This week we will celebrate the 187th birthday of Laura Matilda Town, who just happens to be the main character in my next book, The Road to Frogmore. Laura was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 3, 1825, the middle child in a large family; she had a brother and two sisters who were older than she was, and a brother and two sisters who were younger. Her mother died when Laura was nine--a tragedy that left its mark on all of her children, and particularly on Laura. As she admits at one point in the book, she always felt responsible for her mother's death. Maybe, if she had just been a better child, she thought, her mother wouldn't have tried to give birth to a new baby.

Laura grew up to be an unconventional woman. She was a Unitarian in an era of evangelical fervor. She studied to be a doctor, when women doctors were still a rarity. She refused to marry, in an age when every woman was expected to become a dutiful wife. Instead, she set up her own household with her lifelong companion, Miss Ellen Murray. But nothing she did was more outrageous than her decision to travel to South Carolina in the middle of the Civil War so that she could bring medical care and education to the slaves who were just learning that they were going to be free.

Her efforts on behalf of the people she came to know on St. Helena Island did not stop when the war was over. She felt responsible for all the evils of slavery, which was not surprising, given her character, and she refused to abandon the people she had come to love. Instead, she and Ellen bought a former plantation right there on the island, and built a school financed entirely from Laura's own inheritance. The two women adopted several black children and raised them as their own. They continued to teach for the rest of their lives. They provided an education that was the equivalent to (or perhaps better than) the state-provided education of white children. Laura died on St. Helena Island in 1901, and Ellen followed her in 1908.

Their school, however, outlived them. Known first as The Penn School, so named in honor of the Freedmen's Aid Society of Pennsylvania, it has evolved today into The Penn Center, whose purpose is the preservation of the Gullah language and heritage of the people of St. Helena Island. This year, you will note, is the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Penn School, and the Penn Center will be honoring Miss Towne and her amazing contributions to the welfare of the people she helped to transform from slaves into citizens. So happy birthday, Laura. We're still trying to live up to your ideals.

One habit of the former slaves seemed particularly to confound those who had come to help them make the transition from slavery to full citizenship—their distinctive religious ceremonies. The missionaries did their best to teach the lessons of Christianity and to re-introduce regular worship services on each plantation. The blacks were attentive and respectful, but when the official services were over, they pushed back the furniture and organized their own religious celebration known as the "Shout." Sometimes the whites were invited to observe, although never to participate, and several of the missionaries tried to describe what they saw:

 . . . when the 'sperichil' is struck up, [they] begin first walking and by-and-by shuffling round, one after the other, in a ring. The foot is hardly taken from the floor, and the progression is mainly due to a jerking, hitching motion, which agitates the entire shouter, and soon brings out streams of perspiration. Sometimes they dance silently, sometimes as they shuffle they sing the chorus of the spiritual, and sometimes the song itself is also sung by the dancers. But more frequently a band, composed of some of the best singers and of tired shouters, stand at the side of the room to "base" the others, singing the body of the song and clapping their hands together or on the knees. Song and dance are alike extremely energetic, and often, when the shout lasts into the middle of the night, the monotonous thud, thud, of the feet prevents sleep within a half a mile of the praise-house.

Disapproval was widespread. Some of the easily shocked missionaries called the practice "the remains of some old idol worship," "the most hideous and at the same time the most pitiful sight I ever witnessed," "savage," or "barbarous." Other observers considered it an "amazing and primitive manifestation of the Negro spirit . . . Some 'heel and toe' tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on, others swoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep steadily circling like dervishes . . ."

What many failed to recognize was that the "Shout" served important purposes. It was a chance for slaves to escape the rigors of the workday, and to exercise a bit of creativity and self-expression. The adults might disapprove of young people dancing "out in the world," but in the "Shout" they could turn a natural inclination into a form of worship. The songs were improvised but very creative, and provided a chance to articulate the longings that masters would not allow under ordinary circumstances. They expressed a desire for escape, even if it was through death.

The best of the missionaries saw in the "Shout" a unique combination of ancient cultural traits and the new faith of Christianity. The worst ones could not come to terms with what they did not understand.

