Tunis Campbell(1812-1891): the highest-ranking and most influential African American politician in Georgia in the nineteenth century. Campbell’s parents are free blacks and he is the eighth of the ten children in the family. He went to Episcopal school in New York and trained for missionary service with the American Colonization Society’s program of transporting African American to Liberia. After graduation, Campbell joined the Methodist Church and threw himself into evangelical uplift. In 1832, he founded an anticolonization society.
Campbell actively participated in the Colored Convention Movement before the Civil War(1861-1865). In 1867, with a goal to help freedmen vote, Campbell was appointed to the Board of Registration in Georgia. He was elected to congress as a senator in Georgia in 1868 only to be expelled from office because white congressmen agreed that blacks didn't have the right to hold office. He was able to return to office in 1871, but lost in 1872 and eventually imprisoned in a Georgia labor camp before fleeing the state. He published Sufferings of the Reverend T. G. Campbell and His Family in Georgia in 1877 and finally died in Boston on December 4, 1891.
What I Learned
During the time of reconstruction, great changes happened in the relationships between the former slaves and slaveholders, and Tunis Campbell was at the forefront of this change. In 1865, he was appointed to the Freedman’s Bureau to oversee the resettlement of five islands off the coast of Georgia that had been abandoned by the residents when the Union army swept throughout the area. Campbell quickly purchased over 1200 acres on one of these islands with the intent to establish a black landowner community.
Also, even though his unique model of a new society for freed slaves worked in practice, the circumstances of the time were still very much not in favor of complete freedom for blacks. When Andrew Johnson became president, he revoked a piece of legislature that allowed the freedman to claim that land, and ordered the union army to drive out Campbell and all of his followers from the island. In 1871, the democrats regained power within the state and made it a priority to overturn reconstruction. Campbell’s seat was taken in the senate and he was harassed with a number of lawsuits that made him unable to take effective action against those who threw him out. eventually he was convicted and sentenced to one year in a hard labor camp.
Tunis Campbell
Biography
Tunis Campbell(1812-1891): the highest-ranking and most influential African American politician in Georgia in the nineteenth century. Campbell’s parents are free blacks and he is the eighth of the ten children in the family. He went to Episcopal school in New York and trained for missionary service with the American Colonization Society’s program of transporting African American to Liberia. After graduation, Campbell joined the Methodist Church and threw himself into evangelical uplift. In 1832, he founded an anticolonization society.
Campbell actively participated in the Colored Convention Movement before the Civil War(1861-1865). In 1867, with a goal to help freedmen vote, Campbell was appointed to the Board of Registration in Georgia. He was elected to congress as a senator in Georgia in 1868 only to be expelled from office because white congressmen agreed that blacks didn't have the right to hold office. He was able to return to office in 1871, but lost in 1872 and eventually imprisoned in a Georgia labor camp before fleeing the state. He published Sufferings of the Reverend T. G. Campbell and His Family in Georgia in 1877 and finally died in Boston on December 4, 1891.What I Learned
During the time of reconstruction, great changes happened in the relationships between the former slaves and slaveholders, and Tunis Campbell was at the forefront of this change. In 1865, he was appointed to the Freedman’s Bureau to oversee the resettlement of five islands off the coast of Georgia that had been abandoned by the residents when the Union army swept throughout the area. Campbell quickly purchased over 1200 acres on one of these islands with the intent to establish a black landowner community.Also, even though his unique model of a new society for freed slaves worked in practice, the circumstances of the time were still very much not in favor of complete freedom for blacks. When Andrew Johnson became president, he revoked a piece of legislature that allowed the freedman to claim that land, and ordered the union army to drive out Campbell and all of his followers from the island. In 1871, the democrats regained power within the state and made it a priority to overturn reconstruction. Campbell’s seat was taken in the senate and he was harassed with a number of lawsuits that made him unable to take effective action against those who threw him out. eventually he was convicted and sentenced to one year in a hard labor camp.
Bibliography
http://thomaslegion.net/tunis_campbell_biography_history.htmlhttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2903