1
Historical Fiction: Reconstruction
Notes by Caryn Bell, UMass Lowell History Department,
about Joyce Hansen’s Out from This Place
Factual Time Line
May 1861August 1861 –
November 1861 –
July 1862 –
September 1862 –
January 1865 –
March 1865 –
May 1865December 1865 –
1866 –
Contraband of War - Benjamin F. Butler
*Wage Labor
First Confiscation Act
Union seizes Sea Islands
Second Confiscation Act
*Recruitment of Black Soldiers
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
William T. Sherman’s Field Order No. 15
* “forty acres & a mule”
Freedmen’s Bureau
President Andrew Johnson’s Proclamation of Amnesty & Restitution
13th Amendment
Ku Klux Klan founded
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joyce Hansen, Out from This Place, Avon Books, Inc, 1992, pp. 135. Recommended for Grades 6-9.
Fictional Time Line: May 1862-March 1866
Setting: Vicinity of Charleston and the Sea Islands, South Carolina
Characters:
 Easter (main character)
 Obi & Jason (Easter’s “family”)
 U.S. Army Superintendent Emerson Reynolds (supervises Easter and her fellow refugees in their
new role as wage workers)
 Yankees (Easter’s “New Masters”)
 Rose (Easter’s best friend)
 Rayford Sabay (Rose’s husband)
 Amy Grantley (Easter’s white school teacher sent by the Northern Missionary Society)
 Emmaline Fortune (Easter’s African American school teacher from Philadelphia— Philadelphia
School for Colored Youth—Charlotte Forten is clearly the model for this character)
NOTES: (See last page for general benefits of book.)
Historic quotations at the start of the chapters are compelling and educational.
Main action takes place near Charleston and on Sea Islands, South Carolina. Most planters fled to
mainland. Blacks contraband passing along with other confiscated property to the army. Freedmen
continued to work on plantation for wages for the Federal government. For discussion of contraband, see
McPherson, 288-295
January 16, 1865 Sherman ordered freedmen settled on islands extending down to St. Johns River, Florida.
[McPherson, p. 432, Special Order No. 15, After Sherman told by 20 black leaders that “the way we can
2
best take care of ourselves is to have land,” his order provided that the coastline and riverbanks
extending thirty miles inland from Charleston to Jacksonville as an area of resettlement of
freedpeople of 40 acres of land per family] 40,000 resettled [McPherson, p. 432=40,000]
But in May, 1865, Johnson returned the land to former owners. Some forcefully removed by army.
Some freedmen bought land when someone willing to sell or when South Carolina Land Commission made
some available for sale. New Canaan in South Carolina is based on an all-black community developed after
the Civil War.
Prologue
May 1862
Easter a 14-year-old girl, disguised as boy, in a rebel army camp who plans to leave in search of Jason.
Easter enslaved on Jennings plantation near Charleston with Jason and Obi who were not relatives. Easter
didn’t know her birthday, where she was born or who her parents were. Given to Martha Jennings as an
Easter present. Obi and Easter, disguised as a boy, ran away from the Jennings a year ago and forced to
leave Jason behind but caught and put to work in a Confederate camp. She proposes to return to the
Jennings farm and get Jason. Master Jennings hired Easter and Obi out to work on the Phillips plantation.
Jason’s mother died when he was born and Obi took care of him from that time on. Obi had already
escaped to the Sea Islands and the Union army.
Elderly Gabriel and Miriah mention of work on rice plantations and the desire never to see one again.
Easter’s plan is to get Jason and join Obi who had kissed Easter when he left. Jason possibly moving West
with the Jennings family or had been given as a wedding gift to Miss Holmes or possibly sold. If sold,
Easter said she would go across the country to get him.
As army moved, she kept her distance from the foul-mouthed soldiers. Black workers took care of the
animals and would build the military fortifications. She tied rags around her feet and she fled to the
Jennings farm to retrieve Jason.
1. Illustrates flight of slaves to Union lines.
2. Illustrates the aspiration to seek out loved ones from whom the enslaved had been separated.
3. Illustrates the inhumanity of slavery: Easter stripped of her identity since she doesn’t know her age,
where she was born, who her parents were. Her only family is Obi and Jason. She had been given as an
Easter gift to Martha Jennings. As a young child burdened with the responsibility of raising another child,
Jason. Deprived of shoes (Is this a device to keep slaves from running away?)
4. Slaves valuable asset to Confederate and, ultimately, Union forces.
Chapter One
She is discovered but finds the Phillips plantation and the Jennings farm. She goes to the kitchen and found
the cook Rose who was just a few years older and like a sister. She learned that Jason was Mistress
Phillips’ special servant and he looked down upon the other slaves.
