Many are reflecting on today’s 5-year anniversary of the massacre of nine members of Emanuel AME church on Calhoun Street, a few blocks from our campus. One of the nine was C of C librarian Cynthia Hurd, and Rev. Clementa Pinckney’s funeral was held on our campus in the TD Arena. The College Today has published a powerful interview with CSSC Director Bernard Powers, in which he reflects on the tragedy and the “legacy of hope” that is available to us today. Highlights of the interview are below.
This is a congregation that has endured a history of severe trials – 2015 was just the most recent one. It is an example of a group of African Americans who have triumphed over a racist onslaught, and that triumph demonstrates that there are places where Dr. King’s vision of a “beloved community” still exists.
One has to have hope in order to embrace the future. They have demonstrated the motto of this state: Dum spiro spero – “While I breathe, I hope.” And while they continue to breathe and hope, the leaders there use their experiences to empower others threatened by the stultifying atmosphere of intolerance to survive and to breathe. This is why when the Pulse shootings occurred in Orlando, Rev. Deas of Emanuel went there to comfort the survivors. That is why Rev. Manning journeyed to Pittsburg to the Tree of Life Synagogue to share his experiences and comfort to leaders there who were victimized by a murderous antisemite. Members of that synagogue also returned the visit to Charleston, where they prayed with congregants within the walls of Mother Emanuel. So, in this sense, Mother Emanuel is a practical and symbolic bulwark against the forces of intolerance and brings together those intent on vanquishing it. [. . . ]
Evidence of racial inequality is even more dramatically evident today [than in 2015]. It is revealed by the racially disparate impact of the coronavirus, which demonstrates a range of inequalities based on race that influences health. Since 2015, we have had many more examples of mainly unarmed black men being mishandled and killed by police officers. These have been captured on cell phone videos. In 2015, the recording of Walter Scott’s death was unusual, but not now, and such evidence has demonstrated to so many whites that African American complaints have a real basis. This is a moment like that of the 1960s, when the civil rights movement attracted media attention in the South and the crimes against black people could no longer be denied as they were broadcast around the world via the international media. [. . .]
The ongoing demonstrations and marches now represent a difference. In 2015, a certain sense of malaise settled in over the city, it was a sense of collective trauma and also of disbelief that such an evil could occur in a sacred place. Today there is much more anger, which built up earlier in Brunswick, Georgia, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, because there were no immediate arrests, and that bred festering anger and uncertainty. [. . .]
We should be asking ourselves: What are each of us doing to make sure that this period of social ferment is maximized to bring about substantive and lasting change? How have I and those who I know contributed to the disaffection and alienation felt by so many African Americans and whites of conscience? How can I move beyond simple personal efforts to promote change to join with others to change institutions and the way they operate to challenge systematic racism and other forms of exclusion/oppression?
Our atmosphere must be cleared of the oppressive and stultifying forces that limit our ability “to breathe” and to hope. Among the most deadly of such forces we find racism, antisemitism, homophobia and sexism, among others. We must join our forces as people of conscience and vow to vanquish them so that we can all dream dreams and take in the clear and healthy air that will allow us to achieve them for our collective benefit. Now is the time and my hope is that this moment will not be lost.
Dr. Powers co-authored We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel with Herb Frazier and Marjory Wentworth. He is the author of numerous articles and of the book Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885.
The Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston (CSSC) stands in complete solidarity and allyship with the families, protestors, and community members grieving and demanding justice for the recent murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery — and our own Walter Scott and the Emmanuel 9 (to name only a few). We recognize that these acts of violence are deeply rooted in the institution of slavery which served to deny the sanctity and sovereignty of Black life.
As a Center that studies the history and legacies of chattel slavery in the South, we see the recent instances of brutality occurring nationally and in Charleston as but the latest manifestations of our country’s long history of violence against Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. We are deeply pained by these tragic events, which serve to remind us all that the history of racism and white supremacy are clearly not past: we are still living them, and they are ever-present on our campus and in our local community. Because of this, the CSSC was established in 2018 to foster a deeper public understanding of slavery and its complex legacies. A part of our mission is to raise awareness and fight to bring an end to their brutal impacts. It is in this spirit that we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and campus activists.
We demand social justice. In March 2020, we had planned a community-wide conversation on reparations in Charleston that was interrupted by COVID-19. The combined tragedies of state violence against Black Americans and the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on the Black community highlight the urgency of this work. We call on the College of Charleston leadership to make good on its promise to combat racism and white privilege by dedicating more robust support to the CSSC. And in turn, the CSSC pledges to advance learning and research experiences for our students, staff, and faculty to further our understanding of how our history of slavery shapes the present, and to collaborate with members of the campus and Charleston community to create programming and restorative dialogue to promote social justice, racial healing, reconciliation, and transformational change.
