In 1860, nearly 90,000 slaves, almost half the entire population of the lower Chattahoochee River Valley of Georgia and Alabama, called the region home. These people tended the crops that underpinned the area’s economy; built the structures many of its citizens lived, worked and worshipped in; and affected virtually every aspect of the social structure of the era.

Yet, because slaves did not generate written records of their own, our understanding of their lives is extremely limited. Many crucial details about how they dealt with life as bondsmen, or how they managed the tumultuous transition to freedom, are difficult, if not impossible, to find.

This exhibition attempts to shed light on some of the experiences of slaves and freedmen through an examination of several types of documentary evidence. Ranging from bills of sale and estate inventories to city ordinances and personal letters, it includes a variety of historical records that give insight into their lives through the important bits of information they contain. While they cannot tell us every detail of the lives of the people they mention, they can help us gain a new understanding of them as individuals.