Mitchelville
Encyclopedia
Mitchelville was a town built during the American Civil War
for escaped slaves, located on what is now Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
. It was named for one of the local Union Army
generals, Ormsby M. Mitchel
. The town was a population center for the enterprise known as the Port Royal Experiment
.
Captain Samuel F. DuPont and Army General Thomas W. Sherman
attacked Confederate
forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton (a local plantation
owner) defending Hilton Head Island at Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard. By 3:00 p.m., the Confederate forces had retreated from the forts; when Union troops landed on Hilton Head Island, they encountered no resistance and discovered that the white inhabitants of the island had already fled to the mainland.
Hilton Head Island became the Union’s southern headquarters for the war and a military supply depot. Fortifications (such as Fort Howell
), a hospital, barracks, and other utilitarian structures were built for the military, which at times numbered 30,000 men. The island was used as a staging ground for the blockading of Savannah
and Charleston
.
Within two days of the Union capture of the island, approximately 150 escaped slaves (or those left behind by the Hilton Head Island planters when they fled the island) came to the Union army’s encampment; by December 15, approximately 320 escaped slaves had sought refuge at the Union army’s encampment. One Union soldier stationed on Hilton Head at the time recounted:
In February 1862, there were at least 600 contrabands
living in Union encampments on Hilton Head Island.
These escaped slaves were regarded as "contraband
of war" or as simply "contrabands;" they were not yet technically "freedmen," and the Union army was unsure of what to do with them. General William Tecumseh Sherman
repeatedly wrote his superiors in Washington
asking for guidance regarding, and supplies for, the "contrabands". Official policy regarding "contrabands" varied between Union-occupied areas, a problem which persisted throughout the war.
On February 6, 1862, General Sherman issued General Order 9, which requested assistance for the contrabands from the "highly favored and philanthropic people" in the north. Help came from two sources: from the philanthropic northerners whom Sherman requested assistance from (such as that given by the American Missionary Association
); and from Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase
, who sent his colleague and outspoken opponent of slavery Edward L. Pierce
to Port Royal to examine and eventually oversee the government effort regarding the freed slaves. Pierce and representatives from the American Missionary Association quickly devised a plan for the education, welfare, and employment of the former slaves. In April 1862, a military order was issued freeing the blacks on the Sea Islands
. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln
issued the Emancipation Proclamation
, freeing all slaves in the rebellious/Confederate states, which included South Carolina
:
Many Union officers complained that the ex-slaves "were becoming a burden and a nuisance." Some Union troops stole from the ex-slaves, and it is apparent from primary resources that the racial attitudes of some of the Union troops towards the blacks were negative; General Mitchel remarked that he found "a feeling prevailing among the officers and soldiers of prejudice against the blacks." By February 1862, the ex-slaves were living inside the Union camps, in whitewashed, wooden barrack-like structures built specifically for them and under the control of the Quartermaster’s Department; similar camps were also built in nearby Beaufort
, Bay Point, and Otter Island, By October 1862, however, this approach was seen as a failure, with living conditions being considered substandard and the obvious need to separate the soldiers from the ex-slaves and vice-versa:
, was the creation of a town for the escaped slaves, eventually known as Mitchelville, in a cotton field on the former Drayton Plantation and in close proximity to the military camps. Unlike other contraband camps, Mitchelville was developed as an actual town, with neatly-arranged streets, one-quarter-acre lots, elected officials (some officials were appointed by the Union military, however), a church, various laws addressing such issues as community behavior and sanitation, taxes were collected, and a compulsory education law for children between the ages of six and fifteen was enforced—most likely the first such law in the South.
By late November 1862, Federal tax commissioners were able to fix taxes on local plantations, with Fish Hall (Tract No. 3) being assessed as being worth $5,200.00, with $156.00 in taxes owed. When Thomas Drayton failed to pay the taxes due on the property, it was advertised for sale by the Federal government, which then purchased it and held until 1875.