 As the young Gideonites moved onto the abandoned plantations of the Sea Islands, they confronted a myriad of situations for which their college educations had not prepared them. They had arrived with high expectations of cooperation from the local authorities in their efforts to prepare the slaves for freedom.  They were dismayed to discover that those seemingly in command could not even cooperate with each other. One new plantation superintendent, Edward S. Phibrick, reported that he had trouble getting the crops handled, because of interference from two sources. Gen. Hunter was trying to call up recruits for his new volunteer troop, and the cotton agents were hiring the men away for fifty cents a day. Philbrick complained that the blacks would wonder off and then return several days later, expecting to see their families and then go back to work: "They are nearly all active young men and are pleased with this roving sort of life, but you may imagine how fatal such a state of thing is to my efforts at organization"

Susan Walker also commented on the clashes over conflicting authorities: "I fear the cotton agent, Salisbury, stationed here is not a good man. The Negroes complain of him, and they all look so neglected it is quite evident he has done no good upon the plantation. He drives the finest horses I have seen in Port Royal or St. Helena, gives good dinners, entertains largely, has appropriated all the furniture and nearly all the teams about the place and refuses to give anything to the superintendents placed there by Mr. Pierce."

            Such complaints and others reflected the various misapprehensions under which the missionaries and other Northern authorities labored in their early efforts to handle the problems of the abandoned slaves. Susan Walker found her duties frustrating. Her first impression of her pupils was that they were "ragged and dirty" but polite, welcoming, more eager for books than for clothes. She was a teacher by training and an abolitionist by conscience, and the abolitionist in her believed that to hand out charity to the blacks would be to deny them their inherent equality. At the same time, she could not ignore the lack of "social graces" that set them apart from other students she had known. She was encouraged on the one hand by their receptiveness but repelled by their lack of basic hygiene. Soon she was sending at least half of them home from her makeshift classroom each morning to wash their hands and faces before she would teach them. Not long after her arrival, she visited the Jenkins' plantation, about eight miles away, where she met a very pregnant slave woman whose problems overwhelmed her. "Katy has 7 ragged, dirty children—what shall be done? No husband and nothing. Some clothes are given for her children—one naked, and must have it at once. Is Katy lazy? Very likely. Does she tell the truth? Perhaps not. I must have faith, and she must at least cover her children."

            Philbrick's reaction was somewhat more admiring, although he recognized that his wife might have reservations about working with the former slaves. He warned her that she could not bring a servant with her if she chose to join him: "There are plenty of servants here, which you are supposed to teach not only to read but—what is more immediately important—to be cleanand industrious.  If you feel any hesitation about coming in contact with them you shouldn't come, for they are sharp enough to detect apathy or lurking repugnance, which would render any amount of theoretical sympathy about worthless."

Perhaps because he looked for signs that a slave was fully capable of full citizenship, he found much to commend: "Think of their having reorganized and gone deliberately to work here some weeks ago, without a white man near them, preparing hundreds of acres for the new crop! The Irish wouldn't have done as much in the same position."

Yesterday's blog raised the question of conflict between those who saw abandoned South Carolina plantation slaves as free labor to provide cheap cotton for northern markets and those who saw the same plantations as fertile ground for proving that slaves could be educated to full citizenship. The question of which goal was more important fills the pages of The Road to Frogmore. Here's a preview of an early clash:

  The Gideonites did not take long to realize that the cotton agents were at the root of many of their troubles. At the Oaks Plantation, Reynolds had installed a Mr. Whiting to oversee the cotton operations on the 500-acre plantation. When Pierce chose to establish his headquarters there, he and Whiting split the house between them.  The Oaks, built in the late 1850s, featured a four-over-four floor plan, with the back rooms extending further to the sides, thus forming wings or a “T” shape house.  A central hall with a staircase on either side made it possible for two households to share the building.  And since the cookhouse and other out-buildings were separate from the main structure, each household could function independently with its own set of house servants.

Even when I'm not aware of it, all my books are connected in some way.  Here's a snippet from Beyond All Price, in which Nellie Chase, the heroine of that book, learns of the arrival of a band of teachers known as the Gideonites. The date is March, 1862. By early April of that year, Laura Towne, the heroine of The Road to Frogmore, joined them.

Nellie Chase left South Carolina in July, 1862, so she was not around to see whether or not the Gideonites were successful. If you are curious, however, The Road to Frogmore picks up the story of Laura Towne and the Gideonites and answers the question of what will happen if the two groups cannot co-operate.  I'll bring you an advance look at that issue tomorrow.