Georgia Historical Society

A New Landscape for Freed Slaves: The Example of Sandfly, Georgia

When Union General William Tecumseh Sherman took Savannah in December 1864, he conducted an interview with local African-American leaders to gauge their knowledge, their support of the Union, and their ability to sustain themselves if freed from slavery.  Sixty-seven year old local minister Garrison Frazier was selected to speak for those present.  When asked if he thought blacks should live among whites or by themselves, he replied, “I would prefer to live by ourselves, for there is a prejudice against us in the South that will take years to get over.”

Ex-slaves from plantations settled together in areas such as Sandfly forming closely-knit, supportive networks of families. Plantation work experience formed the foundation of African-American trade skills, such as carpentry and masonry, so the settlement progressed without help from outside builders and planners.  In Sandfly, tradesmen passed their skills from one generation to another via several methods such as community house raisings and by running family businesses.  Nearly every Saturday found the Sandfly community raising a new home.  The process became a sort of “skill pool” from which Sandfly residents drew on the specialties of individuals.  Brick masons, plumbers, carpenters, and electricians all gave their talents freely to the building of the community.  Family members joined the construction; the children worked as apprentices or gophers and the wives provided a buffet of food.

The residents of Sandfly shaped their own landscape where churches came to occupy focal points within the village and families stayed close together.  Building skills formed the basis for many slave descendants’ livelihoods, and Sandfly tradesmen found jobs constructing Savannah area roads and buildings.  This connection to the land generated a strong attachment to the area.  Even today, this devotion remains strong in Sandfly where the residents recently challenged the establishment of a Wal-Mart superstore.

Sandfly historical marker.

Teaching Tip:

1. Divide students into teams and have them research historical sites or structures in their community that are not yet marked and then compose a paragraph or two to be placed on a marker.  See http://www.georgiahistory.com/Markers.htm for marker qualification guidelines and to read historical markers from around the state (including Sandfly’s).

Additional reading suggestions for the study of encounters and exchange in slavery-era Georgia:
Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998).

Vincent Carretta, Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005).

Erskine Clarke, Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).  Clarke, a previous GHS lecture series participant, discusses the Liberty County plantations in great detail.

Walter J. Fraser, Jr, Savannah in the Old South (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2003).

Thomas A. Scott, editor, Cornerstones of Georgia History; Documents that Formed the State (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1995).
Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (New York: Penguin Books, 2001).

Donald D. Wax, “‘New Negroes Are Always in Demand’: The Slave Trade in Eighteenth-Century Georgia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 68, no.2 (1984): 193-215.