Episodes Around: 18710324 to 18710327

  1. Calvinism in middle Tennessee
    date 1870 to May 20, 1871map HARDEMAN, Tennesseetags Church/Religious-Activity

    John Houston Bills never attended the same church on Sunday. Even in his early seventies, he had the mobility to travel all over the county to the Episcopal, Baptist, Evangelical Christian, and Presbyterian churches. Maybe he enjoyed hearing different preachers and different Christian perspectives, but church also served a social function for him. Bills was a successful businessman, planter, and...

  2. Centrist Pary Reaction to Ku Klux Klan Activity in Mississippi
    date 1871map HINDS, Mississippitags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    In 1871, the Governor of Mississippi, James Alcorn, was a member of the Centrist Party. The Centrist Party was a faction of the Republican Party emerging in the South at this time. The Centrists believed that it had to seize voting initiative and control the middle of the political spectrum. Centrists believed that the political disabilities imposed on former Confederates by the Reconstruction Act...

  3. Southern States Convention of Colored Men
    date 1871map RICHLAND, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    By 1870, southern black leaders were convinced that the black vote was worthless if black life and property rights were not respected. Outraged at the Republican Party's failure to protect their civil rights and promote blacks for office, many leaders debated withdrawing from the party at the Southern States Convention of Colored Men in 1871. The Convention called on the national government...

  4. European Immmigration to the South
    date 1871map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism, War

    After the Civil War, there was a vast migration of Southerners to Northern States. Many parts of the South were ruined by the Civil War because most of the battles occurred in southern states. The population in the south decreased significantly by the end of the Civil War because of death and because many African-Americans left the south.<br />In order to raise the population, many southern...

  5. Irish Laborers on Southern Plantations
    date 1871map GLYNN, Georgiatags Agriculture

    Black laborers were not the only group employed by whites to take on grueling plantation work. The Leigh plantation on St. Simon's Island off the Georgia coast had for several years employed a gang of Irish labourers to do the banking and ditching on the Island. Francis Butler Leigh, the white matriarch of the plantation, observed that she was surprised at how the Irishmen worked well and faithfully,...

  6. Ku Klux Klan Activity in South Carolina
    date March, 1871 to April, 1871map YORK, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    The Ku Klux Klan committed outrages against Republicans and their supporters throughout the South during 1870 and 1871; however, party leaders hesitated to respond. In 1868, the constitution of South Carolina was ratified and elections were held for all state offices. The Republican Party dominated the election, from governor to town councils. Robert Scott, a white Republican from Ohio was elected...

  7. Managing Black Labor on a Southern Plantation
    date March, 1871map GLYNN, Georgiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Race-Relations

    Francis Butler Leigh ran her plantation on St. Simon's Island off the coast of Georgia on her own. However, she was scheduled to leave for Europe to meet with her husband, and the plantation would have to continue its day-to-day activities without her supervision. Leigh wrote in her diary that she worried about leaving the place entirely in charge of the negro captains, even though her slaves...

  8. Debate Over State Debt
    date March 24, 1871 to March 27, 1871map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Government, Law, Politics, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Why should Virginians have to bear the entire debt? Zephaniah Turner raised this question repeatedly before the House of Delegates in Richmond. In the eyes of Turner, West Virginians were just as responsible for payment as Virginians, seeing as how the debt had existed before dismemberment of the state. Turner blasted Virginia's political representatives for rattling on about preserving honor...