The town was established by late 1862, and contained about 1,500 residents by November 1865. The residents of Mitchelville supported themselves largely by wage labor for the military, earning mostly between four dollars and twelve dollars a month, depending on their level of skill; nearly all of the wage jobs for the residents of Mitchelville ceased when the Union military departed the island in 1868. The residents switched to a subsistence farming-based economy, with many forming farming collective
s, joining together to rent large tracts of land from the government. Documents show that many of the Hilton Head Island freedmen experienced an extreme shortage of food when the military departed the island.
see http://www.mitchelville.org to view a google earth overlay of mitchellville based on the above map.
The town or village continued relatively intact into the early 1870s; sometime in the early 1880s Mitchelville ceased being a true town and became a small, kinship-based community that survived into the 1920s, as evidenced by the 1920 topographic map
of Hilton Head Island, where a cluster of buildings are shown centered around a church. Previous archaeological investigations have concluded that the majority of Mitchelville was abandoned by circa 1890.
Churches/religion: the First Baptist Church was founded in 1862 with 120 members and with the ex-slave Abraham Murchison as its first minister. By 1866, there were three churches in Mitchelville—the First Baptist Church, a Free Will Baptist church, and a Methodist church. Several missionary groups were active on Hilton Head Island during the war, but by 1866 all but the American Missionary Association had left the island. The American Missionary Association was largely funded by the Wesleyan Methodists, Free Presbyterians, and Free Will Baptists during the war years, but relied on funds from the United States Tax Commission after 1866 as interest in the freedmen on the Sea Islands by northern groups waned.
Schooling: in 1866 Hilton Head Island was divided into five school districts: Mitchelville, Marshland, Seabrook, Stoney, and Lawton. In Mitchelville District, the American Missionary Association supplied most of the teachers, and offered primary, intermediate, and high school classes at the various churches. There were as many as 238 students being taught in the district at one time, with classes meeting for up to five hours per day. Attendance varied according to job requirements and travel conditions of the students. Most teachers were white northerners, but in 1869 there was at least one black assistant teacher, and Sunday school lessons were taught by black teachers around 1870.
Structures: Military sawmills provided free lumber for, and the ex-slaves provided the labor for the houses. Each house had a quarter-acre lot. The typical house measured approximately 12x12ft, were of frame construction, had wood pier foundations, glass-paned windows, wood floors, weatherboard siding, wood shingle roofs, and having either metal stoves or brick and/or tabby or wattle and daub (“stick”) chimneys. There were four stores in Mitchelville, with several of them closing down, perhaps for overcharging the residents (supplies sold in Mitchelville were priced nearly 600% higher than those sold by the AMA) (Trinkley/CRC-21 1987).
soon passed laws restoring lands confiscated by the U.S. government to the Southern landowners who had owned the land prior to the Civil War. In April 1875, the Drayton Plantation lands were returned to the Drayton family. Unfortunately, the U.S. government failed to plan for the protection and preservation of Mitchelville, and its future looked bleak. However, the Drayton family was no longer interested in farming the property, and sold the land to anyone who was interested and had money – including many freedmen.
Most, if not all, of the Mitchelville property was purchased by an African-American carpenter, March Gardner. Gardner was illiterate, but was locally well-respected and very successful in his business ventures. Gardner placed his son, Gabriel, in charge of his Mitchelville properties, which at that time included a cotton gin
, grist mill, and store. Gabriel eventually took advantage of his father, and obtained a deed for the property in his own name instead of his father’s; Gabriel then transferred the property deed to his wife and daughter.
In the early twentieth century, March Gardner’s heirs sued Gabriel Gardner’s wife’s heirs, claiming that Gabriel Gardner had stolen the property from March and that they were entitled to the property. The legal papers produced by this court case provide a unique insight into Mitchelville during the period.
The daughter of March Gardner, Emmeline Washington, testified that there were a number of families living at Mitchelville and farming three or 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) plots of land adjacent to their houses. The money that was collected from them for rent was used to pay the taxes on the property. March Gardner had built a cotton house, cotton gin, a steam-powered grist mill, and a shop on the property. Also named were several late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century residents of Mitchelville: Scapio Drayton, Bob Washington, Jack Screven, Robert Wiley, John Nesbit, Caesar White, Charles Robins, Charles Perry, Clara Wigfall, Renty Miller, Linda Perry, Stephen Singleton, Joe Williams, Billy Reed, Peter Flowers, Charles Pinckney, and Hannah Williams (Hannah Williams stated that she had bought a house in Mitchelville for $5.00).
