Hannibal Caesar Carter, Mississippi’s second African American Secretary of State, was born on February 11, 1835, in New Albany, Indiana. Carter attended a public school in New Albany despite having spent his early childhood in Toronto, Canada. Carter began his career as a barber and later as a tobacconist when he was old enough to work.
Despite restrictions on African American movement, Carter was one of the first African Americans to volunteer to serve in a combat unit during the American Civil War. He joined the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, an all-black regiment formed just before the Civil War in New Orleans. It is unknown why he joined the Guard. Its stated purpose was originally to protect the interests of New Orleans residents.
When Fort Sumter fell on April 12, 1861, and the Civil War began, the 1st Louisiana Native Guard joined the Army of the Confederate States of America (CSA). Carter rose to the rank of captain after the war began, making him one of the Confederate Army’s few black officers.
Union forces had taken control of New Orleans and southern Louisiana by early 1862, and on September 27 of that year, Union General Benjamin Butler accepted many members of the 1st Louisiana Native Guard into the Union Army. The Corps d’Afrique 1st Louisiana Native Guard was born. Carter continued to serve and may have taken part in the Battle of Port Hudson on May 27, 1863, where the Corps d’Afrique helped the United States regain control of the Mississippi River.
Carter, like many former Corps d’Afrique officers, became a Republican Party leader after the Civil War ended. From 1872 to 1873, he was a Republican in the Mississippi House of Representatives, representing Warren County. He later returned to the legislature, representing Warren County from 1876 to 1877. Carter was appointed Secretary of State on September 1, 1873, and served until October 20, 1873, after Hiram R. Revels resigned as the first African American to serve in the United States Senate. He was appointed Secretary of State for the second time on November 13, 1873, and served from January 4, 1874. Carter later changed his political party affiliation to Democrat.
Carter moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1881, after Reconstruction ended and he no longer had the opportunity to serve in office, and stayed for the next twenty years. In the late 1880s, he was a founding member of the Freedmen’s Oklahoma Immigration Association, which encouraged Southern African Americans to relocate to Oklahoma Territory. Hannibal Caesar Carter died on June 1, 1904, at the age of 69, at his home in Chicago.