I was among the thousands at the Battle of Aiken last month. On my walk to the battlefield, I saw a surprising number of Confederate gewgaws for sale: mini-flags, patches, framed photographs of Robert E. Lee.
Before the Sunday cannons boomed and the reenactors fired their pistols, a man in a red cap addressed the crowd gathered on the grass. He pointed to South Carolina's wars for independence—the colony's stand against the British in the 1700s and the later Civil War, which he called the Battle for Southern Independence.
But he didn't mention the other important battles for independence in the Palmetto state.
One of the earliest was the Yamasee War. Angered by unfair colonial trade practices and the settlers' encroachment upon Indian land, the Yamasee people—supported by other Native American tribes—burned homes, slaughtered livestock and killed several hundred Colonists.
Another critical fight for freedom came during the Stono Rebellion near Charleston — the largest slave rebellion in the Southern colonies.
On Sept. 9, 1739, more than 80 slaves stole guns and ammunition, burned plantations, killed more than 20 whites and marched toward Spanish Florida, which granted freedom to slaves who converted to Catholicism. A state marker describes the uprising this way: "The rebels marched south toward promised freedom in Spanish Florida, waving flags, beating drums, and shouting 'Liberty!'"
The Battle for Aiken speaker ignored the Native American and Black uprisings that have shaped South Carolina's history.
He did, however, speak freely about succession, Quebec’s failed attempts to break with Canada, Northern carpetbaggers, "Gone with the Wind," and the failure of Reconstruction.
As historians have noted, the Reconstruction era was a bitter one, marked by military occupation, corruption and strife.
It was also a period when about 2,000 Black Americans held public office at the state, local and federal levels, including Prince Rivers, who escaped South Carolina slavery, joined the Union Army and served as a state representative from Aiken County in the 1870s.
Those ballot box victories sparked a backlash in the South, prompting a new group to fight for Southern Independence: the Ku Klux Klan. They whipped or beat hundreds of victims and murdered scores of blacks. Between 1882 and 1930, the number of lynching victims in the South totaled 2,805.
The afternoon speaker didn't mention the Klan. He did worry that fewer schools are offering history classes today.
Of course, there's a reason for that. Not only are many public schools underfunded, but they're under attack by conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, who want to ban schoolbooks that examine Black history, race and ethnicity, gender issues, and discrimination.
After the speaker left the stage, the reenactors fired their canons. White clouds covered the field and blanketed Sunday's spectators in the fog of war.
It wasn't the only smoke that snaked across the battlefield that day.
William Davis
Aiken
