The Short Life of Free Georgia: Class and Slavery in the Colonial South

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Published last year, Wright State University associate professor of history, Dr. Noeleen McIlvenna’s work, The Short Life of Free Georgia: Class and Slavery in the Colonial South, 1733-1750 explores the first twenty years of Georgia’s establishment as a free labor colony. Exhaustively researched, Dr. McIlvenna examines, among other unpublished primary sources, the collected papers of Georgia Trustee, John Viscount Percival, Earl of Egmont, and James Habersham, prominent Colonial merchant. McIlvenna chose to examine the papers of these prominent men to tell not the stories of those who came to dominate Colonial Georgia but to learn about the lives of those first settlers, the “worthy” European poor the trustees recruited to populate the free colony. Because they left scant sources behind, very little is known of the poor laboring men and women who built early Georgia, but McIlvenna’s expert comparative analysis of primary sources allows for a complex picture to emerge.

Before the 1750 end of the ban on slavery, Georgia, the last of the British colonies in North America was a philanthropic experiment, a sort of noblesse oblige utopian idea dreamt up by James Oglethorpe and put into action by a select group of “Enlightened” English elites to give the masses of landless and dispossessed poor a chance at “salvation” through hard work. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, common lands in England, traditionally worked and hunted by peasants, became the sole property of the nobility, forcing a mass diaspora of the poor into cities searching for work. Unable to find work, many were forced to live on the streets, or ended up in the notorious British workhouse system. According to McIlvenna, the British upper classes created the problem by privatizing the land, thereby dislocating a large swath of the population, but their answer, to ship a number of the dispossessed off to the new colony of Georgia would be fraught with problems from the beginning. The early settlers, having freed themselves from the yoke of British control were reluctant to follow the demands of those the British had placed in power in the new colony. The Georgia Trustees expected the same sort of British social system to evolve in early Georgia, but being so far from any centralized government led to a sort of frontier mentality. No longer satisfied with being at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, and willing to hold out for higher wages, McIlvenna argues, Georgia settlers developed a class consciousness.

During the Trustee Era, McIlvenna contends, class, not race defined the early politics, economics and social structure of Georgia. In the twenty years Georgia operated as a free labor economy, the South Carolina planter aristocracy would wage a political war, using race as their weapon to force slavery into Georgia, but class was the driving force during the Trustee era. The Trustees were firmly against the establishment of slavery as it was contrary to their idealized vision for the colony, which was the uplift of the poor through hard work. Slavery would undercut that whole system, and drive out working class whites. The settlers of early Georgia endured great hardships, including disease, drought, war, poor harvests, and food shortages, and the Malcontents used these “failures” as an argument for the establishment of slavery. The Trustees fought against it but ultimately with James Oglethorpe no longer invested in the colony, and Parliament unwilling to fund it, Georgia succumbed to slavery, ending the first experiment of its kind in Colonial America.

The Short Life of Free Georgia: Class and Slavery in the Colonial South is social history at its finest, and certainly the first book of its kind to point a lens at the complex political, social and economic climate that marked early free Georgia.

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April 2016 Georgia Room Programming and Exhibits

PROGRAMMING

Thursday, April 21 @ 6:00 pm
Love Framed in Black and White: A Powerful Study in Love, Race and Courage
Paula C. Wright, a descendent of the Edgefield, South Carolina Ramey family inherited at the time of her grandmother’s death a genealogical treasure, a box filled with over 500 photographs documenting eight generations of her family. Since childhood, Ms. Wright has been interested in her incredible family story, but with the gift of the photographs she knew that the story needed to be told to the wider world. Please join us in the auditorium of Augusta Public Library on the evening of Thursday, April 21 as Ms. Wright unravels the story of the courageous marriage in 1872 of her white, third great-grandfather Judge William Ramey to former Edgefield slave, Kittie Simpkins; and the generations which followed, including those who made their homes in Augusta, Georgia. This event is free and open to the public. Please call 706-826-1511 for details.

