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The Curious Roots podcast digs deep in the living earth of our personal, familial and communal lives to help us understand how we exist in the world today. Though the format of the podcast may vary from season to season, be it narratives, one-on-one interviews or panel discussions, the root line is the same. What are the stories from our family and community histories that travel with us into the present? How do we understand and work with these histories as both individuals and as collectives to create the world of now and the future?
Season one of the podcast begins with the maternal story of my own curious roots, still buried, but breathing and holding fast in Harris Neck, Georgia. Each week, in six short form episodes, I’ll share the story of my mother’s people and how it informs my life today.
Curious Roots is hosted by Michelle McCrary and is co-produced by Moonshadow Productions and Converge Collaborative.
Curious Roots E2 - Acres and Mules
Oscar Brown Jr. [00:00:03] While we're on that subject, I'd like to take this opportunity to present the following open letter that was pressed into my hands for special delivery by man on my street. Here he come now. If I'm not mistaken, I once read back during that short spell I spent in school where every slave set free was supposed to get, the poor slavin, 40 acres and a mule. Now ain't no telling how much work is done by my ancestors under slavery's rule, but sure as hell the total's got to run at least to 40 acres and a mule. Now, I'm not saying this to see folks sweat because I'm not bitter. Neither am I cruel. But ain't nobody paid for slavery yet. About my fourty acres and my mule. We had a problem that was taken back, and when we hollered, it was hush, be cool. Well, me I'm being rowdy, hot and black. I want my 40 acrs and my mule!
Michelle McCrary [00:01:29] The piece you just heard is called 40 Acres and a Mule by the late poet, actor, playwright, director, singer and songwriter Oscar Brown Jr. So many people have heard about 40 acres and a mule. We always joke about 40 acres and a mule, but how many people know about field order 15? Welcome to Curious Roots. I'm Michelle McCrary. Last episode you heard my grandmother, Margaret and elder Miss Mary Moran talking about Harris Neck, Georgia. Before we come back to their discussion and find out more about what happened after July 1942, I wanted to take a minute to ground us in some history about how Harris Neck actually came to be and how that figures into the larger history of coastal Georgia. I spoke with researcher and genealogist Terri Ward of Ujima Genealogy of coastal Georgia. I met her back in the late nineties and she's been a mentor and a guide as I put my own time in doing research to uncover my family's story.
Introduction [00:02:47] Curious Routs is a podcast, that digs deep into the living earth of our personal, familial and communal lives to help us understand how we exist in the world today.
Terri Ward [00:03:01] I totally agree with you that we are basically stepping up to a moment, a moment that's very parallel, feels very familiar, especially when you consider the journeys of our ancestors. I think there are a lot of lessons to learn. And basically, when we look at, say, that area of Georgia and everything that happened during Reconstruction, the legislation afterwards, the push back, it's all very, very familiar.
Michelle McCrary [00:03:35] So I asked Terri to explain Field Order 15 and how it figures into the history of Harris Neck and of coastal Georgia. For the purposes of geographic orientation, it's good to know the Harris Neck is about 49 miles south of Savannah, Georgia. Savannah is where my mom is from and where her sisters still live and where I spent all of my summers as a child.
Terri Ward [00:04:01] Essentially. With the emancipation of African-Americans in 1865 by President Lincoln, 3 million people were basically free with absolutely no place to go. It's a new exercise in citizenship. And essentially the next steps were to basically get these people in a position where they could exercise these newly acquired rights. The other side of that energy was the planner or the Confederacy, which had fallen. They were humiliated. They wanted, in many cases, I would say vengeance. And they were bent on turning the clock back. So what we we see basically is the federal government stepping in and legislating these rights for people that had been marginalized and really had no idea how to exercise the newly acquired powers. And as the war had gone on we see Sherman crossing across Georgia, burning major ports, basically, and again, like I said, hundreds and hundreds are just released from bondage and they are trailing the phalanx of soldiers cutting across the state. They became a hardship for the Union Army and also an embarrassment. It was a PR disaster, basically, because the newspapers are taking a look at everything happening and they're emphasizing all of the the chaos and what are we going to do with all these free Negroes running around. And Sherman, very direct men, very focused on what he had to acquire, which would begin with to liberate all of these people of African descent as he went through and he suggested Field Order 15.
