After Slavery: Educator Resources
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Unit One Documents: Giving Meaning to Freedom
- 1. A White Piedmont Farmer Reflects on Black Freedom
- 2. President Johnson offers Amnesty to Former Confederates
- 3. President Andrew Johnson Appoints William W. Holden Provisional Governor of North Carolina
- 4. A Northern Military Officer Advises Former Slaves on Freedom
- 5. A Planter's Vision of Freedom and Free Labor
- 6. Two North Carolina Freedwomen Testify Against Their Former Owner
- 7. A Committee of Freedmen on Edisto Island Reveal their Expectations
- 8. Former Slaves Describe Conditions on a Georgia Plantation
- 9. A Charleston Freedwoman Opens A Bank Account
Unit Two Documents: Freed Slaves Mobilize
- 1. A Wartime Encounter Between Two South Carolina Slaves
- 2. Rev. Henry McNeal Turner Reports on Organizing among Freedpeople in Georgia
- 3. An Unnamed Black Organizer Reports on the Reception for Republican Speakers among Freedpeople in South Carolina
- 4. A Destitute Local Union League President Seeks Aid from the Governor of North Carolina
- 5. John T. Costin Reports on the Difficulties of Organizing
- 6. A Union League Organizer Seeks permission to Bargain on the Behalf of Women and Children
- 7. A Federal Officer Reports that Freedpeople are Organizing Military Companies on the South Carolina Sea Islands
- 8. White Conservatives Complain that the Union Leagues are Organizing Labor Strikes South of Charleston
- 9. A Charleston Newspaper on the 1868 Municipal Elections
Unit Three Documents: Land and Labor
- 1. Rufus Saxton Argues That Land Should Be Set Aside for Freedpeople
- 2. Freedmen's Bureau Report on the Treatment of Plantation Laborers in Gates County, North Carolina
- 3. A Freedpeople's Colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina
- 4. Rufus Saxton's Letter to Northern Planter Edward S. Philbrick
- 5. General William T. Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15
- 6. Freedpeople React to the Restoration of Land to their Former Masters
- 7. Planter-Attorney William Whaley Wants to Exclude Blacks from the Land Board
- 8. South Carolina's 'Black Code'
- 9. A Desperate North Carolina Republican Appeals to Governor Holden for Land
- 10. White Confederate Veterans Appeal to South Carolina's Land Commission
- 11. A Freedpeople's 'Co-operative' in Colleton County, South Carolina
Unit Four Documents: Freedom, Black Soldiers, and the Union Military
- 1. General Rufus Saxton's Report on an Early Engagement by Black Troops
- 2. New Bern's Black Community Negotiates their Terms for Military Service
- 3. North Carolina's 'African Brigade' Raids the State's Interior
- 4. General Saxton Protests against the Forced Enlistment of Freed Slaves
- 5. Clashes between White and Black Union Troops in Charleston
- 6. Georgetown (S. C.) Whites Petition for the Removal of Black Troops
- 7. Contrasting Attitudes toward Union Troops in the South Carolina Upcountry
- 8. Black Troops, White Hostility, and Radicalization in the Upcountry
- 9. Petition from Union County Republicans against Removal of Troops
Unit Five Documents: Conservatives Respond to Emancipation
- 1. A White Texas Farmer Shoots a Freedman
- 2. "The War is Not Over"
- 3. D. F. Caldwell's Ideas for Economic Development in North Carolina
- 4. 1865 North Carolina Constitutional Convention Responds to Freedpeople
- 5. Wade Hampton's Advice to Confederate Veterans
- 6. Judge A. P. Aldrich Removed from the Bench
- 7. Wade Hampton's Advice to Freedpeople
- 8. A Conservative Realizes the Mistakes of Earlier Policies
- 9. Governor Jonathan Worth Argues Against 1867 Call for a Constitutional Convention
- 10. Plato Durham Argues Against the Reconstruction Acts in the 1868 Constitutional Convention
- 11. Dr. Pride Jones Agrees to Help Stop the Ku Klux Klan
Unit Six Documents: Pursuing Citizenship, Justice, and Equality
- 1. N.C. Planter Denying Schoolchildren Use of the Public Roads
- 2. Whites Reclaim an Edisto Church from Freedpeople
- 3. Report on Conditions in a North Carolina Jail
- 4. Charleston Protests against Streetcar Segregation
- 5. Harassment of Freedpeople in the Vicinity of Wilmington
- 6. Columbia Democrats Debate Black Suffrage
- 7. Sawmill Operator Tries to Prevent Employees from Voting the Radical Ticket
- 8. The Difficulty of Obtaining Justice from Local Authorities
- 9. North Carolina Conservatives Attempt to Frame a Union League Official
