Remembering Samuel Ulin: Witness to the First Emancipation Celebration in South Carolina, 1863 by Toni Carrier

Please welcome our good friend Toni Carrier back to the blog! She was gracious enough to do an interview with us earlier in the year, and we discussed her ongoing research involving Drayton Hall and her amazing work at Lowcountry Africana. (Click here to read the interview.)  Now she’s written a piece for our readers to enjoy about the first Emancipation celebration in South Carolina, which occurred in 1863. Incredibly enough, one of the participants of this joyous celebration was Samuel Ulin, the great-great-grandfather of Rebecca Brown Campbell and Catherine Brown Braxton, descendants of the Bowens-Johnson family formerly enslaved at Drayton Hall.  Rebecca and Catherine are longtime supporters of Drayton Hall, and Catherine was just recently elected to our board. We love how Lowcountry Africana connects us to the past in such a tangible way. Thanks for blogging Toni! 

The morning of January 1, 1863 was greeted with great excitement in the Union military encampment on the Old Fort Plantation of J.J. Smith near Beaufort, South Carolina, for on that day a great celebration was to take place.

Port Royal had been captured on the morning of November 7, 1861. In the days following the capture of Port Royal, some 5,000 African Americans enslaved in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida had escaped from bondage and volunteered to serve in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) to fight for the freedom of those still enslaved [1].

The first full regiment of United States Colored Troops in South Carolina had been mustered in in early November of 1862 as the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (later designated 33^rd United States Colored Troops) [2]. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an abolitionist from Massachusetts, had received command of the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry regiment, arriving in Beaufort in late November of 1862. Upon his arrival in camp, he commenced a journal of his experiences, and it is from his journal that we learn of the grand celebration on New Year’s Day of 1863.

Above: Detail from “Dress parade of the 1st South Carolina [U.S.C.V.], Beaufort, S.C.” Library of Congress Digital Print LC-USZ62-62492 No Known Restrictions on Publication.

Higginson had received regimental colors which were to be presented to the new recruits, but the day’s focal point was the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, which declared all slaves in the Confederate states forever free. For the men who had escaped bondage and lived as free since their muster into the Union army in November 1862, the morning of January 1 brought great joy, for their status would no longer be ambiguous – they would be officially free [3].

And so the day began with anticipation and excitement. Expecting a gathering of some 5,000 celebrants, Higginson had ordered ten cattle to be roasted. About 10:00 a.m. guests began arriving and soon every approach to the Smith plantation was thronged. The ceremony proceeded as planned, with the presentation of the regimental colors and reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Then, as Higginson described, “followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected and startling, that I can scarcely believe it on recalling, though it gave a key-note to the whole day.”

“Emancipation Day in South Carolina” – the Color-Sergeant of the 1st South Carolina (Colored) addressing the regiment, after having been presented with the Stars and Stripes, at Smith’s plantation, Port Royal, January 1
Source: Library of Congress Digital Photo ID LC-USZ62-88808. No Known Restrictions on Publication.

The moment the speaker ceased and as Higginson took and waved the flag, from out of the assembled crowd came a lone male voice in song: “My Country ‘t is of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, of Thee I Sing.” This spontaneous celebration was soon joined in by others in the crowd. Higginson described the moment:

I never saw anything so electric. It made all other words cheap. It seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. Nothing could be more wonderfully unconscious; art could not have dreamed of a tribute to the day of jubilee that should be so affecting; history will not believe it and when I came to speak of it after it was ended tears were everywhere.

One of the celebrants who witnessed this event was Samuel Ulin, the great-great-grandfather of Rebecca Brown Campbell and Catherine Brown Braxton, descendants of the Bowens-Johnson family formerly enslaved at Drayton Hall.

Above: Catherine Brown Braxton and Rebecca Campbell, Descendants of Drayton Hall and Great-Great Granddaughters of Samuel Ulin. Photo Courtesy of Jay Millard

Samuel Ulin had escaped bondage in Florida and made his way to Port Royal, where he enlisted in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) on November 11, 1862. Born in Duval County, Florida, Samuel was 39 when he enlisted in the USCT for a term of three years. Ulin was present at the grand celebration of January 1, 1863 and was one of the Union soldiers of African descent officially freed on that day [4]. Samuel Ulin fought and was wounded in battle on July 9, 1863, when United States Colored Troops in three Union gunships engaged Confederate forces at Willtown Bluff. Samuel was one of 250 troops in the 1st SC Volunteer Infantry who departed Port Royal in three Union gunships – the John Adams, an armed ferry boat steamer, the Enoch Dean, an armed transport and the Governor Milton, an armed tug, on an excursion up the Edisto River on the afternoon of 9 Jul 1863. Their mission was to burn a railroad bridge some 30 miles up the river.

