African-American History the Reconstruction Era

African-American History

The Reconstruction Era after the Civil War is one of the most divisive periods in American history. Healing the wounds between the victorious North and the conquered South caused rifts from the smallest farm all the way to Congress and the Presidency. Had the results of the Reconstruction Era brought about a fair and productive division of land in the South following the Civil War, it may have had long-lasting and far-reaching effects. Giving newly freed citizens a share of the spoils of war might have given them a greater chance at an equal footing in society and could have headed off years of racial and economic oppression. Such a division did not occur on any meaningful level because of the lingering resentment of southern farmers, the inability of northerners to force their policies on the southerners, and the belief that formerly enslaved people would not be able to manage and run their own farms anyway.

The unfortunate and untimely death of President Lincoln just as the war ended altered history. Lincoln may have been able to more gracefully unite North and South than his successors were able to do. He began planning for reunification before the war even ended. His belief in the evils of slavery may have led him to divide up southern land and give it to newly freed people as a way to amend the wrongs that had been done to them. He also felt a noble purpose that extended beyond the end of the war. In his famous Gettysburg Address, he said, "It is...for us the living...to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced" and "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom" (Current, 1967, p.285). Lincoln may very well have succeeded in healing the wounds of the nation better than his successor President Johnson. Plagued by arguments over how to clean up the mess from the Civil War, Johnson even faced impeachment from a divided and divisive Congress.

If a postwar leader had managed to prevail upon the southern states by using federal power in order to divide up land and make redress to formerly enslaved people, what might have happened to the course of American history? The financial empowerment and social equity that might have been enjoyed by the former slaves may have prevented a hundred year battle to gain civil rights. Jim Crow laws, segregation, racism, and economic inequality may have never existed or may have existed with less pervasiveness. The economy of the south would have been quicker to heal if newly freed slaves began working the land for themselves with the zeal of a landowner. The promises of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments would have had more meaning and power in a land where free people of either color were working side by side with a measure of financial and social equality.

Why didn't the positive step of redistributing the land occur? The upheaval of the southern economy and infrastructure coupled with the fact that leadership was scarce is one plausible explanation. Another explanation is that even Northerners did not believe the newly freed slaves were equipped for such a change. They believed that "the blacks had come from a high culture in Africa but had been forcibly deprived of their arts and crafts...they were not fitted for a world where material plenty depended on a mastery of figures, contracts, and...directions because most were illiterate. Left to themselves they would be the prey of sharpers and exploiters. Left to their old masters -- it was believed in the North -- they would soon be tricked into a slavery under some other name" (Smelser & Gundersen,1978, p.125). Disorganization, failed leadership, and a sad lack of faith in the newly freed slaves prevented the nation from finding out what might have happened had Reconstruction unfolded differently.

5) The Civil War is largely known for being a war over the issue of slavery. However, the causes behind the war are more complicated than a moral dispute over the issue of enslavement. The Northern position was, of course, that enslaving other human beings was wrong on moral and ethical grounds and that the practice should be stopped. The Southern states were dependent upon the forced labor of the enslaved Africans in order to sustain the system of agriculture and the backbone of their economy. They, of course, did not take the Northern view of the morality of a profitable practice. The disagreement of both sides over slavery was only part of the equation, though. The issue of states' rights, the admission of slave and free states to the union, and the sense of inevitability of conflict all fueled the eventual secession of the Southern states and caused the first shots of the war to be fired in a war that would eventually end slavery.

The slavery question had long been a topic of dissension between North and South. "From the time of the First Congress, petitions to abolish slavery or ameliorate it were submitted. In the earliest instances they met with forceful opposition only from the representatives of South Carolina and Georgia. The thoughtful eighteenth-century southern leader generally regarded slavery as an evil, but a dying one, which might safely be left to wither in silence" (Smelser & Gundersen,1978, p.95). Clearly, neither side pursued a showdown over the issue, but still "the Congress and state legislatures found the slavery question a perennial source of vexation" (Smelser & Gundersen, 1978, p. 95). The House of Representatives received many petitions from abolitionists who wanted the Congress to end slavery, but the House chose to table all such petitions from 1837-1844. Such a reluctance to deal with the question of slavery may be partially explained by the words of Henry Clay in which he explains that he "did not think the Congress could overthrow slavery in any place where it already existed" (Smelser & Gundersen, 1978, p. 96). Continuing discussions over the issue, challenges such as the fugitive slave problem, and the admission of slave or free states to the union continued to keep the question of slavery in the forefront of national politics.

The election of President Lincoln in the fall of 1860 was the spark that set off the secession of the southern states. Lincoln was clearly no friend to slavery and believed that it was a moral evil. Despite this belief, though, he did not see a clear mandate to fight a civil war over slavery alone. Lincoln continued to insist that the Civil War was a war to preserve the Union. In a famous letter to Horace Greeley, Lincoln explained his position regarding slavery and his goals. He says, "I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution...If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it...What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union..." (Current, 1967, p. 215). As the war continued, though, Lincoln's rhetoric began to shift away from speaking of the Civil War as a war to restore the union and toward a moral argument regarding the freedom of enslaved people. The timing of his January 1, 1863, Emancipation Proclamation indicates the shift of his war ideology. The two issues of preserving the union and addressing slavery had already been linked for years, and it became clear that they both had to be solved with decisive military victory.

4) Although African slaves who were brought to the United States represented many different nations in their native land, the newly enslaved people developed a common culture out of the hardness of slavery. The common culture developed by slaves in the antebellum South included religion, family, folk tales, songs, and a common belief and hope that someday they or their children might be free. "Antebellum black slaves created several unique cultural forms which lightened their burden of oppression, promoted group solidarity, provided ways for verbalizing aggression, sustaining hope, building self-esteem, and often represented areas of life largely free from the control of whites" (Blassingame, 1972, p.105).