- 10. Freedpeople Petition for the Removal of a Trial Justice
- 11. Black Workers Petition Governor Scott against Extortion
Unit Seven Documents: Gender and the Politics of Freedom
- 1. The Social and Domestic Price of Free Labor
- 2. A Black Woman Imagines a Differently Gendered Working Class
- 3. A Virginia Freedwoman Critiques the Gendered Nature of Freedom and Free Labor
- 4. A Freedwoman's Civil and Domestic Expectations
- 5. A Husband Shoulders a New, Free-Labor Duty
- 6. The Problems of Family-based Labor
- 7. Soldiering Men
- 8. Clashing Ideas about Gender and Political Rights
- 9. Playing Politics with Gender
- 10. A Black Minister Proposes a Collective Solution to Freedom's Gendered Problems
- 11. A Southern White Woman Reflects on New Circumstances, a New Identity
Unit Eight Documents: Planters, Poor Whites and White Supremacy
- 1. Sidney Andrews on Attitudes among North Carolina's Poor Whites
- 2. J. B. Sitton's Petition for a Presidential Pardon
- 3. North Carolina Constitutional Convention Protects Homesteads
- 4. The Ku Klux Klan Attacks a White Man Assisting Blacks
- 5. Matthew C. Butler - Planters React to Being Ignored by Government
- 6. Belton O'Neall Townsend on 1876 Strategy
- 7. A Description of Wade Hampton's Campaign
- 8. T. D. Gwyn Argues Against the Fence Law
- 9. South Carolina Greenbacker Explains His Opposition to Democrats
Unit Nine Documents: Coercion, Paramilitary Terror, and Resistance
- 1. Ex-Confederate Soldiers Terrorizing Union Men and Freedpeople in North Carolina
- 2. Early Outrages against Freedpeople in South Carolina
- 3. Hostility to Freedpeople and Federal Authorities in the South Carolina Upcountry
- 4. Former Freedmen's Bureau Official Rufus B. Saxton on Freedpeople's Desire to Acquire Arms
- 5. North Carolina Freedmen Seek Protection from Governor Holden
- 6. Governor Scott is Warned of Impending Clashes in the South Carolina Upcountry
- 7. A. M. E. Pastor S. B. Williams Reports Atrocities to Governor Holden
- 8. Albion W. Tourgée Reports on KKK Violence in North Carolina
- 9. Freedpeople's Testimony on the Effects of Klan Violence
- 10. A Spartanburg Republican Offers President Grant Advice on How to Suppress Paramilitary Violence
- 11. Martin W. Gary's Plan for the Conservative Campaign of 1876
Unit Ten Documents: Freedpeople and the Republican Party
- 1. Black Charleston Reacts to News of the Confederate Surrender
- 2. An Appeal for Resources to Organize the South
- 3. A North Carolina Republican Seeks to Clear his Name
- 4. White Moderates Maneuver to Prevent Radical Domination of the Republican Party
- 5. A South Carolina Agitator Falls Foul of Military Authorities
- 6. Blacks Organize against Discrimination in the Republican Party
- 7. North Carolina Conservatives Refuse to Seat a Black Republican Appointee
- 8. Republicans in Tallyho, North Carolina, Protest against Democratic Fraud
- 9. Illiteracy, Competence and the Difficulty of Building a Bi-Racial Party
- 10. Pressures on Freedmen to Vote the Conservative Ticket
- 11. Election Day Street Confrontations in Charleston
- 12. A White Schoolteacher on the 1876 Elections in the South Carolina Lowcountry
- 13. Freedpeople Confront a Black Politician for Having 'Sold Out his Race'
South Carolina Curriculum Standards
Recommended Reading
Digital Resources
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Exhibit HomeReconstruction and Redemption in the Carolinas
Books:
Alexander, Roberta S. North Carolina Faces the Freedmen: Race Relations during Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-67. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1985.
Allen, Walter. Governor Chamberlain's Administration in South Carolina. New York, New York: G.P. Putnam’s sons, 1888.
Baker, Bruce. What Reconstruction Meant: Historical Memory in the American South. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2007.
Cecelski, David S. The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Click, Patricia. Time Full of Trial: the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, 1862-1867. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Cooper, William J. The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877-1890. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.
Drago, Edmund L. Hurrah for Hampton: Black Red Shirts in South Carolina during Reconstruction.Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 1999.