Above: Civil War Pension Index for Samuel Ulin, 33rd United States Colored Troops. Source: Civil War and Later Pension Files, Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Widow’s Pension Application No. 5833301, Nancy Ulin; Service of Samuel Ulin (Pvt., Co. G, 33rd United States Colored Troops, Civil War). Previous Invalid Pension No. 674522; Original Invalid Pension No. 652845

After a difficult journey in heavy fog, they anchored about 4 a.m. near the Morris Plantation. The bridge was defended by a small force of Confederate troops who were forced to retreat, but in the battle Samuel Ulin was shot through the right hand and in the left side of his chest. He was admitted to the Beaufort field hospital where he remained for two months. He was never quite well again, and his disability ultimately resulted in paralysis and his death August 19, 1893. His wife Nora Singleton, Rebecca Campbell and Catherine Braxton’s great-great grandmother, predeceased him in August of 1891 [5].

We do not yet know whether Samuel Ulin married Catherine and Rebecca’s great-great grandmother Nora Singleton before or after his service in the Union army, but because he was among the first soldiers to enlist in the United States Colored Troops in South Carolina, a rich narrative of the events he witnessed survives in two books, now digitized and available on the Internet. The first is Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s diary Army Life In a Black Regiment, which chronicles his experiences while commanding the regiment Samuel Ulin served in (the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry, later designated 33^rd United States Colored Troops). The second is Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops Late 1st S.C. Volunteers by Susie King Taylor, an army nurse whose husband was a soldier in the 33^rd USCT. You can read the full text of each of these books in the South Carolina Full Text Reading Room on the Lowcountry Africana website.

Left:  Detail from Compiled Service Record of Samuel Ulin. Source: Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served with the United States Colored Troops: Infantry Organizations, 31st through 35th. Database Online at Fold3.com, http://www.fold3.com/title_692/31st35th_infantry/, accessed 13 Dec 2012. Original Data from NARA M1992. Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Belonging to the 31st through 35th Infantry Units, Organized for Service With the United States Colored Troops (USCT).

FURTHER READING:

For more information on the history of the 33^rd United States Colored Troops, please see Who Lived This History? The 33rd United States Colored Troops (USCT) on the Lowcountry Africana website.

For Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Susie King Taylor’s accounts of camp life among the 33^rd USCT, please visit the South Carolina Full Text Reading Room on the Lowcountry Africana website.

REFERENCES CITED:

[1] Rose, Willie Lee. 1964 Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment. Athens: University of Georgia Press, pp. 194-196.

[2] Rose 1964, pp. 194-196.

[3] Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. 1870 Army Life In a Black Regiment. Boston: Fields, Osgood and Company. Original from Oxford University, Digitized by Google Books 22 May 2007.

[4] Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served with the United States Colored Troops: Infantry Organizations, 31st through 35th. Database Online at Fold3.com, http://www.fold3.com/title_692/31st35th_infantry/, accessed 13 Dec 2012. Original Data from NARA M1992. Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Belonging to the 31st through 35^th Infantry Units, Organized for Service With the United States Colored Troops (USCT).

[5] Jones, Keith J. 2011 The Boys of Diamond Hill: The Lives and Civil War Letters of the Boyd Family of Abbeville, South Carolina. McFarland Publishers; Civil War and Later Pension Files, Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Widow’s Pension Application No. 5833301, Nancy Ulin; Service of Samuel Ulin (Pvt., Co. G, 33^rd United States Colored Troops, Civil War). Previous Invalid Pension No. 674522; Original Invalid Pension No. 652845.

Christmas in Charleston…A Holiday To-Do List!

Every year, this week at Drayton Hall proves to be especially exciting. This weekend, for the 29th year in a row, we’ll gather in the raised English basement to enjoy a concert of African-American Spiritual music with three concerts by Ann Caldwell and the Magnolia Singers. Tradition and history is obviously important to all of us here at Drayton Hall. Seeing the same Friends come year after year to enjoy this special holiday tradition always gets us in the spirit of the holidays. If you’ve never been, you’re in for a treat. Click here to be redirected to our page and to buy tickets.

Our friends over at Charming Inns of Charleston compiled this wonderful holiday to-do list, and were kind enough to include the Spirituals Concerts in it. Click here to be directed to their page so you can check off some of the fabulous holiday events they’ve compiled.

Hollywood here we come……

A few weeks back, Drayton Hall welcomed a group of distinguished guests onto our grounds and into the main house for a very exciting project- filming a segment for the PBS documentary “The African Americans: Many River to Cross.” The group included a PBS film crew and the host of the series, scholar and historian Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. (Read more on Mr. Gates impressive background here: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~amciv/faculty/gates.shtml  )

Mr. Gates brought to the site a good friend of Drayton Hall’s, Dr. Bernard Powers of the College of Charleston, to interview for the series. (Learn more about Dr. Powers here: http://history.cofc.edu/about/faculty-and-staff/powers-bernard.php) The documentary is focusing on the history of rice cultivation in the Lowcountry, which was a defining period for Drayton Hall and this part of the South.

From L-R, Dr. Bernard Powers, Catherine Braxton, Skip Gates, Trish Smith, Kristine Morris, Rebecca Campbell, Dr. George McDaniel.