Tuesday, April 26 @ 10:30 am
Preserving Your Family Heirlooms
In celebration of American Library Association’s Preservation Week, April 24-April 30, the Georgia Heritage Room welcomes Lauren Virgo, Registrar for the Augusta Museum of History. Ms. Virgo will teach us tricks of the trade for protecting our family treasures from the deleterious effects of light, dust, insects, and aging. Items discussed will be documents such as letters and diaries; photographs and scrapbooks; and textiles, such as quilts and vintage clothes. By learning simple preservation techniques our family heirlooms can be saved for generations to come. Please call the Georgia Heritage Room for details, 706-826-1511.

EXHIBIT

Love Framed in Black & White: A Powerful Study in Love, Race and Courage

“I can recall as a child being drawn to my great-grandmother’s photo albums. Something about the older photos would captivate me… not realizing they would speak out to me over 40 years later, their story wanting to be told.” –Paula C. Wright.

 

Please visit the Georgia Heritage Room on the third floor of the Augusta Public Library during the months of April and May to view this powerful exhibit of photographs, documents, and artifacts following eight generations of Paula C. Wright’s family from the marriage of her white third great-grandfather, Judge William Ramey, to former Edgefield slave, Kittie Simpkins, to the later generations of ancestors who made Augusta, Georgia their home.

 

“The more I tell the story, the more I realize how much of a social impact it can have in today’s society; how their legacy of love and courage really is an example of how we should live our lives…today.” –Paula C. Wright

 

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The Great Conflagration: Remembering Augusta’s 1916 Fire

Augusta University Libraries will host the program “The Great Conflagration: Remembering Augusta’s 1916 Fire”

Join the AU Libraries as we remember the 100th Anniversary of the 1916 Augusta Fire on March 22, Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in the Reese Library lobby. Mr. Erick Montgomery, executive director of Historic Augusta, will speak on St. Paul’s Church and the 1916
fire.

The Reading Nook area of the library lobby will host recordings by firefighter Henry H. Johnson recounting his experiences fighting the 1916 fire. The recordings will play at intervals throughout the day between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. on March 22.

For more information, please contact the Special Collections & Institutional Archive department at 706-667-4904.

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March 2016 Georgia Room Programming

Wednesday, March 16 @ 2:00 pm
The Secret Lives of Women: Researching Female Ancestors Using the Sources They Left Behind
How do you research the women in your family? In some of the same ways you research men but you also have to consider what documents and items were left behind by women. In honor of Women’s History Month, the Georgia Heritage Room will host this free Legacy Family Tree Webinar with genealogist and women’s history scholar, Ms. Gena Philibert-Ortega. This lecture will go over the specific heirlooms women left behind including signature quilts, community cookbooks, journals and diaries. The Webinar will take place in the computer lab on the third floor of the Augusta Public Library at 823 Telfair Street. As space is limited please call 706-826-1511 to register.

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Georgia Girl: A Grandmother’s Place in History by David Henry Gambrell

