Group items tagged

Massachusetts history including colonial times and Native Americans with field trip opportunity.

Charlotte Forten, an educated young African American woman from a prosperous Philadelphia family, joined the project in 1862, moving to the island of St. Helena, where she served for two years as a teacher of former slaves. While there, she kept a detailed account of her experiences, which she sent to her friend, the activist and poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Deeming her observations worthy of wider attention, he passed them along to The Atlantic's editor, James T. Fields, who published them in two installments in 1864.