Summary
As a Black American woman with deep Southern roots, I cherish opportunities to learn more about my history. My father was born on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, and my mother was born in a rural North Carolina town that still doesn’t have streetlights. They took part in the Great Migration, fleeing the Jim Crow South in the mid-1950s and early ’60s to escape segregation and persecution. Both wound up in New York City, where I was born.
My parents taught me that sharing Black American stories of ingenuity and joy—not just despair and hardship—is powerful, and I pass this message on to my four-year-old son, Langston. One of those stories is about Mitchelville, a town that once stood on South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island.
Exploration of Mitchelville
Mitchelville’s legacy remains largely unknown outside the Lowcountry. It was the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people in the United States. Consequently, from the first time I heard about it, I knew I had to see it, so I flew down from New York for a four-day trip last July.
After landing at Hilton Head Island Airport, I went straight to the Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park—and felt as if I had stepped back in time. At the entrance, a modest sign read WHERE FREEDOM BEGAN. I thought about that phrase as I walked into the 33-acre reserve, which is filled with massive oaks, Spanish moss, and palmetto trees.
Cultural Insights and Gullah Heritage
During the Civil War, in late 1861, the Union Army captured Hilton Head. While plantation owners fled the advancing troops in boats, hundreds of enslaved people remained on the island. Due to Hilton Head’s remoteness, coupled with thousands of Union soldiers, the Confederate Army could not reclaim the land. In 1862, Union General Ormsby Mitchel collaborated with the community to establish the town of Mitchelville on the grounds of what had previously been the Fish Haul Creek Plantation. Approximately 3,000 formerly enslaved people lived in freedom there—a significant achievement, considering slavery wasn’t abolished until 1865. Following the war’s end, a lack of job opportunities prompted many residents to leave. By the 1930s, nothing remained of Mitchelville.
That day on the grounds, I met the park’s executive director, Ahmad Ward. A North Carolina native, he previously spent 15 years leading the education department at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama. Together we visited a replica of a praise house, where Mitchelville residents would have worshiped, organized, and socialized. Back then, Ward explained, the town had well-ordered streets and modest but accommodating wooden homes, churches, and schools. Locals held elections, enacted laws, and collected taxes. “Mitchelville represents the movement of enslaved people toward self-sufficiency and complete independence,” Ward said. “This incredible landmark of American history existed on Hilton Head before the resorts and golf courses.”
Mitchelville was home to South Carolina’s first mandatory school system, and it was a vibrant community where people raised families and bartered goods and services. Moreover, they grew and caught their own food: okra, rice, tomatoes, oysters, blue crabs, and shrimp. Many residents had roots in regions that are now Sierra Leone and Angola—a place where men and women were specifically targeted for enslavement due to their expertise in growing rice, one of South Carolina’s cash crops in the early 18th century. They survived unimaginable cruelty yet found the fortitude to create a thriving safe haven.
Community Connections
Today, the wooded park features walking trails, a wetland observation deck overlooking Port Royal Sound, a picnic pavilion, and beach access. Later this year, Ward’s team plans to construct a reflection area and recreate more structures where the original buildings once stood.
Over the next three days, I gained a deeper understanding of Mitchelville’s evolution and of Gullah culture, which originated from West Africans brought to the region between 1619 and 1808. Hilton Head is one of many Sea Islands where Gullah culture thrives.
I had lunch with Carolyn Grant, co-author of the history book “Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge, 1861–1956.” On the deck of Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks, we enjoyed fried seafood and red rice, a dish akin to West Africa’s jollof rice, while Grant shared insights about her work as director of communications for the town of Hilton Head, enriched by her personal connection to the island. She grew up helping her parents run a restaurant (now closed) that served Gullah cuisine: dishes like gumbo and shrimp with okra.
Later that day, I visited the Coastal Discovery Museum, where seventh-generation artisan Michael Smalls demonstrated how to weave a sweetgrass basket. Smalls, originally from Mount Pleasant, was taught the craft by his great-grandmother, the daughter of an enslaved woman from Mount Pleasant’s Laurel Hill Plantation. He is now the co-owner of Gullah Sweetgrass Baskets Creations, an online shop that also sells baskets at the museum.
I saw Grant and Ward again for dinner in a private home at the luxurious Sea Pines Resort, where I was staying. We were joined by two local Black entrepreneurs. Sonya Grant, Carolyn’s niece, operates a lifestyle brand, Gullah T’s N’ Tings, which raises awareness of Gullah heritage through T-shirts, handbags, and accessories. Omololoa Campbell, known as Lola, is an attorney and owner of Binya, a boutique in the Spanish Wells neighborhood. The products she offers—ranging from books to barbecue sauce and jewelry—are made almost exclusively by South Carolinians. Over a Gullah-inspired dinner of deviled crab with shrimp and okra served over white rice, we conversed, laughed, and fellowshipped as if we’d known each other for years.
On my last day on Hilton Head, I visited Binya and met Lola’s mother, Della Campbell, who owns Spanish Wells Seafood & Produce, a seasonal food stand. There I encountered Lola’s uncle, Emory Campbell, an island native and respected community leader. His book “Gullah Cultural Legacies” records the area’s proverbs, folk tales, and vocabulary terms.
While waiting for his order of fish and sweet potatoes, I asked him to share one thing he wants people to know about Mitchelville. “We’re connected by kinship,” he said. “You know your fifteenth cousin here.”
Although he and I have no blood relation, his response reminded me that all humans share a connection. I felt a profound sense of pride on the island, a feeling that many Black Americans may rarely experience while traveling in the United States, especially below the Mason-Dixon Line. I know I will return to Mitchelville one day with my son. He deserves to experience this powerful feeling too.
A version of this story first appeared in the February 2023 issue of GoTravelDaily under the headline “Isle of Freedom.”
