Symposium, April 5, 2014: “Lone Star Unionism and Dissent,” presented by the Center for the Study of the Southwest, Texas State University

If you’re interested in Southern Unionism, especially within the Lone Star State, the upcoming symposium will be of great interest to you. Lots of great scholars and papers, and I’m honored to be included. My talk will be on Warren Jacob Collins, leader of the Unionist “Jayhawkers” of the East Texas Big Thicket. Warren was part of a Unionist family that included Jasper Collins of Mississippi, a member of the Knight Company of “Free State of Jones” fame.

Hope to see you there!

Vikki Bynum

APRIL 5, 2014, SATURDAY   |   SYMPOSIUM
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
LONE STAR UNIONISM AND DISSENT: The Other Civil-War Texas

Support for the Union in Texas and rejection of the Confederacy did not solely consist of Sam Houston’s famous refusal to take oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Before, during, and after the Civil War, significant numbers of Texans of all social, economic, and ethnic groups actively opposed the dominant southern slaveocracy for a variety of reasons. This symposium explores the diversity of that opposition and challenges the myth of a monolithic pro-Confederate Texas.

Presented by Texas State’s Center for the Study of the Southwest, this all-day symposium offers two morning sessions and one afternoon session of three presentations each, followed by keynote address and a Q&A period.

8:00 AM—CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

8:30 AM — OPENING REMARKS
J. Frank de la Teja, director of Texas State’s Center for the Study of the Southwest

8:45–10:15 AM — SESSION ONE

Gray Ghost: Collective Memory of a Confederate Texas 
— Laura McLemore 
The “collective memory” of Confederate Texas is as elusive as a ghost. It is as lacking in definite shape as any restless spirit, and tracing manifestations of it is a challenge worthy of any ghost hunter. This nebulousness, like so many aspects of Texas history and memory, is inextricably linked with Texan identity, in itself a loaded term. From a survey of primary and secondary sources, however, a few conclusions emerge, the first and foremost of which is that Texans viewed and many continue to view themselves as “Texan” first and foremost. A second is that vast differences of geography and ethnic heritage mitigated against the formation of a genuinely “collective” memory of a Confederate Texas. A third is that Texas men were much more interested in getting back to making money than they were in memorializing a lost cause. This left the cultivation of “memory” to the ladies. McLemore explores the evidence for and the nature of collective memory of Confederate Texas through time.

The Problem of Slave Flight Before and During the Civil War 
— Andrew J. Torget
This presentation will focus on the problem that slave fight posed for Anglo Texans and Confederates, as enslaved people during the 1850s and 1860s escaped from plantations. The position of Texas along the far-western frontier of the American South, alongside Mexico, presented unique opportunities for enslaved people to flee their masters, leaving the state’s planters particularly concerned about the problem of slave flight and rebellion. The outbreak of the Civil War threatened to destabilize slaveholding in the state as it brought new opportunities for Texas slaves to escape, even as slaveholders from other parts of the Confederacy began shuttling slaves into Texas to isolate them from Union armies (and the opportunity to run to freedom across Union lines). Dr. Torget will examine both how the course of the war affected slave escapes in the state, and how Anglo Texans thought about both the threat of emancipation and the central problem that their enslaved servants posed: unionists in their midst.

Slaveholding Refugees in Wartime Texas 
— Caleb McDaniel
As Union armies occupied New Orleans and moved up the Mississippi River in late 1862 and 1863, slaveholding refugees from Louisiana poured across the border into Texas, bringing with them tens of thousands of enslaved people. As these slaveholders rented land, hired out slaves, moved back and forth across the border, and sometimes straddled the line between commitment to the Confederacy and grudging acceptance of Union gains, their presence created tensions with many native Texans who questioned their loyalty or feared the influx of “strange” people of color. As “outsiders” who were neither Unionists nor fully accepted by Confederate Texans, these refugees and the enslaved people they brought with them did not always fit neatly into the categories historians have used to understand wartime Texas. They reveal the heterogeneous and shifting nature of the state’s population as well as the multiple motives—economic, practical, familial, and ideological—that brought many strangers to Texas during the War.

