Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park
The Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park [HMFP], Inc. is a non-profit South Carolina corporation which was formed: To preserve, promote and honor Historic Mitchelville, the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people in the United States. On November 7, 1861, Union forces attacked two Confederate forts and the Sea Islands of South Carolina near Port Royal. “The Battle of Port Royal” later drove the Confederate forces to retreat to the mainland. One island, Hilton Head Island, immediately became the headquarters for the Union Army. It also would become the setting for the first self-governed town of freed Africans in the country. After the Battle of Port Royal, men, women, and children fled the plantations and sought freedom with the Union army. Due to overcrowding in the barracks in the Union camp, General Ormsby Mitchel dedicated a large parcel of the land, near the old Drayton Plantation, to the newly freed Blacks that they would be able to cultivate and govern. Individuals and families were given a quarter acre lot and material to build a home. The freedmen elected their own officials, created their own system of law, built three churches, four stores and established the first compulsory school system in the state of South Carolina. Education was required for every child from age 6 to 15 and when the school district was created in 1866, there were 238 students in the town. Commercial organizations and churches were established and weddings were conducted. Men were recruited for the on-going Civil War and Black soldiers built nearby Fort Howell to protect Mitchelville. HMFP, in cooperation with the Town of Hilton Head and Beaufort County, endeavors to establish a cultural attraction in the historic Mitchelville area, that will include replicas of the historic homes, churches, stores and other structures that align with the themes that govern the interpretation of the site.
