The Account Book of Enslaved Persons Belonging to Henry and Rene Ravenel, 1771-1867 records the enslaved children born under the ownership of Henry or Rene Ravenel. The lists include the first name of the child, their parents, date of birth and occasionally includes notes of death or if purchased by another slave owner. This book contains a second use written upside down and back to front.
The Weehaw Plantation Journal, 1855-1861, is a journal of Weehaw Plantation, near Georgetown regarding birth, death, duties, vaccinations, tasks and allowances of enslaved people, plantation expenses, names of overseers, listings of rice crops, clothing for enslaved people, cattle, yearly accounts, tools, usage of fields, vegetable garden production, medicines, house groceries and contracts. The journal is also used as a partial diary regarding the plantation with comments on Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address, secession of South Carolina, the days leading up to the attack on Fort Sumpter, the day of the attack on Fort Sumpter, lists of enslaved persons winter and summer clothes and mentions of recruiting for Hampton's Legion for the Confederate States of America. Loose papers found within the journal contain names of enslaved persons and notes on the plantation.
A letter to Woodward Manning from the Quartermaster's office ordering that any surplus of corn available is to be given to the army through purchase or impressment
A letter to Woodward Manning from his brother Ira L. Manning discussing the death of their brother Elisha, the failing cotton crop, the hiring of freedmen, and requesting information on who from their hometown was killed in the war.
A notebook (ca. 1920) containing reminiscences by Rose P. Ravenel, who writes about her girlhood, her relationship with her "mammy" and her French nurse. She describes life at Farmfield Plantation during the Civil War, knitting socks for Confederate soldiers, making paper and envelopes, salt production, molasses candy, flower dolls, and the family's hardships after the Civil War.
“Stories Collected from Slaves” by Leonarda J. Aimar is a bound volume of formerly enslaved people's stories. In her transcription, she attempted to capture the storytellers’ colloquial speech, now recognized as the Gullah language. The volume includes a list of addresses, occupations, and diseases of African Americans during their enslavement; an eye-witness account of the Battle of Secessionville on James Island during the Civil War in 1862; how enslaved people were returned to their slaveholders following the Revolutionary War; and an account of Sherman's march from Savannah, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved man, Sam, provides a detailed account of being a butler, coachman, and horse jockey. He also recounts how Union Army Major Robert Anderson took control of Fort Sumter and the events that transpired there on April 12, 1861. Other accounts include an enslaved man’s recollections of his time as a servant to a plantation overseer who sympathized with the Union during the Civil War and formerly enslaved man Jim Alston’s detailed eye-witness account of the 1876 Cainhoy Riot.