10:15–10:30 AM — BREAK

10:30 AM–12:00 PM — SESSION TWO

New Americans or New Southerners? German Texans 
— Walter Kamphoefner
Texas, which was home to more than a quarter of Germans residing in the eleven Confederate states, was the only place with an appreciable rural German element, one that was large enough to play a role in politics and war. Just what role they played, however, still remains under dispute. In the popular media, various characterizations of Germans have portrayed them as everything from “fire-breathing secessionists” to “virtually all Unionists.” The range of scholarly opinion is nearly as broad. Older accounts often reflect the characterization of antebellum traveler Frederick Law Olmstead, portraying Germans as largely abolitionist in sentiment. More recent scholarship has cautioned against generalizing from a few radical Forty-eighters to the bulk of ordinary German immigrants. Kamphoefnel re-examines the role and attitudes of Texas Germans (and smaller continental European groups often allied with them) toward slavery, the Confederacy, and Reconstruction, drawing particularly on evidence from letters and from voter behavior. It also explores personal factors which made individuals more or less sympathetic to the Confederate cause.

Although We Are the Last Soldiers: Citizenship, Ideology, and Tejano Unionism 
— Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez
Mexican Texan resistance to the Confederacy and Tejano Unionism along the South Texas border will be examined by Valerio-Jiménez. He argues that Mexican Texans’ reactions to the U.S. Civil War were rooted in the relationships Mexicans had established with African Americans in the villas del norte (towns along the Rio Grande) during the Spanish and Mexican periods. Following U.S. annexation, Tejanos assisted runaway slaves who sought freedom in Mexico and they also intermarried with African Americans. The paper demonstrates that Mexican Texans who joined the Union Army did so for various reasons including anti-slavery sentiment, opposition to pro-Confederate local politicians, and expressions of U.S. citizenship. Although they endured hardships during the war and were not politically rewarded afterwards, Tejanos invoked their military service as a claim to U.S. citizenship.

Coerced Unionism: African American Testimonies of Violence During Reconstruction 
— Rebecca Czuchry
Immediately following the Civil War in 1865, African Americans in the former Confederacy faced extremely brutal violence perpetrated by whites. This was particularly true in Texas, a state known during the period for both violence and racial intolerance. Texas has been viewed by Reconstruction scholars as one of the most violent of the former Confederate states. Even so, the violent experience of former slaves in the state has not been fully examined. Although white Texans used violence to injure, kill, or control individuals, violence also served the larger purpose of creating a climate of fear in order to more easily subjugate and control the entire black community. Despite this brutal atmosphere, black Texans risked their lives by reporting acts of violence that occurred in their communities. Kosary  examines the testimonies of African Americans as a form of resistance; in testifying to federal officials, black Texans resisted re-subjugation and established a degree of autonomy and power over their own lives.

12:00 –1:30 PM — LUNCH BREAK

1:30 –3:00 PM — SESSION THREE

East Texas Unionism 
— Victoria Bynum
During the Civil War, Warren Jacob Collins of Hardin County, Texas, led a band of guerrillas that hid out in East Texas’s Big Thicket. Collins’s occasional appearance in Texas folklore as a backwoods, bare-knuckled fighter or, alternatively, the “Daniel Boone” of East Texas, has long obscured the deeply-held political views that led him (and six of his brothers) to support the Union against the Confederacy. A careful study of the Texas Collins brothers and the Big Thicket uprising reveals the uprising’s yeoman roots as well as its direct ties to the more famous yeoman uprising in Mississippi known as the “Free State of Jones.” The political postwar evolution of Warren J. Collins in turn provides a window on connections between Southern Unionism and the rise of third party challenges to the Democratic Party.

A Texas Reign of Terror: Anti-Unionist Violence in North Texas 
— Rick McCaslin 
Despite popular lore that tends to focus on events reinforcing common perceptions of Texan exceptionalism and virtues—which leads many Texans to assume their state emerged from the Civil War virtually unscathed—facts reveal many regions were deeply scarred by wartime experiences, and the violence did not come from invasions.  Confederate Texans proved just as intolerant of dissenters as Southerners in many other states, and they reacted just as violently to internal challenges. North Texas became the arena for many brutal operations against Unionists, which undermine claims of both exceptionalism and virtue by Texans concerning the Civil War. Instead, residents of the Lone Star State, like Southerners who lived elsewhere in the former Confederacy, had to reflect on a divided legacy that included not just the heroism of units such as Hood’s Texas Brigade, but also the viciousness of events such as the Great Hanging at Gainesville.

