The Tolbert family is an American family which figured most prominently in politics in South Carolina and, by extension, Liberia.
Originating from Presbyterian Scots-Irish migrants from County Antrim in Ireland, the family is historically rooted in Abbeville, Newberry and Greenwood counties in South Carolina.
The family opposed secession, despite John Robert and his sons being drafted into the Confederate Army, and John Robert's family became heavily involved in leading the South Carolina Republican Party's Black-and-tan faction from the 1870s to the 1930s.
In addition, numerous African Americans were held on the White Hall plantation in prior to the white Tolbert family buying the property in the 1870s.
Many ex-slaves assumed the Tolbert surname.