Climbing Up to Glory (18 page)

The incident was settled a few days later when an armed guard of U.S. soldiers arrested several of the ringleaders. Not wanting to acknowledge the leadership capabilities of women—and particularly black women—local authorities charged three of the freedmen with inciting the women to violence. Five of the women served sentences in the local jail. Although Freedmen's Bureau officials tried to play down incidents such as the one at Keithfield plantation and insisted that they were aberrations, they happened throughout the South on a frequent basis.
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The freed blacks were determined to hold onto land that they believed rightfully belonged to them, whatever the cost. Possession of land represented economic independence.

Unfortunately for most freedmen, the Federal government would not support a full-scale plan to confiscate the land of Southern white plantation owners and redistribute it. Although some white Republicans, such as Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, two champions of black rights, supported such a move, a majority of their party did not. Most Republicans believed that a more practical way to promote the economic interests of freedmen was through the ballot box. In their estimation, there were few things that former slaves could not accomplish with political power, and thus they concentrated most of their efforts on acquiring the vote for freedmen. Moreover, far too many Republicans, black and white, believed that the right to own property was sacred; therefore, supporting any plan to redistribute the property of Southern white plantation owners to blacks could set a dangerous precedent.
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The
New York Times
underscored this view when it warned, “An attempt to justify the confiscation of Southern land under the pretense of doing justice to the Freedmen, strikes at the root of all property rights.”
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Since Southern whites realized that the best course to keep freedmen in an economically dependent position was to deny them the acquisition of land, they mounted a determined campaign to make it extremely difficult for most blacks to either rent, lease, or own land. Accordingly, in 1865, Mississippi prohibited “any Freedman, Free Negro or mulatto” from renting or leasing “any land or tenements” except within the limits of “incorporated titles or towns” where local authorities could control and oversee “such rental and lease agreements.”
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Furthermore, many white landowners in various parts of the lower South refused to sell or lease them land.
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Whitelaw Reid noted during his travels that in many sections of the Mississippi Valley if a white man or woman sold land to a black, he or she might be physically attacked. He added, “Every effort will be made” to prevent negroes from acquiring lands, “even the renting of small tracts to them is held to be unpatriotic and unworthy of a good citizen.”
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Another contemporary who toured the South noted that whites preferred to let a “no-account white man” have a plantation rather than rent it to negroes.
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And yet another contemporary remarked, “In some parts of the country there is a social prejudice against selling to them; that is, in localities where white people prevail, they do not always like to have negroes coming among them.”
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Of course, whites were not reluctant to use force against those blacks defiant enough to attempt to either purchase or rent land. For example, in the early part of 1869, the
New Orleans Tribune
reported the murder of three black men who dared to live by themselves on rented land.
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In spite of these obstacles, a small number of freed people became property owners during the 1860s and the 1870s. Most accomplished this feat as a consequence of their own efforts. For example, A. M. Moore recalled that he and his brother saved their money and “bought and paid for 500 acres of land after emancipation.”
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William “Red” Taylor was able to acquire 150 acres of land through his own efforts,
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and Tob Davis pointed out that his father went to work and “in two yeahs, he had ‘nough money to pay down on a piece of land, an' weuns moves onto it.”
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In 1866, moreover, one black man in Norfolk County, Virginia, was able to purchase 1,000 acres at a total cost of $10,000; and in 1868 another black Virginian, Tom Sukins of Charlotte County, purchased 1,500 acres of farmland at $2 per acre.
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Many former slaves pooled their meager resources and formed cooperatives. Blacks in Hampton, Virginia, established Lincoln's Land Association under the direction of a local Baptist minister and acquired several hundred acres that was worked collectively by a group of families.
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Several freedmen in Charleston, South Carolina, formed a society for buying land and building homes of their own. At a sale they bought a plantation of 600 acres on Remley's Point, opposite the city, for which they agreed to pay $6,000 or $10 per acre.
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In addition, several discharged black soldiers invested their bonuses and back pay individually in small farms or collectively in plantations. One regiment stationed in Louisiana accumulated $50,000 for this purpose.
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A few former slaves were able to acquire land through the assistance of Federal authorities and former plantation owners. Congress passed the Southern Homestead Act in 1866, which set aside land for freed persons. As a consequence, by 1869, although much of the property available was of poor quality, about 4,000 persons had applied to take advantage of the act. In an effort to guarantee a workforce and relieve themselves of some Federal taxes, a few planters divided their lands among their former slaves and gave their lifelong workers homes and a few acres for their own. The following case noted by a Freedmen's Bureau agent is an example: “Some of the old aristocratic planters are acting splendidly toward their former slaves.” One rich planter who owned over 5,000 acres of land had “bestowed a certain number of acres to each of his former slaves who are now working for him.”
