This month in 1863, the founding of a town that made history, as the first town in the United States to be governed by formerly enslaved people.
The town was called Mitchelville, after Union General Ormsby Mitchell.
In late 1861, Union forces had taken control of a number of coastal areas in South Carolina and Florida.
The US military set up headquarters for what it called the Department of the South on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Local plantation owners fled the area, and while they took many enslaved people with them, some remained behind.
Many came to the Union headquarters seeking food, shelter and work, and the military did give them jobs and temporary quarters in the barracks.
But that was not a long-term solution.
In late 1862, General Mitchel took control of the Department of the South and suggested turning a nearby plantation into a new village for these freed Black workers, who were sometimes nicknamed “contrabands.”
The people built the town themselves, using materials from the Army.
There were houses built on quarter-acre plots, streets, schools, stores and churches.
The people elected their own leaders and established their own municipal code, which included the first compulsory education law in South Carolina.
And they named their community Mitchelville, after the general who had suggested the idea.
The community grew to some 3,000 people at its peak in 1864, but after the end of the Civil War the Army left and people moved elsewhere to find work.
A hurricane in the 1890s damaged many of the structures, but in modern times there’s been a significant effort to preserve the history of the site, which is now known as Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park.
The people of Mitchelville lived in a time when few people thought Black Americans should or even could govern themselves – but this community did, and did so successfully.
Which is why the freedom park has a slogan you can see on a sign by the entrance: “Where Freedom Began.”
It’s National Girl Scout Day.
A scout troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma gets the credit for the first ever sale of Girl Scout cookies in 1917.
The troop baked and sold cookies to raise money for soldiers serving in World War I.
Today there’s a statue up in town commemorating these youngsters and the tasty tradition they started.
So a round of Thin Mints for everyone today!
This Island in South Carolina Has the First Self-governed Town of Formerly Enslaved People in the U.S. (Travel and Leisure)
Statue commemorates first cookie sale (Muskogee Phoenix)
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Photo by almadusi via Flickr/Creative Commons