The Prostrate State: South Carolina Under Negro Government

by James Shepherd Pike

In 1873, James Shepherd Pike, a veteran anti-slavery journalist from Maine, was dispatched to South Carolina by the New York Tribune to report on the status of that State's Reconstruction government. The articles Pike sent back to New York were published in book form the following year as The Prostrate State. Pike represented South Carolina's government as be ing politically corrupt and extravagant with public funds. The State, said Pike, was under the control of "a mass of black barbarism... the most ignorant democ racy that mankind ever saw." Pike's observations served to increase the growing Northern sympathy for the downtrodden White population of the former Con federate States and helped pave the way for the return of home rule to the South.

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1874

Reviews

[Steve Walters]

I read this book out of curiosity because my ancestors were from South Carolina and my great grandfather fought for the confederacy from 1861-1865. My overall assessment is that it was a detailed racist rationalization to support his position that South Carolina could not be governed by blacks. He also argues without basis that most South Carolinians didn’t want war but did so to defend the state from northern aggression. He finishes with the absurd notion that whites wanted to support the needs of free blacks but they lacked the intellect and initiative to benefit from these efforts. We know today what southern states would do to blacks after the war and for 100 years thereafter.

[Tony]

A simple narrative of events is perhaps the briefest, as it is the most effectual way of enabling the reader to form an unbiased judgement upon the events that have occurred.

[Dana]

What an eye opening expose! I had no idea previously of the extent of post uncivil war trauma the southern states were forced to endure under martial law imposed by the north folowing the war. This is an honest account of the cruel and unusual punishment inflicted by the north on the south for over a decade following the official end of war against the south by the north. Yes, I am biased having been exposed to the truth of what really happened by this book and so many others on the subject. It is a sobering account of injustice and the ruination of our former republic.