Three Cheers to Freedom and Equal Rights to All: Juneteenth and the Meaning of Citizenship 
— Elizabeth Hayes Turner
Occupying Union troops entered Texas in June more than two months after the Civil war had ended, but it was on June 19 (Juneteenth) that a portion of the 250,000 slaves—the last within the Confederacy—learned of their freedom. The emancipation announcement, made by General Gordon Granger in Galveston, tested the resolve of slavery supporters and began in earnest the development of a freedom tradition that has lasted to this day. During Juneteenth’s evolution from 1865 to the turn of the century, black communities came together annually to celebrate their liberation and to honor the president who had freed them. Over time, leaders and social justice activists used Juneteenth gatherings as a pragmatic way not only to remember with pride black state office holders but also to launch important goals for African Americans. The creation of Reconstruction government demonstrated that democracy could be carried out by a black and white voting populace, a memory that would later be suppressed by whites seeking to disfranchise black voters. As Reconstruction faded and Redeemers returned to state office, African Americans, through Juneteenth celebrations, kept alive the meaning of freedom, the history of their political participation, and the quest for full citizenship under the law.

3:00–3:15 PM — BREAK

3:15–3:45 PM — KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Edmund J. Davis: The Radicalization of a Texas Unionist 
— Carl Moneyhon
Edmund J. Davis was a prominent Texas politician in the antebellum era who supported the Union in the secession crisis of 1860-1861, fled the state and became a general in the Union Army, then returned after the war to become an important figure in the state’s Republican Party and ultimately the state’s governor. In the latter position he urged a new course for Texas, even supporting full rights for the state’s newly freed slaves. Moneyhon examines Davis’s course during these years, assessing the causes for the decisions he made. This examination shows, ultimately, the plight of an individual whose constitutional and legal views precluded his endorsement of the actions of the state’s Democratic majority. It illustrates how the uncompromising stance of the latter and their refusal to tolerate any wavering on the issue of secession and their justification of it following Confederate defeat forced unwanted decisions on a fundamentally conservative man. The fanatical position held by the Democratic leadership, in the end, radicalized Davis and accounts for the emergence of an individual willing to challenge their leadership and even the socio-economic status quo in Texas.

3:45 PM — GENERAL Q&A

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 53,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 20 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Lynching of Methodist Minister Anthony Bewley in Civil War Era Texas

The following post was submitted to Renegade South by Tim Sumrall. Particularly noteworthy is that Rev. Anthony Bewley was lynched for his pro-Union views in 1860, well before secession from the Union had been achieved by the Texas legislature. This was the time of “Texas Trouble,” during which vigilantes targeted citizens who sympathized with the plight of slaves or opposed the mounting cries for disunion that would soon bring the American Civil War. 

Abolitionist Minister Lynched in Fort Worth

On this day in 1860 (September 13 1860 ), abolitionist Methodist minister Anthony Bewley was lynched in Fort Worth. Bewley, born in Tennessee in 1804, had established a mission sixteen miles south of Fort Worth by 1858. When vigilance committees alleged in the summer of 1860 that there was a widespread abolitionist plot to burn Texas towns and murder their citizens, suspicion immediately fell upon Bewley and other outspoken critics of slavery.

Special attention was focused on Bewley because of an incendiary letter, dated July 3, 1860, addressed to a Rev. Bewley and supposedly written by a fellow abolitionist. Many argued that the letter, which urged Bewley to continue with his work in helping to free Texas from slavery, was a forgery. The letter was widely published, however, and taken by others as evidence of Bewley’s involvement with the John Brownites in Texas.

Recognizing the danger, Bewley left for Kansas in mid-July with part of his family. A Texas posse caught up with him near Cassville, Missouri, and returned him to Fort Worth on September 13. Late that night vigilantes seized Bewley and delivered him into the hands of a waiting lynch mob. His body was allowed to hang until the next day, when he was buried in a shallow grave. Three weeks later his bones were unearthed, stripped of their remaining flesh, and placed on top of Ephraim Daggett’s storehouse, where children made a habit of playing with them.

http://www.tshaonline.org/day-by-day/30999

Letter From Anthony Bewley
http://www.nytimes.com/1861/01/23/news/a-methodist-minister-lynched-letter-from-rev-anthony-bewley.html

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbe71

The Death of a Freedman: Violence and Race in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom

By Vikki Bynum

During the Reconstruction Era of 1865-1872, the social fabric of  Orange County, North Carolina, was shredded by violence. This region was one of many in the post-Civil War South in which the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Republicans and freed people in the wake of Confederate defeat. The following story is not about the KKK per se. It does, however, reflect a common belief among white southerners, in the wake of slavery’s end, that the only means by which civilization would survive was through vigilant policing of freed people’s movements. Because of that attitude, it wasn’t necessary that murder be premeditated for the following death to have occurred. All that was required was that a critical mass of white people believe that people of African American descent were dangerous to their well-being and to the general good order of society.