Describes the shed which Rose lives in which is typical of most slave dwellings. Obi (p. 13) worth $2,000.
Discuss house servant Rayford who had secretly learned to read and write. He was Master Phillip’s
personal servant and acted superior to the other slaves. But Easter tells Rose that Rayford helped Easter and
Obi to escape. Rayford and other had also been storing arms in coffins.
3
Many had run away when they heard the Yankees were coming. Some caught and sent to prison; some
living in the swamps; and some never heard from again. Rayford planning to escape. Rayford had been
reading the newspapers and knew that Yankees had taken over the Sea Islands. They planned to flee there.
Easter said Obi already on Sea Islands and she proposed to get Jason and go there. Rayford made the
overseer when the white overseer drafted. When her husband died Mistress Phillips lost her sanity and the
slaves running the plantation.
1. Accurate description of a slave dwelling.
2. Relatively accurate 1859 price of $2,000 for a slave. [McPherson, p. 121, price of a prime male field
hand rose from $1,000 in 1849 to $1,7000 in 1859]
3. Some slaves like Rayford secretly learned to read and write and assumed positions of respect (Rayford
the overseer) and prestige within the slave community.
4. Slaves ran the plantations when the Civil War began.
Chapter 2
Great quote from the book on the escape of William & Ellen Craft
Easter is awakened by Rose who has Jason with her. Jason calls Easter a runaway and says he will tell the
mistress. Rose threatens him.
Page 19 description of a plantation jail. The slaves meet in the jail house with the men armed, and they
depart for an escape to the Sea Islands.
Chapter 3
They are confronted by Confederates but back them down.
Great quote from Harriet Tubman brings home the fear and difficulty that is described in this chapter.
Chapter 4
Great quote at seeing a “Yankee” by Susie King Taylor
The exhilaration of freedom and a description of a mass of liberated men, women and children—children
everywhere many of them without parents. But only May 1862--Easter reflects the overwhelming tendency
to search out loved one from whom slaves had been separated.
They arrive on Santa Elena Island, and they are rudely instructed as a family group to take the available
wagon to the Williams cotton plantation where they would work for pay. U.S. Superintendent
Emerson Reynolds, p. 112.
They are told that the plantation belongs to the U.S. government and has been taken because the owners
were rebelling against the government. They are assured that there is a good possibility that they will
have a share of the land if they help in the war effort by working the land. The government official
refuses Rayford’s request to put the statement in writing but they agree to work as if they will be paid.
Each family gets 2.5 acres to till and forty cents a day. They are to rent land to grow their vegetables on.
Their disappointment is keen when they are directed to slave cabins that are worse than the ones they
left.
She decides to continue looking for Obi and a white woman associated with the army takes charge of
Easter and Jason as they orphans and brother and sister, she assumes. 41
She is terrified when she learns that the woman wants to take her North to a home for orphans.
1. Discusses preservation of the plantation system and government’s attempt to keep the labor system in
place by introducing a wage labor system. McPherson, p. 429, first priority military efficiency and not
humanitarianism.
4
2. 1862 government official assures them that they might have a share of the land if they help in the war
effort. Can be seen as a forerunner of Sherman’s Field Order No. 15. Otherwise, see McPherson, 42832 for notion that land the basis for independent farmers—a status that was the chief aspiration of
freedmen.
3. Notes the large number of displaced children.
4. When they reach the island, they proclaim their freedom. Are they really free in May 1862?
McPherson, 288-295
Chapter 5
Easter is determined to leave the plantation. She concludes that the Yankees are their “new masters.”
1. Illustrates the feeling among former slaves that they wanted their freedom to have meaning. Life and
work on a plantation too much like slavery.
2. The men builtda school and a church indicating the enormous thirst for education and religious freedom.
For education see McPherson, pp. 433-35, 617-19; great quote on p. 433
Chapter 6
Quote Phyllis Wheatley on freedom and June 1862
The black community create a money and barter economic system. Easter hits upon a plan to take care of
the children while the women work in the field. Jason finds his calling in singing and dancing for Yankee
soldiers and Rayford demonstrates for Easter the rudiments of writing. Easter is overtaken with excitement
by the experience.
Chapter 7
Leon Litwack quoted with regard to southern blacks taking the lead in educating themselves.
Easter practices her letters as the children nap. Mention of northern missionaries arriving to teach their
community. They set about building a church and a schoolhouse. Rose expresses a notion she and Rayford
hold, that they will get their own land.
Jason has made $3 dancing for the Yankee soldiers.
Jason recounts being pursued by whites (buckra) who blame blacks for the war.
