Clemson University hired Carrel Cowan-Ricks of Michigan in the Department of Historic Houses and the College of Architecture in 1991. At the time, she was one of just three Black female archeologists in the United States. Tasked with finding evidence of a historic Black burial ground on the western slope of Woodland Cemetery as expansion pressures came with space decreasing for modern burials for Clemson employees, Cowan-Ricks could not do this endeavor alone. She began her Cemetery Hill Archeological Dig Project, which included herself, Clemson University students, Anderson middle schoolers, and other volunteers. They conducted three digs on the hill’s west side, thought to be the Historic African American Burial Ground, where enslaved people and convicted laborers lay resting. In continuing to honor the late professor during Women’s Celebration Month, here are several recounts from those who knew and worked with Cowan-Ricks.
Last month’s edition of the newsletter featured a story that discussed enslaved people at Fort Hill Plantation and their lives with the Calhouns. This month, we will discuss the continuation of African American labor through sharecropping, tenant farming, and domestic workers. Following the Civil War, the formerly enslaved had newfound freedoms as they were no longer considered property. From once-prohibited education provided to Black children to voting rights given to Black men, these newly earned rights came after the divided country fought over “the peculiar institution” of chattel slavery. However, attaining citizenship, freedom, and “40 acres and a mule” was difficult for many formerly enslaved people. Conceptually, it was different to go from being considered commerce as 3/5th a person to becoming a whole person under the court of law. In various instances, the formerly enslaved returned to the plantations where they had labored for a new form of slavery by a different name: sharecropping.¹
Last page of the Articles of Agreement between Thomas G. Clemson and freedmen and women, January 1, 1871, Box 5, Folder 7, Mss 2, Thomas Green Clemson Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University Libraries, https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/1159/
The war left the South in financial disarray during the Reconstruction Era as former plantation owners tried to replace the institution of slavery with something similar. The sharecropping system was a 360-deal debtor loophole that the lender (typically, the previous enslavers) kept the borrower (the formerly enslaved) in through credit and repayment of agriculture.² Thomas Green Clemson, a Confederate soldier pardoned by US President Andrew Johnson,³ went into a sharecropping agreement with some former enslaved people of Fort Hill Plantation in 1868.⁴ It included living quarters for the sharecroppers’ families, farming tools, animals for farm labor, access to firewood, rationed bread, and seed from the previous season’s harvest.⁵ However, like the debt owed for previous crops, the profit made by the borrower was heavily in favor of the lender. Duff Green Calhoun, a Confederate veteran and Andrew Pickens Calhoun’s son, used 2 printed contracts provided by the Freedman’s Bureau for freedmen and women that kept them bound to the land they once worked for free, starting in 1866.⁶ Clemson wrote out four contracts for the formerly enslaved, beginning in 1867.⁷ The January 1871-January 1872 contract included many women who agreed to work for Clemson as sharecroppers.⁸
One thing to point out is the lack of transparency of these sharecropping contracts with the indication of illiteracy in marking an “X” between their first and last names.⁹ The contracts were read to them before they signed. But they would not be able to remember all the details. Clemson’s agent’s record book was used if any disputes arose about work/pay, making it even more difficult to ensure they were treated fairly. Understanding how the freedmen and women were not allowed to read during enslavement, there would be no fair way for them to understand what they signed up for.
The work agreements outlined by Thomas Green Clemson not only kept the formerly enslaved in a cycle of debt but checked for behavior while at work that was viewed as rebellious. These rules included “not keeping fire arms or deadly weapons” and “not inviting visitors nor leaving the premises during work hours without written consent.”¹⁰ In instances of theft at Fort Hill, the assumption of “guilty until proven innocent” ruled for those found with stolen goods.¹¹
Manual labor was not limited in the fields either. Domestic work occurred at Fort Hill, from cooking food to rendering childcare.¹² It was more common for women to work in the household—many of whom were formerly enslaved people.¹³
For decades, both free and enslaved Black laborers worked the land in which we see today. As the college was established in 1889, convicted laborers followed from 1890 to 1915, helping to build everything, including four buildings for Clemson College that are still standing. What followed them were wage workers in the early 20th century and their families. Enslaved persons and other laborers who work on the land may be buried in the cemetery.
During Black History Month 2024, we ask that you consider the intergenerational nature of the project with how African Americans have impacted the land grant institution from the antebellum era to contemporary times.