We see our work as a tangible affirmation that Black Lives Matter (and have always mattered).
On Sunday, Feb 23, 4 PM, come to Wesley United Methodist Church on Johns Island for a program, “Awakening the Ancestors through Music.” Participants will learn about Lowcountry sprituals and funeral songs. Co-sponsored by International African American Museum, The Progressive Club of Johns Island, Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor Commission, Charleston County Public Library, and Wesley United Methodist Church.
On Monday, Feb 24, 6 PM, come to the College of Charleston Sciences Auditorium, room 129, to hear a talk by Margaret Seidler, “Telling the Story of a Charleston Family of Slave Traders and Those They Sold.” Co-sponsored by the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) program at C of C and the Center for Family History at the International African American Museum.
Dr. Bernard Powers in front of C of C’s Randolph Hall
On February 1, Dr. Powers also represented the Center at “History Makers and Trailblazers,” a symposium on the “history of access, equity, and inclusivity” at the College. This event was part of the College’s 250th anniversary observances, which began last week. Dr. Powers moderated a panel entitled “Breaking the Color Barrier,” with C of C alums Otto German and Linda Dingle, Mayor Joe Riley, Dr. Andrew Lewis, and the Honorable Lucille Whipper, who had just received a Founders’ Day medal from the College (see photo below). Representative Whipper, who worked at C of C under President Ted Stern, was a memorable presence on the panel. As a student at Avery, she had applied to the College in 1944 and was rejected because of her race. The College finally desegregated in 1967.
This new SC Historic Marker notes that the College went private in 1949 to avoid integration.
At last week’s event, Rep. Whipper reminisced with Dr. Powers about her successful efforts in the 1980s to preserve the Avery Institute building and transform it into a part of the College, the Avery Research Center.
The Honorable Lucille Simmons Whipper, third from left, with President Andrew Hsu and other Founders Day medal recipients: Nigel Redden for Spoleto USA, Judge Richard Gergel on behalf of Judge Julius Waties Waring, Class of 1900.
Bernard Powers, CSSC director, was on his way to do field research in the Caribbean when he was contacted by a BuzzFeed news reporter. “This is an article on the recent debate over weddings at plantation sites,” Dr. Powers notes. “Early this a.m., I was responding to the reporter on my phone on a small ferry plying the choppy waters between St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Here’s an excerpt from BuzzFeed News:
Dr. Bernard Powers, the director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, told BuzzFeed News that the inherent beauty of plantations must be contextualized.
“If these places looked the same and had a different history, no one would object and they would simply be recognized for their beauty. And they are beautiful today because in part due to the knowledge of slave gardeners who tended [to] them,” he said. “Recognize the people who did the work and contrast the beauty with the brutality. Both occurred and must be recognized and reconciled.”
This country, Walcott-Wilson added, was built by slaves. Finding a wedding venue anywhere that hasn’t been touched by slavery would be difficult.
On November 12 at 6 pm, in Room 227 of Addlestone Library, Dr. Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh will deliver a lecture entitled “‘The Issue of Females’: Abortion, Infanticide, and Ethics in Southern Slavery.” Dr. Wells-Oghoghomeh is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. The Conseula Francis Emerging Scholar Lecture honors the memory and legacy of Conseula Francis, a greatly beloved C of C English professor and director of the program in African American Studies.
David Blight lecture: Race & Memory in Charleston, Fri Nov 8, 1:30 PM, The Citadel
CLAW lectures on “Ancestries of Enslavement:” Elizabeth West, “Black Kinship Lineage and the Cistrunks of Noxabee County,” Wed Nov 20, 5:30 pm, Rita Hollings Cntr; Terri Snyder, “Claiming Freedom and Black Antislavery Work in the American South,” Thurs Nov 21, 5 PM, Addlestone 227.
This summer I was fortunate to pursue my African American and diasporic research on St. Lucia, one of the Windward Islands in the eastern Caribbean. It is a lush and densely vegetated island with a rugged and mountainous topography. That makes it absolutely breathtaking to view and somewhat challenging to drive through on the winding, often narrow and alternately rising and plummeting roads. This place has a complicated history as revealed by the mixture of place names one finds. Travelers fly into Hewanorra International Airport which takes its name from the indigenous Carib inhabitants. The airport is in Vieux Fort–a town named by the French, the first European settlers–while a scenic area in the north, Rodney Bay, is named for a British naval officer. The mixture of English and French names speaks to the complicated modern history of the island colony. Until the early nineteenth century, through conquest or diplomacy, control of the island passed between Britain and France fourteen times. The British gained final control in 1814 in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Although it never became an economic powerhouse like its neighbors Barbados or Martinique, the French and British developed a slave-based plantation economy here geared to sugar production for world markets.
