On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls turned the logic of slavery against the Confederacy. Smalls was 23 years old, enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina, and working aboard the Planter, a Confederate transport steamer used to move troops, supplies, ammunition, and artillery through Charleston Harbor.…
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The Battle of Fort Sumter marked the igniting point of the American Civil War, a cataclysmic conflict that tore the nation apart. Situated on an island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, Fort Sumter held strategic significance as a federal stronghold in…
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On December 20, 1860, a secession convention in South Carolina voted unanimously to secede from the Union. Fearing that Republican Abraham Lincoln’s administration would appoint antislavery officials who would undermine slavery, slaveholders chose to abandon the Constitution and form their own nation. To justify…
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The Stono Rebellion, which took place on September 9, 1739, in South Carolina, is one of the most significant and earliest slave uprisings in the American colonies. This revolt was led by a group of enslaved Africans who sought to escape the brutal conditions…
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