After Slavery: Educator Resources
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Unit One Documents: Giving Meaning to Freedom
- 1. A White Piedmont Farmer Reflects on Black Freedom
- 2. President Johnson offers Amnesty to Former Confederates
- 3. President Andrew Johnson Appoints William W. Holden Provisional Governor of North Carolina
- 4. A Northern Military Officer Advises Former Slaves on Freedom
- 5. A Planter's Vision of Freedom and Free Labor
- 6. Two North Carolina Freedwomen Testify Against Their Former Owner
- 7. A Committee of Freedmen on Edisto Island Reveal their Expectations
- 8. Former Slaves Describe Conditions on a Georgia Plantation
- 9. A Charleston Freedwoman Opens A Bank Account
Unit Two Documents: Freed Slaves Mobilize
- 1. A Wartime Encounter Between Two South Carolina Slaves
- 2. Rev. Henry McNeal Turner Reports on Organizing among Freedpeople in Georgia
- 3. An Unnamed Black Organizer Reports on the Reception for Republican Speakers among Freedpeople in South Carolina
- 4. A Destitute Local Union League President Seeks Aid from the Governor of North Carolina
- 5. John T. Costin Reports on the Difficulties of Organizing
- 6. A Union League Organizer Seeks permission to Bargain on the Behalf of Women and Children
- 7. A Federal Officer Reports that Freedpeople are Organizing Military Companies on the South Carolina Sea Islands
- 8. White Conservatives Complain that the Union Leagues are Organizing Labor Strikes South of Charleston
- 9. A Charleston Newspaper on the 1868 Municipal Elections
Unit Three Documents: Land and Labor
- 1. Rufus Saxton Argues That Land Should Be Set Aside for Freedpeople
- 2. Freedmen's Bureau Report on the Treatment of Plantation Laborers in Gates County, North Carolina
- 3. A Freedpeople's Colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina
- 4. Rufus Saxton's Letter to Northern Planter Edward S. Philbrick
- 5. General William T. Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15
- 6. Freedpeople React to the Restoration of Land to their Former Masters
- 7. Planter-Attorney William Whaley Wants to Exclude Blacks from the Land Board
- 8. South Carolina's 'Black Code'
- 9. A Desperate North Carolina Republican Appeals to Governor Holden for Land
- 10. White Confederate Veterans Appeal to South Carolina's Land Commission
- 11. A Freedpeople's 'Co-operative' in Colleton County, South Carolina
Unit Four Documents: Freedom, Black Soldiers, and the Union Military
- 1. General Rufus Saxton's Report on an Early Engagement by Black Troops
- 2. New Bern's Black Community Negotiates their Terms for Military Service
- 3. North Carolina's 'African Brigade' Raids the State's Interior
- 4. General Saxton Protests against the Forced Enlistment of Freed Slaves
- 5. Clashes between White and Black Union Troops in Charleston
- 6. Georgetown (S. C.) Whites Petition for the Removal of Black Troops
- 7. Contrasting Attitudes toward Union Troops in the South Carolina Upcountry
- 8. Black Troops, White Hostility, and Radicalization in the Upcountry
- 9. Petition from Union County Republicans against Removal of Troops
Unit Five Documents: Conservatives Respond to Emancipation
- 1. A White Texas Farmer Shoots a Freedman
- 2. "The War is Not Over"
- 3. D. F. Caldwell's Ideas for Economic Development in North Carolina
- 4. 1865 North Carolina Constitutional Convention Responds to Freedpeople
- 5. Wade Hampton's Advice to Confederate Veterans
- 6. Judge A. P. Aldrich Removed from the Bench
- 7. Wade Hampton's Advice to Freedpeople
- 8. A Conservative Realizes the Mistakes of Earlier Policies
- 9. Governor Jonathan Worth Argues Against 1867 Call for a Constitutional Convention
- 10. Plato Durham Argues Against the Reconstruction Acts in the 1868 Constitutional Convention
- 11. Dr. Pride Jones Agrees to Help Stop the Ku Klux Klan
Unit Six Documents: Pursuing Citizenship, Justice, and Equality
- 1. N.C. Planter Denying Schoolchildren Use of the Public Roads
- 2. Whites Reclaim an Edisto Church from Freedpeople