The story I tell here,  which speaks to the changing nature of power in the post-slavery South, is excerpted from my 2010 book, The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies:

In Civil War Orange County’s class-bound and racially divided society, not all violence was perpetrated by the Klan or was necessarily premeditated. Violence often resulted from the assumption of many whites that it was their duty and right to police blacks. The 1867 killing of Bill Fuller, a freedman, is a case in point. On the day he died, Fuller attended a corn shucking at Bill Faucett’s home, located in the Cedar Grove neighborhood on the land of Catlett C. Tinnin, a sixty-year-old former slaveholder. The friends gathered to work, but also to play music and sing songs together, creating a festive atmosphere that infuriated Tinnin. Perhaps he was irritated by the sounds of blacks enjoying their freedom, or perhaps the noise just got to him. Whatever the case, he angrily entered Faucett’s house and confronted the men, threatening to “blow out their brains.” The black men, who dared not take lightly such threats from white men, quickly scattered. Tinnin then walked to a window and fired his gun. Bill Fuller, who had just exited the same window, took the bullet in his leg.

The injured man, who was not discovered for almost half an hour, died from his wound. During the court’s investigation, witnesses seemed to agree that Tinnin did not intend to kill Fuller but had fired indiscriminately through the window without seeing him. Tinnin, they pointed out, was “very much hurt” when he discovered what he had done and immediately called for a doctor. 

Perhaps Tinnin was innocent of premeditated murder, as he and his witnesses claimed, or perhaps the black men who testified in his defense were too scared to say otherwise. Either way, Bill Fuller died because of the right claimed by white men to patrol black men and regulate their behavior. Significantly, Tinnin told Bill Faucett that had he known Faucett was hosting a corn shucking rather than an ordinary frolic, he would not have interfered. As during slavery, white men would “allow” black men who gathered together to work white men’s land (rather than simply revel in freedom) to engage in a bit of merriment along the way. (Quoted from Bynum, Long Shadow of the Civil War, pp. 65)

A freed family working the land in South Carolina, 1866. Sketch by James E. Taylor (Library of Congress).

A heady mixture of power, fear, and racial assumptions produced the above tragedy.  Although white fears of black men existed under slavery, they had been assuaged by laws that gave slave masters and courts full power of authority over enslaved people. African American men were popularly stereotyped as “Sambos”–inherently childlike, loyal, and superstitious–and perfectly suited for slavery. Now that they were free, those “Sambos” must be made to know their place, by vigilante force if necessary.

A representation of the freedman as “Sambo,” subject to the control of whichever political party was in power. Cartoon by Thomas Nast, Harper’s Bazaar, 1867

Thus, in Bill Fuller’s death we see a glimmer of a changing stereotype of black men that would not reach full expression until the New South Era of lynching and segregation.  Even then, the familiar image of black men as lazy, shuffling, Sambos would co-exist with more violent images. On the one hand, black men were presented as too childlike to warrant equal education and employment alongside whites; on the other hand, they were believed too violent and predatory (especially toward white women) to be allowed to roam at will. Laws that mandated racial segregation, reinforced by violent suppression–especially in the form of lynching–were commonly justified by such stereotypes.

 

“Free Negroes” and “Mulattoes” of Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia Prior to 1800

The following guest essay by Wayne K. Driver expands upon my own research on the Morris Family of Gloucester County, Virginia.

Vikki Bynum, Moderator

By Wayne K. Driver

Throughout my years of researching my family from Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia, I have noted that several families, including my own, were listed as “free Negroes” or “mulattoes” prior to 1800. This discovery ignited my interest; I wanted to know more about these families and how they fit into a society in which most people of African descent were slaves and where those of European descent dominated. I wondered if these free people of color had any rights, if they owned property or had the freedom to move about without being harassed.  Since my focus was on the years prior to 1800, I also wondered how they felt about the Revolutionary War.  Which side did they support? Which side promised a better future for them?

Families with the names ALLMOND/ALLMAN, BLUFORD, DRIVER, FREEMAN, GOWEN/ GOING, HEARN, KING, LEMON, MEGGS, MONOGGIN, and MORRIS are identified in various documents as living free from slavery.  “Free” did not necessarily mean, however, that they were as free as those of full European ancestry.  These “free” people did not have slave masters, but they did have limitations place upon them and hardships that would not be understood by my generation.

