Six Essays on African-American Studies
Essay One
Black people in the Civil War took part in both the Union army and the Confederate side. Numerous Negro men served in different Union army units while others served in the Navy and support positions. Those who participated comprised northern free blacks, as well as escaped slaves who came from the South who registered to contribute in the battle. In the Confederation, the Negros were not free, making them work in labor positions. Moreover, by late 1865, the South permitted African-Americans to enlist; however, a considerable number were not willing.
In addition to fighting, African-Americans on the two sides of the battle took part in relief roles. Some served as nurses and cooks while others served as blacksmiths. Although the South never wanted to do arm to the blacks, they used them in building fortifications and performing camp roles. On the other hand, Northern officers never had faith in Negro troops that they would fight. Therefore, they worked as undercover agents, scouts, and agents to the Union Military, offering treasured information concerning Confederate armies, strategies, and conversant terrain. Statists collected from African-American sources were so valued and numerous such that they were placed in a particular category known as Black Dispatches. Everyone in the Union and the Confederacy acknowledged the importance of the Black Dispatches since they provided the chief source of information to the enemy.
The blacks encountered various challenges during the civil war. They never received equivalent payment or the same treatment. The low salary they received was taxed, leaving them with very little for their upkeep. Racial bias was common and American soldiers regularly treated the Negros unequally. Segregated units were established with African-American recruited men instructed by American officers and Negro non-commissioned soldiers of rank. Many of the American officers did not trust the blacks; thus, they never trained them adequately. Colored troops and units captured by the Confederates were severely treated compared to the white prisoners of conflict.
Apart from liberation, the Civil War even negatively affected African-American through involvement in the battle. They were overruled when they offered to fight because their contribution implied equal opportunity, and they were also believed to be too submissive and weak to battle whites. Nevertheless, since Union field commandants habitually found it convenient to use slaves, Negros saw achievement in the combat before their service was formally sanctioned.
Essay Two
Sharecropping was a scheme whereby the landowners allowed the freedmen to cultivate the land in interchange for a portion of the farm products. The system encouraged the freedmen to work to yield the largest reap, which they could, and guaranteed they could continue tied to the piece of land. They agreed not to leave for other chances.
In the South, following the Civil War, a significant number of families leased land from American landowners and produced cash produces such as rice, cotton, and tobacco. As freshly freed persons sought fair payment for agriculture and previous rulers attempted to retain their regulation and incomes, a scheme of sharecropping and occupant farming advanced. Some of the characteristics of sharecropping were that the landowners or close merchants could lease tools to the tenants and generate a seed, food, fertilizer, and more things on credit up to the reap seas. Merchants, random harvests, and dishonest landowners kept occupant farm relatives cruelly indebted, demanding the debit to be postponed until the following year. Rules giving preferentiality to property owners made it challenging or even illegitimate for tenants from leaving before settling any debt. These sharecropping agreements were fashioned in a particular way that benefited the white landowners. After harvesting, white landowners took proceedings to market and then deduct for the charge of the equipment the occupant had been provided at the cause of the year. After taking the produce to the market, the landowner was given half of the harvests, favoring the whites since a lot of work was done by the blacks.
Sharecropping did not only give the black freed people independence in their everyday effort and social lives, but it freed them from the teamwork system, which had dominated throughout the oppression era. However, the method of farming made the sharecroppers owe more to the white landowners because they used their equipment and supplies.
Essay Three
The Black Codes, most of the time referred to as Black Laws, entailed those rules governing the behavior of the freed blacks. The best known of them were passed in late 1865 and mid-1866 by Southern federations, following the Civil War. Those laws were there before the American Civil War, and numerous Northern states possessed them.
The Black Codes were passed to restrict the freed backs freedom apart from compelling them to work for meager incomes. From the colonial era, colonies and states had passed laws, which were against free African-Americans. In Southern countries, these were usually comprised of slave codes whose objectives was to lessen the influence of free African-Americans due to their possible impact on slaves. Some of the limitations the black laws granted included barring free blacks from casting their votes, bearing arms, learning how to read and write, and assembling in crowds for worship. For that reason, these codes aimed to reserve suppression in slave cultures. The rules also denied free blacks the freedom of speech or the freedom to testify against American individuals in a court of law. Besides, some states made freedom of slaves extra challenging to attain in various countries, necessitating an act of the governing body for every case of slavery freedom. The black codes granted the free blacks the right to own property and the rights to legal marriage, although they could not start a business without the consent of the former employer.
Black codes tried to disable freed blacks financially, forcing them to continue to work on white’s farmsteads and to stay subject to a racial chain of command in the Southern culture. They led to the growth of a new upsurge of radical Republicanism in Parliament, and the final action to preserve racial fairness into the Constitution. Any previous slave who tried to infringe or escape these codes were penalized, tortured, or detained for vagrancy.