Citations
1) Tetreau, Jared. 2023. “Sharecropping: Slavery Rerouted.” PBS.Org. WGBH Educational Foundation. August 16, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/harvest-sharecropping-slavery-rerouted/. 2) Ibid. 3) Caroline M. Ross on behalf of Fort Hill. “Fort Hill-Parlor.” Clio: Your Guide to History. July 30, 2020. https://theclio.com/entry/104472. 4) “Articles of agreement between Thomas G. Clemson and freedmen and women, 1868 January 1” (1868). Thomas Green Clemson Papers, Mss 2. 1134. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/1134. 5) Ibid. 6) “The Reconstruction Era” in History of the African American Burial Ground. Woodland Cemetery Historic Preservation. https://www.clemson.edu/about/history/woodland-cemetery/histories/burial-ground.html. 7) Ibid. 8) “Articles of agreement between Thomas G. Clemson and freedmen and women, 1871 January 1” (1871). Thomas Green Clemson Papers, Mss 2. 1159. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/1159. 9) “Articles of agreement between Thomas G. Clemson and freedmen and women, 1867” (1867). Thomas Green Clemson Papers, Mss 2. 1133. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/1133. 10) “Articles of agreement between Thomas G. Clemson and freedmen and women, 1867” (1867). Thomas Green Clemson Papers, Mss 2. 1133. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/1133. 11) “Articles of agreement between Thomas G. Clemson and freedmen and women, 1871 January 1” (1871). Thomas Green Clemson Papers, Mss 2. 1159. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/1159. 12) Cassettes 1 & 2 (Viola Williams), Mss 282, Black Heritage in the Upper Piedmont of South Carolina Project Collection, Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries, Clemson, SC. 13) Cassette 1 (Lucille Vance/Yolanda Harrell), Mss 282, Black Heritage in the Upper Piedmont of South Carolina Project Collection, Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries, Clemson, SC.
The Cemetery Project works to recognize and recover the history of the African descended persons who lived on this land and were buried in the African American Burial Ground at Cemetery Hill. Over the past year, the Cemetery Team has made tremendous advances in research to recover the names of enslaved persons beyond the 1854 and 1865 inventories at Fort Hill and has gained an understanding of the broader experiences that enslaved people endured. In recognition of Black History Month, the team is producing a two-part history series featuring our latest research.
List of enslaved people on the 1854 deed to Fort Hill Plantation, https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tgc/210/
Through Calhoun family correspondence, plantation ledgers, newspaper accounts, legal documents, and probate records, the team has pieced together more of the history of the enslaved community who lived and labored at Fort Hill. During the 18th century, Lowcountry planters acquired vast lands and large numbers of enslaved persons to cultivate rice, indigo, and sea island cotton. French Huguenot families, such as the Bonneaus, spread their wealth to the upcountry following the Revolutionary War. Samuel Bonneau owned multiple plantations and nearly 100 enslaved people at his death in 1788. His daughter Floride’s husband, John Ewing Colhoun, Sr., accumulated lands and inherited plantations at Santee, Ferry, and Pimlico in the Lowcountry from him. Colhoun began moving enslaved persons from the coast to Twelve Mile Plantation near present day Clemson by 1794. 1
Of the enslaved people Colhoun inherited, Clemson Historic Properties and this team know that a woman named Menimin was from Africa. An 1849 article in the New York Herald mentions this fact, and she was said to be 112 years old. James Scoville, who wrote the article anonymously as “A Traveller,” since he was John C. Calhoun’s private secretary, gave readers a glimpse of the day-to-day life at Fort Hill. He wrote that Menimin had “63 living descendants on this plantation.” The Cemetery team has begun to identify some of their descendants after recovering nine new inventories from John Ewing Colhoun, Sr.’s papers held at UNC Chapel Hill. The team has found that Menimin and her partner Polydore had at least 10 children, including Tom, Katy, and Peggy. These three appear in the John C. Calhoun letters, and in later inventories already known to the project. We are working to reconstruct this family through the generations and hope to recover where Menimin was from in Africa to tie the histories at Fort Hill back to the transatlantic slave trade.2
Though Scoville’s article presented J.C. Calhoun as a benevolent and fair enslaver, relations between enslaved people and their enslavers were not often as harmonious. One dramatic instance of enslaved resistance occurred in 1798. In late summer, five people enslaved by John Ewing Colhoun, Sr., at Twelve Mile, plotted to poison their owners and flee the state. Court records state that Hazard developed the plan, and that Will obtained poison to carry out the plan. Hazard, Sukey, Sue, Jack, and Will did poison the Colhoun family and fled. None of the Colhouns died as a result. The five were captured and tried in court on August 12, 1798. Will was hanged for his role in obtaining the poison. The remaining four were all whipped, branded on the forehead, and had their ears cropped as punishment. In the records for Colhoun’s estate in 1804, all four people appear at Bonneau’s Ferry rice plantation near Charleston. No record exists explaining why the enslaved resisted the Colhouns in this way, but it could be in response to being moved from the coast, or due to the short distance to Cherokee territory, and freedom.3
