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THE FILSON CLUB HISTORY QUARTERLY VOL. 54 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, APRIL, 1980 NO. 2 BLACK ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRANT LABOR IN THE SOUTH, 1865-1910 BY DAVID J. HELLWIG* Black jubilation at release from bondage clashed with the im- pact of slavery on them and on southern whites. The slave heritage, especially the dearth of education and capital, eroded the freed- men's capacity to secure the economic and social benefits of their new legal status. Whites, taught to perceive blacks as subordinates, were equally crippled by the past. They had little inclination to treat them as equals much less to transfer resources to the former bondsmen. Some sought to resurrect the traditional social struc- ture; others dreamed of a "new" South. Few wanted blacks to occupy positions of power in post-bellum society. One manifestation of white disdain for freedmen was the con- viction that the South could not rely on their labor. Various as- sumptions and fears supported the notion and accounted for its persistence in the half-century following the Civil War. Some whites used the Negro as a scapegoat to explain defeat and were eager to be rid of them. Those not touched by vindictiveness were often positive that ex-slaves lacked the self-discipline and initiative to function in a free labor system. Some contended that a low birth rate meant there would eventually be insufficient black labor. The reputation of the free Negro as a drifter, enforced by the westward and urban migration of blacks in the South, worried others.1 •DAvro J. H•LWIO, Ph.D., teaches at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. 1Nero York rimes, JUly 5, 1868, p. 5; May 7, 1869, p. 5; November 3. 1888, p. 3; April 12, 1893, p. 2; April 14, 1883 p. 3; Robert H. Woody, "The Labor and Immigration Problem of South Carolina During Reconstruction," Mis•.ssippt Vailed/ Historical Review, 18 (Sep- tember, 1931), 195-96; Joseph F, Steelman, "The Immigration Movement in North Carolina, 1865-1890" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1947), pp. 11-18, 22-23, 42; Row- l•-nd T. Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes Toward Immigration, 1865-1914," Jol•rna! o• SOUthern History, 17 (August, 1951), 329-31; Bert J. Loewenberg, "Efforts of the South to En. courage Immigration, 1865-1900," South Atlantic Quarterly, 33 (October. 1934), 365-67; James L. Roark, Masters WithOUt 8laves: Southera Planters in the Civt• War and Reccrn- $tructto• (New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 157-64. 151 152 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54 The Black Codes of the immediate post-war years and the subse- quent systems of sharecropping, tenantry, peonage, and convict labor were designed in part to ease the black labor "problem." Singularly and in conjunction, they failed to relieve anxieties re- garding the labor force. The quest for able and abundant labor and the determination to control black workers led to repeated and largely unsuccessful efforts to secure laborers from outside the area. The movement was strongest in the decade following Appomattox and at the turn of the twentieth century. Some whites viewed newcomers as a supplement to the traditional labor force; others wanted to rid the South of the "Negro problem" and stimulate economic growth through an entirely new labor supply. Schemes to secure immigrants blossomed throughout the South in the late 1860s. Some planters worked independently; others joined immigration societies. Entrepreneurs anticipated quick and easy profits from transporting migrants from Europe, Asia, and the North to the cotton fields, mines, and railroad camps of the South. Railroads, land developers, and speculators of all kinds participated. Even plans for cooperation on a regional basis were made. State governments established agencies to promote and facilitate the flow of foreigners. So eager were some white South- erners for new workers that they were not particular about their origins. Most preferred northerners or European immigrants. But when neither source delivered, Chinese "coolies" were solicited.2 Records of the black response to the possibility of large scale immigration to the South during Reconstruction are scarce. Fur- thermore, they do not reflect a cross-section of the Afro-American community. The largely unlettered population left little in the way of written statements, and few black periodicals existed. 2 For diSCussions of southern interest in immigration following the Civil War, see Woody, 185-212; Steelman. passim; Berthoff. 328-60; Loewenberg, 363.85; C. U. Bellssary, "Tennes- see and Immigration, 1865-1880," Tennessee Histor•aZ Quarterl•, 7 (September, 1948), 229-48; Roberta S. Turney, "The Encouragement of Immigration in West Virginia, 1863- 1871," West Virginia HLsto•, 12 (October, 1950), 46-60; Robert Gllmottr, '"the Other Emancipation: Studies in the Society and Economy of Alabama Whites During Recon° structlon.'