Chapter 8
May 1863
Great quote from Mary McLeod Bethune “The whole world opened to me when I learned to read. As
soon as I understand something, I rushed back and taught it to the others at home.”
Amy Grantley
Northern Missionary Society sends a young white teacher, Grantley, to the plantation. In a full
classroom, Easter is the oldest at 15 years. Jason is 9 years old. She loves school in the one-room
building constructed of logs by the men. Easter and the others find it difficult to understand Grantley’s
Yankee speech. Grantley taught at a nearby school and returned at night to teach adults. Grantley wants to
send Easter to the Philadelphia School for Colored Youth, p. 120 for outstanding black students. Easter
would be the first former slave student sent to the school. Easter insists that she must find Obi. She admits
she loves school but she can’t leave Jason and Obi. Grantley presses her to go to school and return to teach
her community. Arrangements could be made for Jason and she can reunite with Obi when she returns.
Easter’s dear friend Rose and Rayford are to marry legally unlike in slavery. See discussion on p. 77.
Rayford expresses scorn for slave marriages. Two southern ministers refuse to marry them. Rayford finally
finds a judge to marry them.
79 Mention of African traditions in the matter of head dresses and naming. Rayford had no family name.
He names himself after his father whose surname was Sabay, hence Rayford Sabay. Easter fantasizes
about her own name becoming Easter Obi.
5
Chapter 9
June 1863
Rose and Rayford marry. Sarah describes how her former husband was sold away from her on p. 83. Easter
observes that “There’s always something sad to think about, even during a happy time.” Jason entertains
everyone with his dancing.
Easter tells Grantley that she can’t leave. Grantley proposes to write to military officials at Hilton Head
Island to track down Obi. Easter agrees to keep her options open.
End of 1863, army responds by noting it does not have names of black recruits on Hilton Head Island.
Grantley promises to keep trying.
In early 1864, Grantley reports that she is being sent to another island to open a school. She is to be
replaced by a new teacher. Grantley makes Easter promise to consider an education in the North. She also
persuades Easter to continue teaching the children until the new teacher arrives.
Chapter 10
May 1865
Traditional Spiritual, “My army cross over, …O, Pharoah’s army drownded! My army cross over.”
Describes how frightened she is as she passes a slave market in town. Third time since the end of war she
has visited the town of Elenaville to obtain information from the Freedmen’s Bureau about missing loved
ones.
Describes whites and blacks in the freedmen’s office to obtain emergency rations of food and money,
locate loved ones, and request establishment of schools. Good place to discuss how a pretest answer
discribed this as the Bureau’s greatest achievement. They also reviewed work contracts to see that
everything in order.
No word yet of Obi, and Jason pleads to join Dr. Taylor’s Medicine show as a performer. Easter decides
not to return to the Freedmen’s Bureau. She has saved most of the money over the last three years, and
she would use it to find Obi. After she found Obi, she would take Jason north to finish her schooling.
They would return to South Carolina to be together forever.
Chapter 11
“May 29, 1865 President Johnson issues proclamation of amnesty with all property rights except those in
slaves restored.” From The Civil War Almanac
Rayford is made the overseer of the entire plantation by Mr. Reynolds, and Rose and Rayford have a baby
boy. Reynolds to talk to them the next day and Rose anticipates that they will have their own land.
When Easter prepares to tell Ray and Rose she is leaving, Sarah announces that she is leaving to look for
her husband. Rose reminds Easter that she is the only teacher the children have. Easter says that when the
missionary society sends a new teacher, she will leave. Rose tells her that they were planning to collect
money to send her North to Miss Grantley in Philadelphia so that she could learn to be a teacher and return.
Easter says she is going north with Jason after she finds Obi. Jason says he wants to be in Dr. Taylor’s
show.
Julius returns as a handsome Union soldier. Easter holds back but everyone else hugs him. Julius hugs
Easter. Mustering black soldiers out of the military as southern whites despised black Union soldiers.
A new church building is completed and Virginia’s husband says he’s not going to work in any fields he
doesn’t have title to.
6
Rayford says Reynolds is to visit that afternoon and will tell them about the land. Reynolds is accompanied
by a middle-aged white couple and a young white man, the Charles Williams family and their son, Richard.
They propose work contracts to the former slaves. Rayford says they have been promised land with an
option to buy more.
Everyone is outraged as Reynolds explains that government has changed its policy under Johnson.
Plantations are to be returned to former owners. Rayford refuses to return the keys and insists that the
government keep its promise. Mrs. Williams breaks down in tears, and her husband threatens to arrest and
whip the blacks. The workers refuse to be displaced and the whites leave.