We were also so excited that sisters Catherine Braxton and Rebecca Campbell, descendants of the enslaved at Drayton Hall and members of the steering committee for our African-American cemetery, welcomed Mr. Gates to the site. They presented him with a special gift that commemorated his visit to Charleston and to Drayton Hall- a DVD with excerpted passages from the oral histories of descendants that were recently filmed here, as well as a fanner basket, Carolina rice, and our famous rice spoon. Mr. Gates was delighted and enjoyed speaking with Catherine and Rebecca who are gifted oral historians of African-American history at Drayton Hall. Click here to see a video of their behind-the- scenes meeting.

Rebecca Campbell presents Skip Gates with a present on behalf of Drayton Hall.

Dr. McDaniel, our Executive Director, was thrilled that our site was chosen for such an important documentary. “It was an honor to have historian Skip Gates at Drayton Hall for the program he’s producing on African American history.  Dr. Gates has done so much to promote history in general, and specifically, to engage the public in family history and African American history through his work in public television. The selection of Drayton Hall as a site for his interview with Dr. Bernard Powers illustrates the qualities of this historic site, and it was great to have Dr. Powers, who has been involved with so many of our projects. “

Sisters Rebecca Campbell and Catherine Braxton on the portico of Drayton Hall.

Although visits like this require lots of hard work by our talented staff, they are always worth it, as they merge seamlessly with our mission to educate the public and support historic preservation. The series will premiere on PBS in the fall of 2013. 

The Jubilee Project

Drayton Hall is absolutely thrilled to be involved in the Jubilee Project, a collaborative and fascinating project that includes celebration, education and inquiry related to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Movement  - read the official Jubilee Project flyer below and follow the links to learn more. We hope you’ll mark your calendar and join us on some of these dates!  

To mark the publication 150 years ago, on September 22nd, 1862, of the Emancipation Proclamation, the College of Charleston’s program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) is pleased to announce the launch of the Jubilee Project, 2013. As a spin-off from the CLAW program’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Jubilee Project is a collaborative academic and cultural project extending across the College and City of Charleston, the Carolina Lowcountry, and beyond. The project celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of public education in South Carolina, and commemorates other key events both of 1863 and of the Civil Rights movement in 1963. The coincidence of the anniversaries of these two significant events also prompts us to ask what happened in the intervening century, and to what extent emancipation and equality of opportunity have been achieved up to this day.

Partners in the year-long project include colleges, historical sites, and city, county, and state agencies up and down the coast and across the state, from the Penn Center on St. Helena’s Island, to various Charleston sites, to Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet. In addition, university and college partners will include Claflin, Clemson, Furman, and South Carolina State, as well as the University of South Carolina. The Project’s formal opening will take place on New Year’s Eve, 2012, with a special City of Charleston sponsored New Year’s celebration followed by an Emancipation Day Parade in downtown Charleston on New Year’s Day, 2013. The Project’s closing event will take place on November 19th, 2013 (the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, in which President Lincoln spoke of “a new birth of freedom”) at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Public commemorations and exhibitions between those two dates will address historic events such as the Battle of Gettysburg and the attack on Fort Wagner, as well as key moments in the Civil Rights era, such as when Clemson admitted its first African-American student in Spring 1963, and when both USC and Charleston County public schools followed suit in the Fall.

Jubilee Project highlights also include an exhibition of Civil Rights era photography at the Gibbes Museum, an exhibition of African art at South Carolina State University, the southern regional conference of the American Studies Association, the annual conference of the African Literature Association at the College of Charleston, and a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers at the Avery Research Center.

In addition to these one time public and academic events, the Project aims to have a lasting impact on the way in which South Carolinians think about the history of emancipation and educational access. To that end the Project will collaborate with the Lowcountry Digital Library (lowcountrydigital.library.cofc.edu) in developing long-term digital history projects and online archival collections. We also welcome public participation in the Project. If you or an organization you represent have a suggestion for an event that you would like to stage or would like to be involved in or affiliated with the Project in any way, please contact Simon Lewis at 843-953-1920, or e-mail him at lewiss@cofc.edu.

For information about individual events, please call the event organizer directly. For further information on the Jubilee Project as a whole, please call Simon Lewis at 843-953-1920, or e-mail him at lewiss@cofc.edu.  A complete listing of Jubilee Project events and partners is available at the Jubilee Project website: www.jubileeprojectsc.wordpress.com

Guineans Visit the Lowcountry: By Dr. George McDaniel

Guinea, West Africa

On March 29^th, I was delighted to welcome to Drayton Hall, for the first time, a group of delegates from Guinea, West Africa, and their guide, Dr. Ken Kelly, an anthropologist from the University of South Carolina.  The impetus for their visit was an archaeological project by Dr. Kelly investigating a series of sites associated with the slave trade along the west coast of Africa, especially the one on the Rio Pongo, a coastal river of Guinea. The visitors came to see firsthand the legacies of the Atlantic slave trade and to explore the connections in culture and history forged during the 18^th and 19^th centuries between coastal regions of West Africa and South Carolina. Their itinerary also included a meeting with Mayor Joe Riley in Charleston and visits to Middleton Place and Caw Caw Interpretive Center, operated by Charleston County Parks and Recreation. Drayton Hall was fortunate indeed to be included in this effort to gain insights into this dark chapter of our shared histories.

