SC American Revolution Sestercentennial Commission (SC250) is dedicated to telling a more complete story, to sharing the voices that were often left out of the textbooks. Below are some tools to help your County 250 Committee share this goal.
Being Intentionally Inclusive
- Best Practices:
- Start by making sure your County 250 Committee reflects the diversity of your community. Review the gathering your stakeholders section on the County 250 Committee page.
- Please keep in mind that when you are contacting experts that there may be a consultation fee required as there would be with any historian or architect who is reviewing or writing materials.
- Be mindful of the time you are requesting of any consultant or advisor, recognizing that they probably have a full-time job before you contacted them.
- Approach collaborations thinking about shared resources and how the collaboration can uplift the people and all organizations they represent.
- Use the Publications and searchable Bibliography at SouthCarolina250.com for sources.
- Helsley, Alexia Jones, ed. South Carolinians in the War for American Independence. South Carolina: SC Dept. of Archives & History, 2020. – https://scdah.sc.gov/sites/default/files/Documents/Research%20and%20Genealogy/Resources/Military%20Records/SCAWI.pdf
- (primary sources including Catawba native Peter Harris’ pension petition and more).
- African American sources
- SC African American Heritage Commission – This organization is producing materials and is open to consultation for SC 250 Committees. Learn more at South Carolina African American Heritage Commission | SC Department of Archives and History.
- Hinton, P.M. and John L. Marker, Jr. “South Carolina Free Men of Color in the American Revolution.” South Carolina: SC250, 2020. https://southcarolina250.com/wp-content/uploads/A-A-Soldiers-List-9.1.2020.pdf
- Scoggins, Michael C., “To Assist His Countrymen in Arms: Motivations and Incentives in African-American Revolutionary War Service,” American Revolution (Magazine of the American Revolution Association), vol 1, no. 2., May 2009. https://www.academia.edu/43680540/Michael_C_Scoggins_To_Assist_His_Countrymen_in_Arms_Motivations_and_Incentives_in_African_American_Revolutionary_War_Service_
- Burrows, Edwin G. Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War. New York: Basic Books, 2008. https://www.dar.org/library/research-guides/forgotten-patriots
- Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. and Jane E. Ailes. “Patriots of Color Database.” Archives.com. http://www.archives.com/Patriots
- Aptheker, Herbert. The Negro in the American Revolution. New York: International Publishers Co., Inc., 1940.
- Egerton, Douglas R. Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2009.
- Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Native Sons of Liberty.” New York Times. 6 August 2006.
- Kaplan, Sidney and Emma N. Kaplan. Revised edition. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989.
- Lanning, Michael, L. African Americans in the Revolutionary War. New York: Citadel Press, 2000.
- Nell, William C. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution: With Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons, to which is Added a Brief Survey of the Condition and Prospects of Colored Americans. 1855. Reprint, n.p.: Kessinger Publishing, no date.
- Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution. 1961. Reprint with new Foreword and Introduction, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
- Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the Making of America. New York: Touchstone, 1964.
- Heinegg, Paul. “Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware.” Last modified June 1, 2019. http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/
- Moss, Bobby G., and Michael C. Scoggins. African-American Patriots in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution Blacksburg SC: Scotia Hibernia Press, 2004.2
- Moss, Bobby G., and Michael C. Scoggins. African-American Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution Blacksburg SC: Scotia Hibernia Press, 2005.
- Rees, John U. ‘They Were Good Soldiers.’ African Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783 (From Reason to Revolution). Helion and Company, 2019.3
- Previously unidentified African-American Patriots were also found in unpublished Military Papers of John Faucheraud Grimké.
- SC Accounts Audited or Stub Indents and U.S. census records. http://www.royalprovincial.com/military/black/black.htm
- “The Book of Negroes” was created by Sir Guy Carleston in 1782. He was charged with the orderly evacuation of NY city by The British. Many of these people had come from other places like SC first. https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/loyalists/book-of-negroes/Pages/introduction.aspx
- Hartgrove, W. B., “The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution”. The Journal of Negro History, vol 1.no 2 April 1916, 110-131
- Franklin, John Hope and Alfred A Moss, Jr. From Slavery to Freedom, A History of African Americans. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994. Chapters 4-6
- Quintana, Ryan A. Making a Slave State-Political Development in Early South Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
- Edgar, Walter B. South Carolina, A History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. Chapters 10-13.
- Hine, Darlene Clark, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold. The African American Odyssey. New York: Pearson, 2016. Chapters 4 and 5.
- Kaplan, Sidney. The Black Presence in the Age of the American Revolution, 1770-1800. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,1989.
- Watson, Larry D. in Citizen Scholar, Robert Brinkmeyer, Jr. Editor. The Grand Jury in Colonial South Carolina; An Index of Societal Concerns. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2016.
- Moore, George H. Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Revolution. New York: 1962.
- Williams, George H. A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion. New York: 1887.
- Wilson, Joseph T. The Black Phalanx. Hartford, CT: 1888.
- Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 New Haven, CT: 1911.
- Piecuch, Jim. Three Peoples, One King, Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the revolutionary South 1775-1782. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2008.
- Native American sources
- Best Practices:
- Do due diligence when using any source or consultant. Know that some have commercialized and falsely claimed to be a member of a tribe when they are not.
- Be specific when referring to Native Americans, when possible always recognize the Native person by Tribe – recognizing that Native Americans were and are members of many very distinct nations.
- Catawba Nation – The Catawba Nation Cultural Center is open to working with County 250 Committees. Contact the Cultural Center at catawbaprograms@gmail.com or call 803-328-7370 for more information about consultations and/or programs.
- Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians – The Museum of the Cherokee Indians is open to advising County 250 Committees. Contact the Museum at Dakota.brown@mci.org for more information.
- Women & Children sources
- Elizabeth Ellet, The Women of the American Revolution, Volume 1. New York: 1819.
- Blumenthal, Walter Hart. Women Camp Followers of the American Revolution. Philadelphia: George S. MacManus Company, 1952.
- Buel, Joy Day and Richard Buel, Jr. The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1995.
- De Pauw, Linda Grant. Founding Mothers: Women of America in the Revolutionary Era. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975.
- Huff, Archie Vernon, Jr. “Jane Thomas and Dicey Langston Springfield” in Greenville: The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. pp. 28-29.
- Kierner, Cynthia A. Southern Women in Revolution, 1776- 1800: Personal and Political Narratives. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.
- Loyalist sources
- Barnwell, Robert W., Jr. “Loyalism in South Carolina, 1765–1785.” Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1941.
- Brown, Wallace. The King’s Friends: The Composition and Motives of the American Loyalist Claimants. Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1965.
- Coker, Kathryn Roe. “The Artisan Loyalists of Charleston, South Carolina.” In Loyalists and Community in North America, edited by Robert M. Calhoun, Timothy M. Barnes, and George A. Rawlyk. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994.
- Lambert, Robert Stansbury. South Carolina Loyalists in the American Revolution. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987.
- Pybus, Cassandra. Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.
- Also see Dr. Pybus's web site Black Loyalist - http://www.blackloyalist.info/
SC250 welcomes updates and additions to these resources. Feel free to contact us at info@SouthCarolina250.com.
