TIMELINE OF EVENTS LEADING TO WEDDING BAND ARMINDA THOMAS Events in bold refer to characters from Wedding Band. 1848
John C. Calhoun, Senator from South Carolina, gives speech in opposition to the Oregon Bill (which prohibited slavery in the territory), in which he refutes the Declaration of Independence to make the case for the expansion of slavery.
1851
Calhoun’s A Disquisition on Government is published posthumously.
1860
After Lincoln’s election, South Carolina is the first state to secede from the Union on December 20. It formally joins the CSA in February, 1861.
c1861 Herman’s Mother is born as the Civil War begins Union forces take control of the Sea Islands. Enslaved African-Americans flee to the area, especially to Edisto Island, where Union troops consider blacks to be free because they are the "contraband of war." 1862
Robert Smalls sails The Planter through Confederate lines and delivers it and its cargo to Union forces off the South Carolina coast. He volunteers to help the Union Navy guide its ships through the dangerous South Carolina coastal waters for the rest of the war.
1868
A convention of 48 whites and 76 blacks meet and write a very progressive constitution that includes representation based on population, a complete bill of rights, protection of a married woman's property rights, a homestead exemption, and a right to a public education. State Senator and presidential elector B.F. Randolph is murdered by radical whites in Abbeville County.
c1868 Fanny is born. 1869
Joseph Rainey becomes the first African-American in South Carolina to become a U.S. Representative in Congress. He is followed by seven others before African-Americans are driven out of elected office: Robert C. DeLarge, Robert Brown Elliott, Richard H. Cain, Alonzo Ransier, Robert Smalls, Thomas E. Miller, and George W. Murray.
c1873 Lula is born 1877
South Carolina agrees to give its electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for agreement to end the Reconstruction and recognition of Wade Hampton as the duly elected governor of the State.
c1878 Herman is born. 1879
Back in power, SC Democratic legislature invalidates any marriages that may have occurred between “a white person and an Indian, Negro, mulatto, mestizo, or half-breed” and makes such marriages a misdemeanor, fined a minimum of $500, or imprisoned for not less than twelve months, or both. In support of the Liberia Emigration Movement (1877-1878), the Rev. Richard H. Cain, a local and national AME leader and politician, sponsors a bill to pay passage for those who desire to return to the African continent. As a result, the ship, Azur, leaves from Charleston with 206 Black emigrants en route to Liberia, West Africa.
c1883 Julia is born; Herman wins $20 for memorizing Calhoun’s speech. Annabelle is born, sometime between 1883-1888. WEDDING BAND
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