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For many, there is “a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage – to know who we are and where we have come from.” (Alex Haley, author of Roots). For David Henry Gambrell, this was true. Armed with family lore, a previously published work from another ancestor and the copy of a painting that once hung in the drawing room of another relative’s home on the Hawaiian Islands, Gambrell sets out to discover more about his relatively unknown fourth great-grandmother, Ann (Grace) Lartigue. In his work, Gambrell invites the reader to sit down and hear the story of “our Grandmother Ann” who lived in “the late 1700s and early 1800s” (pg. 5).
Mr. Gambrell’s experiences as a lawyer stand him in good stead as he weaves the tale of his grandmother and the world in which she lived. Notable figures such as Sam Houston, President Andrew Jackson, Napoleon Bonaparte and Toussaint Louverture make their appearances throughout the novel as the author paints a broad picture of the turbulent times of revolution (for Americans, French and Haitians) and the struggle to adapt to a rapidly expanding world. Directly or indirectly, Gambrell demonstrates how each of these prominent figures played a part in shaping his ancestor’s life and driving her and her family to live in the growing cosmopolitan city of Augusta, Georgia.
Each chapter of the book (with the exception of the first, which describes the development of Augusta) focuses on an ancestor related to either Ann herself or her husband, Gerard Lartigue. Every chapter gives interesting accounts of the lives and circumstances of the individuals depicted and how they relate back to Ann. Unfortunately, the author does not cite his sources, claiming that he “is no scholar” and that the insertion of footnotes “interrupts the flow of the story” (pg 5). At the end of each chapter, Mr. Gambrell does include some endnotes which offer the reader the opportunity to investigate some of his assertions and verify the facts that he presented. The final chapter focuses, at last, on Ann herself, the events at the conclusion of her life
and what became of some of her progeny.
David Gambrell’s book is less a family history of he-begets-him and more of a social commentary on the development of the Southern United States in which members of his family just happen to play a part. Gambrell states that the story of his grandmother could be the story of anyone’s family (pg 5) and this would certainly seem to be the case if one had ancestors in the South. However, one would need to read the whole book to see if those ancestors had any connection to the Lartigue family enough to warrant a mention in this narrative.

Georgia Girl: A Grandmother’s Place in History. By David Henry Gambrell. Published by Gateway Press, Inc; Maryland; 2003. 386 pp. Maps, charts, photographs, index. Hardback. Out of print. Used $17.99 and up.  A copy is available in the GA Heritage Room of the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library.

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Love Framed in Black and White

The Georgia Heritage Room is honored to annouce that Ms. Paula C. Wright will be here on Thursday, April 21st at 6:00 pm to present:

LOVE FRAMED IN BLACK & WHITE: A POWERFUL STUDY IN LOVE, RACE, AND COURAGE
Paula C. Wright, a descendent of the Edgefield, South Carolina Ramey family inherited at the time of her grandmother’s death a genealogical treasure, a box filled with over 500 photographs documenting seven generations of her family. Since childhood, Ms. Wright has been interested in her incredible family story, but with the gift of the photographs she knew that the story needed to be told to the wider world. Please join us in the auditorium of Augusta Public Library on the evening of Thursday, April 21 as Ms. Wright unravels the story of the courageous marriage in 1872 of her white, third great-grandfather Judge William Ramey to former Edgefield slave, Kitty Simpkins; and the generations which followed, including those who made their homes in Augusta, Georgia. Many of the photographs Ms. Wright inherited will be featured in an exhibit which will run through the month of April. The exhibit will be in the Georgia Heritage Room on the third floor of the Augusta Public Library. This program is free and open to the public. Please call 706-826-1511 for details.

Below is a link to a recent article about Paula C. Wright in the ROCKDALE CITIZEN

http://www.rockdalecitizen.com/features/genealogy-presentation-delves-into-how-interracial-couple-coped-after-civil/article_c9df4563-93b0-510e-b8ef-e408da5ef1ef.html

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February 2016 Georgia Heritage Room Programming

Wednesday, February 10 @ 2:00 pm
Researching Ancestors in the Era of Freedom
The end of the Civil War was a time of great upheaval for both blacks and whites, but luckily for genealogists, many of the records produced during this time can be invaluable for overcoming brick walls in their family history research. In honor of Black History Month, the Georgia Heritage Room will host a free Legacy Family Tree webinar with Ms. Angela Walton-Raji, professional genealogist and founding member of Afrigeneas.com. Ms. Walton-Raji will discuss post-Civil War records, where they can be found, and their usefulness to family historians. She will also be available via Skype following the webinar to answer any questions.The program will take place in the third floor computer lab of the Augusta Public Library at 823 Telfair Street and is free to the public. Space is limited so please call 706-826-1511 to register.