Religion was a very important part of the common culture that developed among the enslaved people. The hope for a better life either in the future or after death spurred the faith with which the people turned to religion. "The slave found some hope of escape from the brutalities of his daily life in conventional religion" and placed great faith in the slave preachers on the plantations (Blassingame, 1972, p.130). Although their white masters generally exposed them to Christianity, enslaved people adopted only parts of the white religion and mixed it with elements of their own beliefs.

Even though the family was not generally a legally sanctioned unit on plantations, the basic roles of mothers, fathers, and grandparents in rearing children did exist. Families could be severed and separated at the whim and desire of the slave owners, but families did often manage to stay together and develop tight bonds. "However frequently the family was broken, it was primarily responsible for the slave's ability to survive on the plantation without becoming totally dependent on and submissive to his master. The important thing was not that the family was not recognized legally or that masters frequently encouraged monogamous mating arrangements in the quarters only when it was convenient to do so, but rather that some form of family life did exist among slaves" (Blassingame, 1972, p.151).

Folktales and songs were also an important part of the culture that enslaved Africans developed. "Like other African peoples, the slaves used proverbs to teach the young and as commentaries on life. The African element appears in about 30 per cent of the slave proverbs" (Blassingame, 1972, p.114). The songs and tales were a way for the elders of the culture to pass on their wisdom and experience to the younger people and to forge ties between people and generations.

The development of a common culture was important to the enslaved Africans from many nations because the unity it fostered helped them to survive physically and emotionally. Because they were an oppressed group, the development of their culture was especially important. It is ironic that their experience mirrors the majority of the white population of the United States. A common culture was formed out of the belief that they were being oppressed by European nations, religions, and governments. Many different cultures became the "melting pot" that is so famous a part of American assimilation. The national motto, e pluribus unum, means "out of many, one." Interestingly, out of many African nations, the enslaved people of the south created one slave culture. Although many other cultures have melted into the pot of current American society, the black and white races still possess largely different cultures and have not unified. Perhaps the beginnings in enslavement are too much to overcome.

2) Slave resistance took many forms including forces inside and outside of slavery. The outside force of resistance came in the form of Northern abolitionists and writers who made fiery appeals to end the institution of slavery that they found so objectionable on moral and philosophical grounds. Inside forces of slavery came from the slaves themselves in the form of passive and active resistance. Passive resistance appeared in songs and stories that the enslaved people used to mentally resist the dehumanizing force of slavery. Active resistance was embodied by slaves who chose to runaway or help others to escape, and also by bold people like Nat Turner who led violent rebellions in order to punish the white perpetrators of slavery.

The Northern abolitionists felt they had morality on their side. Writers like William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe stirred public sentiment against the institution of slavery by reminding people of the brutal and dehumanizing effect on both the enslaver and the enslaved. "The opponents of slavery charged that it was a tyrannical institution, the existence of which frustrated the American dream as manifested in the Declaration of Independence, with its flaming words on human equality" (Smelser & Gundersen, 1978, p.94). Frederick Douglas himself used the same argument in his famous Narrative of the Life of a Slave in which he delineated his treatment as a slave, the inhuman behavior of some of his enslavers, and his eventual path to freedom. The abolitionists, obviously, found a much broader audience in the North than in the South, and their cause gained ground slowly in the years preceding the Civil War. Clandestine organizations such as the Underground Railroad helped channel fugitives to free areas and were a way for Northerners to act concretely to help the enslaved.

Among the enslaved people, emotional resistance appeared in the form of songs and folk tales that used undercover terms and metaphors to express their dissatisfaction with enslavement and their yearning for freedom. "Relying heavily on circumlocution, metaphor, and innuendo, the slaves often referred to fear, infidelity, love, hard times, work, slave coffles, conjuration, food, drinking, sex, and freedom in their songs. When away from whites, however, the slaves frequently dropped the metaphors. Freedom was a major motif in party songs" (Blassingame, 1972, pp.121-122). Often changed when the ears of white people were around, these songs and stories also mocked the white owners and suggested means of reprieve or escape.

After a particularly unpleasant whipping or episode of mistreatment, many slaves made a bold attempt to run away from their plantation. Such episodes often ended in being tracked down and returned to an owner for punishment and continual enslavement. On rarer occasions, fugitives were able to escape dogs and prying white men in order to make it to a free place.

It is not surprising that the misery and violence of enslavement should lead to violence. Slave rebellions and revolts did occur and get large amounts of attention. Nat Turner's famous raid of 1831 that terrorized whites as his band of nearly 60 rebels killed nearly the same number of whites is an example of such active resistance (Blassingame, 1972, pp.217-221). Although he was captured and executed in prison, his intelligence and zeal was an inspiration to others and a sign that such a system could not long endure.

3) The period of the American Revolutionary War saw the United States exert its independence from the oppressive British regime of King George III. Such a rebellion was caused by financial reasons such as taxation and the general use of the colonies for their raw goods. The colonies also felt put upon by the lack of representation in government, and so they chose to leave and create their own country where freedom was the rule of thumb. This leave-taking included all kinds of words about liberty and freedom. The Declaration of Independence also included the bold words "all men are created equal" and have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Given the emotional and philosophical climate of this time period, it follows that the question of slavery and enslavement should be widely disputed. If the new nation was to be a sanctuary for freedom, why did such a condition of freedom exclude the slaves who were being held widely in the South?