Organized by Dr. Ken Kelly and historian Jane Aldrich, historical consultant here in Charleston, the group consisted of  Ahmed Tijane Cisse, Minister of Culture and Heritage from the republic of Guinea, El Hadj Ibrahima Fall, the Rector of the Nelson Mandela University in Conakry, the capital of Guinea,  and Mr. Moussa Fofana, the son of the Chief of Farenya, plus several of Dr. Kelly’s graduate students.  Since French is the national language of Guinea, an interpreter was needed. Although I spoke French fluently 40 years ago, I’ve become somewhat rusty, so I was delighted to have Dr. Kelly’s wife, Cecile, as our interpreter. She spoke beautiful French, and the visit gave me the opportunity to converse in French from time to time, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

Dr. McDaniel pours over maps with Mr. Fall and Mr. Cisse.

For their visit, I was hoping that our learning could become a two-way street, that an ongoing relationship could be developed, and that we could sustain the dialogue. Thus when our guests arrived, I showed them around the site and explained about the development of African-American culture in the Lowcountry, but also sought to learn as much as possible about traditional life in contemporary Guinea and about possible ongoing connections between our two regions.

Much of my inquiry was inspired by my time in Togo as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1968. While there, I saw firsthand traditions in rural villages practiced by Africans and African Americans during slavery and after freedom.  As we began our discussions, our talk centered around the topography of these two geographically similar areas. When one looks at aerials (Fig.1) of the Lowcountry juxtaposed against the topography of the coastal region of Guinea, it is apparent that these two coastal regions are geographically similar. We discussed with the Guineans the idea that when enslaved peoples were brought from Africa, they found themselves in a place that at least visually looked like their native Africa.

Figure 1. The ACE Basin in the Lowcountry as compared to Rio Pongo, Guinea. (Click on image to enlarge)

The discussion took an interesting turn as we spoke about how topography and the introduction of malaria shaped development patterns in the Lowcountry.  As malaria was endemic to coastal Africa, enslaved Africans had more resistance to the deadly disease while Northern European settlers were more likely to succumb, thus minimizing the efficacy and profitability of white indentured servants and maximizing that of enslaved Africans.

Our discussion then shifted to medicine and to the Conakry National Museum and its major collection of masks and fetishes relating to traditional African medicine. So often the portrayal of this type of medicine is characterized by witch doctors and voodoo. During my time in Togo, I became close friends with Monsieur Daniel, a traditional medicine man, and would occasionally accompany him on his rounds to family compounds in the nearby villages.  What he demonstrated was counter to the traditional stereotypes of African medicine from Tarzan-like movies. He would take

Dr. Ken Kelly demonstrates the use of the mortar and pestle in the connections tent.

with him his bag of medicines and along the way might gather roots, bark, or leaves from plants and mix them into potions. He began his examination with prayer, and before administering  to a skin sore, for example, he would first nick himself and apply the salve to himself, and then to the patient. If the problem was a stomach issue, and the medicine was a liquid, he would first drink the potion, then give it to the patient, and conclude with a respectful prayer. There were successful remedies, but if they weren’t, Monsieur Daniel would recommend U.N. clinic in the village to his patients, although the clinic did not reciprocate.  All of this showed how we needed to gather as much information as we could about these traditional practices and not simply to dismiss them as “superstitions.” In fact, Mr. Cisse explained that progress has been made in that direction and that in modern Guinean hospitals today, there are Western trained doctors working alongside traditional African healers. This exemplifies the type of cross cultural exchange that is so necessary for us to understand one another’s history, and I was glad to hear of it.

As we spoke, I remembered my many discussions with Richmond Bowens, who was born here in 1908 and who was a wonderful source of oral history. Among his recollections were accounts of traditional medical practices of the African American families at Drayton Hall. We had audiotaped Richmond as he went from plant to plant, explaining their medicinal uses, and he concluded by pointing to the woods and stating simply, “This was our drugstore when I was growing up.” While plants differed, of course, from Africa and traditions had been exchanged with others over time,  it is amazing to think that these traditional ways of thinking and of turning to nature for medicine had been brought over on slave ships to Drayton Hall and persisted into the 20^th century.

We also discussed rice cultivation, as Guinea is located on what is often referred to as the Rice or Grain Coast of Africa. Even today, rice is grown there on the wet coastlands, and as they described the methods used, they sounded familiar to the practices used at Drayton Hall in centuries past. In order to control water levels in the diked fields of rice, for example, they used a hollowed-out tree trunk with a control door at each end. Although the trunk used at Drayton Hall differed from this African one, the principles of operation were similar.

