More about Charlotte Forten, Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid

Those who attended in person or streamed live as Dr. Mollie Barnes's explained what she discovered about Charlotte Forten, Harriet Tubman, and the Combahee River Raid by "Reading Between the Lines and Across Rivers" on October 14, 2021 got a real treat. 

Dr. Barnes recorded her presentation so now you can view it at your leisure. The link is https://us-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/f8bb8334063a402c9994676c90cc6341. The link will be active for a few more days.

I live streamed Dr. Barnes's presentation. As you may or may not be aware, Harriet Tubman never learned to read or write. But she could tell stories - and Charlotte Forten knew Harriet Tubman and wrote about Tubman and her knack for storytelling and singing in her journal:

"Saturday, Jan. 31 ... In B[eaufort] we spent nearly all our time at Harriet Tubman's - otherwise "Moses." She is a wonderful woman - a real heroine. Has helped off a large number of slaves, after taking her own freedom...

Forten then recounts the story of Joe, an escaped slave who Tubman was taking to Canada. Throughout the trip he was silent until Tubman told him "'Now we are in Can[ada]" [at which point] he sprang to his feet with a great shout, and sand and clapped his hand [sic] in a perfect delirium of joy. So when they got out, and he first touched free soil, he shouted and hurrahed "as if he were crazy"-- she said. How exciting it was to hear her tell the story. And to hear her sing the very scraps of jubilant hymns that he sang."   

 

I suggest that you borrow a printed copy of Charlotte Forten's Journal from one of the Local History sections or access a digital copy of it to read along with Dr. Barnes at key points in her presentation. 

I learned from Dr. Barnes lecture about Forten's whereabouts in early June 1863. She was physically at Edingsville Beach in neighboring Colleton District along with some of the Union's many soldiers stationed along the lower South Carolina coast. According to Barnes, though Charlotte makes no explicit mention of the Combahee River Raid, is is clear that she knew of it. Indeed Charlotte Forten's Journal is often used by historians for her observations about military and social actions of key players in the Port Royal Experiment. 

The Library has a lot of materials about Charlotte Forten that you can borrow as this flyer indicates: 

... and about Harriet Tubman as you can see on this flyer: 

We are very grateful to have the Beaufort County Historical Society and the Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era as co-sponsors of this particular lecture. 

"Combee" This Saturday

As most of you know, the BDC offers programs throughout the Library system. We are very pleased to be able to offer our community an extra special lecture about the Combahee River Raid and what that meant to the enslaved people freed by Harriet Tubman and the Union forces in June of 1863. 

About five years ago now, Dr. Edda Fields-Black came to my office to ask about research that had been done about the raid. She was thinking about looking at the Raid from the perspective of those who were freed rather than the losses incurred by the planters and the Confederacy as a result of the military action - an intriguing proposal upon which she has spent considerable time and energy ever since. She is researching and writing a second book, tentatively titled ‘Combee’: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and the Civil War Transformations among the Gullah Geechee based on what she has discovered through primary sources to reveal Harriet Tubman’s Civil War activities, reconstruct the communities which were freed from enslavement on Lowcountry rice plantations in the June 1863 Combahee River Raid, and show the Civil War transformations among freed Blacks in the Lowcountry whose descendants are known today as the Gullah Geechee. For her work on the Gullah/Geechee and Creolization, Fields-Black has been awarded a Smithsonian Senior Fellow at the National Museum of American History (Spring semester 2013), an Andrew W. Mellon New Directions Fellowship (2014-2015), and a Senior Ford Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences (2017-2018).

She's the first historian who I have met who has written a libretto for a new piece of contemporary classical music, Casop: A Requiem for Rice, a modern and African-American inspired take on a classic requiem in the spirit of Verdi, Mozart, Faure, and Britten. It mourns the souls of the enslaved who died on Lowcountry rice plantations, their bodies unburied, their suffering unmourned, and their sacrifices unmarked for future generations. The Orchestral Debut of "Casop: A Requiem for Rice" on February 1, 2019 will feature libretto which recovers the voices of the enslaved by acclaimed historian and executive producer, Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black, and original score by composer, three-time Emmy Award-winner John Wineglass.

 
When she's not working on her manuscript or performing the duties of an executive producer and writer of classical music librettos, she's consulting on permanent exhibits such as "The Power of Place: The Rice Fields of the Lowcountry" at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the International African American Museum in Charleston, and the "From Slavery to Freedom" for the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. 

In other words, Dr. Edda Fields-Black is one impressive scholar and has a lot of knowledge and talent to share with those who attend her lecture this Saturday. The lecture is free; Everyone is welcome to attend.  

December Programs: Daufuskie Island & "Combee"

UPDATE 12/03/2018 - Due to a family emergency the BDC Research Room will be very short-staffed this week. The only known anticipated schedule adjustment will be on Wednesday, December 5th. The Research Room will be closed 9 AM to 2 PM for Grace to host the long anticipated "Daufuskie Island" Author Talk with Jenny Hersch and Sallie Ann Robinson at Hilton Head Branch at 11 AM.  Grace will be in the Research Room to assist customers from 2  PM - 5 PM that day.


