Annotated Bibliography
Coastal Georgia history, focusing on the African-American experience
Books (Links are to Amazon, but check your public library! Many times books may not be in your local library but are available by interlibrary loan. Links are for convenience only; I get no compensation for purchases.)
All Under Bank: Roswell King, Jr. and Plantation Management in Tidewater Georgia, by Buddy Sullivan The plantation journal of the manager of the Butler Plantation. Does contain African-American names. **
Anna: The Letters of a St. Simons Island Plantation Mistress, 1817-1859, by Anna Matilda Page King (edited by Melanie Pavich) Account is by a white slaveholder, but contains names of enslaved persons. **
Annals of Georgia: Important Early Records of the State, Volume I, Liberty County Records and A State Revolutionary Pay Roll, abstracted and compiled by Caroline Price Wilson, reprinted 1969. Free download available at FamilySearch by clicking on the title. This is an important book for anyone researching Liberty County as it has abstracts of so many records. Many of the abstracts do not name the enslaved people in them (but almost all of those records are on this website with the names). **
Early Records of Liberty County, by Lois Helmers (2013) An extremely useful compilation of existing printed summaries of early Liberty County wills, deeds, marriage records, etc. Huge time-saver for researchers of white Liberty County history. Slave names mostly mentioned only in deeds. **
Freedom’s Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen, by Russell Duncan (1986) **
History of the Midway Congregational Church, Liberty County, Georgia, by James Stacy (downloadable for free from Archive.org!) **
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839, by Frances Kemble The “Georgian Plantation” is the Butler plantation, remains of which still exist near Darien, Ga. Fanny Kemble’s graphic account of her visit there influenced the British abolitionist movement. **
Liberty County (Images of America), by Meredith Devendorf (2009) (general Liberty County) **
Liberty County: A Pictorial History, compiled by Victoria Fraser Evans (1979) (general Liberty County) **
Lines in the Sand: Race and Class in Lowcountry Georgia, 1750-1860, by Timothy Lockley (2001) (available via www.gapines.org. Very focused on Savannah. Has extensive bibliography.)
Lowcountry Hurricanes: Three Centuries of Storms at Sea and Ashore, by Walter Fraser, Jr. (2009) Few African-American names, but a fascinating account. **
Major Butler’s Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family, by Malcolm Bell (1987) **
Memoirs of a Southerner [1840-1923], by Edward J. Thomas. (can be read free online at the link. Thomas married Alice Walthour, daughter of Liberty County’s largest slaveowner, George W. Walthour. He was a Confederate soldier and the narrative is designed to show how “kindly” enslaved people were treated, but it does give names of enslaved people.)
North By South: The Two Lives of Richard James Arnold, by Charles Hoffman and Tess Hoffman (about a Rhode Island man who owned a large Bryan County plantation – contains named of enslaved people in Bryan County, some of whom later moved to Liberty County)**
Plantation Life Before Emancipation, by Robert Quarterman Mallard. Free ebook available at the link. Account of life on his father Thomas Mallard’s plantation before the Civil War. Contains names of enslaved people.
Praying For Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction, by Melissa Fay Greene **
Recollections of a Southern Daughter: A Memoir by Cornelia Jones Pond of Liberty County Account is by a white slaveholder, but contains names of enslaved persons. **
Savannah River Plantations, by Mary Granger ** Online version available at FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/533949-savannah-river-plantations) (“Originally written as a series of monographs on outstanding Chatham County plantations, this work turned out to be, under the sponsorship of the WPA and the Georgia Historical Society, a complete history of the great plantations of the area around Savannah. Plantations discussed are: Causton’s Bluff, Deptford, Brewton Hill, Mulberry Grove, Richmond Oakgrove, Drakies, Colerain, Whitehall, Rae’s Hall, Brampton, Hermitage, and Royal Vale. The land involved is bordered on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the Savannah River, and on the south and west by the Ogeechee River.”)
Slavery and Rice Culture in Lowcountry Georgia, by Julia Floyd Smith Rich and authoritative treatment of this topic. Does contain some African-American names. **
Sunbury On the Medway, by John McKay Sheftall Free download at this link. Contains a few African-American names.