- 3. Report on Conditions in a North Carolina Jail
- 4. Charleston Protests against Streetcar Segregation
- 5. Harassment of Freedpeople in the Vicinity of Wilmington
- 6. Columbia Democrats Debate Black Suffrage
- 7. Sawmill Operator Tries to Prevent Employees from Voting the Radical Ticket
- 8. The Difficulty of Obtaining Justice from Local Authorities
- 9. North Carolina Conservatives Attempt to Frame a Union League Official
- 10. Freedpeople Petition for the Removal of a Trial Justice
- 11. Black Workers Petition Governor Scott against Extortion
Unit Seven Documents: Gender and the Politics of Freedom
- 1. The Social and Domestic Price of Free Labor
- 2. A Black Woman Imagines a Differently Gendered Working Class
- 3. A Virginia Freedwoman Critiques the Gendered Nature of Freedom and Free Labor
- 4. A Freedwoman's Civil and Domestic Expectations
- 5. A Husband Shoulders a New, Free-Labor Duty
- 6. The Problems of Family-based Labor
- 7. Soldiering Men
- 8. Clashing Ideas about Gender and Political Rights
- 9. Playing Politics with Gender
- 10. A Black Minister Proposes a Collective Solution to Freedom's Gendered Problems
- 11. A Southern White Woman Reflects on New Circumstances, a New Identity
Unit Eight Documents: Planters, Poor Whites and White Supremacy
- 1. Sidney Andrews on Attitudes among North Carolina's Poor Whites
- 2. J. B. Sitton's Petition for a Presidential Pardon
- 3. North Carolina Constitutional Convention Protects Homesteads
- 4. The Ku Klux Klan Attacks a White Man Assisting Blacks
- 5. Matthew C. Butler - Planters React to Being Ignored by Government
- 6. Belton O'Neall Townsend on 1876 Strategy
- 7. A Description of Wade Hampton's Campaign
- 8. T. D. Gwyn Argues Against the Fence Law
- 9. South Carolina Greenbacker Explains His Opposition to Democrats
Unit Nine Documents: Coercion, Paramilitary Terror, and Resistance
- 1. Ex-Confederate Soldiers Terrorizing Union Men and Freedpeople in North Carolina
- 2. Early Outrages against Freedpeople in South Carolina
- 3. Hostility to Freedpeople and Federal Authorities in the South Carolina Upcountry
- 4. Former Freedmen's Bureau Official Rufus B. Saxton on Freedpeople's Desire to Acquire Arms
- 5. North Carolina Freedmen Seek Protection from Governor Holden
- 6. Governor Scott is Warned of Impending Clashes in the South Carolina Upcountry
- 7. A. M. E. Pastor S. B. Williams Reports Atrocities to Governor Holden
- 8. Albion W. Tourgée Reports on KKK Violence in North Carolina
- 9. Freedpeople's Testimony on the Effects of Klan Violence
- 10. A Spartanburg Republican Offers President Grant Advice on How to Suppress Paramilitary Violence
- 11. Martin W. Gary's Plan for the Conservative Campaign of 1876
Unit Ten Documents: Freedpeople and the Republican Party
- 1. Black Charleston Reacts to News of the Confederate Surrender
- 2. An Appeal for Resources to Organize the South
- 3. A North Carolina Republican Seeks to Clear his Name
- 4. White Moderates Maneuver to Prevent Radical Domination of the Republican Party
- 5. A South Carolina Agitator Falls Foul of Military Authorities
- 6. Blacks Organize against Discrimination in the Republican Party
- 7. North Carolina Conservatives Refuse to Seat a Black Republican Appointee
- 8. Republicans in Tallyho, North Carolina, Protest against Democratic Fraud
- 9. Illiteracy, Competence and the Difficulty of Building a Bi-Racial Party
- 10. Pressures on Freedmen to Vote the Conservative Ticket
- 11. Election Day Street Confrontations in Charleston
- 12. A White Schoolteacher on the 1876 Elections in the South Carolina Lowcountry
- 13. Freedpeople Confront a Black Politician for Having 'Sold Out his Race'
South Carolina Curriculum Standards
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Exhibit Home9. Petition from Union County Republicans against Removal of Troops
The following educational document corresponds with Unit Four: Freedom, Black Soldiers, and the Union Military in the After Slavery exhibition. Note the "Questions to Consider" section included at the end of each document.