Floride Bonneau Colhoun, John C. Calhoun’s mother-in-law, inherited the lands and enslaved of her husband, and divided them among her children, including Floride Colhoun Calhoun, who came to live at Fort Hill with her husband John and six children in 1826. Calhoun family letters, and oral history point us to instances of enslaved resistance in the 1830s and 1840s. For instance, Aleck ran away in 1831 after Floride Calhoun threatened to whip him. In 1842 and 1843, siblings Sawney Jr. and Issey both set fires to resist the overseer, and Floride Calhoun, respectively. Furthermore, oral history from descendants of the Calhoun enslaved implies that two enslaved persons also tried to poison Floride Calhoun at Fort Hill during the 1840s.4
Given the undercurrents of tension at Fort Hill the enslaved endured many hardships. Punishments for resistance included imprisonment, whipping, and relocation or sale away from the Calhoun family. In the early 1840s, several enslaved moved between Fort Hill and the Calhoun’s gold mine in Dalhonega, GA. In addition, throughout the 1840s, upwards of twenty enslaved at a time were moved between Fort Hill and John C. Calhoun’s son A.P.’s cotton plantations in Alabama. Issey was among those sent to Alabama as punishment for her arson of the Fort Hill home. Beyond punishment and control, relocation served the Calhouns as an attempt to maximize profit, by increasing labor to improve cotton harvests in Alabama, and to help extract gold. The Calhouns hoped that forcing their enslaved to labor across properties and in difficult conditions would bring financial security. In the end both John C. and A.P. Calhoun died heavily in debt, despite the toil of the enslaved. Next month, the team will discuss what we have learned about the sharecroppers at Fort Hill and the domestic workers, and wage laborers at Clemson College.5
Citations
October 1794 List of People at Twelve Mile Plantation, Collection 00130, Series 2, Folder 9, John Ewing Colhoun Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill.
Joseph A. Scoville, “A Visit to Fort Hill,” The New York Herald (New York, NY), Jul. 26 1849. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83030313/1849-07-26/ed-1/.; John Ewing Colhoun Papers, Collection 00130, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill.
Account of 1798, Folder 16, John Ewing Colhoun, Sr. Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. See also W.J. Megginson, African American Life in South Carolina’s Upper Piedmont, (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2022), 26-27.; Will of John Ewing Colhoun, May 30, 1802, in Ancestry.com. South Carolina, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1670-1980 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Robert Lee Meriwether, William Edwin Hemphill, and Clyde N. Wilson, eds., The Papers of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 1-27 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press for the South Caroliniana Society, 1959-2003), August, 27 and September 1, 1831 v 11 462-463.; April 4, 1843 v 17 136.; December 3, 1845 v 22 314-315.
R.L. Meriwether, et. al, eds., The Papers of John C. Calhoun, v 12 371, 531-532.; v 16 282-624. v 15 656.; v 21 482-508.; v 23 308.
The cemetery, nestled beside Clemson University’s Memorial Stadium (“Death Valley”), at Clemson University is now open again to the public for visitation. The 17.5-acre wooded area actually has three burial grounds: the African American Burial Ground, Andrew Pickens Calhoun Family Plot, and Woodland Cemetery. Over the past ten months, the Pathways Project has significantly improved the campus cemetery, from addressing accessibility concerns in the sacred space to providing additional lighting and security measures. In this article, we will illustrate and explain these changes that visitors will experience when they re-enter.
Retaining wall on the southeast side of the cemetery at Clemson University. Photograph by Marquise Drayton.
Visitors can walk along the new klingstone pathways bordered by flagstones upon entering the cemetery. The pebble-like walkway provides a more comfortable feel for foot traffic than the concrete and dirt that once was there.
Benches will be installed in select places throughout the cemetery for reflection and rest. Additionally, a new klingstone pathway has been installed from the grave of President Walter Riggs to the lower pathway near the stadium. Both tour groups and visitors will be able to use this shortcut to save time when visiting the cemetery. A new gate has also been created along the Press Road entrance to the cemetery across from Memorial Stadium’s Gate 16 to signal the site’s sacredness.
A wrought iron gate and ornamental wrought iron inserts inspired by the craftsmanship of African American blacksmith Philip Simmons of Charleston, SC, will be installed later this year. Additionally, as visitors enter this new gate, they will walk on slabs of stone that were taken from the old gate that was formerly located on the west side of Woodland Cemetery.
Stairway leading from the Riggs Plot towards the gate at Press Road near Memorial Stadium. Photograph by Marquise Drayton.
For nearly 60 years, Woodland Cemetery was not only a place to bury the dead, but it was also used as a tailgating site and for parking by IPTAY on football game days. However, the cemetery project team and university staff are working to redefine the campus cemetery as a place of reverence and respect and where the public can also learn about Clemson University history. For more information, please visit clemson.edu/cemetery.
