- BACKGROUND: In what ways did white and black southerners react to Reconstruction?
Among the many aspects of the South that needed “reconstruction” in the wake of the Civil War was the labor management system. If former slaves were now free, then they had the right to enter into labor contracts of their own accord. Unfortunately, freedmen were often poor and illiterate, and therefore vulnerable to exploitation by landowners. In addition, landowners were resentful that such dramatic changes in the fundamental relationships between themselves and labor were being foisted upon them.
- PAPER TOPIC:
In a 2-3 page double-spaced document, analyze the attitudes of many southern whites after the Civil War and the aspirations and barriers to equality faced by former slaves.
III. ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS:
- Read Chapter 15, with special attention to “The Meaning of Freedom” (Complete pp. 552-564; Seagull pp. 566-579) Read Documents 1 and 2.
- You do not need to worry about using footnotes or other citations. Just reference in the body of your paper where the information comes from [e.g., according to Hamilton’s “Report on Manufacturers” . . . .]
- Please reference the course policies on academic dishonesty. When you turn in an assignment, you are telling me it is your work – not cut and pasted from someone’s work. “Presenting someone else’s work as your own constitutes academic dishonesty and will result in the student receiving an automatic “F” for the course.”
- DOCUMENTS
Document 1 includes several entries from the diary of Catherine Edmondston from Halifax County, North Carolina, who was the wife of a wealthy plantation owner, as well as a planter’s daughter. At the time of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860, Edmondston began journaling her thoughts on the current events of her day.
Document 2 is the legal agreement signed and agreed to between a Louisiana agricultural concern, Solid South, and a former slave, John Lawson, as a contract for his labor.
Document 1
Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston, Diary Entries of a Southern Plantation Wife, [Make No Promises] May 8, 1865, and [This Unexpected, Unsolicited, Gift of Freedom] May 12, 1865, and [The Freedman’s Bureau] October 1, 1865
May 8, 1865
Yesterday came Sue & Rachel with the astounding news that brother had arrived & had gone to Montrose with the intention of freeing his negroes & soon after came Messrs Gilliam & W Smith & announced that he had done so & that father was to follow suit this afternoon. I could not understand it. It seemed inexplicable to me & suicidal in the last degree . . .
This morning came father & told us to our relief that both the girls & the gentlemen were mistaken, that brother & himself had merely announced to their negroes that Mr Schofield said they were free, but that they [(their masters]) did not believe they were, but that if any of them wished to go away and try their freedom to go now-at once & to stay away, that their places could be supplied, but that in the fall when their own rights & those of the negroes were defined & settled there would be ample time to talk of it & that if they were then free that they should be paid for their labour out of this year’s crop. In this last clause I think they made a mistake. Make no promises, so as to have none to break, is a good rule in dealing with both children and negroes & negroes are but ignorant children at best . . .
May 12, 1865
Such a week as the past has been, I hope never to see again. Excitement & anxiety have ruled each day, until at last I became heartsick & weary & longed for rest, rest, come how it would, only rest. As we had feared, father’s negroes either misunderstood or pretended to misunderstand father’s and brother’s talk with them. On Monday several of them were absent from work & one man kept his wife at home contrary to plantation discipline. A firm & resolute hand checked all disobedience at home, however, and a visit to Weldon satisfied some of the absentees, who have almost all returned, professing to have found out that they were better off as they were. We have lost none here. The poor creatures seem as usual, only terribly dejected, & are much more tender & affectionate in their manner to us than ever before. It is a terrible cruelty to them, this unexpected, unsolicited gift of freedom, & they are at their wits ends. Their old moorings are rudely & suddenly cut loose, & they drift without a rudder into the unknown sea of freedom. God help such philanthropy.