Wednesday, February 17 @ 2:00 pm
Maps Tell Some of the Story for the African-Ancestored Genealogist
In honor of Black History Month, the Georgia Heritage Room will host a free Legacy Family Tree webinar with Ms. Angela Walton-Raji, professional genealogist and founding member of Afrigeneas.com. In this session Ms. Walton-Raji will illustrate how maps can reveal unknowns about your ancestral community and help provide a critical background for the family narrative. Ms. Walton-Raji will be available via Skype following the webinar to answer any questions. The program will take place in the third floor computer lab of the Augusta Public Library at 823 Telfair Street and is free to the public. Space is limited so please call 706-826-1511 to register.

Please join us at the Augusta Main Library, Meeting Room A on Thursday February 18th from 6:30-8pm for the original presentation of “Restoring Brightness: Recalling the Life and Work of African-American Community Builders of the Early 20th Century.” Historians and historic preservation advocates Travis Holloway, Elizabeth Laney, Joyce Law, and Corey Rogers will present brief sketches on selected leaders such as Rev. Silas X. Floyd, entrepreneur Dennis Wigfall, artisan Willie McNatt, and educator Amelia Sullivan- who were highly influential during their lifetime. However, over time, these names and achievements have become somewhat obscure. In honor of the 2016 Black History Month National Theme “Hallowed Ground”, selected historic sites will also be highlighted. Alysha Griffin of Paine College’s Department of Humanities will serve as moderator. The program is free and open to the public. Call 706-826-1511 for details.

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Suffer & Grow Strong: The Life of Emma Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1834-1907

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Over the last 25 years or so Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas’ life has been the subject of study among scholars of Southern history, particularly as it relates to the Civil War and women’s history. Like many women born into the planter aristocracy of the antebellum South, Gertrude kept a diary, but unlike other known diaries kept by women during the Civil War era, she maintained her journals on and off for forty-one years, a time-span remarkable for the upheavals and shifts in Southern culture and society. In those forty-one years we see the continued rise and inevitable collapse of an entire social system. It is no wonder historians have taken such interest.

Carolyn Newton Curry’s fascination with Gertrude’s Clanton Thomas’ life began when she was first introduced to the diaries in the Manuscript Department of the William R. Perkins Library at Duke University. In the 30 years since, Curry has written a doctoral dissertation based on Gertrude’s life, given countless lectures, and now finally, has written her biography, Suffer & Grow Strong: The Life of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas.

Born in 1834, the daughter of gentleman planter and Augusta businessman Turner Clanton, Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas viewed the world through a lens of wealth and privilege, and similar to most girls born of her class, she was attended to by a household of slaves, leaving her with virtually no real responsibility. The summers were spent languidly at one of her father’s vast plantations outside of Augusta, and winters at the Clanton mansion on Greene Street, where the present day 500 Building stands. Through Curry’s telling of the story we get a sense that Gertrude was very intelligent and fiercely independent, identifying strongly with her father, who was known for his managerial acumen, business savvy, and an accumulated wealth that was staggering even by antebellum standards. Turner Clanton helped build Augusta, owning vast expanses of land, and buildings all over the cotton-rich city. Passages written on her father appear over and over in the diaries, but very little mention is given to her mother, until later in her life. Gertrude spent much of her time reading and writing, and showed minimal interest in learning the domestic skills expected of a woman living in the nineteenth century, such as cooking and sewing. This would become a problem for her during the war years when slaves were no longer available to perform these domestic duties.

Turner Clanton, recognizing his daughter’s intelligence and desire to learn, gave her an opportunity very few women, even those of the planter elite, were allowed; a formal education. Gertrude was among the first to attend Wesleyan Female College, and graduated in 1851, was married shortly thereafter to Princeton-graduate, Jefferson Thomas. According to Curry, it is in the intervening years, after her marriage, the loss of children, the death of her father, the horrors of the Civil War, the dissolution of her wealth and the bankruptcy which followed that the tone of Gertrude’s diaries change.

