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'
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Exhibit Home6. Governor Scott is Warned of Impending Clashes in the South Carolina Upcountry
The following educational document corresponds with Unit Nine: Coercion, Paramilitary Terror, and Resistance in the After Slavery exhibition. Note the "Questions to Consider" section included at the end of each document.
Context
Faced with a sustained campaign of violence and frustrated by the absence of a sense of urgency among the white Republican moderates in control of state governments in the Carolinas, black Carolinians occasionally took matters into their own hands, and organized local self defense when the state failed to offer organized protection. Here it appears that two local officials from Unionville (possibly sheriffs or constables) are informing South Carolina Governor Robert K. Scott of an impending clash between whites and blacks. The recent incidents recounted near the end of the document help to place this development in context.
Governor Scott is Warned of Impending Clashes in the South Carolina Upcountry
Union Vill So Ca
July 25 1868
sir I have the oppituity to inform you of the effect that your ordersa hav taken here I under stand from the Whites that ar of the opinion that you hadent gav me any such orders and I hav recev orders from Mr. James H. Goss of near the same as I recev from you and tha say that tha ar going to put it Down and tha ar holding A meeting toDay and geting men to sign and rais arms to fight us next satterday and We are looking for it to commence Evory day tha preparing and We ar redei When tha start with us We are going to try to meet them Right & all that wonst to see the Negors & Rebels fight can com up here they say that War has to start & it had gest as Well start now as any time tha say that We shell not march our men throw the strtes With Guns & We say that We Will and if you all down Thare hav any thing to say let us here it soon for We Wont have no time for chating When We get started in to this Grat Batel.
No Moer yours & True
Robert L. Martin
H W Duncan sinet
Thar is A Man in Gale here for cuting A Rebel it resulted in this Way so I under stand the Rebel attacked the colerd man in the Rod & grabbed his knife & the colerd man run & the Rebel cort him and the colerd man Drawn his knif & cut him survurly tho the Whit man is well & at Work &, the colerd mans crop is going to Destruction the nams are kemp & the colerd man samul Hill.
The Rebels here say that tha hav herd that the Freedman ar coming to union from the cuntray & tak this man out of Gale thar is no sich Repot and the cuntray as I no of thar is no sich Repot.
Thar was A Woman found murded at hills plot farm yestday & We sent A trup to see about it & she Was gon befor the trups got thar & tha tracked wher she had Ben Draged A muel track & the Blood was follerd for it bout two mils tha will Bee very apt to fin out all about it today A colored Woman Nam Bety Gregra
The Demes [Democrats] gav it Barbacue out at Mr. Bob McBeth's on the 24 an had A Big fight with the Radaculs fik to kill one of the colerd Radaculs I hav not found out Right About it yet the nams Bill Bates & Ben Bates.
Writ to me soon[.]
aProbably a reference to orders relating to the upcoming fall elections. Scott later expressed concern that conservatives were organizing armed militias and importing weaponry from out-of-state to intimidate freedpeople from voting. He would briefly sanction the organization of state militias in 1870, but later disbanded them under pressure from conservatives.
Source: Robert L. Martin, H. W. Duncan [Unionville] to Governor R. K. Scott, 25 July 1868; Governor Scott Papers, South Carolina Department of Archives and History
Questions to Consider
- The letter, transcribed as it appears in the original, was obviously composed by someone with very basic literacy skills. Assuming that Martin has been assigned to a policing role by Governor Scott, does his illiteracy seem to prevent him from being a competent official?
- According to Martin's report, whites are preparing for a confrontation with local freedpeople. What seems to be the main basis for the whites' objections? What course of action does Martin intend to pursue? What factors may be influencing his response?
- Judging from the evidence contained in the document, what role does rumor play in intensifying antagonisms between blacks and whites?
- Is there any evidence that the pending elections are having an effect on relations between blacks and whites in the upcountry?