After a lengthy discussion, we toured the grounds, starting at the Connections Tent. The Guineans immediately spotted the sweet grass baskets as well as the similar African baskets of woven grass brought here from Senegal by anthropologist Dr. Deborah Mack. Mr. Fall told us that these baskets are still made and used in Guinea for a variety of purposes, including as fanner baskets for rice. They also recognized a mortar and pestle reproduction that we use for demonstrating hand milling of rice. The Guineans said that these methods are still used in rural villages today, though they use two slightly different versions than ours. One has a wider mouth and was used for the removal of the husk from the kernel, while the second, with a more narrow mouth, was used to remove the bran.

Archaeologist Sarah Stroud shows our visitors colonoware sherds from the Drayton Hall Collection.

We then headed into the main house for a tour, where archaeologist Sarah Stroud had set up an exhibit of 18^th century colonoware from Drayton Hall. Our guests were excited by this exhibit as they explained that low-fired pottery like this was still made in villages in Guinea, and described the two-to-three day process villagers used to create it. They also recognized one jar in particular from Drayton Hall’s collection that is still used today in their country to burn incense for funeral services or simply to freshen up their homes. The same vessel was also used by doctors to prepare and administer medicinal potions. When I asked why that form was preferred, they said they didn’t know, just that traditional doctors preferred them. Thus the Guineans and Dr. Kelly were able to suggest a possible interpretation of an anonymous 18^th-century colonoware sherd artifact from Drayton Hall, one that connects it to the people who made it and their culture, a possible interpretation hard to come by otherwise and that now can be tested.

The visit was such an exciting exchange of dialogue, and I think we learned as much from the Guineans as they learned from us about Drayton Hall’s history. I was honored to be invited to Guinea to conduct fieldwork on the traditional practices we discussed and to get actual video documentation of them being performed. Although I doubt such an endeavor would be possible for me, I truly hope that some time in the near future, this can be accomplished by Dr. Kelly or by Guineans themselves.  In our fast-paced and modern world, we have an imperative to document and record as many of these traditional practices as we can in order to study these cultures and their ongoing connections, so that we can learn from them, and in turn they can learn from us. Although this was the first time we had received visitors from Guinea, I truly hope that it will not be the last.

Lowcountry Africana Comes to Drayton Hall!

Drayton, Charles. Estate Inventory, Charleston, SC, 1820. Charleston District, South Carolina Estate Inventories, 1732-1844, Vol. F (1819-1824), pp. 246-248.

In African-American genealogical research, there is a term that describes the dearth of records associated with former slaves prior to 1870. Researchers call it the “1870 brick wall,” and for many people, it literally is that, when it comes to researching their ancestors–the 1870s census was the first time that African-American former slaves were listed by names and surnames. One researcher set out in 2007 to blast through this brick wall and simultaneously digitize as many historical records as possible. Toni Carrier received a masters in applied anthropology from the University of South Florida, and building off the work she did for her thesis, founded Lowcountry Africana, a not for profit research organization and free online database focusing specifically on the region known as the Gullah/Geechee Heritage Corridor which extends from Wilmington, NC, in the north to Jacksonville, FL, in the south. Toni explains that, “the 1870 brick wall is the biggest obstacle to success for those looking to find historical records of enslaved ancestors. The 1870 census was the first to list African Americans by names and surnames. The 1850 and 1860 census enumerated enslaved African Americans, but listed them by age and gender only, not by name. Unless you know who the slaveholder of your ancestor was, it takes a lot of detective work to make the leap back to plantation records.” That’s why Toni and her fellow researchers at Lowcountry Africana gather as many records from Emancipation to the 1870 census as they can uncover, digitize them, and allow free access to online tutorials to enable people to shed light on these records.

For Toni, finding these records and allowing people access to them is not something she does only for a love of history. For her, there is a moral imperative. “Our ancestry is the sum total of our individual experiences. Because of cultural factors, there are important stories out there that haven’t been told, and will be lost forever if someone doesn’t do this work–everyone should care about preserving these records.” For some people, genealogical research might seem like the provenance of a few historically savvy dilettantes, or armchair researchers. But Toni and the researchers at Lowcountry Africana feel that everyone, regardless of race or ethnic origin, needs to know their roots. Toni likes to quote her colleague Robin Foster who says that “anyone can define you if you don’t know who you are.” Robin explains that she looks to the struggles and adversity that her forbearers faced in order to gain perspective on her own challenges. For Toni, her French-Cajun ancestry is her anchor in the world. “I treasure the recipes, stories, and heritage of my ancestors–and anyone can learn their family’s heritage if they know how and where to look.”

For descendants of enslaved people from the Drayton network of plantations, Toni’s research has unearthed a goldmine of important historical information. Using Charles Drayton’s diaries, she has uncovered stories of sacrifice, struggles, and heroism. Because two-thirds of the slaves that were owned by Charles were sold, there are many families in the Lowcountry that had roots at Drayton Hall but were separated from them during the mid-1800s. Their ancestors were later freed from other plantations in the area but may have important Drayton Hall roots. For Toni, Charles’s diaries shed a human light on the Drayton family history that until now hasn’t been fully explored. “These diaries really “people,” the historic landscape, and bring the human experience back to a history that can be seen as simply facts, places, and lists.”

