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Emancipation in Comparative Perspective

Martin Ruef

in Between Slavery and Capitalism: The Legacy of Emancipation in the American South

This concluding chapter summarizes the evidence gathered for the postbellum South and compares it with other postemancipation projects in the Americas. The common pattern of gradual emancipation seen ... More

This concluding chapter summarizes the evidence gathered for the postbellum South and compares it with other postemancipation projects in the Americas. The common pattern of gradual emancipation seen in former colonial possessions in the Caribbean and South America has considerable similarity with early efforts to manage uncertainty in the era of Radical Reconstruction. As in the case of the American South, those postemancipation projects soon fell victim to competing claims and mobilization among landowners, workers, and other parties, leading to profound and durable uncertainty in the economies of former slave societies. Even in the twenty-first century, some of this durable uncertainty remains as the United States struggle with the legacies of slavery and emancipation.Less

Institutional Transformation and Uncertainty

Martin Ruef

in Between Slavery and Capitalism: The Legacy of Emancipation in the American South

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the institutional transformation of the American South after the U.S. Civil War. Although the emancipation of former slaves and political upheavals ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the institutional transformation of the American South after the U.S. Civil War. Although the emancipation of former slaves and political upheavals of Radical Reconstruction are perhaps the most evident features of this institutional transformation, it touched upon almost every aspect of Southern society, ranging from urban life to class structure to the organizations that populated the region's agriculture and industry. The New South that resulted after Radical Reconstruction evidenced a more capitalist and market-driven society than its antebellum counterpart. Enduring uncertainty was a defining feature of this transition between precapitalist and capitalist institutions. The chapter then formulates a general theory regarding the evolution of uncertainty over the course of institutional transformation, and discusses the specific transitions toward capitalism that occurred in the economy of the U.S. South during the postbellum era.Less

Land and Labor, 1866–1867

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

This section of the book looks at the prospects for the South after the winter of 1885–1886, a time which presented a broad field of possibilities in the slave states. For former slaves and their ... More

This section of the book looks at the prospects for the South after the winter of 1885–1886, a time which presented a broad field of possibilities in the slave states. For former slaves and their former owners, free labor remained unfamiliar ground. Brief though it was, the postwar debut of free labor had left a legacy of issues that would remain contested for the remainder of Presidential Reconstruction and beyond. Freepeople and their employers clashed. Former slaves complained about their treatment. The employers countered that the freedpeople worked poorly, resisted supervision, and behaved impudently. This was a period of much struggle.Less

Possession and Dispossession

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

This chapter considers issues relating to possessions at the end of the Civil War. After the Civil War, former slaves and Northerners both expected some redistribution of the defeated rebels ... More

This chapter considers issues relating to possessions at the end of the Civil War. After the Civil War, former slaves and Northerners both expected some redistribution of the defeated rebels property. By the end of 1865, however, the amnesty and pardon policies of President Andrew Johnson had fatally undermined such possibilities. Restoration of property to former Confederates, not its conveyance to former slaves, became the order of the day. The policy may have been settled, but its execution remained problematic wherever federal authorities had established ex-slaves on abandoned or confiscated property.Less

Pathways to Freedom: Manumission and Flight

in The Hierarchies of Slavery in Santos, Brazil, 1822-1888

This chapter examines manumission and flight, the two main paths to freedom of slaves in Santos, Brazil. It explains that manumission letters were freely given and that the former slaves usually had ... More

This chapter examines manumission and flight, the two main paths to freedom of slaves in Santos, Brazil. It explains that manumission letters were freely given and that the former slaves usually had almost the same political rights as any other Brazilian citizen, but usually had very little economic leverage. The chapter discusses the dangers risked by those who considered flight because of the absence of the manumission option, and also provides statistics on the profile of slave runaways from 1851–1872, and on the profiles of slaveholders who manumitted slaves from 1800–1871.Less

In Search of Landed Independence

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

The last chapter of this book looks at the wider picture of how former slaves and freedpeoples just wanted freedom and to determine for the first time how they lived and worked. The way they saw to ... More

The last chapter of this book looks at the wider picture of how former slaves and freedpeoples just wanted freedom and to determine for the first time how they lived and worked. The way they saw to achieve this was to gain access to land. Possessing land could enable them to separate themselves from former owners and avoid dependence on wages and hours of work. Control of land could offer a sense of permanence and a stake in the future. Freedpeople's desire for land was both deeply rooted and a response to new conditions. Those freedpeople who were able to gain access to land faced major challenges.Less

