He patented 520 acres on the Blackwater in 1683 and
Gwaltney: "I give my Grandson, Edward Boykin one cow". The Boykins are so steeped in South Carolinas history that theres a town named after the family about 90 minutes north of Charleston. When he opened the shed
Did Lincoln foresee a time when all black men in the United States could vote? FORUM ARTICLES SEARCH. But its an interesting part of American history, and I think we all have that patchwork of good and bad. Depends on whose descendants you ask. Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. The war, of course, concluded with slave emancipation throughout the United States and its territories, southern families and communities devastated, towns and farms in ruins, planters financially broken, and the Souths influence in the wider world gone up in smoke. Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, (1823-1886) was the author of A Diary from Dixie, an insightful view of Southern life and leadership during the American Civil War. Douglass came to admire Lincoln as a man. Indeed, it was Lincolns position that slave emancipation should be considered in concert with voluntary black colonization abroad to Africa, South America, or the Caribbean. He fought in the Revolutionary War and then moved his family about 1800 to what would become Baldwin County, GA, just south of Milledgeville. Item:
Plucked. Slaveholders claimed that owning slaves always entailed a duty and a burdena duty and burden that defined the moral superiority of the South, wrote David Brion Davis, a historian of slavery, in a 2006 book. Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs. Youre bound to hear about at least a few of them on your trip to the Holy City and now youll know exactly who they are. Chesnut also claimed to dislike slavery because it was unprofitable, and because she believed slaves were "dirty Africans." Camden (S.C.)--History--19th century. This Charleston Mercury Extra heralded South Carolinas Ordinance of Secession passed unanimously on December 20, 1860. They are probably no worse than man everywhere, but the lower the mistresses, the more degraded they must be. During the war, she recognized the injustices of slavery, and she was justifiably proud of her kindness toward men and women who lived under her thumb. upon the Creek within old Richard Walls line to him and his heirs. ODOM was the only ODOM slave owner in Putnam County in 1860 and all 5 black ODOM families including Caroline ODOM lived close to Boykin Bennett ODOM in Eatonton,PO in 1870. The Draytons have been in Charleston since the 1600s back when it was named Charles Towne. Two days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, concluding the war, Lincoln spoke to an interracial crowd on the White House lawn. And two months later, in April, the Confederacy began the Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter. With this map, Lincoln could visualize, region by region, the Confederacys greatest economic and labor asset: slaves. Abolishing slavery would cause a dramatic break between North and South. Yet they felt patriotic kinship with slave owners. It was named after John Rutledge, Chief of Justice in the U.S. in 1795 and Governor of South Carolina from 1779 to 1782. Davis, David Brion. Mary Chesnut wrote her original journal in spare moments during the war, and then set it aside. Francis questions whether a desire to end slavery is what motivated Turner to kill. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. James served in the United States Senate, but resigned in 1860 when Lincoln became president. Their apparent self-control troubled her. Learn how your comment data is processed. Hear Ye. By the Civil War, slaveholders had created an ideology that they spread across the South in sermons, speeches, newspapers, and schoolbooks. Were abolitionists recruiting more raiders to start slave rebellions? Most of the individuals listed in the 1839 document above are old enough to have come with James when he moved to the Chattahoochee Valley in 1829. When Mary was thirteen, she began a courtship with James Chesnut, from a nearby plantation. After a shaky start, however, Union armies proved resilient and determined, and they had huge advantages in manpower. Introduction. Three days later, on April 14, 1865, Booth mortally wounded the president, who died the following morning. Under slavery, we live surrounded by prostitutes, yet an abandoned woman is sent out of any decent house. Mary Chesnut wrote in her diary: We have lost nearly all of our men, and we have no money . An 1840 promissory note for a loan of $9,340.00 by James Boykin to his son-in-law James R. Jones, Muscogee County Deed Book B, page 101, included the following individuals with their ages: Gustus age 14, could be the same as Augustus, age 12 in the 1839 document. The Muscogee County deed is more complete, and lists the names and ages of 54 enslaved people, so that is the document from which the names come: In 1820 in Baldwin County, Ga., James Boykin had seventeen of his own slaves (whose names I know of no record yet), separate from his fathers or his brothers. Nat Turner changed that.. By 1865, black soldiers comprised about one-tenth of the Union military manpower. How a War for Union Became a War for Freedom. Moved by their sacrifices, Lincoln called them his black warriors and acknowledged their contributions to Union victories. John Keegan notes that it was fear of being called a cowarda prospect more horrible than deaththat kept some soldiers, Confederate and Union, in the ranks year after year. On December 20, 1860, in Charleston, the capital of southern extremism, all 169 delegates voted for secession. Want to know more about Charlestons famous families? Edward Boykin bows and smiles so cordiallyyou feel he is your friendAndand the weight that hangs upon our eyelidsis of lead.. So
The courtship resulted in marriage in 1840, and the couple moved to Mulberry, the Chesnut family plantation near Camden. married Anne Gwaltney, daughter of William Gwaltney and wife Alice