Swamp Water and Wiregrass: Historical Sketches of Coastal Georgia, by George A. Rogers and R. Frank Saunders. Available through interlibrary loan from the Georgia Pines Library System. Few African-American names but very interesting essays and book focuses on Liberty County. Useful description of the “Christ Craze” that gripped Liberty County in 1889. **
Sweet Land of Liberty : A History of Liberty County, Georgia, by Robert Long Groover Important book for Liberty County history but out of print, hard to find/expensive and focused on white history — look for a library copy. Also note that much of this book is repeated on the Liberty County Historical Society site (http://libertyhistory.org/) **
Taylors Creek : story of the community and her people through 200 years, by Bird Yarborough and Paul Yarborough (free download at this link) **
Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War, by Frances Butler Leigh Also an account of life on the Butler plantation, but from the perspective of a pro-slavery white slaveholder. **
The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War, by Robert Manson Myers Lengthy compilation of letters from a white slaveholding family in Liberty County. Important historical work but those interested in African-American history will want “The Dwelling Place,” a re-telling of that story from the perspective of the slaveholder’s slaves. **
The Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic, by Erskine Clarke (2005) Re-telling of the Charles Colcock Jones letters/story from The Children of Pride from the slaves’ perspective. Has an excellent genealogy section for the African-Americans mentioned in the Jones letters. A must-have for descendants of those enslaved people. **
The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History, by Anne C. Bailey about the largest slave auction in the U.S., which took place in 1859 when Pierce Butler sold 436 enslaved people from his Butler Plantation just south of Darien, in McIntosh County. Includes a detailed account of the auction, the names of the people sold and others on the plantation, and interviews with their descendants.**
Voices Seldom Heard: Women, Blacks and Children of the Georgia Coast, 1850-1870, by Jean Choate (2017) (link is to saltmarshpress.com, the publisher – book is not available on Amazon) **
‘Ware Sherman: A Journal of Three Months’ Personal Experience in the Last Days of the Confederacy,” by Joseph LeConte Account is by a white slaveholder, but contains names of enslaved persons. **
Wrestlin’ Jacob: A Portrait of Religion in Antebellum Georgia and the Carolina Low Country, by Erskine Clarke Focuses on African American religious life during the pre-Civil War period in Liberty County and Charleston, South Carolina. Contains many African American names and is indexed.**
Yankees A’Coming: One Monthe’s Experience During the Invasion of Liberty County, Georgia, 1864-1865, by Mary Sharpe Jones and Mary Jones Mallard Account is by a white slaveholder, but contains names of enslaved persons. **
Journals and Dissertations
“The American Missionary Association in Liberty County, Georgia: An Invasion of Light and Love,” George A. Rogers and R. Frank Saunders, Jr, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 4 (Winter, 1978), pp. 304-315. Available to read free online at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40580012.
“‘Twill Take Some Time To Study When I Get Over”: A Comparison of African American Education in Four Georgia Counties During Reconstruction, thesis by Jennifer Carol Lund Smith, submitted for her doctorate in philosophy from University of Georgia in 1997. (Find a copy here.)
“My Mother Was Much of a Woman”: Black Women, Work, and the Family Under Slavery, by Jacqueline Jones. Source: Feminist Studies, Summer, 1982, Vol. 8, No. 2, Women and Work (Summer, 1982), pp. 235-269. http://www.jstor.com/stable/3177562 (general in nature but has references to Liberty County)
A Former Slave and the Georgia Convict Lease System, by Lester D. Stephens. Source: Negro History Bulletin, January 1967, Vol. 39. No 1 (January 1976), pp. 505-507. http://www.jstor.com/stable/44175711. (About Lancaster LeConte, formerly enslaved in Liberty County)
And Liberty For All: Geechee Culture and the Black Freedom Struggle in Liberty County, Georgia, 1752-1946, by Felicia Jamison. Doctoral Dissertation at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2017. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1017
The Ownership of Property by Slaves in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Low Country, by Philip D. Morgan. Source: The Journal of Southern History, Vol. XLIX, No. 3, August 1983. http://latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/JSH-1983.pdf [NOTE: Has names of Liberty County freedmen and women who presented claims to the Southern Claims Commission.]
Slavery, Freedom, and Social Claims to Property among African Americans in Liberty County, Georgia, 1850-1880, by Dyan Penningroth. Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Sep., 1997), pp. 405-435. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2952565?origin=JSTOR-pdf
“Midway” a sociological study of the peculiarities of the black people in the midway community of Liberty County, Georgia, by Williams, Clarence Jr. (1974). Source: ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 541. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgiarticle=2067&context=dissertations (NOTE: Clarence Williams, Jr’s father was a prominent figure in Liberty County.)
“For the Love of Place: Paternalism and Patronage in the Georgia Lowcountry, 1865-1898,” by Peggy G. Hargis, “Journal of Southern History” 70:4 (Nov 2004): 825-865. Accessed online on 4/15/2019: http://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/217/articles/04HargisLovePlaceJnlSouthernHist.htm
“LIBERTY COUNTY, GEORGIA: An Address Delivered at Hinesville, July 4, 1876.” by John B. Mallard, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1, 1918, pp. 1–21. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40575573. [History of Liberty County from founding to 1876. Does contain a few names of African Americans.]
The Building of a Black Church: Community in Post Civil War Liberty County, Georgia, by Thomas F. Armstrong, in The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Fall, 1982), pp. 346-367. Accessed at JSTOR at www.jstor.org/stable/40580934, 7/17/2020 [available to read free online]
The Negro Landholder of Georgia, by W.E.B. DuBois, in Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor: July 1901, No. 35, Volume VI, Nos 1-100. Accessed online at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/3943/item/477591/toc/498059?start_page=91, 7/17/2020. [Not specifically about Liberty County but useful for understanding postwar land purchases. ]
Links
https://www.susiekingtaylorinstitute.org/
http://genealogytrails.com/geo/liberty/index.htm
https://www.gullahgeecheecorridor.org/
http://www.themidwaymuseum.org/
https://georgiagenealogy.org/liberty/links-3.htm
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/histcountymaps/libertyhistmaps.htm
https://www.coastalgeorgiahistory.org/
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/African-American_Resources_for_Georgia
https://www.georgiaarchives.org/research/african_american_resources
https://www.accessgenealogy.com/black-genealogy/georgia-african-american-genealogy.htm