ALEXANDER ROBERT LAWTON PAPERS, #415, #414, 1774- 1952
Largely correspondence among three generations of the Lawton family of South Carolina,
chiefly pertaining to the military, political, and business careers of Alexander Robert
Lawton. Financial and legal materials include documents relating to the hiring of slaves and
freedmen (1774-1920), and a plantation journal recording the effects of sicknesses among
slaves in planting, the provision of supplies to slaves, and slave duties on a plantation
near Robertsville, Beaufort District, South Carolina (1810-1840). Correspondence demonstrates
Alexander Lawton's financial philosophy in relation to the purchase of slaves (1839); Sarah
Alexander Hillhouse Lawton's wartime concerns over the safety of her slaves (1860-1862); the
hiring of blacks and whites for farm labor (1866-1867); and race relations in postbellum
South Carolina (1866-1867). Several speeches attributed to Alexander Lawton, including "Our
Relations with the Negro" (1925) and "The Negro Problem" (1926), reveal his views on race
relations. Microfilm available.