Michelle McCrary [00:05:48] So Terri has just set the stage for us. 3 million souls finally freed from bondage by the federal government. Among those 3 million people were some of my ancestors, specifically my third great grandfather, Lester Grant, and his wife, my third great grandmother, Elizabeth Cooper. Lester and Elizabeth escaped their enslaver Anne Muller together shortly before the start of the war. Lester would join the 33rd colored Infantry and Elizabeth would join him, both of them jumping on a gunboat from Buford, South Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, in the thick of a raging civil war. So they were a part of a 3 million folks who needed a place to call home after the war. So this is how we get Field Order 15.
Terri Ward [00:06:43] So Field Order 15 comes in place, and it's basically a solution to resettle the former bondsmen along the abandoned properties of the former planter and Confederates that had basically left the area. It's an isolated, they took the isolated barrier islands from South Carolina, Charleston north, all the way through to St John's to Florida and across the west, about 30 miles inland, and started to divvy these properties up into 40 acres, essentially. That became the magic number, 40 acres. Sherman's troops, and basically all the union troops that were in Georgia at that time had an excessive number of mules left over as well. So in a way, they found a way to kind of refurbish the equipment, so to speak, and they decided to divvy up 40 acres and a mule. And that's essentially where that expression comes from. So the freedmen are pretty much the spoils of war. They are now and in particular, those that had actually run away to help serve in the Union Army were given priorities, but they were given these properties to go ahead and till and build their new communities. Before the decision was actually made, you can, there is a conversation that takes place at First African Baptist Church in Savannah, and basically the US government, the officials and Sherman all spoke with a group of African-American clergymen, and among them there was a man, Frazier, who basically came forth and they asked him point blank, what would you all need to rebound from this experience and go forth. And he, without hesitation, said, Land.
Michelle McCrary [00:08:33] Land. The good Reverend Garrison Frazier Let's the liberating powers that be know that these 3 million souls need land to start their new lives as free people. I want to take a moment to remember that this four year old civil war is taking place on Indigenous land, stolen Indigenous land. The Indian Removal Act had already happened in 1830 and the second Seminole War had already been fought from 1835 to 1842. Stolen people on stolen land. I don't want to lose sight of that as we move through this story. So it's determined that these newly freed people need land and want land and the ability to work that land to sustain themselves. Mind you, they had already been working this land. So what they wanted to do is to return to that land, to work and build community on their own terms without being in bondage. And I think about many of those people, many of my ancestors, knowing that the land of coastal Georgia was the only home most of them had ever known. And, Terri, make that clear that all of these folks were willing to put in even more work to build their communities in freedom.
Terri Ward [00:10:05] If you want land for the freedmen, basically, because you said there we can till it and grow things on it and basically take care of ourselves. So it wasn't a question basically of becoming a burden on society. They were very visionary. It's not like anybody wanted anything for nothing. They expected it to work for it. But land. And that is essentially how Field Order 15 was uh, played out.
Michelle McCrary [00:10:36] So that there's a lot to unpack there. What I'm thinking about is when we hear 40 acres and a mule, we think it applies to all black folks. All formerly enslaved people were supposed to have access to this. But what you're telling me is it was relegated to this particular area, this this long stretch from South Carolina, from islands inland and now we know that folks in that area are known as Gullah Geechee people. Our family, our relatives, our ancestors. Tell me about how Harris Neck was formed underneath, you know, Field Order 15.