The court directed that a survey be made of the Mitchelville property, and the property to be divided between each heir of March and Gabriel Gardner involved in the case, with the cost of the case being divided amongst them.
Eugenia Heyward redeemed her 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) property on June 7, 1923; Celia and Gabriel Boston obtained the adjacent tract of property on September 2, 1921. Linda Perry, Clara Wigfall, and Emmeline Washington also obtained their parcels in 1921. By 1930, Eugenia Heyward’s property was sold for $31.00 by the sheriff to pay a defaulted tax bill of $15.00; the property was purchased by Roy A. Rainey from New York
, who was purchasing land on Hilton Head Island for hunting
.
In 1890, there were approximately 3,000 African-Americans living on Hilton Head Island; by 1930 there were only about 300 living on the island. According to a 2005 estimate approximately 13,153 of the 159,247 year round residents on Hilton Head are African American.
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
for escaped slaves, located on what is now Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Hilton Head Island or Hilton Head is a resort town in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is north of Savannah, Georgia, and south of Charleston. The island gets its name from Captain William Hilton...
. It was named for one of the local Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
generals, Ormsby M. Mitchel
Ormsby M. Mitchel
Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel was an American astronomer and major general in the American Civil War....
. The town was a population center for the enterprise known as the Port Royal Experiment
Port Royal Experiment
The Port Royal Experiment was a program begun during the American Civil War in which former slaves successfully worked on the land abandoned by plantation owners. In 1861 the Union liberated the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and their main harbor, Port Royal. The white residents fled,...
.
History
During the first year of the Civil War, on November 7, 1861, Union forces consisting of approximately 60 ships and 20,000 men under the command of Union NavyUnion Navy
The Union Navy is the label applied to the United States Navy during the American Civil War, to contrast it from its direct opponent, the Confederate States Navy...
Captain Samuel F. DuPont and Army General Thomas W. Sherman
Thomas W. Sherman
Thomas West Sherman was a United States Army officer with service during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War....
attacked Confederate
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton (a local plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
owner) defending Hilton Head Island at Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard. By 3:00 p.m., the Confederate forces had retreated from the forts; when Union troops landed on Hilton Head Island, they encountered no resistance and discovered that the white inhabitants of the island had already fled to the mainland.
Hilton Head Island became the Union’s southern headquarters for the war and a military supply depot. Fortifications (such as Fort Howell
Fort Howell
Fort Howell, named in honor of Brigadier General Joshua B. Howell, is located on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Its primary function was to protect Mitchelville, a freedmen's town located to its east...
), a hospital, barracks, and other utilitarian structures were built for the military, which at times numbered 30,000 men. The island was used as a staging ground for the blockading of Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
and Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
.
Within two days of the Union capture of the island, approximately 150 escaped slaves (or those left behind by the Hilton Head Island planters when they fled the island) came to the Union army’s encampment; by December 15, approximately 320 escaped slaves had sought refuge at the Union army’s encampment. One Union soldier stationed on Hilton Head at the time recounted:
-
-
- Negro slaves came flocking into our camp by the hundreds, escaping their masters when they knew of the landing of "Linkum sojers" (sic), as they called us - many of them with no other clothing than gunnysacks (Trinkley 1986).
-
In February 1862, there were at least 600 contrabands
Contraband (American Civil War)
Contraband was a term commonly used in the United States military during the American Civil War to describe a new status for certain escaped slaves or those who affiliated with Union forces after the military determined that the US would not return escaped slaves who went to Union lines to their...
living in Union encampments on Hilton Head Island.
These escaped slaves were regarded as "contraband
Contraband
The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold....
of war" or as simply "contrabands;" they were not yet technically "freedmen," and the Union army was unsure of what to do with them. General William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War , for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched...
repeatedly wrote his superiors in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
asking for guidance regarding, and supplies for, the "contrabands". Official policy regarding "contrabands" varied between Union-occupied areas, a problem which persisted throughout the war.
