"Historically Speaking" Series Continues

The Beaufort County Historical Society / Beaufort District Collection "Historically Speaking" lecture series continues on Thursday, January 23, 2020 at Noon. This free lecture, "The New Face of African American Public History in Charleston: The Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and the International African American Museum (IAAM)," will be presented by Dr. Bernard Powers. Dr. Powers is currently serving as the interim CEO and President of the IAAM and the College of Charleston's Center for the Study of Slavery.

The IAAM, started with a vision by former Mayor Joe Riley, has been in the planning and fundraising stages for nearly 20 years. The $92 million dollar project will be located on Gadsden's Wharf in Charleston where nearly half of the enslaved Africans landed in America. According to Dr. Elijah Heyward native of Beaufort and Chief Operating Officer, the money has come from individuals, organizations and governments from inside South Carolina, the United States and other parts of the world.

The Museum will include exhibits tracing African American history from Africa to North America and the Caribbean, from slavery into the 21st century. It will tell the story of African American culture, including that of the Gullah/Geechee people.

In addition, the Museum will be a center for genealogical research and provide a recording space for oral histories, connecting individuals to their own history and linking family histories with others. Changing exhibits will look at contemporary issues affecting the African American experience.

The IAAM and the Center for the Study of Slavery are eager to work with other museums and historic sites across South Carolina to raise public awareness of the deep and lasting contributions of African Americans to human society.

Access to this program is on a first come, first seated basis. Seating will begin at 11:30 AM. We will seat customers until we run out of seats and/or meet the Fire Marshal's room capacity limit.

In addition to his current positions, Dr. Powers is the College of Charleston's Professor Emeritus of History. Powers taught in the Department of History from 1992 to 2018, serving stints as department chair and director of the master’s program in history.

Dr. Powers has published numerous works on African-American social and cultural history. His book Black Charlestonians: A Social History 1822-1885 (University of Arkansas Press, 1994) won a Choice Award for Best Academic Books. He also co-authored We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel (Thomas Nelson, 2016). [audio book; printed book]


Reminder: The Library will be closed tomorrow, Monday, January 20, 2020, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Regular hours resume on Tuesday, January 21.

To learn more about Dr. King's visits to St. Helena Island, read "Martin Luther King, Jr. Rested and Wrote at Penn Center," the Connections post for 12 January 2017 that was last updated 9 January 2020. 

You can celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King by exploring the articles and materials posted to the Library's MLK Jr. webpage.

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.

"Bound for Canaan" at Bluffton Branch

Some of you may remember Ron Roth from the "Civil War 150" exhibit and associated programming last Fall.  He delivers fine presentations on historical topics including one about the Underground Railroad being hosted at Bluffton Branch later this month. Although the BDC limits its programming efforts to local history topics, the Underground Railroad is a fascinating topic that many of our historically minded readers would enjoy.

Event Name:  Bound for Canaan:  The Underground Railroad and the African American Quest for Freedom

Short Description of Event:  Ron Roth presents the heroic efforts of African Americans and whites to hide and guide runaway slaves in their desperate journeys to freedom in the north and in Canada. This program is sponsored by The Humanities Council^SC, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities; inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.

Time and Date of Event:  Tuesday, September 23 at 6:00 pm

Location of Event:  Bluffton Library, 120 Palmetto Way, Bluffton SC 29910

Price of Event: Free

Contact info: 843-255-6512, areasoner@bcgov.net

Website:    www.beaufortcountylibrary.org

I wrote a blog post about the Underground Railroad and some of its local connections back in February 2013. There are more than 50 library materials about the Underground materials in the Library system's holdings. Click here for a bookbag full of non-fiction titles, for all ages, about the Underground Railroad from our system catalog. 

Emancipation Nation Update

The streaming Emancipation Nation: Celebrating Freedom on Constitution Day webcast had 7,000 individuals participate in person or via modern technology.  There were 124 watch parties  (including one here in the BDC) held in 32 states and 3 countries. Missed the presentation but still interested in this important topic?  A YouTube video of the discussion is now available at emancipation.neh.gov/live. 