They lived with James's grandparents, his parents and his two sisters. Published long after the war, the diary included many insightful and pointed criticisms of slavery, such as this passage, in which she calls the institution "a monstrous systema wrong and an inequity." It is also possible that Henderson, Emily, and Lewis, are the same, although the last two have wider age differences. Mary, in her Charleston schoolgirl days, heard stories of St. Domingue violence from her migr teachers. To fire-eater secessionists, the rise of the Republican Party showed that the era of compromise between slave states and free states was finished, and that slavery would be doomed if the South remained in the Union. The Confederate elite aimed to preserve a society based on slaveholders rights and white superiority. Dates: 1863 October 6 Bruce Turner, a retired computer analyst, says Nat Turner is his great-great-great grandfather. Lincoln did not hate anyone. Mary Boykin Chestnut was the wife of a wealthy South Carolina planter who kept a diary during the Civil War. Whites who failed to live up to their responsibilities were considered negligent. In 1840 she married James Chesnut . Robert Smalls was an African-American politician, serving as senator and representing South Carolina from 1874 to 1886. Henry Ravenel (1790 1867) was a planter and his son (also named Henry) was a botanist. 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Lincolns election, however, broke the southern grip on national government at a critical moment. Photo: Library of Congress. Was Nat Turner a hero? Photo: Library of Congress. (LogOut/ Will of James Boykin, August 1846, Muscogee County Courthouse, Columbus, Ga. Two paragraphs in James Boykins will list individual enslaved people with their ages, and new owners: Item 3. In 1822, there was Denmark Veseys alleged plot in Charleston. The series containing other Boykin family members' materials include the miscellaneous business, legal, and military papers of James Boykin's brothers, Samuel T. and R. D. Boykin. Leading Republicans argued that if slavery became further established in western territories, slaveholders would fight to protect their investments and prerogatives there just as they did in the South. She knew she was a tangle of paradoxes. Magnolia Plantation was passed down through the Drayton family, and the gardens were enhanced by Rev. Vesey, a free black man, was charged with planning a slave rebellion throughout the city, and was hanged. He fought in the Revolutionary War and then moved his family about 1800 to what would become Baldwin County, GA, just south of Milledgeville. The Republican Party was Americas first successful sectional political party, its members living almost exclusively in the North. An unidentified Confederate soldier. There
Rutledge Avenue runs from the northern edge of Downton, all the way to the southern tip of the peninsula. The Chesnuts belonged to the planter aristocracy that ruled the Deep South with unchallenged authority, and her diary captures their finer qualitieselegance, playfulness, physical bravery, and witbut also their hubris and self-absorption. Photo: The Granger Collection. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by southerners, decided in the Dred Scott case that blacks were not U.S. citizens and that Congress lacked constitutional authority to prevent racial slavery from any U.S. territory. It was no longer for sale in January 2017 ( 3 ). By 1864, Union armies had swelled with black soldiers, the large majority of whom were emancipated slaves. Keegan, John. E) no slaves at all., The invention of the cotton gin in 1793: A) slowed expansion into the Southwest. For decades before the Civil War, cooler heads in the South managed to keep fire-eaters under control. . I think they both find this history fascinating.. Oct., 1755, one to Henry Boykin of 100 acres on the south fork of
I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln, wrote abolitionist Lydia Maria Child one week before he was assassinated. OK, technically Boykin is an unincorporated community, but it's the community's surroundings in Kershaw County that make it a significant place in South Carolina. Did they plan to rebel? Mary Boykin Chesnut was not an apologist for slavery. Living History. They save me all thought as to household matters, and they are so kind and attentive and quiet. She viewed Laurence, her husbands valet, with particularly high regard. The diary was later annotated by C. Vann Woodward and published as, "Mary Chestnut's Civil War." It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. Mary Chesnut and her husband lived among the Souths political and military elite in Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, during a long stretch of the Civil War. The Boykins were part of a large and prominent Southern family with branches in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. James became an aide to Jefferson Davis, while Mary and Varina Davis became lifelong friends. L McCraney 3/30/13. Charlestons alleys occupy spaces that blur the line between public and private areas and offer remarkable insight into the citys history. Flake, daughter of Robert Flake and Margaret Marriott, granddaughter of