Chapter 12
“The great cry of our people is to have land.” Tunis Campbell, ex-slave
Easter is numb from shock of events. Rayford and some of the men arm themselves while some talk of
migrating to Elenaville. Others insist that the land belongs to the former owners and plan to stay and work
for them. The next day there is an armed confrontation; Rayford is killed and other men are wounded by
the army.
Chapter 13
“For we are all ready in the boat, and they seek to cast us in the sea.” Sam Aleckson, ex-slave, Before the
War and After the Union
Reynolds and a contingent of soldiers take control of the plantation. Williams family offers to sell 1,500
acres of land in 50 acre plots at 10 dollars an acre. They would also be given the land they tilled
during the year but all of the land to be given and sold would be the unused land beginning at the
edge of the woods. The free land to be based on the amount of land they tilled by the end of the year. Gives
an example of 4 acres. Reynolds agreed to put the terms in writing.
Rayford buried.
Easter writes a letter telling Grantley of events and of her decision to never go North because Yankees are
awful people except for Grantley. Easter gives up her duties as teacher to assist Rose in cultivating her
land so that she can acquire all the land that she & Rayford had been working on. Grantley writes that she
is ashamed of the way some northerners have behaved. But the actions of some must not make us bitter.
Tells Easter that a “wonderful young colored woman,” a graduate of the Philadelphia School for Colored
Youth, will be their new teacher.
Chapter 14
Great quote from the Journal of Charlotte Forten, Teacher, 1862-64, Port Royal, South Carolina.
September 1865
Cotton bolls cover the field and Jason and Easter pick them. They discuss leaving the land when Rose gets
her land. Jason asks if Easter remembers his mother. Easter says she was pretty and her old mistress liked
her a lot.
Easter goes to Elenaville to pick up the new teacher, Emmaline Fortune from Philadelphia. Fortune very
light-skinned. Fortune encouraged Easter to continue her education. As she leaves she can hear the men
building a new church and school on land that will be theirs.
Julius asks Easter to marry him. Easter appreciates that Julius, a U.S. veteran is hardworking, honest, and
decent, and would make a good husband but she is in love with Obi and eventually decides to refuse
Julius’s offer of marriage. Julius argues that neither of them had a mother, father or other kin and should
make a family of their own.
7
Fortune tells Easter that her father was a free man in the sailing business who had provided well for his
family. They had never been slaves. Yet, she and her family suffer prejudice and many black northerners,
especially the poor, suffer as greatly as the newly freed slaves. Fortune says that “Education is our only
weapon against such ignorance.” She wants Easter to become a teacher. Only time Easter felt peace was in
Fortune’s company.
By end of year 30 families have purchased 1,500 acres of land and received the portions of land they
earned. Cabins built by teams of men and boys.
Chapter 15
I’ve know rivers, Langston Hughes
January 1, 1866
Celebrated Emancipation Day.
With Easter’s help, Rose acquires the 7 acres she and Rayford worked plus a farm. She wants to give 2
acres to Easter but she refuses.
Rose encourages her to go North but Easter talks about a failed attempt by a couple to move North. They
get as far as Richmond and have to turn around and come back destitute and hungry. No work in the cities
and they aren’t free to do what they want anyway, owing to the Black Codes. The couple had said it was
the same under slavery.
Jason joins Dr. Taylor’s Medicine Show. Jason 12 years old.
March 31, 1866 writes a letter to Grantley telling her that their new town, New Canaan (Promised Land),
is progressing nicely with a molasses mill and a general store as well as a church and a school. Some still
work for the Williams family to make extra money.
The KKK attempts to burn the school but fail. Easter has decided to attend school in Philadelphia, and she
will stay with the Fortune family. Rose will help her to defray some of the costs.
Epilogue
March 1866
Obi is a soldier returning to South Carolina on a Union naval vessel. He is just as determined to find Easter
as she was to find him.
McPherson, p. 383, 179,000 soldiers and 10,000 black sailors fought in as Union soldiers.
General Benefits of the Book:
1. Great quotes emphasize the historical information contained in the text.
2. Inspiration to adolescents in boosting their confidence in their own inner strength and what they are
capable of.
3. Highlights the enormously empowering value of literacy and education.
4. Can be effectively used as a study in the realities of slavery; domestic slave trade separating children
from families at a very early age, p. 125
5. Discusses exclusion from transport on p. 123 and the necessity of having a member of the community
transport them into town in a carriage.
6. Buckra derives from African languages Ibibio & Efik, translates boss or master.
7. Discussion of the Black Codes of 1866, p. 131
8. Chapter 15 mentions an attack upon the school by Ku Klux Klan