Wikimedia Commons/Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress
General Mitchel’s Revolutionary Freedman’s Town on Hilton Head
Freedom came early to Hilton Head Island in 1862. When Union forces took the island, nearly 1,000 freed slaves lived in rough barracks as “contrabands of war.” Then General Ormsby Mitchel stepped in.
He gave each family land on the old Drayton Plantation and helped them build a real town.
Soon, Mitchelville had elected officials, schools, churches, and even a law requiring children to attend school—months before the Emancipation Proclamation…