Labor on Plantation and Farm

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

This chapter looks at the types of employment former slaves occupied. With few economic resources available to them, the majority of former slaves in the rural South could only really gain an income ... More

This chapter looks at the types of employment former slaves occupied. With few economic resources available to them, the majority of former slaves in the rural South could only really gain an income working on a plantation or farm. They did, however, enjoy the right to be choosey about which employer to work for. Freedpeople seeking to enlarge their freedom confronted former slaveholders bent on constraining it as narrowly as possible. Employers sought to squeeze all they could from the former slaves they employed.Less

Labor and Family Life

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

This chapter describes the effects of emancipation on family life for former slaves. The chance to reunite with spouses, children, and other family members was one of the most well-received ... More

This chapter describes the effects of emancipation on family life for former slaves. The chance to reunite with spouses, children, and other family members was one of the most well-received consequences of emancipation. The understanding of freedpeope of family took expansive forms and intersected with their work relations in numerous ways. In slavery, they had built up relations of extended kinship that defined families within and across plantation boundaries. In freedom, they drew upon family close-by and far-flung in their efforts to secure a livelihood. Most fundamentally, kinship provided the basis for organizing the households that would be essential to freedpeople's livelihoods.Less

[Page 81] . Inland Slave States: Including Tennessee, Arkansas, and the Mississippi River

William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison

in Slave Songs of the United States

This part is the third of four parts that collects together songs sung by former slaves gathered during and after the Civil War. The division into parts is not strictly geographical. The greater part ... More

This part is the third of four parts that collects together songs sung by former slaves gathered during and after the Civil War. The division into parts is not strictly geographical. The greater part of the music presented here has been taken down by the editors from the lips of the singers themselves.Less

A Constitutional Convention

Hannah Rosen

in Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South

This chapter focuses on the momentous task put upon the shoulders of the delegates to Arkansas's constitutional convention who met in Little Rock in January 1868. They were to design a new state ... More

This chapter focuses on the momentous task put upon the shoulders of the delegates to Arkansas's constitutional convention who met in Little Rock in January 1868. They were to design a new state constitution establishing for the first time in Arkansas a democracy without regard to race and thereby incorporating former slaves into the political community as equal citizens. This would be Arkansas's first postemancipation constitution, and it had to meet the requirements of the federal Reconstruction Acts. Above all, it had to establish universal male suffrage and thus extend previously denied voting rights to African American men. On the eighteenth day of the gathering, however, John Bradley, a white southern delegate representing white-majority Bradley County, took the floor and argued that the revolutionary potential of Reconstruction—which he intended to resist—lay elsewhere.Less

Commerce, Credit, and Debt

René Hayden

in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867

This chapter examines the area of finance and how emancipation influenced this side of the new life of freedom for former slaves. Credit was fundamental to the new free-labor economy of the South ... More

This chapter examines the area of finance and how emancipation influenced this side of the new life of freedom for former slaves. Credit was fundamental to the new free-labor economy of the South after the Civil War. Relations of borrowing and lending were crucial to all inhabitants. Credit relations linked Southerners of all types to the world economy. However, most borrowing and lending was enmeshed in local relationships. With emancipation, former slaves emerged as economic actors in their own right, assuming new, more prominent places in networks of credit and debt. Questions of credit and debt assumed signal importance in relationships between employers and laborers.Less

[Page xlv] Slave Songs of the United States.

William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison

in Slave Songs of the United States

This part is the first of four parts that collects together songs sung by former slaves gathered during and after the Civil War. The division into parts is not strictly geographical. The greater part ... More

This part is the first of four parts that collects together songs sung by former slaves gathered during and after the Civil War. The division into parts is not strictly geographical. The greater part of the music presented here has been taken down by the editors from the lips of the singers themselves.Less

[Page 63] . Northern Seaboard Slave States: Including Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison

in Slave Songs of the United States

This part is the second of our parts that collects together songs sung by former slaves gathered during and after the Civil War. The division into parts is not strictly geographical. The greater part ... More

This part is the second of our parts that collects together songs sung by former slaves gathered during and after the Civil War. The division into parts is not strictly geographical. The greater part of the music presented here has been taken down by the editors from the lips of the singers themselves.Less