A waterwheel-driven sugar mill
Although many slavery-related themes are ripe for investigation in this place, on this visit my interest was very specific. I have been particularly attracted to the international ramifications of the American and French Revolutions for the institution of slavery. This is in keeping with the work we are striving to accomplish here at the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston (CSSC). We don’t simply research slavery in this city. We want to broaden the lens through which people view slavery, its ramifications and its legacy. Our Charleston vantage point affords the opportunity to look out onto the Atlantic and the Caribbean and see slavery’s many important hemispheric linkages to our city and to the state. That’s how I got to St. Lucia.
When the gates of the Bastille in Paris were flung open in July 1789, French revolutionaries issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and subsequently rallied around the motto “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” This call reverberated throughout the major western colonial empires. In St. Lucia as early as 1790, free persons of color began meeting and demanding equality. Two years later, the colonial assembly extended the right to vote and hold office to free men of color. However, the enslaved population was unaffected and grew increasingly restive. Some relatively small, scattered and unsuccessful rebellions occurred on plantations by 1792. That summer the royalist governor resigned and departed the island and representatives of the new French government took control. Recognizing a new era had arrived, many slaves began abandoning the plantations by early 1793. Life on the island became increasingly unpredictable, and the British began an invasion of France and similarly threatened other parts of its empire. On February 4, 1794 the French Republic, after vacillating for years and in an effort to strengthen its military preparations, abolished slavery throughout the empire and bestowed citizenship on the freedmen. These steps were taken too late for the French to save St. Lucia, which was successfully occupied by British forces in the fall. However, the British soon discovered, just as they had previously learned during the American Revolution, that they could occupy forts and cities relatively easily, but their greatest challenges arose from rebels in the countryside.
Supporters of the French revolutionary government gathered in the countryside and organized L’ Armee Francaise dans les Bois (the French Army in the Woods). Comprised mainly of fugitive slaves, the group also attracted free men of color, poor whites and some French soldiers. For the fugitive slaves, the French Revolutionary government represented emancipation; others became supporters for a variety of reasons. The British and their royalist supporters disparagingly referred to this unofficial band of insurgents as the Brigands. They were nevertheless a powerful and resourceful adversary because they were familiar with the topography and used guerilla warfare tactics that were well adapted for the mountainous, densely vegetated environment.
A 1759 map of St. Lucia showing the island’s mountain ranges
After one skirmish with the Brigands in 1794 in northern St. Lucia, a British officer recalled: “the Rascals are in such Numbers and the Woods impenetrable that I am much afraid they will not be easily quelled particularly as I cannot well spare more men from this Garrison.” In addition, tropical diseases sidelined many soldiers, further eroding British military strength.
St. Lucia’s royalist planters opposed arming their slaves, fearing this would only invite insurrection. In order to improve their effectiveness, British Lieutenant General Sir John Vaughan reinforced his soldiers by bringing the Black Carolina Corps to St. Lucia from their base on Martinique. This group consisted of fugitive slaves and free persons of color that labored and fought for the British in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Toward the end of the war, in late 1782, at least 264 of these men evacuated Charleston with their British counterparts bound for St. Lucia. Once there they were formally organized, serving until the war ended and they were transferred to Grenada. The Carolina Corps was the first black unit to be permanently incorporated into the British West Indies peacetime military forces. They were now pressed into service on St. Lucia. They were soon joined by Malcolm’s Rangers or the Black Rangers, a group comprised of royalist slaves from French Martinique. The French forces, not sitting idly, were taking some important initiatives. During the era’s incessant fighting, the neighboring French island of Guadeloupe temporarily fell to the British, but by the end of 1794 it was recaptured by revolutionary France. It became a vital source of supplies and tactical support for the Brigand resistance against the British on St. Lucia.
In the fighting that ensued in 1795, the British forces continued facing protracted insurgent resistance. On multiple occasions in the southern part of the island, the insurgents successfully ambushed the invaders from the hillside and along narrow pathways. One such attack in April emanated from a Brigand settlement located on the side of Gros Piton, one of the tallest volcanic peaks on the island. The camp was led by a highly regarded and talented colored woman, Flore Bois Galliard, whose memory is enshrined in the piton named for her: Piton Flore. In another nearby campaign, the eight-hour Battle of Rabot, British forces faced withering Brigand fire and lost over one hundred men, forcing them to retreat from the southern island and take refuge in the north. Even here they only found temporary respite as Brigand attacks dislodged them from Pigeon Island and forced them from St. Lucia by mid-June.