October 1, 1865
The Freedman’s Bureau, facetiously known as the “Free Nigger’s Christ” is the source of the most unmitigated annoyance to our whole country. The very old Fiend himself could scarce have devised a more effectual method of irritation or a more perfect system of perpetual worry. No sooner are the negroes seemingly contented & beginning to work steadily than some Major, Capt, or Lieut in the Free negro service with more time than brains announces a Speech to the Freedmen in Halifax, when “down goes the shovel & the hoe” and presto away they all start to drink some new draught from the “Free Spring” & they come home with their heads so filled with their fancied rights, so puffed up with what the “New Orders” to be issued at Christmas are to give them, that discipline & order are at an end for days.
Source: Beth G. Crabtree and James W. Patton, eds., “Journal of a Secesh Lady”: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston (Raleigh, NC: Division of Archives and History, 1979), pp. 709‒28. Accessed September 12, 2014, from www.learnnc.org/lp/pdf/catherine-edmondston-and-p4827.pdf
Document 2
Agreement between Landlord and Sharecropper, 18th day of January, 1879
This agreement, made and entered into this 18th day of January, 1879, between Solid South, of the first part, and John Dawson, of the second part.
Witnesseth: that said party of the first part for and in consideration of eighty-eight pounds of lint cotton to be paid to the said Solid South, as hereinafter expressed, hereby leases to said Dawson, for the year A.D. 1879, a certain tract of land, the boundaries of which are well understood by the parties hereto, and the area of which the said parties hereby agree to be fifteen acres, being a portion of the Waterford Plantation, in Madison Parish, Louisiana.
The said Dawson is to cultivate said land in a proper manner, under the general superintendence of the said Solid South, or his agent or manager, and is to surrender to said lessor peaceable possession of said leased premises at the expiration of this lease without notice to quit. All ditches, turn-rows, bridges, fences, etc. on said land shall be kept in proper condition by said Dawson, or at his expense. All cotton-seed raised on said land shall be held for the exclusive use of said plantation, and no goods of any kind shall be kept for sale on any said land unless by consent of said lessor.
If said Solid South shall furnish to said lessee money or necessary supplies, or stock, or material, or either or all of them during this lease, to enable him to make a crop, the amount of said advances, not to exceed $475 (of which $315 has been furnished in two mules, plows, etc.), the said Dawson agrees to pay for the supplies and advances so furnished, out of the first cotton picked and saved on said land from the crop of said year, and to deliver said cotton of the first picking to the said Solid South, in the gin on said plantation, to be by him bought or shipped at his option, the proceeds to be applied to payment of said supply bill, which is to be fully paid on or before the 1st day of January, 1880.
After payment of said supply bill, the said lessee is to pay to said lessor, in the gin of said plantation, the rent cotton herein before stipulated, said rent to be fully paid on or before the 1st day of January, 1880. All cotton raised on said land is to be ginned on the gin of said lessor, on said plantation, and said lessee is to pay $4 per bale for ginning same.
To secure payment of said rent and supply bill, the said Dawson grants unto said Solid South a special privilege and right of pledge on all the products raised on said land, and on all his stock, farming implements, and personal property, and hereby waives in favor of said Solid South the benefit of any and all homestead laws and exemption laws now in force, or which may be in force, in Louisiana, and agrees that all his property shall be seized and sold to pay said rent and supply bill in default of payment thereof as herein agreed. Any violation of this contract shall render the lease void.
[signed]
X [John Dawson’s mark]
Solid South
Source: Excerpt from Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977). Found at the companion web site for PBS American Experience, “Reconstruction, The Second Civil War,” at www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/sharecrop/ps_dawson.html, and published on the site December 19, 2003.
- GRADING RUBRIC (This is how you will be graded):
| Writing quality: did you edit your paper for grammar, syntax, and spelling? Is your paper broken up into paragraphs of 3-5 sentences each of which covers only one idea? Did you follow instructions as to length and formatting? (If you need help with this, please contact an ACC Learning Lab) | 10 pts. |
| Did you make good use of the material in the textbook and the documents provided in this assignment? (Do not use other sources.) | 10 pts. |
| Have you analyzed the attitudes of many southern whites after the Civil War and the aspirations and barriers to equality faced by former slaves? Do you support your points with evidence from the textbook and documents? | 10 pts. |