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Moreover, Laura Thompson recalled that “Master Strader gave our Father some land and a shack, and he farmed and gave the Master about half what he made to pay for the land.”
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Amy Else remembered that “most all the old generation stayed on and bought farms from Marster. He let them pay him out by the year.”
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An even smaller number of owners handed over land to their former slaves with no strings attached. Although his master did not give him anything when emancipation came, Lewis Mundy noted, “I remember the Bowans give their slaves eighty acres.”
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And John Sneed's mother's former master “willed every last one of his slaves something.” His mother got “two cows, a pair of horses an' wagon an' 70 acres of land.”
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A small number who had been slaves to Native Americans were able to acquire land. Treaties that the U.S. government signed with the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws in 1866 all had provisions regarding land for freedmen. Richard Franklin's mother, who had been a slave under the Creeks, was accorded 160 acres of land near Canada at the end of the Civil War.
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Mollie Barber's family members, who also had been held by the Creeks, received sixty acres.
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Chaney McNair remembered that “after the war was over we colored folks all had to go back to prove up; tell where you come from, who you belong to, you know, so we get our share of land.” McNair returned to the Cherokee nation in 1866 and “drawed some money once and some land too.”
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Moreover, Irena Blocker recalled that when the McCarty family proved that Patsy Rogers and her mother had been stolen as slaves, the Choctaw Nation provided both women with forty acres and also awarded each one of their descendants forty acres.
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Unfortunately, some freedmen became victims of false sales. In Albemarle County, Virginia, for example, an elderly black man who could neither read nor write purchased some land and a shack from a white man, who allegedly gave the old man a deed. Not long thereafter, the county sheriff visited the black man's shack and informed him that he had to vacate the premises since the property was not legally his. The freedman implored the sheriff to examine the deed, but the “deed” read: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so have I lifted fifty dollars out of this old nigger's pocket.”
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Jack and Rosa Maddox bought a piece of land and were doing well for three years. However, upon the death of the man who had owned it, “We found out the place didn't b'long to us. The children of the first wife of the man who sold us the land took it away from us.”
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FORMER SLAVES PLANTING SWEET POTATOES, EDISTO ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1862.

Courtesy of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History

Although the masses of former slaves in rural and urban areas of the Deep South remained landless, there was an increase in the number of black landowners. The value of their holdings also increased significantly after the war. Blacks accomplished this remarkable feat despite the generally hostile attitudes of whites, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups, and the refusal of some whites to sell them land. It is also significant because it took place despite economic problems such as general indebtedness among freedmen, scarcity of money and capital, and “unsettled conditions.”
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Since most freedmen lacked the resources to buy even a small farm or a town lot, the vast majority of them found it easier to acquire a few personal items. Black men and women purchased horses, mules, cattle, wagons, carts, plows, machinery, tools, furniture, and clothing, and sometimes carriages, watches, and jewelry. In 1865 in Augusta, Georgia, one observer was surprised to discover that freedmen and women were anxious to begin the ascent toward property ownership: “A Government sale of horses and mules brought large numbers to the city to-day.” He went on to point out that freedmen comprised about two-thirds of the 10,000 persons who attended, and they bought a good deal of property at this sale. Mississippi and Georgia, the two Deep South states with the largest antebellum slave (and among the smallest free black) population, led all states in the total number of property owners by 1870. Mississippi had 23,665, and Georgia had 17,739. Some 63,846 freedmen and women had become property owners in the other states of the Lower South with $100 worth or more, for a regional total of one family in five.
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Believing that they held the key to their own economic progress, freedmen in large numbers invested their savings in the Freedmen's Savings Bank when it was established during the early years of Reconstruction. On March 3, 1865, Congress passed a law creating the National Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company whose function was “to receive on deposit such sums of money as may... be offered... by or on behalf of persons heretofore held in slavery in the United States, or their descendants, and investing the same in the stocks, bonds, Treasury notes and other securities of the United States.” Those who created the institution hoped that it would do for the freedmen “that which savings banks have done for the workingmen of the North.”
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Throughout the South, blacks began to deposit their money—often brought in bundles of paper, rags, and old stockings—in the various local branches.
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Many thought that if they put their money in the bank, they would show whites that blacks were thrifty and industrious and not lazy. Moreover, they were adamant in their support of the bank, believing that it was the duty of every black person who had a dollar to spare to deposit it because the bank was doing much to advance the cause of black people. The Freedmen's Savings Bank was a morale booster and a source of inspiration for blacks. The distinguished and much-admired Frederick Douglass was at one time president of the national branch. Whenever former slaves went into a local Freedmen's Bank, they would see finely dressed blacks working as tellers.

