Many more blacks labored as

slaves on nearby plantations.

The African American experience in South Carolina reveals

look offers insights into the violence and degradation of slavery,

reveals the resiliency of African Americans who struggled in an

the spirit out of them.

Section 5: African Americans DRAFT October 6, 2009 p. 6

African Americans, more than three-quarters of whom were

slaves, constituted more than half of Charleston’s population in