African-American Freedom After Emancipation in the South

Introduction: The Illusion of Freedom

The end of slavery in the United States generated much controversy and led African Americans in the South to believe that they would finally be recognized as equals. However, white people in former Confederate states were unwilling to accept their defeat and were determined to reduce the effects that emancipation would have on Southern society. The Emancipation Proclamation gave people cause to believe that things would change significantly and that African Americans would no longer face discrimination. Even so, former slaves were confused about their status after the war, as white Southerners were reluctant to provide them with any assistance as they struggled to improve their lives.

People who had formerly been enslaved were uncertain about what they should do next and about what liberties were genuinely available to them. While some believed they had access to virtually every right that white people enjoyed, others recognized that it would be a long time before they were treated as equals. Southerners were dedicated to preserving the social order that slavery had created by every means possible and were not willing to abandon their position simply because the law had changed. Everyone in the United States acknowledged that slavery as they had known it was gone, "but that did not mean that those who had been its beneficiaries, and who had inaugurated and carried on the war to maintain the institution were convinced that either the holding of slaves, or the attempted secession in order to set up a new government with slavery as its social and industrial cornerstone was wrong" (Wilbur 148).

Freed slaves knew very little about their new legal status and could be easily exploited because it was difficult for them to integrate into society. The masses generally believed that conditions were different in the free South and that Black people were genuinely acknowledged as free persons entitled to do everything that white people could do. Although the American government promoted the belief that African Americans experienced a rapid and uncomplicated transition after emancipation, their advancement was actually impeded because the broader public expressed a general reluctance to support them (Hornsby).

White Southern Resistance to Emancipation

White people also struggled to understand the new position that Black people occupied in their society, because they had long associated the typical African American with "a distinct creature, lying somewhere between beast and man, as a creature to be hated or pitied or, most often, to be feared" (Hornsby). One of the principal reasons for their fear was that the Emancipation Proclamation left them numerically outnumbered in many areas, making it conceivable that freed slaves might rise against their former masters in retaliation (Torres).

Following their defeat, Confederate states were devastated — both physically and economically — by the war. White Southerners were further destabilized by the loss of enslaved labor on which their economy depended. Most individuals had few or no resources and were unable to pay African Americans for their work, forcing them to reconsider their options. In spite of the fact that the United States was founded on the principle that "all men are created equal," African Americans failed to benefit from that promise after emancipation. While the federal government extended certain rights intended to assist their progress, freed people were effectively pushed into lower-class positions and were routinely discriminated against in their interactions with white Southerners.

It was especially difficult for Southerners to accept Black people as equals after having treated them as property for several generations. The majority of individuals remained uninterested in respecting the new laws imposed by the government and continued to discriminate against Black people on the basis of their presumed inferiority.

Black Codes and Legal Discrimination

The authorities installed sharecropping arrangements and Black Codes with the purpose of maintaining control over freed African Americans. Dominant white Southerners used these mechanisms to discriminate against Black people through a series of absurd and punitive legislative provisions. African Americans accused of having committed a crime were forced to perform unpaid labor as punishment — a system designed to function as slavery by another name. "White southerners would find any excuse to place African Americans into the sharecropping system" (Torres). Black people were also persuaded to continue working under former masters in exchange for protection against white violence — protection that was itself a product of the threat posed by their emancipation.

Black Codes were among the most consequential laws obstructing African Americans from achieving genuine equality after emancipation. For example, Section 1 of the Louisiana Black Codes stated: "Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no Negro shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in writing from his employer. Whoever shall violate this provision shall pay a fine of two dollars and fifty cents, or in default thereof shall be forced to work four days on the public road, or suffer corporal punishment as provided hereafter" (Belmonte). These codes severely restricted African Americans as they sought to advance themselves and effectively compelled them to retain most of the conditions of their former bondage. Segregation was enforced on a wide scale across the South, as authorities enacted numerous laws preventing Black people from participating in activities freely available to white citizens.

Conclusion: Freedom in Name Only

In spite of the fact that most formerly enslaved African Americans wanted nothing to do with their former masters and simply wished to sustain themselves as free people, those who had previously been slave-owners took advantage of every opportunity to exploit Black people by denying them access to basic necessities. As a consequence, many African Americans were forced to satisfy the demands of their former masters simply in order to survive. The system that emerged in the post-Civil War South was one in which legal emancipation coexisted with economic bondage, social subjugation, and institutional neglect — a freedom that was, in practice, no freedom at all.

Works Cited

Berlin, Ira, et al. "The Terrain of Freedom: The Struggle over the Meaning of Free Labor in the U.S. South." History Workshop Journal 22 (1986).

Cary Royce, Edward. The Origins of Southern Sharecropping. Temple University Press, 1993.

Fast, Howard. Freedom Road. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995.

An Interdisciplinary Bibliography, 1865–1980, vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.

Lanza, Michael L. Agrarianism and Reconstruction Politics: The Southern Homestead Act. LSU Press, 1990.

Louisiana Black Code, 1865. Senate Executive Document No. 2, 39th Congress, 1st Session.

Torres, Arturo. "Jim Crow and the Re-enslavement of African Americans." Retrieved February 22, 2012, from the Sites@UCI website:

Wilbur, Henry W. President Lincoln's Attitude towards Slavery and Emancipation: With a Review of Events before and since the Civil War. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1970.