Freed blacks struggled against great odds to save money and deposit it in the Freedmen's Savings Bank. A reporter for the
New York Tribune
told his readers: “I know of one colored washerwoman, who has a family to support, that has in one of these banks over $260 in gold and silver. I know an old black man—all his life a slave—who deposited at one time, soon after the branch was established, $380 in gold and silver. He said he earned it while a slave by working at night by the light of a pine-torch, after he had done all the overseer demanded of him.” Another freedman brought $700 in gold to deposit, which he had kept concealed for twelve years. But large deposits were rare. Most freedmen had very little money. What was important to many of the poor, however, according to one scholar, “was the idea of saving toward a better life.” Having a savings account meant freedom and advancement, a chance to “get on in the world.”
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Louisa Anderson, a thirty-five-year-old former slave and widow with three children, managed to save $16 from her meager earnings as a servant. An illiterate teamster named Oscar Gibbs, who guessed his age as between thirty and forty and had to provide for a family of nine, had a bank account, although it contained only $4.50. One depositor later recalled: “I can remember that I used to walk up to the bank and put in the few pennies that I could scrape together.” Indeed, freedmen saved money by the penny, nickel, and dime—the average amount deposited at one of the 890 branches in July 1874 was only ninety-two cents. These small sums should not be dismissed too lightly. In 1869 the average wage for a farm laborer was $15.50 per month. In 1870, $60 would buy several acres of land, three head of cattle, or ten hogs. It might represent one-third of a farm laborer's yearly income, excluding board.
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Freedmen used the wealth acquired through savings to engage in business as individuals and as groups. Mary Barbour's father was a successful shoemaker after the war near New Bern, North Carolina.
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Blacks organized the Chesapeake Marine Railroad and Dry Dock Company in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1865. It would remain in operation until 1883, providing employment for over 300 black mechanics. Its success was due, in no small part, to the skillful leadership of Isaac Myers. The company was founded as a consequence of the pressure placed upon black caulkers by white caulkers. Due to either unfair competitive methods, prejudice, or force, blacks were driven out of the shipyards. Fortunately for black carpenters, the white carpenters finally agreed among themselves not to work in those yards where black carpenters were employed. The result was the organization of a shipyard owned and controlled by freedmen where their fellow workmen might labor. Railways were built, and furnaces and workshops were erected. Now, the black carpenters and caulkers could begin their work.
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Not to be outdone, some freedwomen also became entrepreneurs. They ran boardinghouses and opened restaurants and grocery stores. Hager Ann Baker, for example, a waitress during slavery, opened a grocery store in Savannah after the Civil War.
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Another Georgian, Annie L. Burton, was a domestic in the North when her sister died and left an eleven-year-old son. In an effort to start a new life, Burton and the youth moved to Green Cove Springs, Florida. “My idea was to get a place as chambermaid at Green Cove Springs through the influence of the head waiter at a hotel there, whom I knew. After I got into Jacksonville, the idea of keeping a restaurant came to me. I found a little house of two rooms where we could live, and the next day I found a place to start my restaurant.” It was nothing fancy. Burton purchased a stove and then secured second-hand furniture and other things she needed from a dealer.
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In Dallas County, Texas, Jane Johnson Calloway, who had been a slave, opened one of the county's largest and most profitable coal businesses.
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Unfortunately, a number of these black businesses folded. For a people only recently freed from slavery and desirous of demonstrating their thrift to whites and serving as role models for young blacks, failure sometimes proved devastating. Of course, since most freedmen had little business experience, they fell prey to unscrupulous promoters. At Savannah, for example, $50,000 was invested in a venture that proved worthless, and $40,000 was invested in a land and lumber enterprise that failed.
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Labor unions were another means to obtain economic advancement. Former slaves, once organized, could use their near-monopoly over certain trades to force concessions from employers. Even before the longshoremen, destined to become the most powerful black union in Charleston, organized officially in late 1868, they had already engaged in two successful strikes.
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Other black urban laborers such as the stevedores in Richmond, longshoremen in New Orleans, stevedores in Savannah, mechanics in Columbus, coopers in Richmond, and unskilled dockworkers in New Orleans also struck for higher wages.
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In most cases, however, a combination of an overabundance of labor, a lack of black-and-white labor solidarity, and the use of law enforcement officials against strikers contributed to the failure of strikes. For example, in Richmond, despite community support, black stevedores and coopers' strikes failed in April and May 1867 because strikebreakers were found among the large number of unemployed blacks and whites.