The above families of color, as well as others not cited in this essay, contributed to America by serving in wars, participating in religious movements, and working in many trades. At the same time, they strove for greater freedom of access to education, property ownership, and social equality.  Too often, these pioneers are forgotten in the history books; rarely are they recognized for their work in shaping the counties in which they lived.  When I drive through Gloucester, to my knowledge there is no physical memorial that bears witness to their service in the Revolutionary War, or their contributions to their communities.  I can find all types of negative propaganda concerning “free Negroes,” such as recommendations for their forced removal from the county, or punishment for not paying taxes. My hope is that someday the leaders of these communities will recognize free families of color and teach generations to come about their positive contributions.

Society and Labels

Societies are often divided into historical eras.  I am particularly interested in the colonial, revolutionary, and antebellum periods of the United States, and how “free people of color” fared during each of them.  My research has taken me to different states and localities, where I have noticed varying attitudes displayed by white officials toward people of color. For example, Virginia law prohibited interracial marriages, yet I found such marriages listed in some court records.  I also noticed how inconsistently people in power recorded a person’s skin color or race.  In some cases, the description was diligent and descriptive; in others, it was not.  For example, members of the DRIVER family were described in some records as “white” and in others as “mulatto” or “colored”.  I found these records interesting and disturbing at the same time, and therefore decided to explore these subjects and share my observations about them.

Samuel “Squire” Driver, 1815-1872, and Sarah “Sally” Driver (maiden name unknown), 1815-1872

As I browsed through various historical documents, I noticed that court clerks paid close attention to describing the person(s) being listed.  By law, in 1705, a mulatto was a person deemed to have one-eighth or more African blood. By 1866, one-quarter African blood meant one was “colored,” whereas one-quarter Indian blood meant one was Indian.

In some records, persons defined as “mulatto” were further defined by their shade of complexion. A mulatto might be described as “Yellow/Yellowish,” “Tawney,” “Light”, or “Brown/Dark Mulatto,”—the list goes on.  When I first saw the term “Tawney,” I had to research its meaning. After consulting FreeDictionary.Com, I concluded that this complexion color included several shades of brown ranging from light to brownish orange.

The mulatto MEGGS Family of Middlesex and Gloucester County was described as “Yellow” and “Tawney” in various records. For example, “free negro” James Meggs, born around 1752, was listed as a “yellow” tithable in Middlesex County in 1787, and as a “mulatto” tithable in 1788.

For genealogical information on the Meggs household, see Heinegg, Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware at http://freeafricanamericans.com/Mason_Month.htm

It was also customary for a clerk to state a person’s status of birth when it occurred outside of marriage.  Terms like “illegitimate” and “bastard” where often used.  At first I could not understand why such births occurred so frequently in the Bible Belt, but I soon learned that slaves were prohibited by law from marrying, and that interracial marriages became illegal in Virginia in 1691. Thus, free people of color could legally marry only one another.

Although the law stated that an interracial couple would be banished from the Dominion forever, I did not find evidence of this happening.  In 1792 another law was enacted stating that

he or she shall be committed to prison for six months and pay $30.00 for use of the parish.  The penalty for a minister marrying Negroes and whites is set at $250 for every such marriage.

Many such laws seem to have been ignored, however, in Gloucester County. During the late 1700’s, Susanna DRIVER (Caucasian) gave birth to a mulatto bastard child. Susanna is cited several times in the vestry books in regard to her mulatto children. It appears that she was white and her spouse was of African ancestry. Prior to her husband’s death she gave birth to another child, but no reference to race was indicated in the vestry books.

The oldest free family of color that I have been able to identify in Gloucester County is the GOWEN/GOWINGS/GOINGS family.  They were the children of Michael GOWEN, born about 1635, who was the “negro” servant of Christopher STAFFORD.  STAFFORD gave him his freedom on January 18, 1654, in York County, Virginia, after four years of service. This is a fascinating family that is well documented by Paul Heinegg in his book, Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, at http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Virginia_NC.htm.  Throughout this article, I draw heavily on Heinegg’s research, and I encourage you to visit this site to learn more about the genealogical history of the above families.

The ALLMOND/ALLMAN/ALMAN family is another unique family that I have encountered during my research.  Orally, I was once told that they were Native American.  The oldest members of the family that I was able to identify were Sally, Jenny, Edward, James (born about 1769), and Zachariah (born about 1775). Most records identify this family as mulatto, but they have also been described as descended from the Pamunkey Tribe of King William County, VA.

