‘Instructor’s Name’
Reconstruction
The ‘Reconstruction’ era denotes the period between the years 1865 and 1877 in the American history, which marked the end of the civil war and the commencement of the process of slavery abolition. Four presidents, Lincoln, Johnson Grant and Hayes, oversaw this period and it came to an end while Jim Crow was in the office. Close to four million African Americans were released from slavery and their rehabilitation and granting them rights, and planning how to accommodate the Southern states in the congress, were the crucial agenda of the politicians of this period. The reconstruction era also posed a number of serious questions to the nation, the important ones being
- Who is an American citizen and what rights does he enjoy?
- What are the terms of unification?
- How will the former confederate states be treated and when will they regain their citizenship?
- Are the freedmen American citizens, and if so, will they enjoy all the rights granted to the white men?
- If slavery is abolished, then what is the type of economy that replaces it?
The four million odd slaves of America, who were freed from their four centuries old bondage, were at the centre of all these questions posed above. Thus, the role of blacks in the reconstruction era was an important one and a deeper study of their role will help us understand this era much better.
For the African Americans, the journey from being slaves to being freedmen, started from their participation in the civil war. The blacks had a very big role in their emancipation, as they toiled behind the scenes for the union army and some of them fought battles in the battlefronts. As the war intensified, the Southern owners forced the blacks to work in plantations further inland, to prevent them from fleeing to join the Union army. Though initially, the Northerners tried to keep the slavery issue out of the civil war, as the battle progressed they started to recruit more and more slaves to strengthen their cause. The Militia act of 1862, and other such acts encouraged enlistment of blacks, and also ensured that the rebel slave owners were punished. Also the enlisted slaves, after completing their military service, returned to their families and friends and tried to make them follow their example. The Southern plantations were in lack of ample supervision, as they were looked after by women, old and disabled, as the men were fighting for the confederate army. Thus, there was a severe breakdown in slave discipline, and more and more blacks started to take possession of the lands of the slave owners.
The emancipation proclamation made by President Lincoln in the year 1863, officially freed all the blacks from their slavery bonds. But since this proclamation freed only the slaves of the rebel states, it actually did not grant any of the slaves their freedom in reality. But it did give the blacks a cause to fight for. Till then they were fighting for the cause of the Union, or in other words the white man’s cause. But now they were fighting to free their family and friends from oppression. As a result of this proclamation many slaves fled to join the Northern army, and at the end of the war almost 5, 00,000 blacks had been enlisted in the Union army. What this also did was to discourage England and France from entering the war alongside the South. The South was supplying raw materials like cotton and tobacco to these countries, and they did have good relationships with the confederate states. But since these nations were opposed to slavery they did not enter into the war, as now slavery has become an agenda in the civil war. The fifty-fourth regiment of the Northern army was an all black unit, and had representatives from all the states of the country. Black leaders such as William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass participated in enlisting soldiers for this unit, and within a month almost 1,000 African American soldiers were recruited for this unit alone.
Though some southern blacks wanted to fight for the confederate’s cause, most blacks, chose to side with the Northern army when they marched through the Southern states. These blacks where termed as ‘contrabands’, and they posed a unique problem to the Northern army. They did not know what to do with these fugitives, whether to give them guns or assign them to work on the plantations. But the Union army realized that these blacks knew the Southern terrain much better than the Northern soldiers, and so they organized the contrabands into small units and trained them to act as guides, soldiers or spies. Thus, the blacks had a huge hand to play in their own liberation through their services in the warfront, and other labor tasks they offered to the Northern army.
During the year 1865 the 13th Amendment of the constitution outlawed involuntary servitude, and further ratification of the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments meant that all blacks were granted citizenship. The South economy, which was flourishing before the war, incurred huge costs due to the expenses of war, and the emancipation of the slaves, further put the situation in jeopardy. The White farm owners, who had invested a lot on slaves, were left with little money to pay wages for workers. Thus they started to rent their farmland to the freedmen community, and the South was gradually transferred from being a state of prosperous slaveholders, into a tenant-farming mixed racial community.
