Name Tunis Campbell | Role American Politician | |
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Died December 4, 1891, Boston, Massachusetts, United States | ||
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Tunis Gulic Campbell (April 1, 1812 – December 4, 1891) was an African-American politician of the 19th century, and a major figure in Reconstruction Georgia.
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Biography
Born in Middlebrook, New Jersey, Tunis Campbell was one of nine other siblings. He was the son of a blacksmith. Campbell served as a Justice of the Peace, a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, and as a Georgia state senator. He died in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 4, 1891.
Campbell was the principal waiter at the Howard Hotel in New York City for some time (at least from 1842–45), and later wrote a well-regarded 1848 guide to hotel management.
In March 1865, Congress established a Freedmen's Bureau and appointed Campbell to oversee land claims and resettlement on five Georgia islands: Ossabaw, Delaware, Colonels, St. Catherines, and Sapelo. When Georgia planters, through pardons from President Andrew Johnson, regained the islands in 1866. Campbell bought 1,250 acres at Belle Ville in McIntosh County, where established an association of black landowners to own parcels. Effectively, he established colonies on these islands.
In 1867, with a goal to help freedmen vote, Campbell was appointed to the Board of Registration in Georgia. He was elected to congress as a senator in Georgia in 1868, only to be expelled from office because white congressmen agreed that blacks did not have the right to hold office. He was able to return to office in 1871, but lost a bid for re-election in 1872 and eventually was imprisoned in a Georgia labor camp before fleeing the state.
