Partisans and Redcoats: The American Revolution in the Southern Backcountry

FAIN: BH-50263-08

Converse College (Spartanburg, SC 29302-1931)
Melissa Walker (Project Director: March 2008 to September 2010)

This workshop will provide teachers with fresh perspectives on the complex dynamics of the American Revolution in the Southern backcountry, a place where long-standing hostilities between American settlers erupted into a full-scale civil war between Loyalists and Patriots. Our program will make use of the rich historical resources in upstate South Carolina, including Walnut Grove Plantation, an outstanding example of an eighteenth century backcountry farmstead, the living history museum at Historic Brattonsville, and the battlefields at Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Ninety-Six to learn more about the nature of backcountry warfare. We will also explore the ways that art and material culture can help increase student engagement with the subject matter. We will examine the war's impact on the region's white women and on its free and enslaved African Americans. A veteran history teacher will serve as master teacher for the workshop.