Close up of text, listing of enslaved African-American's names.

Toni and the researchers at Lowcountry Africana are busy compiling over 30,000 pages of historical documents pertinent to Drayton Hall that will be available to the public starting this fall. Once all the documents are uploaded onto the website, researchers can query the database and look at all sorts of information, seeing across the spectrum of births, deaths, and incredible experiences.

Of the 30,000 documents that Toni and her team have uncovered and are busy uploading to their database, one story in particular has stood out to her and stands as a shining example of the intrinsic worth of their particular type of historical research. “In our research we uncovered a story about a group of enslaved ancestors at Jehosee Plantation, near Edisto. One of the women in the group went to gather berries in the woods and was bitten by a rattlesnake. Two of the enslaved men that were there, quite possibly without the permission of the overseer, carried this woman on their backs to Charleston to be treated by Dr. Charles. This story is downright heroic and shows the sheer determination and fortitude of these enslaved ancestors.”

For more information, please go to http://www.lowcountryafricana.com

Changing Representations of African American History at Drayton Hall

For most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, plantation tourist sites in the Charleston area were not places to learn about African American history. This was a glaring oversight. Charleston was the dominant North American port in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and enslaved Africans and African Americans made up the majority of South Carolina’s population throughout this area’s colonial and antebellum history. Though the life experiences of these men, women, and children varied across the urban and rural contexts of the Lowcountry, the overwhelming majority lived and worked in the fields of plantations, such as those found along Ashley River Road, including Drayton Hall. Despite the struggles of chattel slavery, particularly constant vulnerability to sale or punishment, these individuals

African-American cemetery at Drayton Hall.

retained powerful West African traditions and crafted a new African American culture in the plantation context. After Emancipation, free African Americans still faced considerable obstacles due to racial discrimination, particularly through the development of Jim Crow laws and African American disenfranchisement. They made a range of choices about how to construct new lives in this volatile context, from continuing to work as a sharecropper, working for low wages on the plantation, or seeking work elsewhere.

Despite this rich, diverse history, plantation tours in Charleston traditionally focused on white elite experiences and material wealth in big houses and gardens; but in recent years this pattern has started to change. By 2012 most plantation sites in the Charleston area have introduced African American history tours. My PhD. dissertation research, which began in 2007 and continues into the present, focuses on documenting how these new tours developed in the Charleston area, including at Drayton Hall, and considers how historic representations may continue to change in the future. Drayton Hall’s African American history interpretation began with Richmond Bowens, who was descended from enslaved African Americans at Drayton Hall. Bowens was born at Drayton in 1908, and returned to Charleston from Chicago in the 1970s. He started working at Drayton Hall again as a gatekeeper of what was then a newly established National Trust site. In the 1990s, site director Dr. George McDaniel asked Bowens to

Outdoor location of Connections tour that began at Drayton Hall in the early 2000s. Includes mortar and pestle to describe how enslaved Africans and their African American descendants African-American processed rice, a major cash crop in South Carolina's history.

start telling visitors about his experiences growing up at Drayton Hall, and about the oral traditions passed down in his family, from the porch of the caretaker’s cottage (which currently houses the gift shop). After Bowens passed away in 1998, site producers decided to develop a formal African American history tour. They introduced “Connections” in the early 2000s, which is based on scholarly research as well as Bowens‘ oral traditions. Since then, Drayton Hall also opened the African American cemetery on the site to visitors, adding an intricate wrought iron archway designed by renowned blacksmith Phillip Simmons. In addition, the site has introduced a DVD tour option that includes African American history information, and site managers started encouraging guides to include more descriptions of African American history in the house tours as well as the Connections tour.

These changes are significant, but there is still great potential for further historic interpretation development. One of the greatest interpretive challenges that plantation sites in Charleston continue to face is what scholars Jennifer L. Eichstedt and Stephen Small describe as “segregation of knowledge,” where African American history tours, while informative, remain largely separate from tours in the house and gardens. The reasons for this range from tour time constraints to the challenge of asking guides and visitors to confront that the white elite wealth portrayed in the architecture and landscapes of plantation houses and gardens came from coerced African American skills and labor. The relationships between Euro Americans and African Americans on plantation sites both during and after slavery ranged widely, but while individuals across races certainly influenced each others’ lives, and even collaborated at times, their interactions always took place within a painfully unequal racial hierarchy.

As Drayton Hall develops site interpretation in the future, site producers can continue to build on their efforts to make

Guide Rosemary Geisy describes the dark, narrow staircase that would have been used by enslaved and later free African-Americans working at Drayton Hall.

