History of Slavery in South Carolina Image: Plantation Dance in South Carolina This well-known watercolor by an unidentified artist depicts people presumed to be plantation slaves dancing and playing musical instruments. The following is based on a talk given by Kym Smith, a leading member of PSL in Columbia, South Carolina, on a national PSL webinar on June 18. Richard Sears McCulloh, Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, who had been born in Baltimore and studied at Princeton, resigned in 1863 and departed for Richmond, where he experimented with chemical weapons for the Confederate war effort. Columbians and the Manumission Society, 7. Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, 132; Manuscript History of Columbia, Chapter 7, Box 31, Miner Papers; Trustees’ Minutes, October 15, 1863, University Archives, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University; Milton H. Thomas, Columbia University Officers and Alumni 1754-1857 (New York, 1936), 28n. He received support from Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson, a university trustee. Of the approximately 850 persons who joined the Union League by the end of the Civil War, approximately 50 had a direct connection to Columbia and P and S as officers, faculty, or graduates. A. there was Richard T. Greener, in 1870. Due to advances in medicine, hygiene and health care, the death toll during the American construction was far lower than during the previous French attempt. Location – Columbia, Richland County6100 Garner's Ferry Road, directly across from Shoppes at Woodhill/Target The movement of slaves throughout Columbia fostered ample opportunities for interaction among blacks in public and private spaces. South Carolina Slaveholders, N-Z. Unlike other territories of the continent where the purchase of slaves was lower, this … The entrance to Millwood is directly across from In order to identify records of interest, you must first examine the genealogy of slaveholding families. But SHERMAN'S and GRANT'S armies are not the only ones available in the combinations against Richmond. [iii], The organization of black regiments had been funded by the Union League Club, founded in 1863 to unite the city’s pro-war business and professional elite in support of a vigorous prosecution of the war. Slide 4. A. from Columbia College. Columbia University in the City of New York, 6. This ensured that heavy work had no cost, so it was a very lucrative economic activity, especially in newly founded cities. The feeling was not mutual. Federal Writers’ Project photo of Charles M. Logan’s slave pen, ca. [xii], Barnard did not share King’s strong hatred of slavery, nor the commitment he had developed during the war to improving the condition of blacks. Hunter Dupree and Leslie H. Fishel, Jr., “An Eyewitness Account of the New York Draft Riots, July 1863,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, (December 1960), 472-79; Extracts from Morgan Dix Diary, October 10, 1859, Item 195, Columbiana Manuscripts; Treasurer’s Cashbook, October 12, 1863, Box 10, Miner Papers. [vii], Along with King, Lieber was the most outspoken prowar Columbian. Barnard became embroiled in controversy in 1859 when, over the objections of faculty members, he expelled a student who had raped one of the female slaves who worked in Barnard’s home. John Slidell, Class of 1810, became a leading Louisiana secessionist and Confederate commissioner to France. [viii], Not all Columbians were pro-Union. [v], In 1864, King was succeeded as head of the Loyal Publication Society by Francis Lieber, one of Columbia’s most distinguished professors. Several black students attended Harvard in the 1860s; the first to receive a B. Manuscript History of Columbia, Chapter 7, Box 31, Miner Papers; Liberator, March 14, 1862; New York Times, July 16, 1862; A. Use the previous and next buttons to change the displayed slide. Africans most likely first arrived in the area that would become South Carolina in 1526, as part of a Spanish expedition from the Caribbean. History of Slavery in South Carolina Image: Plantation Dance in South Carolina This well-known watercolor by an unidentified artist depicts people presumed to be plantation slaves dancing and playing musical instruments. It was installed in 2001 as part of the compromise that saw the Confederate flag moved from the statehouse dome to the grounds near the Confederate monument. Strong now declared that future generations would regard John Brown as “the hero or representative man of this struggle.” “The change of opinion on this slavery question since 1860,” he wrote in 1864, “is a great historical fact… God pardon our blindness of three years ago.”