Edmonds, Helen G. The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Hall, Jacqueline et al. Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Hadden, Sally E. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Haley, John H. Charles N. Hunter and Race Relations in North Carolina. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
Holden, Charles J. In the Great Maelstrom: Conservatives in Post-Civil War South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
Holt, Sharon Ann. Making Freedom Pay: North Carolina Freedpeople Working for Themselves, 1864-1900.Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2003.
Holt, Thomas. Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction.Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1979.
Kantrowitz, Stephen. Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Logan, Frenise A. The Negro in North Carolina, 1876-1894 Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
McKinney, Gordon B. Southern Mountain Republicans, 1865-1900: Politics and the Appalachian Community. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1998.
Mobley, Joe A. James City, A Black Community in North Carolina, 1863-1900. Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1981.
Nelson, Scott. Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
Powers, Bernard E. Jr. Black Charlestonians: a Social History, 1822-1885.Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 1999.
Simkins, Francis B. Pitchfork Ben Tillman, South Carolinian. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
_____ and Robert H. Woody, South Carolina during Reconstruction. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publisher Inc., 1932.
Tindall, George B. South Carolina Negroes, 1877-1900. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
Williamson, Joel. After Slavery: the Negro in South Carolina during Reconstruction, 1861-1877. New York, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975.
Zuczek, Richard. State of Rebellion: Reconstruction in South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2009.
Articles, Reviews, Collections:
Baker, Bruce. "The 'Hoover Scare' in South Carolina, 1887: an Attempt to Organize Black Farm Labor," Labor History 40:3 (August 1999): 261-82.
Cecelski, David S. and Timothy B. Tyson, eds. Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Crow, Jeffrey J. "'Fusion, Confusion, and Negroism': Schisms Among Negro Republicans in the North Carolina Election of 1896." North Carolina Historical Review 53:4 (1976): 364-384.
Hine, William C. "Black Organized Labor in Reconstruction Charleston," Labor History 25 (1984): 504-517.
Kelly, Brian. "Black Laborers, the Republican Party and the Crisis of Reconstruction in Lowcountry South Carolina," International Review of Social History 51:3 (Dec. 2006): 375-414.
_____. "Labor and Place: The Contours of Grassroots Black Mobilization in Reconstruction South Carolina," Journal of Peasant Studies 35: 4 (October 2008): 653-687.
_____. "Emancipations and Reversals: Labor, Race and the Boundaries of American Freedom in the Age of Capital," International Labor and Working Class History75: 1 (Spring 2009): 1-15.
Kirshenbaum, Andrea Meryl. "'The Vampire That Hovers Over North Carolina': Gender, White Supremacy, and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898." Southern Cultures 4:3 (1998): 6-30.
Kremm, Thomas W. and Diane Neal. "Challenges to Subordination: Organized Black Agrarian Protest in South Carolina, 1886-1895," South Atlantic Quarterly 77:1 (1978): 98-112.
Lockley, T. "Review of Olwell's Masters, Slaves and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1740-1790and Jenkins' Seizing the New Day: African Americans in Post-Civil War Charleston," Labor History (May 1999).
Mabry, William Alexander. "Negro Suffrage and Fusion Rule in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review 12 (April 1935): 79-102.
Morgan, Philip. "Work and Culture: the Task System and the World of Lowcountry Blacks, 1700-1880," William and Mary Quarterly, 39:4 (Oct. 1982), 563-599.
Strickland, John C. "Traditional Culture and Moral Economy: Social and Economic Change in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1865-1910," in Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude, eds. The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
Saville, Julie. "Grassroots Reconstruction: Agricultural Laborers and Collective Action in South Carolina, 1860-1868," Slavery and Abolition12:3 (Dec. 1991): 173-82.
Schwalm, Leslie A. "'Sweet Dreams of Freedom': Freedwomen's Reconstruction of Life and Labor in Lowcountry South Carolina," Journal of Women's History 9:1 (Spring 1997) 9-39.
Tindall, George B. "The Campaign for the Disfranchisement of Negroes in South Carolina," Journal of Southern History 15:2 (May 1949): 212-34.
Primary Source Materials and Contemporary Accounts:
Moore, John Hamond, ed. The Juhl Letters to the Charleston Courier: a View of the South, 1865-1871.Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1974.
Pike, James S. The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government. New York, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1874.
Towles, Louis P. ed. The World Turned Upside Down: the Palmers of Santee, 1818-1881. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1996.
Towne, Laura. Letters and Diaries of Laura M. Towne; Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 1862-1884. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Library, 2009.
Williams, Alfred B. Hampton and His Red Shirts: South Carolina’s Deliverance in 1876. Charleston, South Carolina: Walker, Evans & Cogswell Co., 1935.