Captain William Royal was a local official in southeast Georgia from the mid-1860s to mid-1880s. He kept a journal and account book in which he detailed his work with the African-American and white communities in the immediate aftermath of the US Civil War. He writes about attending a meeting for the establishment of a school for African-American children, and attending other meetings of local African-Americans. He also traveled around the region, especially to Blackshear in Pierce County, Georgia, but also to Waresboro, Coffee County, and Savannah, among other locations, to hear complaints regarding illegal bondage of African Americans following the war, and other matters.