Harvesting Freedom: African American Agrarianism in Civil War Era South Carolina

309 Pages·2004·1.68 MB·English

by  Akiko Ochiai

Harvesting Freedom:
African American
Agrarianism in Civil War
Era South Carolina
Akiko Ochiai
PRAEGER
Harvesting Freedom
South Carolina Lowcountry
Source: Harper’s Weekly, 26 October 1861
Harvesting Freedom
African American Agrarianism in
Civil War Era South Carolina
Akiko Ochiai
Contributions in American History, Number 190
Jon L. Wakelyn, Series Editor
Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ochiai, Akiko, 1965–
Harvestingfreedom : African American agrarianism in Civil War era South Carolina /
Akiko Ochiai.
p. cm.—(Contributions in American history, ISSN 0084–9219 ; no. 190)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0–275–97935–0(alk. paper)
1. African Americans—South Carolina—Politics and government—19th century. 2.
African Americans—SeaIslands—Politics and government—19th century. 3.
Freedmen—SouthCarolina—Politics and government. 4. Freedmen—Sea Islands—Politics
and government. 5. South Carolina—Politics and government—1861–1865. 6. South
Carolina—Politics and government—1865–1950. 7. Sea Islands—Politics and
government—19th century. 8. Land reform—Sea Islands—History—19th century. 9. African
Americans—Landtenure—SeaIslands—History—19th century. 10. African American
farmers—Sea Islands—Political activity—History—19th century. I. Title. II. Series.
E185.93.S7O27 2004
975.7'9900496073—dc21 2002044982
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2004 by Akiko Ochiai
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002044982
ISBN: 0–275–97935–0
ISSN: 0084–9219
First published in 2004
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood PublishingGroup, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright Acknowledgments
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from the following:
Excerptsfrom Edward William Hooper Letters and Edward William Hooper Papers by Edward
William Hooper and Francis E. Barnard (bMS Am 1969:2, 1969:3, 1969:5, 1969:6, 1969:7 and
bMS Am 1727:1) used by permission of the Houghton Library,HarvardUniversity.
To those
Who sacrificed themselves
For future generations,
Dreaming of a better world

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
1. Historical Growth of a Black Region 17
2. The Port Royal Experiment 51
3. “Free Labor” and Land Sales 83
4. The AFIC, Preemption Reversal, and Second Land Sales 109
5. The Promise of the Sherman Reservation 135
6. African American Politicization 177
7. An African American Yeoman Community: 207
The Case of St. Helena Island
Conclusion 239
Bibliography 245
Index 283

Preface
Ever since my junior year in college, I have wondered how African
Americans overcame discrimination and difficulties as a disadvantaged
minority group. This book, elucidating freedpeople’s relentless struggle
for land in the Reconstruction era, is an extension of this interest and a
partial answer to this question. I have uncovered the freedpeople’s strong
human spirit and their belief in the American agrarian ideal in their
painstaking letters and unornamented speeches. We historians are redis-
covering this long forgotten and ignored historical evidence and are an-
alyzing it from the freedpeople’s points of view. I hope this book will
enrich our understanding of the world the freedpeople made.
The story of the lowcountry African Americans is not only a story
about an important “experiment,” historically unique to the state of South
Carolina. As we learn of their struggles, grieve in their setbacks, and
rejoice in their little advances, this becomes a story that reminds us to
reconsider our own values and commitments. Their story constitutes a
challenging alternative to a large-scale competitive market economy, or
to any system that places the value of the dollar above the value of
families sharing each others’ lives, working together, eating together,
suffering together, celebrating together.
This is not proposing a wholesale return to subsistence agriculture
and the familial collectivism of the Sea Islands, an attack on industry, or
a rejection of modernity. It rather recognizes that the lifestyles and
worldviews of the lowcountry African Americans, while different from
large-scale industrialism and rugged individualism, were not therefore
necessarily obsolete. They represented a viable alternative worldview