The first major phenomenon witnessed in the freemen community, is the marriages of hundreds of African Americans, which took place immediately after their emancipation. Before reconstruction era slaves were prohibited from entering into legal marital ties, and after emancipation the freedmen bureau conducted many marriages between young men and women, and also legalized/registered slave unions which had happened informally before this period. After the war many blacks tried to locate their lost families and friends, who were sold to slave owners far from their places. The construction of separate churches for black community was another achievement, which happened during the reconstruction period. Before this period the blacks worshipped in biracial churches, which were controlled by white clergy, and they were made to sit in the back rows separate from the Whites. Many other infrastructural developments were undertaken by the African American community for uplifting their people. They built schools (education was denied to blacks under slavery), and agricultural institutes. A band called Jubilee singers, which had seven members who were born as slaves, became famous during the reconstruction era and they popularized traditional African songs. Many blacks also actively took part in politics.
Obviously, the treatment of blacks as equal citizens did not go well with Southern Whites. The black workers formed the basis of the South economy, and with them freed, the economy was ruined and it frustrated the former confederate members. Thus there were two main participants in the Southern governments during the reconstruction era –
- Carpetbaggers – Northerners who moved to South (also known as Yankees)
- Scalawags – Whites who were Southerners but supported the cause of the reconstruction
These terminologies used by the Southerners clearly denote how they hated the racial integration policies. The conservatives of the South were clearly against the desegregation and the first two presidents of the reconstruction era, Lincoln and Johnson, had to introduce policies cautiously, keeping both the factions in mind. Lincoln in fact pocket vetoed a bill, in the year 1864, tabled by the radical republicans called the Wade–Davis Bill, which called for stricter norms to bring about the unification of the South with the Union. The radical republicans, on their part, blocked all the efforts by these two presidents and imposed some harsh laws. The freedmen (ex-slaves), Northerners and sympathetic Southerners all joined hands in introducing some swift changes in the South.
In 1865, the Southern state legislatures passed something called ‘black codes’. These were restrictive codes imposed on the African Americans and were aimed at curbing their new found freedom. Some of the restrictions imposed on African Americans include
- Restrictions to hold a meeting after sunset
- Restrictions to possess a fire arm
- Restrictions to indulge in trading
- Restrictions to hold religious congregation without prior notice
- Restrictions on where they could reside or rent a home
The essence of these codes was that, the freedmen will have more liberty than they had before the civil war, but they will still remain as second class citizens, with whites holding all the authority. With the enactment of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the Southern states were forced to grant equal rights to all, but the black codes gave a clear cut indication what the Southerners had in store for the blacks. Some Southerners also organized groups which involved in violent activities against the freedmen community. The Ku Klux Klan was one of the most notorious, white nationalist organizations formed during the reconstruction era. It was formed in the year 1865 and it consists of former confederate army soldiers. It was a covert vigilante organization that launched secret violent attacks on blacks, and also on the white republicans who supported equal rights for blacks. Their activities ranged from threats, attacks on houses and shops, to at times murder. The forces Act introduced in the year 1871, managed to suppress them, but clearly the Southern whites did everything possible to show the blacks their place and keep them there.
All the formal slavery abolition acts and the amendments to the constitution, done during the reconstruction era, legally acknowledged the rights of African Americans to live a life free of suppression. But it would be a long time before the average black got his liberty and equality of rights. It took decades of agitations and hard work, to decrease the poison of racism that was so engrained in the American society. By the end of the nineteenth century, despite huge leaps in the enactment of slavery abolition laws and political representation, the prejudice and inequity raging in the American society was yet to be conquered by the African Americans. As Foner says,
“Whether measured by the dreams inspired by emancipation or the more limited goals of securing blacks’ rights as citizens.Reconstruction can only be judged a failure”. (Foner, 2011)
References:
Beaver, Erin, Reily, Melissa and Snyer, Nell. Blacks in the Civil War. The Colarado College. ND. Web. October 10, 2013. <http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/HY/Hy243Ruiz/Research/civilwar.html>
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Print.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History. New York: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2012.
