UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Unchained Manhood The

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Unchained Manhood The Performance of Black Manhood During the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction Eras A dissertation submitted in satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Mark Asami Okuhata 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Unchained Manhood The Performance of Black Manhood During the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction Eras by Mark Asami Okuhata Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Brenda Stevenson, Chair My dissertation examines the ways in which formerly enslaved black men constructed their gender identities. According to the cultural logic of the nineteenth century, black men were emasculated subjects who were rendered “boys” by the slave regime. However, I argue that former male slaves parlayed the cultural conditions of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction Eras into performative demonstrations of their manhood. My first chapter is an introduction to the intersectional study of black manhood. By delineating a historiography of the gender concept, I argue that the study of black men as gendered subjects demands scholarly attention. My second chapter centers on black soldiers during the Civil War. By handling, parading, and ii discharging firearms, I argue that armed black men signified a stark break from the Colonial and antebellum periods. By the war’s end, I argue that the demilitarization of the Union Army, and the end of Reconstruction precluded black men from employing firearms as a means of constructing their black manly identity. My third chapter investigates the ways in which slavery and the Civil War impinged upon the bodies of black men during the postwar. By tracing the history of black male bodies, I argue that black men’s physicality informed and constrained their postwar gender performances. This third chapter is crucial for not only understanding postwar black manhood; it provides theoretical implications for the study of corporeality and gender construction as well. My fourth chapter situates black manly values and beliefs within the context of the economy. I explore black manly identity in relation to the volatile economic milieu of Reconstruction policies, rising taxes, agricultural fluctuations, and the “Panic of 1873.” Rather than pursue a middle-class model of self-made manliness, I argue that a historical ethos of cooperation best describes black men’s economic roles. In my fifth and final chapter, I examine black men within the context of their families and communities. Here I explore black manhood relationally to black women and children, as well as to the larger black and white communities. I contend that postbellum freedom offered former male slaves novel opportunities to demonstrate their roles as husbands, fathers, and citizens. Moreover, I conclude that with the end of Reconstruction, the resurgence of white superiority undercut black men’s performances as gendered subjects. iii The dissertation of Mark Asami Okuhata is approved. Sarah Haley Robin Derby Ellen Dubois Brenda Stevenson, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv For Kristy Kulikoff Okuhata The Love of My Life v Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Am I Not a Man? An Introduction to the Study of Black Manliness 1 Chapter 2 – Their First Shot at Manliness: Black Men and Firearms During the Civil War 19 Chapter 3 – Violent Dramas of Bodily Trauma: Tracing the Physical Residues of Enslavement and Civil War 71 Chapter 4 – More Than a Single Man: Black Cooperative Manhood in the Post-Civil War Economy 109 Chapter 5 – Without Permission: Black Manliness in the Family and Community 149 Notes - 219 Bibliography - 303 vi Vita Mark Okuhata holds a bachelor’s degree in the Department of History from California State University, Fullerton; as well as a master’s degree in the Department of American Studies from California State University, Fullerton. In 2004, Mark delivered a conference paper that analyzed the governing philosophy of documentarian Ken Burns entitled “Passing the Baton: An Evaluation of The West as a Public Memory Source” at the Western Social Science Association’s 46th Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah; and was the Honorable Mention Recipient of California State University’s Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. From 2005 to 2007, Mark attended the American Studies doctoral program at the University of Kansas where he designed and taught a course entitled “Understanding America.” vii CHAPTER ONE Am I Not a Man? An Introduction to the Study of Black Manliness Am I not a man and a brother? - Antislavery slogan, circa 18301 Silence surrounded the auction block. Then a voice of frail desperation filled the antebellum air. “Yes, sir,” declared Israel – a crippled black slave who was up for sale – “I kin do as much ez ennybody.” With an audience of prospective buyers before him, along with his wife and children nearby, the feeble yet brazen Israel continued his plea. “Marsters, ef you’ll only buy me and de chillum with Martha Ann, God knows I’ll wuk myself to deth for you.” By delivering his woeful entreaty, Israel’s position as a male slave mirrored the frailty of his broken body. As a form of human chattel, Israel lacked considerable power over his own life; and while attempts at persuasion and appeals of the heart provided some means of agency on the auction block, ultimately, Israel’s future – and the integrity of his family – rested in the hands of other men. Luckily for Israel, his earnest supplication had the desired effect. Upon hearing Israel’s assurances of hard work, a compassionate buyer collectively purchased Israel and his family.2 Although noteworthy for its agreeable outcome, Israel’s distressing experience on the auction block was neither startling nor uncommon. For Israel, and the millions of enslaved African Americans residing in the United States, negotiating their lives under the authority of other Americans was a persistent feature of perpetual servitude. Facing punishment, sale, or death, enslaved African Americans had few viable options – with the exception of successfully running away from the South, or in rarer cases, manumission or self-purchase – to effectively 1 refute their subjugation. This perennial bondage aggrieved slaves in multiple ways, including their ability to freely express themselves as gendered subjects. As chattel property of white masters, enslaved Americans were not only robbed of their freedom, dignity, and humanity, they were also deprived of their maturity as full-fledged men and women. Rendered “dependents” in both law and practice, black men and women were reduced to the diminutive status of children – referred to in Southern parlance as “boy” and “girl.” For black men in particular, their infantilized status directly impinged upon their identities as men since, according to the cultural logic of the nineteenth century, boyhood not only signified immaturity, but veritable emasculation. Indeed, as subservient “boys” under the power of white men, abolitionist societies posited black manhood in terms of a question – “Am I not a man and a brother?” – while fugitive slaves such as Lewis Clarke fervently proclaimed, “A SLAVE CAN’T BE A MAN!”3 Thus, in a nation that extolled the virtue of independence, enslaved black manhood became synonymous with its absence.4 This study seeks to examine this purported absence of black manhood during the antebellum era of 1800-1861. In addition, this study explores the ways in which black men expressed their manhood immediately after slavery – beginning with the years of Civil Warfare from 1861-1865 and continuing into the Reconstruction Era from 1865-1877. I have broadly delimited this study from 1800 to 1877 for several reasons. It was the nineteenth century that witnessed an exponential growth and entrenchment of the slave regime as well as its violent collapse – a time when millions of purportedly “emasculated” slaves became realized “men,” when thousands of black men carried and fired guns on an unprecedented level, and when possibilities of black manhood were performed during freedom like never before. Combined 2 with the economic, social, and political vicissitudes of the nineteenth century, I believe this broad span of time offers a fertile ground for black manhood studies. Although broadly delimited, this study centers on the juxtaposition between enslavement and freedom. I believe that by examining black manhood over these two adjacent periods, the concept of black manhood may be better defined. It is this comparative approach between two distinct eras of analysis – or what anthropologist Clifford Geertz has coined “reciprocal relief” – that may distinctively define two variants of black manhood in relation to one another.5 In other words, by juxtaposing black manliness during slavery and an unfettered manhood during freedom, I believe we may gain a better understanding of both. Moreover, this study is organized thematically by chapter. Chapter Two focuses on the incorporation of firearms as a thematic component of black manly expression; while Chapter Three explores the corporal history and constitution of the black male body. Black manly identity in relation to the postwar economy constitutes the theme of Chapter Four; whereas Chapter Five delineates black men’s gender roles within the family and community. Since this study is one of juxtaposition, each thematic chapter examines black manhood within the contexts of both enslavement and freedom. With this methodological structure in mind,

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