[iv], Closely connected with the Union League was the Loyal Publication Society, founded in February 1863 to counteract antiwar propaganda being circulated in the city. Barnard resigned and, declining an offer from Jefferson Davis of a position in the Confederate government, eventually made his way to the North. But the war also radicalized him with respect to slavery. It would take a social revolution in the country and an unprecedented crisis on the campus itself for Columbia finally to move beyond the long history of involvement with slavery and racism, and toward becoming the more diverse, more inclusive institution it is today. One major difference between urban and rural slavery was the high concentration of slaves in cities. Contrary to popular belief, not all slaves lived on plantations. “The College has been debilitated for nearly forty years, perhaps longer” he mused, “from the fact that its presidents have not been chosen for fitness or from interest in the cause of education… but because they were excellent persons in want of a situation.” King’s successor was Frederick A. P. Barnard. In the early 1800s, South Carolina College was a significant institution in the growing city of Columbia. In 1663 the English Crown granted land to eight proprietors of what became the colony. This website is intended to tell the largely unknown and unfamiliar story of slavery at South Carolina College, the institutional predecessor of the University of South Carolina. [iii]. One trustee enlisted in the army – John Jacob Astor, Jr.[x], In March 1864, Charles King resigned as Columbia’s president. “There were drawn up in line over a thousand armed negroes,” he wrote to his long-time acquaintance Charles Sumner, “where but yesterday they were literally hunted down like rats. It was determined to burn King’s house “as he was rich, and a decided republican,” according to Dr. John Torrey, a Columbia trustee who witnessed these events. COST: ($8 per person with paid garden admission, children under 6 free) Magnolia's Cabin Project began more than five years ago in an effort to preserve five historic structures that date back to 1850. [i]. Jack’s story reveals the close ties between campus slaves and their urban environment. In May 1861, a month after the surrender of Fort Sumter, Columbia held a flag-raising ceremony, with Major Robert Anderson, the federal commander at the fort, the main speaker. Strong, who had struggled without success to get the trustees to modernize the curriculum, did not think much of King’s tenure. In January 1863, he published in the New York Tribune a “Letter to the President of the United States, by a Refugee,” in which he denounced slavery as a “relic of primitive barbarism,” but spent most of his space warning of a fifth column in the North-traitors who posed the real danger to the war effort. Fish helped to organize a giant patriotic rally in Union Square, out of which emerged the Union Defense Committee, which he chaired. 6, No. A fascinating Civil War Newspaper featuring Columbia, South Carolina. But as a professor at the University of South Carolina from 1835 until 1857, when he became Professor of History and Political Science at Columbia, he not only remained silent about the institution, but bought and sold household slaves. Named for Carolina chancellor Henry William DeSaussure, it survived an earthquake in 1811 and a fire in 1851. At the end of the Lords Proprietor's rule in 1729, South Carolina counted 40,000 African slaves, a full two-thirds of their entire population; North Carolina had 6,000 African slaves out of a total population of 36,000, or, one-sixth. He wrote a new military code, issued in 1863, that became the foundation of the later Geneva conventions. American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and Improving the Condition of the African Race. For this reason, the colonizers of America ventured into the purchase and sale of African slaves, practice to which some British sailors in the sixteenth century. Six decades later, she would be among about 100 black South Carolinians who received small pensions for their involuntary service to the Confederate cause. slavery to freedom and from segregation and political and economic disenfranchisement to the struggle for equal rights. : Philadelphia, 1881), 2: 177-79. “Superiority of the white race! MAKING THE 'WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY' WHITE: RACE, SLAVERY, AND STATE-BUILDING IN THE JACKSONIAN SOUTH Lacy K. Ford, Jr. Any examination of race as a formative influence on the American South must first Lieber had sons fighting on both sides in the Civil War. A Prussian who fled to avoid political persecution and arrived in the United States in 1827, Lieber was a bundle of contradictions. Parry, Lieber, 342; The Miscellaneous Writings of Francis Lieber (2 vols. Nevins and Thomas, Strong Diary, 3: 415; John Fulton, Memoirs of Frederick A. P. Barnard (New York, 1896), 246-59; Sabrina Singer, “Columbia’s Civil War Presidents: How Charles King and Frederick A. P. Barnard’s Views on Slavery Shaped Columbia,” Seminar Paper, Columbia and Slavery, Spring 2015, 5-12. COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Across the world, in a Russian town known for three things -- guns, beer, and vodka, according to victims advocate Olga Phoenix -- a … In a desire to preserve order, the college shifted from an ownership system to a hiring system administered through the marshal. Some members of this large enslaved population worked in their masters’ households. Since when?