Context
In 1870 and 1871 white paramilitaries in the South Carolina upcountry carried out a systematic campaign aimed at intimidating freedpeople and a handful of white allies from voting the Republican ticket. The sharp reduction in armed federal troops in South Carolina left Republican activists extremely vulnerable to violence.
Their predicament eased somewhat after President Grant declared martial law in ten upcountry counties, deployed bolstered federal troops in the area, and aggressively pursued prosecutions against Klan members. One result was the flight of suspected Klansmen out of the state, but by 1873, as these letters suggest, they felt confident enough to return, and Republicans were concerned that a new round of violence was about to be unleashed. Here a Republican activist in Union appeals to Governor Franklin J. Moses Jr. to maintain an adequate troop presence in the area.
Petition from Union County Republicans against Removal of Troops
February 20, 1873
We the undersigned Republicans, address you, in behalf of the peaceloving citizens of this County, to ask of you to use your influence, to have other troops, immediately sent here.
The subject is a very serious one, especially to the Republicans of this County, and many of the citizens of this County have expressed themselves, desirous that the troops should remain, and they openly acknowledge, that it is necessary for the maintenance of peace and order.
The action of the Government in pardoning members of the Ku Klux Klann [sic], instead of having the desired effect, in establishing peace and quietness seems to have operated in an entirely different manner, and men who have been members of the order and have been absent from the country, have already returned and are now making threats, what they will do when the troops leave.
We have no fear of any general trouble, but there will be insults offered and individual quarrels, and an undefined fear now prevails throughout the whole County, the removal of the troops at this time, is in our opinion certainly premature and we hope and implore that you'll have troops sent here immediately to occupy the barracks about to be vacated... J. S. Mobley and others (Union, SC) to Governor Franklin J. Moses, Jr.
March 4, 1873
I tell you if something ain't done soon after the troops leave this place the KKK will commence [to] kill again a great deale of them that had left here come back again and making the boldest threats now they have commence having the meetings now and if you can't get the troops to stay you will Please inform me as soon as you can as all the Party come to me to know what to do men are here that I [saw] warrants authorized for their arrest and they have not been arrested yet if he can't do no way to keep the Piece let me know we can't stay here and be killed when we know that we will be killed...these are facts[.]
J. S. Mobley (Union, SC) to Governor Franklin J. Moses, Jr.
[Moses responds with note on back of letter]
Answer this letter and say that I have communicated with the President and troops will be promptly furnished whenever needed. The people shall be fully protected and they need not fear.
Source: Governor Franklin J. Moses, Jr. Papers, South Carolina Department of Archives and History
Questions to Consider
- Judging from the first communication, what effect did the presence of federal troops have on whites prone to paramilitary violence?
- Mobley suggests that the government's policy in relation to prosecuting Klansmen has not had the desired effect. Why might federal authorities hesitate in bringing suspected paramilitaries to trial, and what did they hope to achieve by pursuing this approach?
- Judging from Mobley's second letter, what is the feeling among Radicals in the vicinity of Union as to their safety? What effect might his have on their willingness to take part in Republican campaigning? On freedpeople's willingness to come out and vote? On their ability to win support from whites?
- How should the federal government have dealt with the threat of paramilitary opposition to Reconstruction in the South?