African American history a more cohesive part of historic interpretation throughout the site. The future interpretive center, which is still in the planning phases, is a particularly great opportunity to exhibit more in-depth information and artifacts that could not only provide insight into African American history at the site, but also into the intertwined race and class labor and social systems that defined plantation life, and which still have repercussions for race and class relations in Charleston and throughout the United States today. One of the greatest contributions visitors can make in this process of change is to explore the African American history tours and interpretive spaces currently available at plantation sites such as Drayton Hall. They can then let guides and site producers know what they find to be informative and powerful about their tour experiences, and where they have questions, concerns, and suggestions for how these representations may continue to develop in the future.

Mary Battle is a PhD Candidate at Emory University’s Institute for Liberal Arts. Her email address is marypbattle@yahoo.com. 

“Our Barbadian Connection” By Phoebe Willis

For many years the Barbadian Consulate General has organized an event in US cities that are significant to Barbadian heritage. This year they came back to Charleston, South Carolina for the Barbados Comes (Back) to Charleston  festival, a four-day event that was held September 1^st through the 4^th. 

Left to Right: Joe McGill (Southern Regional Office NTHP), Sarah Stroud (Archaeologist), Mrs. Stroud (volunteer), Phoebe Willis (interpreter).

 On September 3^rd, Drayton Hall participated in the Bridgetown Market that was held at Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site.  Organizers of the event picked the site because Bridgetown is the capital of Barbados and Charles Towne Landing is located on the site of the first settlement of the Carolina colony in 1670.  Vendors representing Barbadian event sponsors, American cultural and historical organizations, and West Indian food and drink all enjoyed the day listening to calypso music from several bands.

 Sarah Stroud, our Drayton Hall Archeologist, and I staffed the Drayton Hall exhibits in the booth housing the Ashley River historic sites with Barbadian connections. Drayton Hall, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, and Middleton Place all participated. Each site had different displays which complemented one another and gave the visitors a well-rounded plantation experience.

 Drayton Hall displayed artifacts including probable Barbadian Red Ware, Native American pottery, and Colonoware (pottery made by enslaved people using African, Caribbean, and Native American methods).  Our largest artifact was a cow’s head which lead to discussions about early enslaved Africans being cow hunters, the first real “American cowboys.”  We also had hands-on activities: one was grinding spices using a mortar and pestle to determine what foods common in our country today came from Africa.  Originally designed for children, the

Caleb Davenport grinding herbs and looking at the display board

activities were enjoyed by adults as well.  Almost all the Bajan visitors smiled and remarked that they had ground spices when they were children.  Some even gave grinding another try just to prove they still knew how!

 Magnolia Garden’s display focused on the Drayton family, cow hunters, and the Lowcountry Africana project whose goal is to collect and make available African-American history in the Lowcountry.  Middleton Place had two costumed interpreters explaining rice and sugar cane processing and pottery making.  The show stealers, however, were two Guinea piglets bred at Middleton.  Their little squeals garnered tons of attention!

 The turnout was large and we had a steady flow of visitors who had many questions and insights into our display.  We learned a great deal from them and from our colleagues in the booth.  Visitors to the booth enjoyed every aspect of our displays and we had wonderful interaction with them.  Sarah and I learned that cutters are sandwiches; that Flying Fish really are edible; that modern Barbadians have a pottery tradition of making “monkey” jars which resemble the Colonoware artifacts we brought; and that Barbadians say “ya’ll.”

 If you would like to attend next year’s festival, it will actually be in Barbados- check out this link for more information: www.barbadostocharleston.com.  For those of “ya’ll” who would like to learn more about the Barbadian-Charleston connection, here are some options:

 Walter Edgar’s South Carolina: A History., Chapter 3, “The Colony of a Colony”.

 www.LowcountryAfrican.com

 South Carolina National Heritage Corridor web site:  http://www.sc-heritagecorridor.org/the_barbados_connection/

Phoebe Willis, Drayton Hall Interpreter and Educator

‘Emancipating History’

There was an excellent article in the New York Times by Edward Rothstein, a noted Times museum critic, about how Charleston museums are interpreting slavery.

“…Or go to Drayton Hall, a local plantation hewn out of the Lowcountry landscape by hundreds of slaves, who also made its rice fields so profitable. At a clearing in the woods near the entrance, you see an information panel and a memorial arch: this was a “burying ground,” used at least as early as the 1790s, where the plantation’s slaves buried their dead.

“The dedication of the black burial ground at Drayton Hall last October also suited a broader plan developed by the hall’s executive director, George W. McDaniel. The plantation, now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, does not only display its stunning Palladio-style house (which is meticulously unrestored), but also interprets the plantation with special attention to its slaveholding past.”