The British occupation had lasted about a year (spanning 1794-95) and had come at considerable cost to themselves and to the island’s enslaved and free black populations. The next year, 1796, British returned in force and mounted a sustained campaign, often using scorched-earth tactics to root out the dogged Brigand resistance; by early 1799 the insurgency had been substantially crushed. One factor contributing to British success at this time was greater reliance on black troops. In mid-1795 when British fortunes deteriorated on St. Lucia, steps were taken to organize more black soldiers. The Black Carolina Corps was combined with similar groups from the Caribbean–Malcolm’s Rangers and the Dominica Rangers–to form the First West India Regiment. Subsequently the Second, Sixth and the Eighth West India Regiments were organized with black troops drawn from several Caribbean islands. Sometimes their ranks were bolstered by Africans imported through the Atlantic slave trade. The West India Regiments were effectively deployed in occupying and pacifying St. Lucia and would become a regular fixture in Britain’s future military operations.
Except for a brief period in 1802, St. Lucia remained under British control. This meant the emancipation decree issued by revolutionary France was reversed and Britain reestablished slavery on the island. However, the protracted fighting ensured that the slave population was diminished when peace resumed. In 1790 the slaves numbered 18,406 but by 1799 their numbers had fallen to 13,391. Many died in the fighting while some were carried off to other islands. Many also remained as fugitives in the countryside.
Part of my trip focused on the southwestern part of the island in the vicinity of the major town of Soufriere and the nearby volcanic mountains Petit Piton and Gros Piton, which comprise an important UNESCO World Heritage Site. The image of this area is the iconic representation of the island. It is possible to climb Gros Piton and I was drawn by its stark allure and especially by the opportunity to tread on a landmark that had been a refuge for fugitive slaves and a staging ground for part of the Brigand insurgency.
The Pitons on St. Lucia
The small town at the base of Gros Piton is Fond Gens Libre which means “Valley of the Free People.” Inhabited as early as 1749 by slave insurrectionists that sought protection there, the place seems to have attracted additional fugitives in the 1790s.
The sign to Fond Gens Libre Village in St. Lucia
One can easily see how densely vegetated and rugged the terrain is and thus why fugitives sought out this and similar areas.
The dense and rugged terrain of St. Lucia.Another shot of the thick vegetation on St. Lucia
At one point my guide and I departed from the regular path and entered a more secluded area. Here she showed me an example of a cave where fugitives were likely to have hidden from authorities or from which Brigand soldiers might have prepared an ambush against invaders.
Dr. Bernard Powers posing in the rocky caves of St. Lucia.
To journey to these places was at once exhilarating and exhausting. One can only imagine what those ancestors of modern day black St. Lucians must have felt in these environs. Travel to this place and immersing oneself in the environment is another way of going to the “primary sources” of history. Once you have done so, you cannot but have a deepened appreciation for the historical experience and the humans who lived it. Some of those who lived it were South Carolinians.
Dr. Bernard Powers, Emeritus Professor of History at C of C, is the director for the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and a board member and Interim Director for the International African American Museum (IAAM).
Bibliography
Edgar, Walter, The South Carolina Encyclopedia University of South Carolina, 2006.
Gaspar, David B., “La Guerre des Bois: Revolution, War and Slavery in Saint Lucia 1793-1838” in David B. Gaspar and David P. Geggus, eds., A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean Indiana University, 1997.
Harmsen, Jolien et. al, A History of St. Lucia Lighthouse Publications, 2014.
The Social Justice Committee of CSSC hosted the start of the May 9 Gullah Society procession on the C of C campus, in Barnet Courtyard.
Cards were inscribed with messages that were then buried with the ancestors.
C of C faculty in academic regalia joined city officials, Gullah society members, schoolchildren, and other community members in a procession down George Street to the Gaillard Complex.
Gullah Society President and founder Ade Ofunniyin, walking with the Mayor of Charleston, escorted the coffins to their final resting place. Dr. Ofuniyyin teaches African and African American studies at the College of Charleston.
Charleston Mayor John Tecklenberg and CofC’s Dr. Ade Ofunniyin escorting the coffins
The program was designed by Ms. Joanna Gilmore, a Gullah Society staff member who also teaches at C of C. It included an essay by C of C professor of architectural history Dr. Nathaniel Walker and another essay by CSSC director and emeritus history professor Dr. Bernard Powers. Among the speakers during the ceremony was Dr. Kameelah Martin, chair of C of C’s African American Studies department and a member of CSSC’s Executive Board.
The cover of the program booklet for the reburial ceremony.
This op-ed reflects on the significance of the May 9 event honoring those ancestors whose labor contributed so much to Charleston. Written by Julia Eichelberger, CSSC Executive Board member and director of the Program in Southern Studies.