I also noticed during my research that some people of color, both slave and free, challenged their legal status in the courts. The BLUFORT/BLUEFOOT family matriarch, free woman Sarah BLUFORT, did so when she complained to the Lancaster County, VA, court that she had been sold by Matthew Green to Rawleigh Hazard.  Court records described Sarah as having been “bound” (apprenticed) to Matthew Green until the age of thirty-one. Green had sold her apprenticeship to Mr. Hazard, much as one might sell a slave. The court seems to have allowed the sale, but forbade Hazard from removing Sarah from the county, which was forbidden by law in regard to apprentices.  (Heinegg, http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Beverly_Brogdon.htm)

The American Revolution

Years ago, I took a cruise to Nova Scotia, Canada.  We had several tour options as we docked and departed the ship.  I chose the option of visiting the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia (BCCNS). During this visit, I learned about “Black Loyalists,” (people of color who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution) who were issued “certificates of freedom” after the Americans won the war and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. People identified as black were given the option to relocate to Nova Scotia, the West Indies, Quebec, England, Germany and Belgium.  According to the BCCNS web site, an estimated 5,000 people of African descent chose to relocate.

Over 3,000 loyalists were recorded in Canada’s Book of Negroes, including Joseph Elliott, 30, former property of John Elliott of Gloucester County, and George Glocester, a 15-year-old boy who also escaped slavery. Three women from Gloucester County, all described by the derogatory term “stout wench,” commonly applied to slave women, were also relocated and freed: Polly Carey, 26, formerly the property of Humphrey Gwin, Elizabeth White, 25, formerly the property of John Perrin; and Sukey Smith, 25, formerly the property of Major Smith.

As I learned this history for the first time in my life, I had to ask the question, “Why did these blacks choose the British side of the war?”  Although slavery was on the wane in Canada, it was still legal there until the 1830s.  According to our tour guide, social conditions were no better for blacks than in the United States.  So why would they choose the British side?  The short answer is FREEDOM.  In November of 1775, five months after the battle of Bunker Hill, the British offered American slaves their freedom if they would support the British.  They did not make this offer because they wanted to end slavery; the British Empire itself did not abolish slavery until 1833. The British offer of freedom to American slaves was a tactical move designed to disrupt the economy of its slaveholding colonies.

If the British enticed slaves to join their cause by offering the prospect of freedom, why did other people of African descent fight for the American colonies?  At first, the Continental army did not want to enlist people of color. Eventually, however, blacks comprised an estimated 5% of Americans who fought at Bunker Hill.  In January, 1776, President George Washington allowed the enlistment of free blacks who had prior military experience.  In 1777, in desperation, the Continental army allowed both free blacks and slaves to enlist. In need of manpower, the colonists promised slaves their freedom in exchange for service. Those who fought on the Patriot side, then, also fought for African American FREEDOM.

For more on the subject of African Americans and the Revolution, see http://www.nps.gov/revwar/about_the_revolution/african_americans.html

Free people of color from Gloucester County, Virginia, served the Revolutionary cause on land and sea.  Gloucester County is a peninsula that touches the Chesapeake Bay, and many free men already made their living from the water. Some became navy seaman, while others served on land.

The DRIVER, HEARN, and MONOGGIN families appear in various Revolutionary records. These men are American heroes.  They fought in battles, and then had to fight for their pensions and other benefits long after the war was over. An example was Ephraim HEARN, a weaver who served in the Revolutionary War. Born about 1745, in 1829 Ephraim lived with his wife, Molly, and his three children, Peter, Jane, and Betsy, in Gloucester County. That year, he successfully petitioned to collect his pension from the government. As the court clerk noted on 12 August 1829:

I, Arthur S. Davies, clerk of the court of Gloucester county do hereby certify that it appears to the satisfaction of the court that the said Ephraim Hearn did serve in the Revolutionary War as stated in the preceding declaration against the common enemy for the term therein stated under one engagement on the continental establishment.

To read the entire text of Ephraim Hearn’s pension application, see http://lestweforget.hamptonu.edu/page.cfm?uuid=9FEC4EAB-B4BC-9223-A25A0AFFCD5B9824

Religious Faith

Religion, particularly Christianity, was the glue that sustained the African American community throughout its early struggles in America.  I remember traveling with my grandfather from Philadelphia to Gloucester County to attend the family church’s “Homecoming” celebrations or week-long revivals.  My grandfather, a Baptist preacher, would sometimes be invited to preach at a local church.  During those summer visits, I observed the strong convictions my relatives held about worship and fellowship.  The only time my grandmother threatened me with the switch was when I announced that I wasn’t going to church one night.  My older brother obtained the switch for her and I am still mad at him for that.  Seriously, I discovered over the years that faith has played a major role in the life of African Americans in this country.  Today, faith is what guides me daily in my life.