In December the BDC sponsors two free programs about black history - and you don't even have to register to attend! 

Sallie Ann Robinson and Jenny Hersch will be at Hilton Head Branch Library the morning of December 5th to share their research, images, and stories of life on the Daufuskie Island. At the conclusion of the program, books will be available for purchase and autographing by the authors.

Wed., Dec. 5 | BDC@ Hilton Head Branch, 11 Beach City Road | 11:00 am

From the publisher's press release: Daufuskie, a Muscogee word meaning “sharp feather” or “land with a point,” is an island located between Hilton Head and Savannah, bounded by the Calibogue Sound and the Cooper River. With no bridge to the mainland, the island maintains a distinct allure. Home to Native American tribes, a paradise for pirates, and a strategic military outpost, Daufuskie held enslaved Africans brought by plantation owners as chattel to build their wealth. After the Civil War and occupation by Union soldiers, freed slaves from the Sea Islands and surrounding states settled on Daufuskie as landowners and sharecroppers. Daufuskie's population fluctuated in keeping with local industries, and those who stayed often relied on farming, hunting, and fishing to survive. Electricity was brought to the island in the early 1950s, and the first telephone rang in 1972. Today, historic sites, restaurants, outdoor recreation, and scenic beauty draw visitors and residents to this unique community. Daufuskie Island is part of the National Park Service's Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


Jenny Hersch first visited Daufuskie in 2000 and has called the island home since 2013. Sallie Ann Robinson is a sixth-generation Daufuskie native, cookbook author, celebrity chef, and certified nursing assistant. She is known as “Ethel” in Pat Conroy's memoir The Water Is Wide. Together, they have done extensive research and gathered stories and photographs from island residents, visitors, libraries, and archives - including some from us here in the Beaufort District Collection.  

As part of St. Helena Branch's annual Gullah Night on the Town celebration on Saturday, December 8, 2018, we are hosting a very important lecture regarding ground-breaking research about the people released from bondage during the Combahee River Raid.

Dr. Edda Fields-Black, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, is

a specialist in the trans-national of West African rice farmers, peasant farmers in pre-colonial Upper Guinea Coast and enslaved laborers on rice plantations in the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry during the antebellum period. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. We have copies of her book based on her dissertation, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora in the Research Room and through the Gullah Geechee Collection at St. Helena Branch. Copies are also available for checkout through SCLENDS.

Her "Combee" presentation focuses on the Beaufort plantations impacted by the Combahee River Raid of 1863 during which Harriet Tubman guided a Union foray into the heart of Beaufort District's rice production area. She interprets a unique compilation of primary historical sources, which show how localized groups who stole their freedom from Combahee rice plantations viewed themselves and viewed other groups from Sea Island cotton plantations and urban centers like Savannah and Beaufort when they were all resettled in Beaufort during the critical Civil War period. The paper chronicles this important microcosm of creolization using the experiences of Blacks enslaved on Combahee River rice plantations and freed in the 1863 raid to create a model of cultural change among New World African cultures and their complicated and nuanced relationships to pre-colonial Western Africa, their environments, and the plantation economies in which they were enslaved."

Sat., Dec. 8 | BDC@ St. Helena Branch, 6355 Jonathan Francis Senior Road  | 1:00 pm

St. Helena Branch also has other activities on the agenda the afternoon of Saturday, December 8th: 
flyer

There is no charge for attending any BDC@ The Branches local history programs. Anyone over age 12 interested in the program topic are welcomed to attend.

Poplin Lectures about the Combahee Ferry River Crossing on Nov. 15th

Archaeology is one of the key themes in our holdings here in the Beaufort District Collection. We try to offer enlightening, illuminating and educational programs and exhibits from time to time on the status of archaeology within the area. This week we have a lecture to supplement the "Combahee Ferry Historic District Exhibit" currently on display in the 2nd floor lobby.

Event Name:  “Archaeology of the Combahee Ferry Historic District"

Short Description of Event: Dr. Eric Poplin of Brockington and Associates discusses the archaeology performed before the Harriet Tubman Bridge spanning the Combahee River was constructed. First come; First Seated (Maximum capacity: 85) Co-Sponsor: ASSC

Time and Date of Event: Wednesday, November 15, 2017 at 2:00 pm

Location of Event: BDC@ Beaufort Branch Library, 311 Scott Street, Beaufort, SC 29902

Price of Event: Free; Ages 12 - Adults

Anyone who has driven from Beaufort to Charleston on US Hwy 17 has gone across a rich and multi-tiered archaeological site. Learn about the significance of the Combahee River crossing beginning with the Native Americans who camped along its banks, the lost town of Radnor, the daring raid to free the enslaved led by Harriet Tubman and the 2nd US Colored Troops in 1863 up to the time of the new bridge. Come learn about this crucial transportation crossing through time by viewing the exhibit on loan from the SC Department of Transportation and by listening to Dr. Poplin's lecture. Doing so will change how you view your next trip up Highway 17 to Charleston.