Later that year, the U.S. Coast Survey, which eventually became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issued this map of slavery in the South, and it captured the attention of President Abraham Lincoln, according to Susan Schulten, a historian at the University of Denver. 67 graveshafts of enslaved African Americans were discovered in 2012 during expansion of the graveyard at the University of Virginia Source: University of Virginia, Unearthing Slavery at the University of Virginia(Spring 2013) Burial sites of the enslaved are scattered across Virginia. Burwell Boykin, Anderson's 4x great-grandfather, was the most successful farmer in the family, but he also owned 12 people. Boykin Jr. may have been the son of John Boykin and Anne Gwaltney. She carefully edited it for publication, so historians question the strong anti-slavery sentiments prevalent throughout the diary. Never!. He was tried for conspiracy, treason, and murder, and hanged on December 2. Under southern pressure, however, Congress in 1854 passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed these compromises. Despite their sorrows, both were fond of jokes, tall stories, and wordplay. Early Twentieth Century Mexican Immigration to the U.S. A free market for laborthat was Lincolns core belief throughout his political life. Her compelling journal describes the four-year Confederate rebellion, which aimed to preserve slavery but led to its extinction in North America. Youll hear the stories of these families and more on our Alleys and Hidden Passages and Historic Downtown Tour. Charleston's iconic Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge is named after Thomas' dad. Although they did not own slaves, many men from impoverished parts of the South fought for the Confederacy. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection. Frederick Douglass urged President Abraham Lincoln to authorize black enlistment in the Union Army. bills of sale for slaves; correspondence from A. H. Boykin taking a cure at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia; a small notebook titled "A. H. Boykin" with . On St. Domingue, slaves rebelled against their masters, and subsequently fought invading armies of Spain, Britain, and France. The first reading, Mary Boykin Chesnut's Slavery a Curse to Any Land presents the views of a white Southern woman and Harriet Jacobs' Trials of Girlhood present the views of a slave. Burwell locked him in a shed. Boykin's Rangers. Today, the Legares own a 300-acre farm outside of Charleston. You could not tell that they even hear the awful row that is going on in the bay, though it is dinning in their ears day and night. I give and bequeath to my son Francis E. Boykin and my son in law James R. Jones as trustees for my daughter Mrs. Clara Billups & her heirs the following slaves to wit Chancy a woman about fifty years old Suzan a woman about twenty four or twenty five years old with her child William. Slave revolts were rare but they terrified whites throughout the New World. Some historians now argue that Vesey was not a plotter but a victim of white hysteria. . Until 1835, her family lived at Mount Pleasant, a plantation owned by her paternal grandparents. Commission merchants--South Carolina--Charleston. Combat. Mary Boykin Chestnut was the wife of a wealthy South Carolina planter who kept a diary during the Civil War. Burwell to death. Change). In the map, each county displays its proportion of slave population to its overall population in two ways: numerically and in shading (the darker the shading, the higher the proportion of slaves). The dog breed, the Boykin spaniel (the state dog of South Carolina) is also named after the family. Let the war end either way, and you will be free. If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.. Sumner said not one word of this hated institution which is not true. Copyright 2023 American Social History Productions, Inc. Who Freed the Slaves? Her journal was published in 1905 and 1949 in aggressively edited versions. At that time, blacks could not vote in most northern states. After two days, Brown and his followers surrendered to federal troops. The anti-slavery movement, by contrast, opposed the expansion of slavery and slaveholders rights beyond the South into U.S. territories and northern states. I even hate the harsh authority I see parents think it their duty to exercise toward their children.. Why did many southerners, especially those in South Carolina, react violently to Lincolns election in 1860? He was also a signer of the Constitution. In Columbia, the S.C. General Assembly remained in session and called for elections to a state secession convention. Sandy took a hoe and beat
South Carolina enslaved a majority of its population. My disgust sometimes is boiling over. Thomas Boykin-one slave (NC Rev. When he opened the shed
Prior to the insurrection, slave owners actually believed that the slaves were happy in their condition, he says. B) more than 50 slaves. God, forgive us but ours is a monstrous system, and wrong and iniquity, she wrote in a March 1861 entry. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. You can still visit the 60 acres of gardens in addition to the plantation house. had Anne Gwaltney married to Edward Boykin I, however more recently it
Rick Francis is no defender of the horrible institution practiced by his forebears, but he does not see Nat Turner as a heroic figure. Each new state would send at least one representative to the House, the number depending on the states population size, which gave the North a crucial advantage in the House. Boykin family history comes to . According to southern doctrine, black menfree or slavelacked the courage and intelligence to cope with the demands of disciplined military action. If you have trouble accessing this page and need to request an alternate format contact ehistory@osu.edu. The 1860 Census was the last time the federal government counted the Souths slave population. Southern states had always held enough seats in the U.S. Senate to block any anti-slavery bill. Photo: Library of Congress. And what role does violence play in that?. We will have to free you before we get out of this thing. The South, she believed, couldnt hold slaves in captivity while also battling an invading Union army. Lincolns Republican Party was founded in 1856 with the primary goal of keeping slavery bottled up in southern states where it might eventually die a natural death. They denounced northerners as cowards, poltroons, negro-worshippers, claimed that one southern man was equal to five northern men in battle, that if the South would stand up for its rights, the North would back down..