Women of the nineteenth century, of all races, and across all class lines, suffered greatly during their childbearing years due to frequent miscarriages and child loss. The high birthrate coupled with the mistreatment of poorly understood maladies and diseases led to rampant infant death. Curry suggests that through this commonality of shared female suffering, Gertrude was able to cross class lines and begin to empathize and identify with all women regardless of race or class. And this, Curry contends, ultimately led to Gertrude’s questioning of slavery itself, albeit mediated by the strictures of her own class status. By experiencing and being witness to the trauma of ever-present child loss, Gertrude wrote more critically of what at the time was a considerably taboo subject; the practice of slave owners fathering children with female slaves. Never directly indicting the men of her family, Gertrude attacks the practice as abhorrent, placing full blame on the men of her class.

Unlike most books written by historians who seem to be at times writing for other historians, Curry’s book reads like popular history, and while this makes for a very compelling story which is more accessible to a wider audience, Curry at times glosses over larger themes other historians have pointed out about Gertrude’s life. Gender historian LeeAnn Whites, who also studied the diaries suggests that Gertrude’s criticisms of slavery were not based on any radical anti-slavery sentiment but rather she found distasteful the mixing of races. Indeed, as most Southerners of the time believed, particularly those of the planter class, slavery was condoned by Christianity, and Gertrude as a member of the dominant class embraced this belief as evidenced in her diaries.

Regardless of its perceived faults, Suffer & Grow Strong offers those of us interested in Augusta’s long and storied past a glimpse into the city during a time of great social and economic upheaval, when its location–being surrounded by some of the most fertile land for growing cotton in the South—allowed it to become the second largest inland cotton market in the world and one of the wealthiest cities below the Mason-Dixon line. Curry paints a fascinating landscape of the city, at a time when it found itself a favored destination for European travelers. The biography also adds to the growing field of women’s studies as it explores the life of a woman, born to wealth and privilege, who would ultimately use the strength she gained through her suffering and loss during the Civil War and postbellum era, as well as her class status, to become an outspoken advocate of women’s rights in such national organizations as the WCTU and later the Women’s Suffrage Movement.

Included on the 2015 list of books all Georgians should read by Georgia Center for the Book, Suffer & Grow Strong: The Life of Emma Gertrude Clanton Thomas will be of particular interest to Augustans who want to learn more about the fascinating history of our city.

This begins the Georgia Heritage Room’s monthly book review contribution to our Augusta Genealogy Blog. Please feel free to comment on our reviews.

Tina Monaco

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RESEARCHING ANCESTORS IN THE ERA OF FREEDOM

The end of the Civil War was a time of great upheaval for both blacks and whites, but luckily for genealogists, many of the records produced during this time can be invaluable for overcoming brick walls in their family history research. In honor of Black History Month, the Georgia Heritage Room will host a free Legacy Family Tree webinar with Ms. Angela Walton-Raji, professional genealogist and founding member of Afrigeneas.com. The webinar will take place in the third floor computer lab of the main library at 823 Telfair Street on Wednesday, February 10th at 2:00 pm. Ms. Walton-Raji will discuss post-Civil War records, where they can be found, and their usefulness to family historians. She will also be available via Skype following the webinar to answer any questions. Space is limited so please call 706-826-1511 to register.
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AT WHAT COST? PIPELINES, POLLUTION AND EMINENT DOMAIN IN THE RURAL SOUTH

AT WHAT COST? PIPELINES, POLLUTION AND EMINIENT DOMAIN IN THE RURAL SOUTH, by local, award-winning filmmaker Mark Alberton will screen at the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library on Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 6:00 pm. The film explores the environmental implications, and the cost to affected landowners of the proposed Kinder Morgan Palmetto Pipeline. A donation can be made at the door to support the Savannah Riverkeeper and Pushback the Pipeline Coalition. Please call the Georgia Heritage Room for details. 706-826-1511

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