Voices of the Civil War Episode 9

"Port Royal Experiment"

OCTOBER, 2012: The Voices of the Civil War is a five-year film series dedicated to celebrating and commemorating the Civil War over the course of the sesquicentennial. Each month, new episodes cover pertinent topics that follow the monthly events and issues as they unfolded for African Americans during the Civil War. Within these episodes there are various primary sources – letters and diaries, newspaper reports, and more - to recount various experiences of blacks during this period. We encourage your feedback and commentary through our Voices of the Civil War web blog.

Click here to visit the Voices of the Civil War blog to see previous episodes.

In Episode 9, we explore the bounds of citizenship for the newly released slaves on the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the Port Royal Experiment.  If slaves were treated like freedmen, were they not citizens?  And if the privileges of citizenship were extended to refugee slaves, was the Civil War indeed a conflict about slavery?

Credits

1 - 23 Library of Congress
24 North Carolina Collections, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library
25 New York Public Library
27 Library of Congress
28 Oxford University Press
29 Public Domain
30 – 31 Library of Congress