Reconstruction Era National Monument
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The Reconstruction Era National Monument is an American national monument in Beaufort County in southern South Carolina . It was designated by President Barack Obama by a Presidential Proclamation on January 12, 2017 with an area of 64.99 acres (26.30 hectares ). It is reminiscent of Reconstruction from 1861 to 1877. Parts of the National Monument had previously been designated as the National Historic Landmark District , National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark , with parts falling under different protection designations at the same time.
Historical background
Reconstruction began when the first US Army soldiers occupied the Confederate States of America's slave-holding areas in Beaufort County in November 1861 . The white residents, less than twenty percent of the population, and some of the slaves fled when the US Army landed and occupied the area. 10,000 African Americans, about a third of the then enslaved Sea Islands population, refused to flee the area with their owners and stayed. The Reconstruction was about the political reintegration of the southern states, rebuilding the devastated economy of the southern states and the education, training and support of the slaves. Beaufort County was the rehearsal for the reconstruction.
Administration and parts of the National Monument
The Reconstruction Era National Monument is under the administration of the National Park Service .
The Reconstruction Era National Monument consists of four parts:
- The Darrah Hall in Penn School, founded in 1862 for freed slaves on Saint Helena Iceland.
- The Brick Baptist Church, built in 1855 in the neighborhood of Darrah Hall . In 1861, after the Battle of Port Royal, around 8,000 freed slaves took control of the church.
- The Old Beaufort Firehouse in downtown Beaufort.
- Camp Saxton Site or Emancipation Grove in Port Royal where General Rufus Saxton publicly read the Emancipation Proclamation to a gathering of 3,000 former slaves from the surrounding sea islands on New Year's Day 1863. It was here that the first African-Americans were accepted into the US Army as soldiers in the 1st South Carolina Volunteers . The area is now part of the Beaufort Naval Hospital.
