Competition for Freedom: Black Labor During Reconstruction in Florida Christopher S

Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2005 Competition for Freedom: Black Labor during Reconstruction in Florida Christopher S. Day Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] The Florida State University College of Arts and Sciences Competition for Freedom: Black Labor during Reconstruction in Florida By Christopher S. Day A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded Spring Semester 2005 Copyright © 2005 Christopher S. Day All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Christopher S. Day, Defended November 17, 2004. ______________________________ Joe M. Richardson Professor Directing Thesis ______________________________ Maxine D. Jones Committee Member ______________________________ Peter Garretson Committee Member Approved: ______________________________________ Neil T. Jumonville, Chair, Department of History The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My work on this project would have never been completed without the help of a few special people. First, I would like to thank Dr. Joe M. Richardson for his time, patience, and knowledge in guiding me through this learning process. I would also like to thank Dr. Maxine D. Jones for her support and willingness to let me come into her office and ramble about nothing, Dr. Peter Garretson for reminding me that history does not stop at the borders of the United States, and Dr. Canter Brown, Jr. for his assistance with my work at the Florida State Archives, even though he did not know who I was outside of being a student of history. Last, but not least I wish to thank my wife Zainab, the light of my life, and my family for never allowing me to waver in my commitment to academia. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….. v INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………. 1 1. POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT…………………………………………...... 10 2. VIOLENCE DURING RECONSTRUCTION…………………………………. 27 3. LAND AND LABOR…………………………………………………………... 45 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………….. 63 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………….. 67 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH………………………………………………………. 75 iv ABSTRACT In American History Reconstruction was a period of great change. The abolition of slavery forced the South to create a free labor system. How did this new focus affect African-Americans? Were they to become equal participants in a free labor society or once again a subordinate labor class? Historians have argued about the ambiguities of racial oppression. Many concluded that the main fear was social equality; whites refused to accept blacks as anything other than second class. This was not entirely incorrect, but what else was at stake? If blacks were denied opportunities to advance in society what was left for them? By being denied certain avenues African-Americans were forced into a position of subservient labor for white employers. During the years of Presidential Reconstruction, 1865 – 1867, black suffrage was vigorously opposed by a majority of Southern whites. Even with the passage of the fifteenth amendment whites used intimidation to curb black voting. Lack of capital and fear of retribution also made it difficult to buy land and become economically independent. These issues along with social segregation created a second class black community that had few alternatives, but to work for whites as they had done in the past. This indeed is not the complete answer to the race relations question, but it does show that denial of rights, whether by law or violence, and lack of economic independence can create an environment that will promote a subordinate labor class. v INTRODUCTION The institution of slavery has dominated the landscape of racial history in America since the early nineteenth century. Race relations were based on the rules created by the institution of slavery. Whites were the dominant class and Africans were the subordinate group. This definition has been adequate for most of the years of black- white coexistence, but it does not explain the complete nature of race relations. The dynamics of the relationship changed in the nineteenth century with the creation of the abolitionist movement that sprang from a religious awakening in the nation. In the north a few people began to see slavery as an immoral institution that should be eliminated. The abolitionists were not acting upon an egalitarian motive, but a morality issue. Most abolitionists did not view blacks as equal to whites. The proposed end of slavery created new questions for the abolitionists and one of them was where the freed slaves were supposed to live. The colonizationists believed it would be best for both groups if the former slaves were removed from the United States. They believed that blacks could never remove the stigma of slavery and therefore could never receive a fair chance to function in white society. Others felt that blacks could, in time, break away from the slave characterization. It was clear in this debate that neither group was sure how the former slaves would fit into society. Before the thirteenth amendment race relations were based on slavery and after its ratification they had to be rebuilt and for many the old code still applied.1 The acquisition of new territory as a result of the Mexican American war brought the question of slavery to the forefront of American political thought. Historian George Fredrickson argued that the abolitionist movement and the debate over slavery created the indivisible link between being black and being a slave.2 The link was not created during the abolitionist debate, it was reinforced. In reality the connection was made soon after the first African slaves were shipped to the New World. From that time on the majority 1 George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817 – 1914 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishing, 1971), 16 – 41. 2 Ibid. 1 of slaves seen by the European inhabitants were African.3 By the 1850’s the line between being black and a being a slave had been blurred beyond the point of discernment. The firing on Fort Sumter in 1861 was the final result over the question of slavery. It had become clear during the 1850’s that the question would not be resolved in the halls of Congress. The Civil War did not begin as a war of liberation. Lincoln characterized the war as warranted to maintain the Union. The idea of a war of liberation was discounted because of the role the Border States played. These states were still staunch supporters of slavery and could side with the secessionist states at any time. Lincoln understood that if the Border States believed that the war was for emancipation rather than the maintenance of the Union they would side with the other slave states. This would have proven to be fatal to the Union, because if the Border States sided with the Confederacy it would allow Confederate troops to have access deep into Union territory.4 This was evident early in the war when slaves left the plantations near Union camps. If the Confederates States did not constitute a new country then the fugitive slave act was still enforceable and those slaves that had fled to Union camps had to be returned to their owner under the provisions of that act. If the slaves were freed then the war became one of liberation. In order to avoid this problem and keep the Border States on the side of the Union the runaway slaves were branded contraband. This allowed slaves to remain in Union camps because their owners had used them in such a way as to promote a cause against the sovereignty of the federal government.5 The Union commanders used the human contraband as labor in the camps. The status of the contrabands in Union occupied areas changed in 1863 with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The defeat of Confederate troops, in 1862, in Perryville, Kentucky and Antietam, Virginia, as part of a two front assault by the Confederacy cleared the way for the proclamation. The balance of the war shifted in the Union’s favor and the need to keep the Border States in the Union was not 3 Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968). 4 James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), 503. 5 George Bentley, A History of the Freedmen’s Bureau (Oxford: Oxford Press, 1955), 2 – 3. 2 as important. The proclamation did not liberate all the slaves until the end of the war and that freedom was codified with the ratification of the thirteenth amendment.6 The war ended slavery but where did the freedmen fit in? They were no longer contraband or slaves, but they were still African. The link between the slave and the new freedmen was not severed by the war or the thirteenth amendment. Most white Americans still believed blacks were inferior which created a varying state of race relations during Reconstruction. The former slaves and Southern whites were placed in a world that did not previously exist. Northern philanthropists and Freedmen’s Bureau agents tried to reconcile the antebellum views with the new free labor system, but it was not always successful. Whites wanted to create a free labor system within the old frame work of slave norms in order to retain control of cheap black labor. In a ledger labeled Political Record former member of the Florida Confederate Congress T.W. Brevard wrote about how the South had to cope with the world after the war. He believed that the South had renewed its allegiance with the federal government under President Andrew Johnson’s plan of Reconstruction and that the past should be forgotten for the future.

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