| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

African American Life in South Carolina's Upper Piedmont, 1780–1900. By W. J. Megginson. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006. xx, 546 pp. $59.95, ISBN 978-157003-626-2.)
W. J. Megginson's African American Life in South Carolina's Upper Piedmont, 1780–1900 is a welcome addition to studies documenting the diversity of the African American experience in the United States. Such diversity also existed on the state level. Much of what has been written on black life in South Carolina has concentrated on the state's low country and its black majority. This book examines three northwestern counties, Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens in the upstate from 1780–1900.	1
A minority in a rural piedmont region, African Americans were less feared by whites than they were in the low country. Plantation slavery never dominated these upstate counties, where white yeomen farmers were in ascendancy. Blacks were freer to travel, but they lacked the cohesion of Gullah blacks in the low country, who more successfully retained a vibrant African culture. In freedom, blacks in the upper piedmont never obtained the same politicalcloutthatAfricanAmericansachieved elsewhere in the state. They were more vulnerable to racist acts. Nevertheless, through persistence and perseverance, they evolved a resilient black subculture over the century, based on black institutions, such as the church.	. . .

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