The documents in this section remind us that emancipation was a process, not a moment. To approach it as such, this theme is broken down into Wartime, Immediate Postwar, and Reconstruction-era sections.
Emancipation during the War: When President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863, it only freed enslaved peoples in Confederate held territory. But this seemingly limited document would revolutionize the United States in the years that followed. Starting in 1863, enslaved peoples, if they could escape to the Union Army, would no longer be returned to their owners, but rather could stay in what were known as contraband camps where some men joined the Army and women served as cooks and laundresses. The contraband camps were not a panacea of freedom — disease was rampant and bigotry did not end with escape — but 1863 marked a radical shift in Federal policy where Union forces were now directly threatening the institution of slavery in the Confederacy.
If you're investigating the process of emancipation during the war, you might look at the June 1862 letter from
Isaac Applewhite warning Governor Pettus of what Applewhite saw as three key threats to the Confederacy in Marion County: enslaved African-Americans who became "emboldened" by nearby Union forces, potentially disloyal civilians, and Confederate deserters. Site users may also want to examine the
November 1863 telegram from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to MS Governor Charles Clark about U.S. forces recruiting (or "conscripting," in Davis's words) African-American men into the Union Army or Navy, and efforts Davis wanted the state to take to thwart this.
See also the unusual November 1863 account of W. E. Montgomery, Captain of the Herndon Rangers, describing the destruction of white Mississippians' properties in Bolivar County by a former overseer and Confederate deserter named Milford Coe. He lived with escaped African-American men, women, and children on an island in the Mississippi River, from which, according to this document, they launched small raids on Confederate property and traded with Union forces. The CWRGM research team is investigating this story to see if it echoes the more famous wartime case of Newton Knight in Jones County or if it is about something else entirely. If you'd like to join our volunteers and dig through newspaper, census, and military records, we'd love to hear what you find about this case.
Emancipation in the Immediate Postwar Period: Scholars often warn against reading history backwards. Just because we know Mississippi surrendered in May 1865 does not mean that Mississippians knew the war was about to end that spring. Individuals also did not know what changes would follow — How would emancipation unfold? What rights did free and freed Blacks have, would those be respected or protected, and by whom? What rights and freedoms did former Confederates and Unionists have as Mississippi rejoined the Union? Would slaveholders be compensated for their slaves? Would freed peoples receive land or funds in compensation for their years of unpaid labor?
In the sample documents relating to emancipation and the immediate postwar period, several letters spotlights the speed with which some freed peoples asserted themselves as citizens and businessmen. See, for example,
the case of Lambert Moore. The formerly enslaved man
challenged the idea that he should pay taxes on his wartime earnings and argued, through his attorneys, that he earned that money while hiring himself out as an enslaved man. Since Moore paid a portion of his earnings to the man who owned him (who confirmed that in the same document), Moore had, in essence, already been taxed. You may want to explore a related case made by
Frank Spruell, a formerly enslaved man who argued directly to Governor Sharkey that he made far too little selling melons to pay $25 in taxes.
There are also a series of letters that reveal former slaveholders' questions about their rights and responsibilities under the emancipation policies that went into effect throughout the state with its surrender in May 1865. The following month,
George T. Swann wrote to Governor William Sharkey from Jackson, MS, describing the lack of clear information he had received on emancipation, a concern echoed by
S. R. Frierson in Columbus the following month who asked if it would be an immediate or gradual process. In late July, Methodist minister Alex J. Smith from Neshoba County asked for similar clarification for his campaign as a "Union" political candidate facing strong
"Secession party" opposition.
Racial Tensions: Racial tensions increased significantly between moderates and conservatives, blacks and whites, and military and civilian Mississippians in the summer and fall of 1865. As early as July, documents reveal white Mississippians' desire to handle cases in civilian courts, while most African-Americans and U.S. military occupiers saw the need for military oversight.
One of these cases involved a
4th of July shooting where Joseph L. Jackson killed an African-American man (frustratingly unnamed in the document) the Jackson family had once enslaved and who worked as a hired laborer on a Jackson plantation in Washington County. The CWRGM research team is investigating this case to see if Freedmen's Bureau Colonel Samuel Thomas succeeded in his desire to keep the case in military courts, if Governor Sharkey, per the document's authors' advice, contacted President Andrew Johnson to win his support for transfer to civilian court and what Johnson's reaction was (if any), the court's final decision, and what happened to the two families involved after the trial.
Another case emerged that fall as Captain S. D. Cooper with the 50th United States Colored Infantry (USCI) investigated charges of theft
filed by a Rankin County man against one of his former slaves (again unnamed in the record), while another document reveals a request by the
mayor of Clinton, Mississippi for clarification on how to interpret and enforce labor contracts. Both documents reflect a sharp spike in labor disputes as white and black Mississippians asserted their power and independence.
Site visitors may also want to explore the case of Captain Peck, Provost Marshal of the Freedmen's Bureau. He arrested the former sheriff of Copiah County, Colonel Drury Brown, in the fall of 1865 on charges of violence against a freedman. When Governor Sharkey lobbied to have Brown transferred to a civilian court, it appears that Brown won his case and then Peck went to jail rather than pay bail for his appearances in court (though this part is unclear). At that point, U.S. Maj. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus intervened, sending 300 U.S. Colored Troops (USCTs) to force the release of Peck from a Copiah County jail. This document spells out some of that case, and this
New York Times article and along with
this one offers a bit more context. This is another case the CWRGM research team is investigating. We welcome help from the public.
Emancipation and African-American Citizenship during Reconstruction: The Emancipation Proclamation led to the passage and ratification of three constitutional amendments: the 13th Amendment in 1865 (abolition of slavery throughout the U.S. and territories), followed by the 14th Amendment in 1868 (guaranteeing rights of citizenship) and the 15th Amendment in 1870 (extending the right to vote to adult African-American men). Despite this powerful legislation, military and civilian leaders varied greatly in their ability or willingness to enforce the laws that protected the rights of all Mississippians throughout Reconstruction. There is an 1870 document in this sample (also included under the "Civilian" theme) that exemplifies the significant increase in racial violence by the 1870s and efforts taken to combat this by Mississippi Governor James Lusk Alcorn as well as U.S. military forces.
This document shares the report of J. J. Gainey, a Union Army veteran and agent of the Mississippi Secret Service established by Alcorn to investigate and prosecute Ku Klux Klan violence in the state. Gainey's investigation, detailed here, uncovered several assaults on African-Americans in Lafayette County, MS, including one shooting and possible murders in Arkansas. This is another case that the CWRGM research team is investigating. We welcome help from the public.
(Written by Susannah J. Ural, Ph.D.)
