Slavery and the Lost Cause

Black Awareness of the Civil War

Oct 14, 2008 Ron Goodwin

Even though slave apologists argued that slaves were ignorant and childlike, former slaves recalled understanding the ramifications of the Civil War.

For more than 100 years academics have presented various interpretations of slavery and the war that ended it in this country. Whether it was benign or brutal, paternalistic or passive matters little in the twenty-first century. Slavery is still slavery. Just as the cause(s) of the Civil War matters little. What matters is that it ended slavery while transforming American society, both black and white. This essay examines the perceptions of Texas’ black slaves with regard to their knowledge and understanding of the war that brought them their first glimpses of freedom.

There have been numerous studies of blacks in Texas during the antebellum and Civil War eras. Most conclude that the nature of slavery was consistent throughout the antebellum/pre war period. However, the Civil War changed slavery in Texas, as ex-slaves remembered the vile practice intensified. With its location on the frontier of the Confederacy (Texas was vulnerable to attack from the north, west, and south) the state’s master – slave relationship changed and set the tone for the antagonisms of the Reconstruction.

Nonetheless, the war became synonymous with freedom as blacks throughout Texas and the country, free and slave, came to see it as a war that would end slavery and eventually allow them to live free of intimidation, free from physical and emotional restraints, free to receive a reasonable wage for their labor, or better, free obtain title to their own land. At the beginning of the war, there were nearly two hundred thousand slaves in Texas, but by the end, the total reached as many as two hundred and fifty thousand. The presence of Union armies in the state had little impact on slavery, but almost everyone, slave and slave owner alike, knew changes in the state’s social, economic, and political institutions were forthcoming.

When interviewed in the 1930s many of Texas’ former slaves recalled the war, particularly what they thought it meant to their freedoms, and how whites in Texas responded to the call to arms. Many slave owners intimidated their slaves into a verbal acknowledgment of their loyalty to them and the Confederacy. Former slave William Adams remembered a white preacher telling slaves that they should pray for the Confederacy to win or else they would be homeless, hungry and live like “de wil’ animals.” Adams said, “We all raised our hands ‘cause we were skeered not to, but we sho’ dodn’ wan’ de South to win.” Like Adams, former slave Martin Jackson was not only aware of the war, but that it might bring about an end to the Peculiar Institution. He said, “I knew the Yanks were going to win, from the beginning.”

With regard to the call to arms, former slaves recalled how some whites took leadership positions in training local volunteers for service in the militias, others collected food and supplies, while some actively participated in combat. There were some white males in Texas that tried to avoid active military service altogether. As former slave Susan Ross said, “Lots of ‘em didn’t want to go, but dey has to.” Another former slave, Ellen Payne, reported that she knew of many young white males who tried to get out of military service, and said, “I ‘member the white southern men folks run off to the bottoms to git ‘way from war,” she stated.

There is little question that Texas’ slaves were not only aware of the war, but that if victorious, the Union armies would bring their freedom. Those freedoms did come. Immediately for some, and several months after the Union army appeared in Galveston for others.

Sources:

Barr, Alwyn Barr. “Black Texans during the Civil War,” in Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History, edited by Donald Willett and Stephen Curley (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2005): 86-93.

Campbell, Randolph B. An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821-1865 ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).

Kelley, Robin D.G. and Earl Lewis. To Make Our Own World Anew: A History of African Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Marten, James A. “Slaves and Rebels: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1861-1865,” East Texas Historical Journal 28.1 (1990): 29-36.

Slave Narratives (William Adams, Martin Jackson, Thomas Johns, Harrison Boyd, Lizzie Jones, Ellen Payne, Elsie Reece, Susan Ross, and James Hayes). Center for American History – University of Texas at Austin.

The copyright of the article Slavery and the Lost Cause in American History is owned by Ron Goodwin. Permission to republish Slavery and the Lost Cause in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.