Port Royal Experiment

The Port Royal Experiment was a program begun during the American Civil War in which former slaves successfully worked on the land abandoned by plantation owners. In 1861 the Union liberated the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and their main harbor, Port Royal. The white residents fled, leaving 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. In 1865 President Andrew Johnson ended the experiment, returning the land to its previous white owners.

References

* Faragher, John Mack, ed., "The American Heritage Encyclopedia of American History", Henry Holt & Co., 1998.
* Foner, Eric. The Civil War and the Story of American Freedom. Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies. 2001; 27(1):8-101.
* Ochiai, Akiko. The Port Royal Experiment Revisited: Northern Visions of Reconstruction and the Land Question. The New England Quarterly. 2001 Mar; 74(1):94-117.
* Rose, Willie Lee Nichols. Rehearsal for Reconstruction the Port Royal experiment. Athens: University of Georgia Press; 1999.