Related Research Articles
Wade Hampton III was an American military officer who joined the Confederate States of America in rebellion against the United States of America during the American Civil War. He later had a career as a South Carolina politician. Hampton came from a wealthy planter family. Shortly before the war,he was both one of the largest enslavers in the Southeastern United States and a state legislator. During the American Civil War,he joined the Confederate cavalry,where he was a lieutenant general.
In the history of the United States,carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War,and were perceived to be exploiting the local populace for their own financial,political,and/or social gain. The term broadly included both individuals who sought to promote Republican politics,and individuals who saw business and political opportunities because of the chaotic state of the local economies following the war. In practice,the term carpetbagger often was applied to any Northerners who were present in the South during the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). The word is closely associated with scalawag,a similarly pejorative word used to describe native white Southerners who supported the Republican Party-led Reconstruction.
Daniel Henry Chamberlain was an American planter,lawyer,author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1876 or 1877. The federal government withdrew troops from the state and ended Reconstruction that year. Chamberlain was the last Republican governor of South Carolina until James B. Edwards was elected in 1974.
More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy,disenfranchisement,and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern states. Historian Canter Brown Jr. noted that in some states,such as Florida,the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The following is a partial list of notable African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900. Dates listed are the year that a term states or the range of years served if multiple terms.
David Wyatt Aiken was a slave owner,Confederate army officer during the American Civil War and a reconstruction era five-term United States Congressman from South Carolina.
The 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 7,1876,to select the governor of the state of South Carolina. The election campaign was a referendum on the Radical Republican-led state government and their Reconstruction policies. Opponents disputed the challenger Wade Hampton III's victory,gained by a margin of little more than 1100 votes statewide. But he took office in April 1877,after President Hayes withdrew federal troops as a result of a national Democratic compromise,and the incumbent Daniel Henry Chamberlain left the state.
At the end of the American Civil War,the devastation and disruption in the state of Georgia were dramatic. Wartime damage,the inability to maintain a labor force without slavery,and miserable weather had a disastrous effect on agricultural production. The state's chief cash crop,cotton,fell from a high of more than 700,000 bales in 1860 to less than 50,000 in 1865,while harvests of corn and wheat were also meager. The state government subsidized construction of numerous new railroad lines. White farmers turned to cotton as a cash crop,often using commercial fertilizers to make up for the poor soils they owned. The coastal rice plantations never recovered from the war.
Richard Howell Gleaves was a lawyer,merchant,and politician who served as the 55th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina from December 7,1872 to December 14,1876. He served under Governors Franklin J. Moses,Jr. and Daniel Henry Chamberlain. A Haitian-American of mixed ancestry,Gleaves was notable as one of the highest elected black Americans during the Reconstruction Era.
Benjamin Franklin Whittemore,also known as B. F. Whittemore,was a minister,politician,and publisher in the United States. After his theological studies,he was a minister and then a chaplain for Massachusetts regiments during the Civil War. Stationed in South Carolina at the war's end,he accepted the position of superintendent of education for the Freedmen's Bureau. A Republican,he was elected a U.S. Representative from South Carolina. He was censured 1870 for selling appointments to the United States Naval Academy and other military academies. He spent his later years in Massachusetts,where he was a publisher.
Prince R. Rivers was a former enslaved man from South Carolina who served as a soldier in the Union Army and as a state politician during the Reconstruction era. He escaped and joined Union lines,becoming a sergeant in the 1st South Carolina Volunteers,a Union regiment in the American Civil War.
James Martin was a Republican state legislator in South Carolina during the Reconstruction Era. He was born in Ireland,and his family moved to South Carolina when he was young. He worked in the mercantile business,married Anna Eliza,and had five children. After the Civil War,he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives,representing Abbeville County. He was assassinated on October 5,1868,possibly by the Ku Klux Klan. Before his death,it was perceived that he had made "certain inflammatory appeals" to African Americans.
Ebenezer (Eben) Hayes was a farmer,Methodist preacher and a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives,during the Reconstruction era.
Henry W. Webb was a political leader in Reconstruction era South Carolina. He was a delegate to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868 and elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives the same year.
From December 1876 to April 1877,the Republican and Democratic parties in South Carolina each claimed to be the legitimate government. Both parties declared that the other had lost the election and that they controlled the governorship,the state legislature,and most state offices. Each government debated and passed laws,raised militias,collected taxes,and conducted other business as if the other did not exist. After four months of contested government,Daniel Henry Chamberlain,who claimed the governorship as a Republican,conceded to Democrat Wade Hampton III on April 11,1877. This came after President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South.
James Alfred Bowley was an American teacher,lawyer,judge,school commissioner,politician,and newspaper publisher in South Carolina. He escaped slavery in Maryland with help from Harriet Tubman. He served in the U.S. Navy. After the American Civil War he moved to Georgetown,South Carolina,taught in schools and was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. His former home in Georgetown,where he lived with his wife Laura Clark (1854–1932),is a historic site.
Richard H. Humbert,also known as Richard Humbird,was a carpenter,soldier,minister,merchant and delegate from Darlington County to South Carolina's 1868 Constitutional Convention. He also served multiple terms as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. He served in the U.S. Colored Infantry during the American Civil War and was in a regiment stationed in South Carolina during the conflict.
John Boston was an American politician. He was enslaved before becoming a representative from Darlington County in the South Carolina House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He helped establish the Lamar Colored Methodist Church in 1865.
Jordan Lang was a state legislator in South Carolina during the Reconstruction era. He had been a slave owned by the Lang family. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 until 1872 representing Darlington County,South Carolina. Lang Township and a school were named for him. Lang Township preceded the Palmetto School District.
Isaac P. Brockenton was a minister,trial justice,county commissioner,and state legislator in South Carolina. He represented Darlington County,South Carolina in the South Carolina House of Representatives.
William H. Moore was a state legislator in North Carolina. He served in the North Carolina House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He represented New Hanover County and served with other African Americans in the state legislature. His post office was in Wilmington,North Carolina. He served with Henry Brewington and Alfred Lloyd who also represented New Hanover in the 1874-1875 session. All three were African Americans.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Slave to statesman, and then a tragic end for Alfred Rush | Local News | scnow.com". scnow.com.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Reconstruction era: Alfred E. Rush". Darlington County Historical Museum of Ethnic Culture. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
- 1 2 3 4 "H*4834 Session 120 (2013-2014)". South Carolina Legislature Online. South Carolina House of Representatives. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
- 1 2 3 4 "B.F. Whittemore to Governor Daniel Chamberlain, 15 May 1876. S518004". Papers of Governor Daniel Chamberlain. Columbia, South Carolina: South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "The Assassination of Rep. Alfred Rush". The Green Book of South Carolina: African American Cultural Sites. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
- ↑ Work, Monroe N.; Staples, Thomas S.; Wallace, H. A.; Miller, Kelly (January 1920). "Some Negro Members of Reconstruction Conventions and Legislatures and of Congress". The Journal of Negro History. 5 (1). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History: 86. doi:10.2307/2713503. JSTOR 2713503. S2CID 149610698.