A Riot and Massacre

Hannah Rosen

in Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South

This chapter describes the assault on a former slave named Frances Thompson and another African American woman, Lucy Smith, with whom she shared a house. This was one of hundreds of incidents of ... More

This chapter describes the assault on a former slave named Frances Thompson and another African American woman, Lucy Smith, with whom she shared a house. This was one of hundreds of incidents of collective violence against recently emancipated slaves that together became known as the Memphis Riot. The attacks commenced in the late afternoon of May 1, 1866, and persisted for three days. They took place primarily in the neighborhood of South Memphis, and the assailants were mostly city policemen and the owners of small businesses such as grocery-saloons. Many of the attackers lived in South Memphis along with their victims. The violence was the culmination of escalating tensions between a growing freed community and white Memphians, and between African American Union soldiers stationed at the federal army's Fort Pickering in South Memphis and white city police officers.Less

Issues of “Civilized” Warfare

Richard M. Reid

in Freedom for Themselves: North Carolina's Black Soldiers in the Civil War Era

This chapter describes how Col. Alonzo G. Draper's command faced hard fighting like Col. James Beecher's regiment. In a number of important ways, however, the experiences of Draper's command differed ... More

This chapter describes how Col. Alonzo G. Draper's command faced hard fighting like Col. James Beecher's regiment. In a number of important ways, however, the experiences of Draper's command differed from those of the unit sent to South Carolina and Florida. Early in their service and in a reversal of traditional Southern authority, Draper's troops—most of them former slaves—would find themselves at Point Lookout Prison Camp in Maryland, guarding Confederate prisoners of war, many of whom were or had been slaveholders. Later these soldiers would participate in raids intended to stamp out guerrilla activity in northeastern North Carolina. Since many of the men had families and friends in the area who were especially vulnerable to attack by the guerrillas, they responded eagerly to the chance to liberate loved ones.Less

Conclusion: The Deck or the Sea?

Simon Topping

in Lincoln's Lost Legacy: Republican Party and the African American Vote, 1928–1952

Legend has it that the GOP was formed to abolish African American slavery, fought the Civil War to achieve this end, and then protected the newly enfranchised former slaves in its aftermath. This was ... More

Legend has it that the GOP was formed to abolish African American slavery, fought the Civil War to achieve this end, and then protected the newly enfranchised former slaves in its aftermath. This was a powerful legend to African Americans during the days of the Redemption in the South, and many of them took it with them when they moved north during the twentieth century. Of the most important steps made by the Republicans toward the welfare of the blacks, it was the amendment of the Constitution, which made African Americans citizens of the US, and the awarding of suffrage that were counted as the most significant. This chapter concludes that while these changes and amendments were Republican efforts, at the end of the Civil War the Republicans' enthusiasm for the African Americans and their rights progressed slowly if not came to a halt. During the Reconstruction period, certain traits that would be later become synonymous with the party begun to emerge. The party became predominantly pro-business and anti-government. The Republican Party, which was largely concerned with enriching America and regaining the former glory of the country in the aftermath of the Great Depression, began to forget African Americans and failed to react to the increasing sophistication of the black voters. As late as the 1930s, many Republicans still believed that African Americans owed them allegiance as it was they who freed the blacks. However, the impeding change of black allegiance cannot be further controlled or withheld. The loyalty of the African Americans bequeathed by Lincoln to the Republican Party between the 1920s and 1950s was lost, not to be found or regained again unless the conservatism, ignorance, and lack of political judgment within the Republican Party were abolished.Less

negotiating Boundaries of Race and Gender in Jim Crow Mississippi: The Women of the Knight Family

Victoria E. Bynum

in The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies

This chapter focuses on the Knight family of the Jones County region of Mississippi, who had long confounded notions about race in the United States. Descended from white Southerners, former slaves, ... More

This chapter focuses on the Knight family of the Jones County region of Mississippi, who had long confounded notions about race in the United States. Descended from white Southerners, former slaves, and Native Americans, they did not fit into the discrete categories of racial identity demanded by Jim Crow laws in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Furthermore, many of the family members refused to abide by the South's “one drop” rule, which demanded that white persons with any degree of African ancestry identify themselves as black. The lives of the multiracial Knight women reveal various strategies by which conventions of gender, class, and marriage might be manipulated to escape the worst effects of racial discrimination.Less