Ask Us!: Avery Research Center

Charleston has had a interesting history with race relations. There are at least three different categories that a Black person could live under.

1. Enslaved person: This person was owned by another

2. Formerly enslaved person (freedman/freeperson): This person was once enslaved and obtained their freedom by purchasing themselves, freed by the enslaver, or who self liberated

3. Free person of color: This person was born free and never enslaved. 

Here is a selection of books that are helpful in this query

• Landers, Jane. Against the Odds : Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas. Frank Cass, 1996.
• Johnson, Michael P., and James L. Roark. No Chariot Let down : Charleston’s Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War. University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
• Marks, John Garrison. Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery : Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas. The University of South Carolina Press, 2020.
• Powers, Bernard E. Black Charlestonians : a Social History, 1822-1885. University of Arkansas Press, 1994.
• Pearson, Edward A. Designs Against Charleston : the Trial Record of the Denmark Vesey Slave Conspiracy of 1822. University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
• Jenkins, Wilbert Lee. Chaos, Conflict and Control : the Responses of the Newly-Freed Slaves in Charleston, South Carolina to Emancipation and Reconstruction, 1865-1877. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University, 1991., 1998.
• Johnson, Michael P., and James L. Roark. Black Masters : a Free Family of Color in the Old South. First edition., W.W. Norton & Company, 1984.
• Jenkins, Wilbert L. Seizing the New Day : African Americans in Post-Civil War Charleston. Indiana University Press, 1998.
• O’Brien, Michael, and David. Moltke-Hansen. Intellectual Life in Antebellum Charleston. 1st ed., University of Tennessee Press, 1986.
• West, Emily. Chains of Love : Slave Couples in Antebellum South Carolina. University of Illinois Press, 2004
• Greene, Harlan., Harry S. Hutchins, and Brian E. Hutchins. Slave Badges and the Slave-Hire System in Charleston, South Carolina, 1783-1865 . Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co., 2004.

Here are some articles or websites/digital archives

• "South Carolina, Charleston, Free Negro Capitation Books, 1811-1860." Database. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org : 22 February 2021. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia.
• Avery Research Center's Vertical Files/Ready Reference. Each letter is on its own tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Files are comprised of articles, newspaper clippings, programs, and obituaries
• Digital Library on America Slavery (Website)
• The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive (Website)

• Freedom on the Move (Website)

• Enslaved (Website)

• SlaveVoyages (Website)

• The Status of the Free Negro in Charleston (article)

• Dawson, Victoria. “Copper Neck Tags Evoke the Experience of American Slaves Hired Out as Part-Time Laborers.” Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Institution, February 2003. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/copper-neck-tags-evoke-experience-american-slaves-hired-out-part-time-laborers-76039831/. (article)

• Defining Charleston’s Free People of Color (article)

See digital exhibits and resource guides using the links below. 

Here are some archival collections at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture (you will also want to review materials at the South Carolina Historical Society and the Special Collections at the College of Charleston)

• Jane and William Pease papers

• Holloway family scrapbook

• Humane and Friendly Society

• Friendly Union Society Records  

• John L. Dart Family Papers

• Brown Fellowship Society Records

• Craft and Crum Families

• Edmund Lee Drago collection

• Farr Family Papers

• Walter Pantovic slavery collection

• St. Mark Episcopal Church Records

• Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church Records  

• Avery photograph collection

As you are searching in our catalog or other catalogs/databases you will want to use some of these key words

Free blacks

African Americans -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History -- 19th century

Free African Americans

Antebellum

African Americans -- Education -- Southern States -- History

Southern States -- Race relations