Read the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/arts/design/charlestons-museums-finally-chronicle-history-of-slavery.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

See more images in the online photo gallery:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/12/arts/design/20110312-charleston-ss-3.html

To read more about Drayton Hall’s African-American history and the dedication of the African-American cemetery memorial:
http://www.draytonhall.org/research/people/african_cemetery_dedication.html
This page provides videos of key moments at the October 2010 Cemetery Memorial event at Drayton Hall, highlighting these speakers and participants:
Welcome: Dr. George W. McDaniel, Executive Director, Drayton Hall
Opening Prayer: Rev. James Yarsiah, St. Andrews Episcopal Mission Church
Family Welcome: Catherine Braxton, Frank B. Drayton, Jr., and Shelby Nelson
Welcome from Melissa Lindler, representing Congressman James E. Clyburn
Keynote Speaker: Lonnie G. Bunch III, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture
Speaker: Dr. Bernard Powers, Associate Chairman, History Department, College of Charleston
Speaker: Jane Aldrich, Lowcountry Africana
Family Reflections:  Annie Meyers
Speaker: Rossie Colter, The Philip Simmons Foundation
Memorial Dedication and Procession included all speakers,  Drayton family members, descendants of the Bowens family and other descendants of the  enslaved at Drayton Hall, staff, over 100 attendees, and:
Singers Lorraine White and Corey Furtick
And distinguished participants:
Carlie Towne, Director of the Gullah-Geechee Angel Network
Rebecca Campbell
Esther Chandler
Rudy Braxton

http://draytonhall.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/honoring-those-who-have-come-before/
“Honoring those who have come before” – a blog by Drayton Hall – includes images and links to media coverage of the event.

http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2011/leave-em-rest.html
An article by Dwight Young, acclaimed writer and contributor to Preservation Magazine’s online Story of the Week.

http://draytonhall.wordpress.com/
Drayton Hall interpreter John Saunders offers his reflections on African-American history at Drayton Hall through the centuries

Below - As mentioned in the New York Times article, this information panel at the 18th-century African-American Cemetery at Drayton Hall helps to educate visitors on one of the oldest documented African-American cemeteries in the nation still in use: 

Seeing the Invisible

 As we observe Black History Month, interpreter John Saunders offers his reflections on African-American history at Drayton Hall through the centuries.

 

“There is much to be learned from what a country chooses to forget”  –Lonnie Bunch, Dedication of the African-American Cemetery at Drayton Hall – 2010

The blustery winter chill of February signals not only the shortest month of the year but also a celebration of stories which focus on Americans of African ancestry, one of the longest stories of the human family that can be told.  These stories achieve the heights of human accomplishment while at the same time plumbing the depths of human deprivation. Drayton Hall is part of this narrative, standing boldly as it proclaims the paradoxes of the first being last, the lost being saved and the lion lying down with the lamb.  Each of these metaphorically renders a verse in the African songs that have been sung and heard at this place over the past 273 years.

The Drayton family, from England through Barbados to Carolina, brought with them people who were enslaved, adding to their numbers over the years.  The search for freedom and opportunity that gave rise to the vision of John Drayton was made tangible by those who knew no freedom.  This is a profound part of the story of Drayton Hall and February begs us speak with more urgency, penitence and amazement.  Skilled artisans, field workers, those who served in the house, boatswains and others all used their knowledge and skill to enable and ennoble the life of Drayton Hall.  Some of the names by which they were called are known, e.g. George, Quash, Mary, Samson, Affy, Judith and others, but will the names that tell who they were ever be known?

As the history of legalized enslavement passed, the stories of Americans of African descent continued to be lived though rarely heard outside family communities.  From the post Civil War mining of phosphate into the 20^th Century, African Americans sustained and guided the ever-emerging character of Drayton Hall.  Today, members of the Bowens family who came with Thomas from Barbados in 1675 as enslaved laborers, still connect with Drayton Hall because, in a very real sense, it is owned by them as much as by the Drayton family.  In fact, it is the presence of their voice that still whispers through the same live-oak trees that stood during the Hall’s birth in 1738.  Voices from days of old emanate from the sacred grounds of the cemetery where both bodies and stories rest, waiting to be acknowledged and embraced by each visitor who comes to experience and to “feel” the wonder of this place.

Walking to the cemetery under the memorial arch inspired by the late master craftsman Philip Simmons, a visitor will find a sacred place of remembering, noticing but a few markers and a bench.*  The bench is for sitting, quietly and prayerfully using the eyes of the heart both to see and to hear the vibrancy of songs sung, drums beat and children playing among the shallow depressions of burial sites.  There are no headstones on any of these leaf-covered depressions, but one need only walk back to the road and look east.  There in all its’ magnificence is the headstone for people whose bodies may have been stolen, but whose souls were and are free.  Some people may call this Drayton Hall, but some may see it differently.  Looking again at Drayton Hall just may be seeing the invisible.

  

  -John Saunders, Historical Interpreter

For more information about the recent dedication read Dwight Young’s article, ‘Leave ‘Em Rest: Drayton Hall Honors its African American Cemetery’ 

*With the passing of Mr. Simmons in 2009, the memorial was crafted by his protégés, cousin Joseph “Ronnie” Pringle and nephew Carlton Simmons, in the Simmons Blacksmith Shop.  It includes elements found in Simmons’ work, such as the series of interlocking circles symbolizing the chains of slavery, and a small bird or dove symbolizing freedom and the movement into the next life.