On February 6, 1862, General Sherman issued General Order 9, which requested assistance for the contrabands from the "highly favored and philanthropic people" in the north. Help came from two sources: from the philanthropic northerners whom Sherman requested assistance from (such as that given by the American Missionary Association
American Missionary Association
The American Missionary Association was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery, to educate African Americans, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian values...
); and from Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase
Salmon P. Chase
Salmon Portland Chase was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.Chase was one of the most prominent members...
, who sent his colleague and outspoken opponent of slavery Edward L. Pierce
Edward L. Pierce
Edward Lillie Pierce was a United States author. He wrote a noted biography of Charles Sumner.-Biography:...
to Port Royal to examine and eventually oversee the government effort regarding the freed slaves. Pierce and representatives from the American Missionary Association quickly devised a plan for the education, welfare, and employment of the former slaves. In April 1862, a military order was issued freeing the blacks on the Sea Islands
Sea Islands
The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States. They number over 100, and are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of the U.S...
. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
issued the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
, freeing all slaves in the rebellious/Confederate states, which included South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
:
-
-
- The Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom … and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages (NARA 2005).
-
Many Union officers complained that the ex-slaves "were becoming a burden and a nuisance." Some Union troops stole from the ex-slaves, and it is apparent from primary resources that the racial attitudes of some of the Union troops towards the blacks were negative; General Mitchel remarked that he found "a feeling prevailing among the officers and soldiers of prejudice against the blacks." By February 1862, the ex-slaves were living inside the Union camps, in whitewashed, wooden barrack-like structures built specifically for them and under the control of the Quartermaster’s Department; similar camps were also built in nearby Beaufort
Beaufort, South Carolina
Beaufort is a city in and the county seat of Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1711, it is the second-oldest city in South Carolina, behind Charleston. The city's population was 12,361 in the 2010 census. It is located in the Hilton Head Island-Beaufort Micropolitan...
, Bay Point, and Otter Island, By October 1862, however, this approach was seen as a failure, with living conditions being considered substandard and the obvious need to separate the soldiers from the ex-slaves and vice-versa:
-
-
- "Some wholesome changes are contemplated by the new regime, not the least of which is the removal of the negro quarters beyond the stockade, where they can at once have more comfort and freedom for improvement...Accordingly, a spot has been selected near the Drayton Plantation for a Negro village. They are able to build their own houses, and will probably be encouraged to establish their own police." (CFI 1995)
-
Creation of Mitchelville
The solution, envisioned by the Commander of the Department of the South headquartered at Hilton Head, Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. MitchelOrmsby M. Mitchel
Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel was an American astronomer and major general in the American Civil War....
, was the creation of a town for the escaped slaves, eventually known as Mitchelville, in a cotton field on the former Drayton Plantation and in close proximity to the military camps. Unlike other contraband camps, Mitchelville was developed as an actual town, with neatly-arranged streets, one-quarter-acre lots, elected officials (some officials were appointed by the Union military, however), a church, various laws addressing such issues as community behavior and sanitation, taxes were collected, and a compulsory education law for children between the ages of six and fifteen was enforced—most likely the first such law in the South.
The town was established by late 1862, and contained about 1,500 residents by November 1865. The residents of Mitchelville supported themselves largely by wage labor for the military, earning mostly between four dollars and twelve dollars a month, depending on their level of skill; nearly all of the wage jobs for the residents of Mitchelville ceased when the Union military departed the island in 1868. The residents switched to a subsistence farming-based economy, with many forming farming collective
Collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
s, joining together to rent large tracts of land from the government. Documents show that many of the Hilton Head Island freedmen experienced an extreme shortage of food when the military departed the island.
The town or village continued relatively intact into the early 1870s; sometime in the early 1880s Mitchelville ceased being a true town and became a small, kinship-based community that survived into the 1920s, as evidenced by the 1920 topographic map
Topographic map
A topographic map is a type of map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of relief, usually using contour lines in modern mapping, but historically using a variety of methods. Traditional definitions require a topographic map to show both natural and man-made features...
of Hilton Head Island, where a cluster of buildings are shown centered around a church. Previous archaeological investigations have concluded that the majority of Mitchelville was abandoned by circa 1890.