… What was he doing when civilization had made great progress in India, in literature, architecture and the useful arts?’[vi], Once he arrived at Columbia, Lieber became a public critic of slavery (although his history course on the eve of the conflict seems to have made no mention of the institution). Charleston, SC (29403) Sitting on the South Carlina State House grounds in Columbia is the expansive African-American Monument. Since evidence for the assault came from the account of a male slave, Barnard was accused of convicting a student on slave testimony and said to be “unsound on the slavery question” (which he vehemently denied). How Columbia Regulated and Taxed Slavery. Urban Slavery in Columbia, sc DeSaussure College (1809) is the second-oldest building on campus, formerly the North Building and later Old North Building. Among its founders were prominent Columbians, including King, Fish, Fish’s nemesis Beekman, Strong, and Samuel B. Ruggles, Strong’s father-in-law, a major New York business leader, and a trustee of the college. Jack did not obtain membership before his death in 1822. Buying and selling human beings - examines slave trade from the shores of Africa to the markets of Charleston, including capture, the Middle Passage, auctions and cost, and the separation of families 2. History of Slavery in South Carolina . In order to understand slavery on campus, it is necessary to examine the role of slaves in Columbia during this era. Although various decrees established curfews and prohibited slaves from meeting and from learning to read and write, such rulings were difficult to enforce. Learn More. Columbia. The Charter, By-Laws, and List of Members (New York, 1865), 21-29; Melinda Lawson, Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North (Lawrence, 2002), 105-11; George Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York, 1965), 55-56, 101; Nevins and Thomas, Strong Diary, 3: 159, 205, 408. 1525 - First arrival Spanish explorer Ayllon brings a few enslaved Africans to the South Carolina coast. Legislators developed state and local statutes to restrict the movement of urban slaves in hopes of preventing rebellion. In 2016, the President’s Task Force for Advancing The Citadel’s Connection to Diversity and Inclusion observed the need to promote a more comprehensive understanding of “the context in which The Citadel was established in 1842, historical relationships between The Citadel and the surrounding community, and the importance of cultural diversity to the development of Charleston and SC.” Urban slaves also participated in white organizations throughout the city, though in limited roles. Faculty speak to student protesters occupying Low Library in April 1968. It gives a rare view of African American life in South Carolina during the colonial period. Slide 3. [i], The speeches at Columbia’s flag-raising ceremony said nothing about slavery or emancipation. (Anderson was delayed in arriving and a student quipped that perhaps he was more adept at hauling down a flag than rasing it – for which King sternly rebuked him.) He lives alone in one room on Miller's Alley, Columbia, S. C., and is healthy and physically capable of self-support. Before the end of 1861 he was insisting that “all negroes coming into our [army] lines are free.” The following year he urged the arming of black troops and informed Bates that the Supreme Court had been mistaken in Dred Scott and free blacks must be considered citizens of the United States. George Templeton Strong also served as treasurer of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, which organized assistance to wounded soldiers. A carousel is a rotating set of images. 103) The third section, the acts of the corporation of Washington." Slavery is one of the oldest human commercial practices. Examined (New York, 1863); Samara Trilling, “A Tale of Two Columbias: Francis Lieber, Columbia University and Slavery,” Seminar Paper, Columbia and Slavery, Spring 2015, 30-32. Rogers, George C. Jr. An extreme nationalist, his wartime writings pilloried the South and defended every action of the federal government. 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