Those interested in learning more about the free persons of color of Charleston can consult these sources.
Print and Digital Sources:
Berlin, Ira, Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. New York: Pantheon, 1974.
Edgar, Walter, ed. The South Carolina Encyclopedia. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006.
Fitchett, E. Horace, “The Free Negro in Charleston, SC”. PhD. diss., University of Chicago, 1950.
Johnson, Michael and James L. Roark, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South. New York: Norton, 1985.
Johnson, Michael and James L. Roark (eds.), No Chariot Let Down: Charleston’s Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of NC Press, 1984.
Koger, Larry, Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790 – 1860. Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 1995.
Myers, Amrita Chakrabarti. Forging freedom : Black women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Reynolds, Rita. “Wealthy Free Women of Color in Charleston, South Carolina during Slavery”. PhD diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2007.
Shields, David. “Charleston’s First Top Chefs” in Charleston Magazine, December 2013. http://charlestonmag.com/features/charlestons_first_top_chefs
Shields, David ed. “Charleston’s African American Culinary Dynasty” in Nat Fuller’s Feast: The Life and Legacy of an Enslaved Cook in Charleston” Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/nat_fuller/charleston-s-african-american-
Stojsavljevic, Katie Ann. “Housing and Living Patterns Among Charleston’s Free People of Color in Wraggborough, 1796-1877”. Masters Thesis, Clemson University, 2007.
Wikramanayake, Marina, A World in Shadow: The Free Black in Antebellum South Carolina. Columbia: University of SC Press, 1973.
Manuscript/Digital Sources:
The Holloway Family Scrapbook, compiled in the early 20th century by the descendant of a free persons of color family, documents their world before (and after the Civil War.) Part of the collections of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston, it has been digitized and is part of the Lowcountry Digital Library. Access the manuscript here.
For an interpretive article about the scrapbook:
Greene, Harlan and Jessica Lancia, “The Holloway Scrapbook: The Legacy of a Charleston Family”. South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 111, nos. 1 – 2 (January – April 2010), 5-33.
DeReef Court and Park Collection, Avery Research Center. http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/DeReef_Court.pdf