Slavery at South Carolina College, 1801 - 1865 website

From the GLC Newsletter, March 19 e-newsletter (Gilder Lehrman Center): 

The Public History Program at the University of South Carolina welcomes comments on a new website, “Slavery at South Carolina College, 1801–1865: The Foundations of the University of South Carolina”: http://library.sc.edu/digital/slaveryscc/index.html.  While many American colleges and universities in recent years have been researching their historical connections to the institution of racial slavery, this website is the first public acknowledgement of the role of slaves and slavery at the antebellum college that became the University of South Carolina.  It was researched and created entirely by students, first in an undergraduate history course and then in a graduate public history seminar.  Comments may be left on the website or sent directly to Prof. Robert Weyeneth weyeneth@sc.edu

Old Plantation, John Rose, and Beaufort District

Latest update: 13 May 2025 - gmc

The Old Plantation owned by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation may well be one of the most recognizable folk-art paintings in America. It has been widely reproduced in publications and educational texts for more than 50 years as "the best-known surviving 18th century depiction of slaves in America." How unique it is to see enslaved people enjoying themselves without any white folks to interfere. But who painted it? And had it come to Colonial Williamsburg?  

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation tasked Susan P. Shames, decorative arts librarian, PhD in American civilization, and genealogist to investigate the artist and the provenance of the painting. The path of investigation required that she use her decorative arts skills, her librarian skills, her historian skills and her genealogical skills all at the same time to unravel the mystery of the artist and the subjects of the painting. 

It took impressive skills of analysis and attention to detail to find the right John Rose and winnow down a universe of 50 slaves to a pool of 18 possible identities for the enslaved people shown in the painting. While her intent was to uncover the hidden history of a particular work of art, she also uncovers the hidden history of enslaved people owned by the artist.

She has identified the painter as John Rose, husband to second wife Mary Capers Ladson, one of four John Roses of Beaufort District. Shames used wills, inventories, census records, mortgages, petitions, and other legal documents relating to John Rose (the artist) to try to identify individual slaves. She posits that the 12 enslaved people depicted in the painting are likely: Ansell, Cain, Dianna, Dick, Hagar, Hamon, Isaac, Maryann, Mingo, Peter, Phillis, Quilla, Sabina, Satyra, Solomon, Tom, Young Tom, and/or Tybee.

Read the fascinating story of how to unravel an art history mystery in The Old Plantation: The Artist Revealed by Susan P. Shames Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2010. The book is available in the BDC Research Room as well as from the Local History sections.

Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect, January 1, 1863

Folks throughout the lowcountry attend watch services to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation 148 years ago today. (The digital image of page 1 of the original Emancipation Proclamation illustrating this entry is from the National Archives).

The 2010 Connections New Year's Day entry gives some background on the Emancipation Proclamation. You can read about the historical significance of Camp Saxton Site in relation to the Emancipation Proclamation here. (A few photographs are included with the National Register nomination form).

Living History, an electronic newsletter from the History Channel, has a "This Day in History" feature which includes an article on the "Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect" for January 1st.

For those who want to dig deeper, the Archivist at Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Mary-Jo Kline, recommends these books and articles about President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation:

Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. (Available through our Bluffton and St. Helena Branch Libraries)

Blair, William A., and Karen Fisher Younger, eds. Lincoln’s Proclamation: Emancipation Reconsidered. Chapel Hill: Univ. of N.C. Press, 2009. Edition of lectures by respected Civil War scholars, focusing on Lincoln’s views on slavery and his Emancipation Proclamation. (Available in the BDC only)

Gates, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and by Donald Yacovone, eds. Lincoln on Race & Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, c2009. Collection of documents, definitive texts, rich historical notes. (Available through SC LENDS)

McPherson, James M. Abraham Lincoln. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Good short biography of Lincoln by one of the nation’s most eminent Civil War scholars. (Available through our Bluffton Branch Library)

In addition to the links found in the Connections entry about the document last year," I recommend Allen Guelzo’s “Emancipation Proclamation” article in History Now and Kline's additional resources page.

You can search the SC LENDS catalog here for the titles that most interest you from her suggestions.

Bibliography of Slavery Online

The Bibliography of Slavery, compiled in annual supplements printed in *Slavery and Abolition* since its founding in 1980, is available to the public as a searchable on-line database.

The database contains verified references (except as noted) to approximately 25,000 scholarly works on slavery and slaving in all academic disciplines and in all western European languages, worldwide and throughout human history, including modern times. It includes print materials published in scholarly formats since 1900, as well as digital scholarly journals, recent unpublished presentations at academic conferences, professional historical sites, and major museum exhibitions and catalogs. It is now current through 2007 and will be updated annually (with a one-year lag) with the ongoing annual supplements from *Slavery and Abolition*, compiled by Thomas Thurston (Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University).

Please note: This is a database of citations to sources. The database does not provide full-text or abstracts to the sources online.

Site sponsors include the Virginia Center for Digital History and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, as well as the University's Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African History, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and Office of the Vice-President and Provost. Other sponsors are the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

Source: GLC [e-]Newsletter, [Gilder-Lehrman Center of Yale University], April 9, 2010.