So rarely does a record from Reconstruction actually connect freed people to a former slaveholder. When we find records like this we are so excited.
We are very excited today, because we found another! This record is a part of the “Pre-Bureau” records for South Carolina.
Having taken Port Royal in 1861, Union forces were in lower South Carolina long before the Freedmen’s Bureau was established. This record does not have a date but is interleaved with records made in 1865. It is reproduced on NARA Micropublication M869, Reel 38.
This record appears in rations requests and lists the names of elders with plantations and the names of former slaveholders. What a find!
Please click on the image below to view the record full-size. We hope you find an ancestor here. Happy Ancestor Hunting from the crew at Lowcountry Africana!
References Cited
United States, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of South Carolina Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1870 (NARA Micropublication M869), Reel 38.