Churches/religion: the First Baptist Church was founded in 1862 with 120 members and with the ex-slave Abraham Murchison as its first minister. By 1866, there were three churches in Mitchelville—the First Baptist Church, a Free Will Baptist church, and a Methodist church. Several missionary groups were active on Hilton Head Island during the war, but by 1866 all but the American Missionary Association had left the island. The American Missionary Association was largely funded by the Wesleyan Methodists, Free Presbyterians, and Free Will Baptists during the war years, but relied on funds from the United States Tax Commission after 1866 as interest in the freedmen on the Sea Islands by northern groups waned.
Schooling: in 1866 Hilton Head Island was divided into five school districts: Mitchelville, Marshland, Seabrook, Stoney, and Lawton. In Mitchelville District, the American Missionary Association supplied most of the teachers, and offered primary, intermediate, and high school classes at the various churches. There were as many as 238 students being taught in the district at one time, with classes meeting for up to five hours per day. Attendance varied according to job requirements and travel conditions of the students. Most teachers were white northerners, but in 1869 there was at least one black assistant teacher, and Sunday school lessons were taught by black teachers around 1870.
Structures: Military sawmills provided free lumber for, and the ex-slaves provided the labor for the houses. Each house had a quarter-acre lot. The typical house measured approximately 12x12ft, were of frame construction, had wood pier foundations, glass-paned windows, wood floors, weatherboard siding, wood shingle roofs, and having either metal stoves or brick and/or tabby or wattle and daub (“stick”) chimneys. There were four stores in Mitchelville, with several of them closing down, perhaps for overcharging the residents (supplies sold in Mitchelville were priced nearly 600% higher than those sold by the AMA) (Trinkley/CRC-21 1987).
Post-Civil War
CongressUnited States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
soon passed laws restoring lands confiscated by the U.S. government to the Southern landowners who had owned the land prior to the Civil War. In April 1875, the Drayton Plantation lands were returned to the Drayton family. Unfortunately, the U.S. government failed to plan for the protection and preservation of Mitchelville, and its future looked bleak. However, the Drayton family was no longer interested in farming the property, and sold the land to anyone who was interested and had money – including many freedmen.
Cotton gin
A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...
, grist mill, and store. Gabriel eventually took advantage of his father, and obtained a deed for the property in his own name instead of his father’s; Gabriel then transferred the property deed to his wife and daughter.
In the early twentieth century, March Gardner’s heirs sued Gabriel Gardner’s wife’s heirs, claiming that Gabriel Gardner had stolen the property from March and that they were entitled to the property. The legal papers produced by this court case provide a unique insight into Mitchelville during the period.
The daughter of March Gardner, Emmeline Washington, testified that there were a number of families living at Mitchelville and farming three or 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) plots of land adjacent to their houses. The money that was collected from them for rent was used to pay the taxes on the property. March Gardner had built a cotton house, cotton gin, a steam-powered grist mill, and a shop on the property. Also named were several late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century residents of Mitchelville: Scapio Drayton, Bob Washington, Jack Screven, Robert Wiley, John Nesbit, Caesar White, Charles Robins, Charles Perry, Clara Wigfall, Renty Miller, Linda Perry, Stephen Singleton, Joe Williams, Billy Reed, Peter Flowers, Charles Pinckney, and Hannah Williams (Hannah Williams stated that she had bought a house in Mitchelville for $5.00).
The court directed that a survey be made of the Mitchelville property, and the property to be divided between each heir of March and Gabriel Gardner involved in the case, with the cost of the case being divided amongst them.
Eugenia Heyward redeemed her 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) property on June 7, 1923; Celia and Gabriel Boston obtained the adjacent tract of property on September 2, 1921. Linda Perry, Clara Wigfall, and Emmeline Washington also obtained their parcels in 1921. By 1930, Eugenia Heyward’s property was sold for $31.00 by the sheriff to pay a defaulted tax bill of $15.00; the property was purchased by Roy A. Rainey from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, who was purchasing land on Hilton Head Island for hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
.
In 1890, there were approximately 3,000 African-Americans living on Hilton Head Island; by 1930 there were only about 300 living on the island. According to a 2005 estimate approximately 13,153 of the 159,247 year round residents on Hilton Head are African American.