Terri Ward [00:11:27] Well, prior to the war, Harris Neck actually was home for numerous large plantations. And again, some of some of the earliest planters that came into the state of Georgia had settled there. So after the more immediately we we see, basically, like I said, new union soldiers coming in. Some of them are gifted the property. And then we see other slaves returning, trying to reconnect those lost family lines. Again, I always emphasize to other researchers that a lot of our roots, whether people ended up in, say, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama, all roads lead back to coastal Georgia because it was a major port. So I would say pretty much I think you can accurately estimate that probably about 30% of the African-American community at that time probably came through a Georgia airport. And in saying that Harris Neck would arise from the ashes, so to speak. Among there, we have two large plantations, basically, Julianton, which has deep, deep roots back into the early 1700s. It was originally owned by Francis Levett. So there's Julianton plantation. There's Peru Plantation, which was owned by Edward Jonathan Thomas, and the properties there changed hands for many years, several times over. But those were the principal ones where I would say the core of what we know as Harris Neck, today a lot of the families were basically enslaved, the oldest ancestors enslaved, on these two plantations.
Michelle McCrary [00:13:11] So that's how we get. Harris Neck. Harris Neck was born of two plantations, Peru and Julianton on Muskogee land. I believe that some of my ancestors were enslaved on one or both of these plantations. And Terri mentions that the land of the plantations changed hands several times, and in my research I found several for sale ads for both these plantations, along with the sale of the humans who worked on them. One of those ads ran in the Savannah Daily Republican on March 15th in 1844. "Negroes and two plantations for sale by private contract. 71 Negroes accustomed to the culture of Sea Island, cotton and orderly, well disposed gang. They may be treated for in families, or altogether. Also with the above or separately, the well-known plantation on the seaboard in McIntosh County, called Julianton, now under cultivation by said negroes. There are 1100 acres of high clear land in good order, which from his proximity to a saltmarsh, may be manned and made very productive by proper application of the force now on the estate. The buildings are in good condition and there are 50 acres of pinewood land in connection with the property. Joseph Cumming, Andrew Lowe and Company." This is 17 years before the start of the Civil War. And it's striking to me... many things are striking to me about this. How casually human beings are being sold along with land. The attitude that would allow someone to just view land as a commodity and people as a commodity to be bought and sold and extracted from. I'm also thinking, Wow, how many of those 71 people were my ancestors? And I'm thinking how long they had already been in Georgia. And I kept digging through the records, just wondering about all the people who are living under these conditions on these plantations. And I started to find ads for people who had escaped. And I found one ad from October 17th, 1779, in the Georgia Gazette. "$10 Reward. Runaway from Julianton Plantation in McIntosh County, a Negro fellow named Friday, about five feet seven inches height. Stout made of dark complexion, limps in the act of walking, and when spoken to is apt to stammer. He is formerly the property of Mr. Kaufmann Pollock, and well known in the city. The above reward and all reasonable charges will be paid on delivering the above fellow either at Julianton or to the jailer of this city. Matthew Johnson." So here we are, people who had been enslaved on these plantations. Some follow the Union Army. Some join the Union Army. Fight for their own freedom in the Civil War. And then they return, needing homes and needing to rebuild their lives as free people. So I think about all these folks. I wonder how many of them are related to me. And I think about my own sixth great grandfather, Mark Baisden, who's buried in Gould Cemetery on Harris Neck and was born in 1779. I just think about how long they lived on those lands in bondage, and I try to imagine how it would feel to know that you could come back to these lands and live your life on your own terms and build your community a new in freedom.
Michelle McCrary [00:17:51] Next time in episode three, we'll find out more about the first group of people to call Harris Neck home after Field Order 15, including my great grandparents, Lester and Elizabeth, who make their way back to Harris Neck after the war by way of St Catherine's Island with the help of the legendary Mustapha Shaw. We'll also hear more from my grandmother and some other ancestors who called Harris Neck home.
Credits [00:18:22] Curious Roots is co-produced by Converge, Collaborative and Moonshadow Productions. Our theme music is courtesy of Makaih Beats. Please rate review and subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or however you listen to your podcast. Don't forget to check out Curious Routes Podcast if you want to learn more about what you've heard. Big thank you to our producer, Pat McMahon. My deepest gratitude to Mr. Wilson Moran and to the community of Harris Neck. Big thank you to Terri Ward and Adolphus Armstrong of Ujima Genealogy. And thank you to my relatives who are now with the ancestors, especially Ms. Mary Moran and my grandmother Margaret Baisden White. Thank you all for listening to Curious Roots.