* (Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins Unlverslty, 1972), pp. 32-43; E. RUSS Wil° liams, "Loulslana's Public and Private Immigration Endeavors: 1866°1893," Loui•ana Himo tov• 15 (Spring, 1974), 153-73: George E. Pozzetta. "Foreigners in Florida: A Study of Immigration Promotion, 1865-1910." Florida Historlcal Quartedy, 53 (October. 1974), 164- 80; Henry M. Booker. "Efforts of the South to Attract Immigrants. 1860-1800." (Ph.D. dissertation, University of West Virginia, 1965); Etta B. Peabody, "Effort of the South to Import Chinese Coolies, 1865-1870." (M.A. thesis, Baylor University, 1867); Roark, Master8 Without Slaves. pp. 165-68; Robert F. Futre11, "Efforts of Mlssls•Ipplans to En- courage Immigratlon, 1865-1880," Jo•vna! o• JV/i.•ssippl History. 20 (April, 1958), S9°70. These studies devote little, if any, attention to the responses of Afro-Americans to the attempts to secure immigrant labor or to the Immlgrants, 1980] Blacks and Immigrant Labor 153 Many possible sources were not collected. But from the scattered records, the observations of white sojourners in the South, and the small but zealous black press it is possible to indicate how many felt. Clearly, blacks recognized that plans to recruit Northern and alien workers directly affected them. Most interpreted the move- ment as a potential threat to their newly acquired political power and to their traditional economic role. As early as November, 1865, for example, a black political convention meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, reacted to talk of immigration. In an address to whites, the delegates protested the desire "to bring foreigners into the country, the clear intent of which is to thrust us out, or reduce us to a serfdom intolerable....-3 The anxiety of South Carolina blacks persisted into the 1870s. White travellers commented on the "selfishness" of Afro-Ameri- cans who opposed the arrival of newcomers to aid in the develop- ment of the state. The material interests of South Carolina clearly demanded immigration, wrote the conservative northern journalist James S. Pike in 1874. But politics led the Negro to resist im- migration. According to Pike, blacks were preparing to fight what they believed to be an effort to crowd them out.4 An English visitor Edward King also reported little black enthusiasm for immigration. "The negro is not especially anxious to see immigra- tion come in," he commented. "The spirit of race is strong within him. He is desirous of seeing the lands in the commonwealth in the hands of his own people before the rest of the world's poor are invited to partake. He is impressed with the idea that South Carolina should be in some measure a black man's government, and is jealous of white intervention.''5 Black spokesmen were especially disturbed about plans to recruit Chinese. Such proposals convinced them that the white South had not yet accepted abolition. Chinese were sought to replace blacks as slaves or to reduce freedmen to semi-servitude. "An American 3 "Addre• of the State Convention to the White Inlmbltants of South Carolina," reprinted in Herbert Aptheker, ed,, A DocuTnentary Hf•t•r• o! the Negro People • the United •;tate8 (2 vols.; New York: Citadel Press, 1951}, II, 546. 4James S. Pike, 2"he Prostrate South.: Sou•h Carolina Under Negro Goverament (1874; reprinted New york: Harper and F,ow, 1968), p, 55. 5Edward King. The Great Sou•h (2 vols.; 1875; reprinted New York: Bur• Franklin, 1969), II, 452-53. Blacks in other states also feared the immigrant, Lawrence D. Rice, The Negro • Texas, 1574-1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univer•ty Pre•s, 1971). p. 160; E. Merton Coulter, Civil War and Readjustment tn Kentucky (Chapel Hill: University o• North Carolina Press, 1926), p. 346. 154 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 54 motive" derived from "pride, bitterness, and revenge," warned Frederick Douglass, was behind Chinese immigration. Southern leaders continued to cling to rule by the white aristocracy, the plantation system, and a subservient labor force. "They believed in slavery and they believe in it still," he reported. The same motives that led to the African slave trade inspired interest in the "coolie trade." The South preferred laborers who would work for nothing, but since the Afro-American refused, it turned to Chinese who would toil for next to nothing. Should the plans succeed, abolition would be a blessing for the white South since it would then possess both independence from blacks and a cheap, dependent labor force,s John M. Langston, professor of law at Howard University, agreed. "Designing persons, partially enslav- ing" sought to make Chinese the rival and competitor of freedmen, he noted,v These fears prompted conventions of Afro-Americans meeting in Baton Rouge and elsewhere in 1869 to consider means of preventing the introduction of Chinese workers into the nation,s While not opposed to Chinese or Europeans as such, blacks vigorously objected to foreigners recruited to drive them out or compel them to accept whatever conditions planters offered.
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