VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

For 200 years the chains of slavery bound Black Americans. Like cattle, they were reduced to property. 

In some states it was illegal to teach them to read and write. They could not leave their plantations without a pass, could not own property and could not complain about the beatings. 

The slave trade was good for business in America and breaking the chains was no easy task. 

“You ain’t, none of you, going to feel real free till you shake the dust of the Old Plantation off your feet and go to a new place where you can live out of sight of the great house,” announced one newly emancipated slave. 

As a test of freedom, another freed slave walked away from his Louisiana plantation just to see if he would be stopped without a pass. Once slavery ended, the strongest reason for leaving was lost family members. 

Ex-slaves jammed dusty southern roads searching for loved ones. 

One man walked 600 miles looking for the wife and kids he lost when he was sold away. Another woman found her husband 20 years later in a refugee camp after the war. 

Finding lost children was especially hard because they were often shipped to other states. Sometimes children no longer remembered their birth parents. 

Some ex-slaves were never notified of their freedom. When a plantation owner was asked why the people were never told of their freedom he simply said he had a crop to get out. Other ex-slaves had nowhere to go. 

“I hears about freedom in September (1865) …a white man rides up to Massa’s house on a big, white hoss---a government man. He had a big book and a bunch (of) papers,” said Susan Merritt, and ex-slave from Texas. 

Rebuilding families and lives was hard. People began to understand what anti-slavery leader Frederick Douglass meant when he said, “The work does not end with the abolition of slavery, but only begins.” 

The Blacks were freed from slavery but remained shackled by the prejudice and discrimination that was part of post-Civil War America. Very few freed slaves even lived long enough to enjoy their full rights as citizens. 

Looking back, it was writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe whose book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” stirred up a wave of hatred against slavery. It was militant and outspoken Black Reconstruction leaders like Robert B. Elliott who furthered the rights of Blacks in America. 

Elliott won election to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1870 when he was 26. He provided a much needed voice for Blacks during the Reconstruction period. 

What we know today about the era of slavery and the Abolitionists comes to us through letters, books, broadsides, photos; and documents left behind. Each provides a pulse on the social history of the times. Each is highly prized by collectors.