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LowCountry Africana Research Library |
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Researching African American ancestry is challenging for even the most experienced researcher. The Lowcountry Southeast presents additional challenges because of its long and complicated history.
Our Research Library will provide the resources you will need for a successful ancestor search in the Lowcountry, as well as historical background for envisioning the lives of ancestors. |
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Lowcountry Africana Full-Text Reading Room |
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Hours of online reading about Lowcountry history, genealogy and culture! |
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Records and Articles: By Location |
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Florida |
Georgia |
South Carolina |
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Coming Soon: Freedmen's Bureau Land Reports, Fernandina, FL |
Mazyck Family Slave Records Charleston and Columbia, SC
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Who Lived This History? |
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The Combahee Raid
In the early morning hours of June 2, 1863, Union troops based at Port Royal, South Carolina conducted a daring raid up the Combahee River, which winds inland from Port Royal Sound. Union Naval forces had captured Port Royal in November of 1861. After Port Royal fell to Union forces, the surrounding lands were abandoned by planting families, yet hundreds of enslaved people remained.
Led by Colonel James Montgomery, African American troops of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment advanced upon the Combahee River plantations, destroying several plantations and carrying away more than 700 enslaved people.
Who were the African American men, women and children who witnessed, or were freed by, the Combahee Raid? Let's Go See... |
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Final Slaveholders |
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| List of 491 Enslaved People Freed from Heyward Family Plantations from the Heyward Family Papers, 1703-1975, shared by the South Caroliniana Library at USC |
Cow Hunters of Colonial South Carolina by Christine Bell
Freedmen's Labor in Coastal South Carolina by Christine Bell |
| 400 Slaves Freed from the Washo, Cape and Oak Grove Plantations of Arthur Middleton Blake, Charleston, South Carolina shared by Footnote.com | U.S. Colored Troops Organized in South Carolina by Don Troiani (website link) |
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teachers' resources |
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Resources for teaching students about African American history and culture, African history and culture, cultural diversity, stereotyping, discrimination, slavery, the Underground Railroad and other aspects of the African diaspora. |
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A global teaching and learning network of free-to-use resources – from K-12 lesson plans to college courseware – for you to use, tag, rate, and review. |
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What a wonderland for children this site is. Here kids of all ages can learn about Gullah culture, folktales and music. Design your own Gullah ring shout, listen to Gullah words, and view maps and videos that document the West Africa/Gullah connection! This must-visit site features classroom activities designed for integrating Gullah Net's information and resources into a variety of K-8 classroom curricula. |
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Designed for immediate use in middle and high school classrooms, these lessons -- which adhere to national learning standards -- contain comprehensive instructions for classroom implementation, downloadable student handouts, links to relevant and dynamic online resources, and suggestions for cross-curricular extensions. Feel free to adapt the lesson plans to meet your students' needs and your own curricular goals |
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Designed for immediate use in middle and high school classrooms, these lesson plans -- which adhere to national learning standards -- contain video segments from AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, comprehensive instructions for classroom implementation, downloadable student handouts, links to relevant and dynamic online resources, and suggestions for cross-curricular extensions. Feel free to adapt the lesson plans to meet your students' needs and your own curricular goals. |
| The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents on Slavery Original source documents relevant to the fields Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government |
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Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults by Ginny Moore Kruse and Kathleen T. Horning
Extensive annotated bibliography of multicultural literature |
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featured teachers' resource: Footnote.com |
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Footnote combines the best original source content from the world’s archives and users’ shoeboxes to create the leading online repository of historical source documents and photos. Through their partnership with The National Archives they have digitized, indexed, and placed on Footnote.com tens of millions of pages of important historical source material. Footnote adds millions of new pages to the site each month.
Footnote's free collections offer educators access to millions of images of original source documents to download and use in the classroom.
Below are featured free collections. You may follow the link at the bottom of this page to view all of the free collections at Footnote. |
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These records contain correspondence and court documents of the Supreme Court case related to the Amistad. Claims of salvage of the ship, cargo, and slaves on board were decided by the Supreme Court in 1841. There were treaties involved, and the case was a flash point for the abolitionist movement of the time. Handwritten records of this landmark case illuminate the conflict over slavery at that time, and are good examples of the operation of the US judicial system. |
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The American Colonization Society was formed in Washington, DC, in 1817 to establish a colony in Africa for free people of color residing in the US. Most of the documents found here are letters between Liberia and representatives of the Society. Many cover fundraising issues relating to support and education in the newly-formed country. You will also find account books, annual reports, news clippings, and related manuscripts. The Society's most active period was prior to, and just after, the Civil War. |
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If you're interested in Pennsylvania history and want information relating to historical events, facts about ancestors, or original documents to support a research paper, the Pennsylvania Archives is an important publication to explore. This series contains essential records relating to one of America's earliest colonies, from 1664 to 1780, including military, tax, marriage, and land records, as well as documents from American history covering the Revolutionary War and the Whiskey Rebellion. |
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Featured Topic: African Colonization |
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A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa by Archibald Alexander: Extensive documentation of colonization in Sierra Leone |
| The Colonizationalist and Journal of Freedom: Primary documents concerning colonization in Liberia and Sierra Leone |
| The African Repository by the American Colonization Society: Colonization of Liberia |
| 167 Emigrants to Liberia from Darien, GA and Charleston, SC right here on Lowcountry Africana! |
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Roll of Emigrants that have been sent to the colony of Liberia, Western Africa, by the American Colonization Society and its auxiliaries, to September, 1843, &c. from Christine's Genealogy Website, an entire directory of resources concerning Liberia, including extensive transcriptions of original historical documents. A wealth of new historical content which has never been available online |
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Related Reading: DID You Know? Did you know that the complete Papers of the American Colonization Society are free at Footnote.com? Read below for a description of this collection: |
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The American Colonization Society was formed in Washington, DC, in 1817 to establish a colony in Africa for free people of color residing in the US. Most of the documents found here are letters between Liberia and representatives of the Society. Many cover fundraising issues relating to support and education in the newly-formed country. You will also find account books, annual reports, news clippings, and related manuscripts. The Society's most active period was prior to, and just after, the Civil War. |
