During the late summer of 1876, Black rice harvesters went on strike along South Carolina’s Combahee River.

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Editor, Standard & Commercial,

Beaufort, S.C., Aug. 24th, 1876.

Having been telegraphed by the Governor and Attorney-General to visit the disturbed district on the Combahee, I abandoned my trip to Midway, at which point I was to spend to-day, and with Lt. Gov. Cleaves we left the cars at Sheldon and upon out arrival at Gardners Corners, we found assembled at Mr. Pullet’s store, between forty and sixty white men mounted and armed with sixteen shooters, Spencer rifles, and double-barreled shotguns, and about one hundred and fifty colored men with sticks and clubs. Upon inquiry, I found that about three hundred strikers were collected on the road to Combahee.

I proceeded at once to this point and there found a large body of colored men and women. I called upon them for the cease of the strike and was informed by them that they refused to work for checks payable in 1880, and that they demanded money for their labor, and that if the planters would pay them in money they would go to work at the usual prices.

I did not find a single colored striker with any kind of deadly weapon about him, and found that they were peaceably inclined with no other object in view than to be paid in good money for honest labor; this they are determined to have or not to work.  

The rice planters have been in the habit of using checks instead of money, which are not good at any but the Planters stores for the reason that they are payable in 1878 and 1880, and that when these checks are used in purchasing goods at these stores they become checks as change instead of money thus making it impossible for the laborers to purchase medicines, or employ physicians or obtain any thing except through the agency of the planter.  

So far as violence on the part of the strikers is concerned there were warrants issued by Trial Justice Puller, for whipping one of their own number who had gone to work contrary to the agreement they had made in their own clubs, not to work for checks. These men upon being requested to give themselves up, walked out of the crowd and came into Beaufort without the Sheriff or even a guard, and were waiting in town hours before the arrival of the Sheriff. 

The men were first taken to Trial Justice Puller, but he not being there, the men arrested came into Beaufort at the request of the Sheriff.  At three o’clock the entire crowd had peaceably dispersed and no sign of a strike was visible. 

It is due to Sheriff Sams to say that he informed the white men that he did not need their services, and it is due to them to say that they offered no violence to the strikers, during the time that I was present.

The following is the cause of the strike. [a sample of a check follows]

“50.   Due–Fifty Cents, 60.

      To Jonathan Lucas or Bearer, for labor under special contract. Payable on the first January,

      1880. J. B. Bissell

The checks are issued in denominations of 5; 10; 25; and 50 cents.

Very Respectfully

ROBERT SMALL

Source: Reprinted in Foner, Philip S., and Ronald L. Lewis, eds. Black Worker: A Documentary History, Volume II: The Black Worker During the Era of the National Labor Union. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978.

Document 4.10.7: “Robert Small on the Combahee Strike”, Savannah Tribune, Georgia, September 2, 1876