The noted black historian, Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D, recognized this in Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830, where he wrote that,

Negroes were not easily stirred by the doctrines of the Quakers and Presbyterians, but they flocked into the folds of the Methodists and Baptists, who won them by successfully socializing the Gospel, by popularizing the appeal with emotional preaching designed to move the illiterate to repentance.

Dr. Woodson also noted that “William Lemmon was called by a white congregation to serve at the Pettsworth or Gloucester church in Virginia.” Lemon was described by white and black contemporaries as a “lively and affecting” preacher.

Members of the LEMON family (variously spelled Lemmon, Lemmond or LeMond) have been documented as “free” since the birth of Ambrose Lemon around 1725.  William Lemon, born about 1845 in Gloucester County, was the brother or son of Ambrose.  Today, this family still maintains a strong presence in Gloucester County.  According to oral tradition, there was an area in Gloucester known as LEMON Town.  The LEMON family has a rich tradition in religion, education and business.

For more on the Lemon family’s genealogy, see Paul Heinegg’s Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Lemon_Lytle.htm

Land Ownership

Land was difficult to obtain during this time by poor people of any color.  I can only imagine the obstacles that stood in the way of free people of color.  Those who managed to do so were extraordinary to say the least.

Being considered “free” during a time when slavery was the norm did not always mean independence.  Owning land gave these free people of color some independence.  In his book, The Honey-pod Tree, the famous black Gloucester County lawyer Thomas Calhoun Walker, born into slavery, dedicated a chapter to his quest to educate blacks about owning land.  T. C. Walker founded a company, “The Gloucester Land and Brick Company” solely to create opportunities for blacks to own land.  He traveled from church to church and school to school to discuss the benefits of owning land and a home.  As Walker wrote:

The most effective inducement to buying a piece of land, I found, was to continue to stress the Emancipation argument: to tell the Negroes that they could never be really free until they owned their own homes.  Finally, after that conviction got well established, and the people were really awake to a sense of their duties to themselves and their families, we just let the company die.  Its purpose had been accomplished.

In 1944, historian Charles Purdue noted Thomas Calhoun Walker’s efforts in his book, The Negro in Virginia:

A consistent campaign for home and land ownership has been waged among the State’s rural Negroes for the past half century by Thomas C. Walker of Gloucester County, lawyer and former advisor to the Work Projects Administration of Virginia.  The success of his efforts is testified by the fact that, in Gloucester County, 881 of its 995 Negro families own their homes.  Of the 574 farms operated by Negroes in the county, 494 are owned by Negroes themselves.  In no county in the state, or in the Nation, is there a higher ratio of Negro farm ownership. (Virginia Writers Project, 1944, p. 365)  

When I first noticed that numerous people of color owned land in the late 18^th and early 19^th century, I wondered how it was possible.  I still don’t have the answer to this question, but I do admire those who were able to acquire land during this time.  The FREEMAN family clearly saw a future for their family by owning land in 1787.  The “List of the Land Tax within the District of Richard Gregory Commissioner of Gloucester County  the year 1787” noted that James FREEMAN owned 34 acres.  This land seems to have remained in the FREEMAN family throughout the next generation.  As I researched this family, it was hard to discern their race.  Some records identify this family as white, while others identity them as mulattoes.

To learn more about the genealogy of the Freeman family, see http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Fagan_George.htm

The DRIVER, LEMON and MORRIS families are also recorded as land owners as far back as the 1782 Tax Records for Gloucester County, VA.  The MORRIS family is well documented here on Renegade South by Victoria Bynum’s “Free People of Color” in Old Virginia: The Morris Family of Gloucester County.”  My paternal great grandmother, Margaret MORRIS Driver was the daughter of Elijah MORRIS, who owned a great deal of land.  As of today, this land is still in my family.  Thank you Great Grand (2X) for this gift; I know you worked very hard to maintain our land.

Margaret Morris Driver, daughter of Elijah Morris, wife of John Driver.

