An Experiment In Freedom

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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          Next Monday, the 19^th, is Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger led Union soldiers to Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of the war and the freedom of all enslaved people. This previously obscure event has rather suddenly become a national holiday. The day before, Sunday the 18th, is the 161^st anniversary of when teaching began at a school for African Americans. Thus far, few people know about this facility, the Penn School.

          It can be found on St. Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina. The island is about 64 square miles of low-lying, mainly rural terrain, with a population under 10,000 people. St. Helena is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the sea islands Hunting, Pritchards, and Fripp, and bordered by St. Helena Sound to its north and Port Royal Sound to the south.

First occupied by subtribes of the Cusabo Indians, St. Helena Island got its current name from the first Europeans who landed there, around 1520: Santa Elena. The Spanish captured the Native Americans on the island and sent them off to be slave labor on Caribbean sugar plantations. By the mid- to late 1500s, the Spanish occupying the area struggled with their rival, the French, over Santa Elena and other settlements (such as what is now St. Augustine, Florida). But by 1700, another colonial power, the English, had taken control of the island as part of its colony of Carolina.

The British, and later American, occupiers of St. Helena used the labor of enslaved Africans and Native Americans to build and work large agricultural holdings that produced rice and other crops. Because of the isolation of the Sea Islands, and the presence of relatively few landholders, these workers developed their own creole culture and language unique to the region: Gullah.

In December 1860, reacting to the election of Abraham Lincoln the month before, South Carolina became the first state (of 11) to declare itself independent from the United States, which of course would lead to the Civil War. After the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, South Carolina was an immediate target of the Union’s armed forces. The Sea Islands, including St. Helena, were occupied by Union forces as early as November 1861.

A significant result of this was that the coastal areas of South Carolina became home to an experiment in how to reorganize a society and economy built on enslaved labor into a free one. By mid-1862, the Port Royal Experiment established schools and hospitals and enabled freed people to buy former plantation land at low prices. African Americans in the Sea Islands kept the land productive and built their own financial independence, far earlier than anywhere else in the country—and before the more restrictive Reconstruction policies took hold. 

A little more detail on the Port Royal Experiment: It was a program in which former slaves successfully worked on the land abandoned by white planters. When the white residents fled, they left behind 10,000 black slaves. Several private Northern charity organizations stepped in to help the former slaves become self-sufficient. The result was a model of what Reconstruction could have been. The African Americans demonstrated their ability to work the land efficiently and live independently of white control. They assigned themselves daily tasks for cotton growing and spent their extra time cultivating their own crops, fishing, and hunting. By selling their surplus crops, the locals acquired small amounts of property.

Among the Northerners who arrived as teachers were Mary Lambert Allen and her husband, William Francis Allen, from West Newton, Massachusetts. Detailed descriptions of their daily life were noted in his diaries, which have been transcribed. Admiration for the hard work ethic of the former slaves was included as well as the urgent need for a basic education of which the slaves had been deprived. William Allen also took notes on the language, songs, and music he heard, and these would later be published.

The Penn School continued to teach students until the middle of the 20th century. At this time, after 86 years, the school shifted its focus and began to offer community services such as day care and health training. One reason for the change was that black families were moving north, causing enrollment to decline. Another important reason was that South Carolina's state and county governments finally began to take steps towards providing a more thorough education for black children. Before 1948, the public school system was only required to educate African Americans through the seventh grade.

During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference often met at the renamed Penn Center. It served as a rare retreat where members of both races could meet peacefully without being threatened with harm.

More recently, Penn's leaders have turned their attention to preserving the unique culture of the Sea Islands in the face of increasing tourism and residential growth. They hold workshops to teach people how to protect heirs’ properties and defend themselves against developers. They also organize the annual Penn Center Heritage Days Celebration, which honors Gullah traditions.

Penn Center is a National Historic District Landmark located along both sides of Land's End Road near Chowan Creek. Its 50 acres are home to 19 historic buildings, including Darrah Hall and Brick Church. And last year, to help preserve the site, the center received a big grant from Mackenzie Scott, the philanthropist and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including the recent (and instant!) New York Times bestseller Follow Me to Hell and his latest collaboration with Bob Drury, The Last Hill. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.