Martha Kitchings Seawright Ellison

Martha Kitchings Seawright Ellison was born enslaved on November 20, 1849, in Barnwell County South Carolina. This presentation tells the contextualized story of her life, featuring local history of the antebellum period and Civil War in Barnwell County during Martha’s enslavement; a personal account of Martha’s life on the Phillips Plantation during the Reconstruction Era in Barnwell County; the circumstances that involved Martha’s marriages to two husbands; and post Reconstruction era through the Gilded Age (1875-1900) during Martha’s life in Aiken County, South Carolina.