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In December 1865 black and white dockworkers in New Orleans struck for higher wages. In this case, black-and-white labor solidarity would not become a reality. White crewmen marched along the levee, “knocking down every black man who would have gladly worked for less than that high tariff,” the black
Tribune
reported. White workers repeatedly drove off a number of freedmen toiling along the docks at the lower rate with threats and assaults. When it became obvious that the shipmasters intended to request Federal military protection for black strikebreakers, white workers grew alarmed and began to fraternize with blacks in an effort to get them to not work. Their actions were not sincere, for they had no intention of promoting solidarity with black workers. When police were called in to quell the disturbances, they generally targeted black strikers and let white strikers do as they pleased. Thus, police arrested six blacks but allowed several hundred whites to parade along the levee for several hours.
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That black dockworkers failed in their bid for higher wages and white dockworkers succeeded illustrates not only the sharp limits of interracial collaboration but also the distinct positions occupied by blacks and whites in the waterfront's occupational hierarchy. Unskilled blacks were easily replaced; all it took was police protection of strikebreakers. Consequently, black dockworkers were forced to return to the job at their original wage of $2.50. By contrast, skilled white crewmen eventually won their wage demands of $6 for gang members and $7 for foremen per day. Despite the failure of black dockworkers to secure their wage increase, they did succeed in imposing a greater degree of order upon the chaotic system of employment and payment by May 1867.
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Black women throughout the South were also cognizant of the value of their labor and refused to work for unfair wages without protest. For example, washerwomen in Jackson, Mississippi, struck for higher wages in June 1866. They requested $1.50 per day, $15.00 per month for family wash, and $10.00 per month for individuals.
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Whether or not the strike was successful is not known. In the summer of 1877 twenty-five black laundresses struck for higher wages in Galveston, Texas. They marched through downtown Galveston demanding $1.50 per day and shutting down steam and Chinese laundries. Crying out, “We will starve no longer,” they insisted that other laundresses stay away from work. The women caught a Miss Murphy and carried her out into the street when she insisted on going to work anyway, and they tore off the clothes of Alice because they thought that she had “gone back on them.” Moreover, the black laundresses locked up Mr. Harding's laundry and demanded that Chinese owners “close up and leave this city within Fifteen days, or they would be driven away.”
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The failure of many labor strikes by blacks must be placed in the proper historical context. Their failure reflected a national trend. Strikes throughout the nation were largely unsuccessful, particularly in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. The influence of management was growing while the influence of labor was steadily declining. Both black and white workers held little clout in a country ravaged by depression, where work was often difficult to find and labor was overabundant. After the Panic of 1873, union membership fell nationwide by 90 percent, and by 1880 fewer than one in one hundred workers belonged to a union.
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Once Radical Republicans were driven from power in the South, the threat of any significant labor strike succeeding all but vanished. Political support from conservative legislators now reinforced the control that industry had over labor. Law enforcement officials were used in ever-increasing numbers to protect strikebreakers and quell labor disturbances.

Forming labor unions and engaging in strikes was just one of many battles that blacks would have to wage. To escape the racism and racial discrimination of Southern whites and provide better social and economic opportunities for themselves, some blacks in the closing years of Reconstruction either migrated to the West and Southwest or emigrated to Africa. Three of the best-known black proponents of emigrationist movements in the late 1870s were Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, Henry Adams, and Bishop Henry M. Turner.
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However, before this time, some blacks were already living in the West and Southwest, having moved to these areas either before or during the early years of Reconstruction. In these regions, black men found employment as railroad workers and miners. In San Francisco, black men who often were young and single worked as sailors and railroad laborers. Other black men joined cattle drives in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma as cooks and cowboys. Nat Love, for example, earned the nickname “Deadwood Dick” by winning a roping contest in Deadwood, Arizona. Still other black men in the West became farmers, taking advantage of the Homestead Act, which offered free land to those who agreed to cultivate it. Although it was difficult for black women in western cities to find employment other than domestic work, some secured jobs as laundresses.
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Not only did black men and women in the West demonstrate a great deal of determination to prosper, but some also succeeded. For instance, in 1865, blacks in San Francisco owned tobacco and soap factories as well as laundries and real estate offices. A small number of mining companies, such as the Colored Citizens of California, were organized by black men. In Nevada, Montana, Colorado, and Utah a few blacks owned silver mines. In addition, as a result of her thriftiness, Clara Brown, who cooked and washed for miners, became the first black member of the Colorado Pioneer Association in 1870.
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Anna Graham ran a successful beauty parlor in Virginia City, Nevada. And Sarah Miner built her deceased husband's express and furniture-hauling venture into a successful business.
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