Children of Margaret Ann Morris and John Driver

Professional Trades

During my years of my research, I found many free people of color who worked as skilled artisans, including as carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, and shoemakers. Some excelled in their professions: the DRIVER Brothers made quality furniture.  My ancestors, Sam DRIVER and Robert DRIVER, were blacksmiths.  Matthew T. DRIVER (see photo below), one of the earliest instructors at Tuskegee University, taught wheelwrighting.  The majority of black male heads of households in Gloucester County were listed as farmers, oysterman and farm laborers, but they all knew how use their hands in one way or another.  The occupations listed for women of color included spinners, weavers, cake sellers, and one seamstress.

Matthew T. Driver

As a child I spent many summers with my uncle Bill DRIVER in Connecticut.  By day he was a tool maker and in his free time he dabbled in art and wood.  One summer I helped him build a coffee table.  As a person largely confined to a desk managing technology projects, I admire those who are gifted in working with their hands; they must feel a great sense of accomplishment.  The founder of Tuskegee Institute, Booker T Washington, believed that blacks should not only pursue and education, but should also know a trade—words of wisdom for all times.

For more on the lives of free families of color, see “Free People of Colour in Gloucester County, Virginia,” by Edwin B. Washington, Jr., and L. Roane Hunt.  The article can be obtained from the Gloucester Genealogical Society of Virginia at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vaggsv/index.htm.

CONCLUSION

My research has been very educational for me and I hope the same for you.  As you can see, I am not a professional writer and I only publish articles to share information with family and others.  As I conduct my research, I get a tiny glimpse into the past and I am encouraged by ancestors who have done remarkable things when the odds were against them.  This gives me perspective for any situation that I may come across in life.  I can only read about and imagine the hardships my ancestors incurred during their lives.  When I think about complaining, I go and do some research to get over what ails me.

There are many good sources for research, but take some time to read all the references that I have provided.  These dedicated researchers and writers have so much to share with you.

God Bless,

Wayne K Driver

New York Times Op Ed gets at heart of Paula Deen Controversy

The following post is borrowed from Karen Cox’s Facebook page and blog of the same name, “Pop South.” I heartily endorse her recommendations!

Vikki Bynum, Moderator

What it means to be a “soul sister” in a southern kitchen

Posted on July 30, 2013

Dora Parker, the woman Paula Deen called her “soul sister.” Photo credit: New York Times.

I encourage readers of Pop South to read today’s New York Times op-ed by Rebecca Sharpless providing historical perspective on Dora Charles, the woman Paula Deen called her “soul sister.”

Ms. Charles, who helped open Deen’s restaurant Lady & Sons as well as train other cooks who worked there, was recently interviewed by the Timesabout her relationship with Deen.  That interview is, in many ways, even more revealing about who Paula Deen is than the deposition she gave in the lawsuit brought against her by a white woman, Lisa Jackson.

I also encourage you to read Rebecca Sharpless’s book, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960 (UNC Press, 2010). It’s a great read.

Letter written 150 years ago by three Southern Unionist Brothers

Originally published on The Civil War Day by Day. Document from the Wilson Special Collections Library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Thanks also to Chris Graham for publishing this on Facebook!

29 July 1863: “If Sutch men as yo are is christians of heaven i want to know who is the hippocrits of hell”

Posted on 29 Jul ’13 by dcbh

Item Description: Letter, dated 29 July 1863, from Wilse Dial, James Dial, and Calvin Dial, three Unionists, probably in the mountains of North Carolina or Tennessee, addressed to Capt. Quill Hunter, possibly a Confederate conscription officer, threatening retaliation against attempts to find them.

[Item transcription below images.]

 

 

Item Transcription:Item Citation: Wilse Dial Letter, #3143-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

July the 29th 1863
Capt Quill Hunter if yo ever hunt for us a gin i will put lead in yo god dam your hell fired soll yo have give the people orders to Shoot us down when they find us and if yo dont take your orders back i will Shoot yo If Sutch men as yo are is christians of heaven i want to know who is the hippocrits of hell we have never done yo any harms for yo to hunt for us we will give yo something to hunt for heareafter  here after when any body sees us i will know where to watch for yo the Secessions needent to degrudge what we steel for we are the United States Regulars (Seal)
Wils. Dial. Jim. Dial. Cal. Dial

[Look on the other Side is a little more]

We dont ax [Sprinkles houns?] no more adds than hell does a powder house ave got orders from the Govenor to take yo because yo dont take us that is our latest orders we dist dare yo to go and Abuse Mother or talk about trying them When the Yankees comes we will go and Show them Some Secess to kill If this dont give yo warning enough the next warning we will give yo with powder and lead take the hint in time we are the old United States Regulars
Wilse Dial is one one 
James Dial is another 
Calvin Dial is the other

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