https://www.susannahjural.com/cwrgm/files/original/ae83d1d4855eef492975ad69d15dcd42.png 4c2e075042c8520ec658188b88dd90fb https://www.susannahjural.com/cwrgm/files/original/22ad2035dff12ca1ce753a2bc9e59599.png ef3d0580124baf58ea64e919b17471df https://www.susannahjural.com/cwrgm/files/original/c9b5ebfac5ed36a830c29d97540625da.png 4270caaef38d27b3e94e0d88fbbcfc65 https://www.susannahjural.com/cwrgm/files/original/aae24d2eb9d2b236a71bb00783440933.png 41ea8a22c294ab02f73d3b99ba4b2e07 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Emancipation and Citizenship Subject The topic of the resource 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 <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/16">Isaac Applewhite</a> 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 <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/51">November 1863 telegram</a> 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, <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/87">the case of Lambert Moore</a>. The formerly enslaved man <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1865/08/07/archives/mississippi-taxes-imposed-by-gov-sharkey.html">challenged the idea that he should pay taxes on his wartime earnings</a> 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 <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/80">Frank Spruell</a>, 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, <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/69">George T. Swann wrote to Governor William Sharkey </a>from Jackson, MS, describing the lack of clear information he had received on emancipation, a concern echoed by <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/71">S. R. Frierson</a> 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 <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/79">"Secession party" opposition</a>. 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 <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/75">4th of July shooting</a> 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 <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/84">filed by a Rankin County man</a> against one of his former slaves (again unnamed in the record), while another document reveals a request by the <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/90">mayor of Clinton, Mississippi</a> 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 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1865/11/04/archives/from-the-south-and-west-petition-for-the-pardon-of-jacob.html">New York Times article</a> and along with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1865/11/12/archives/southern-items-trouble-in-mississippi-a-county-under-military.html">this one</a> 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. <a href="http://susannahjural.com/cwrgm/items/show/94">This documen</a>t 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.) Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Page 1: Raleigh—No. Carolina, Aug: 21 st—1865, His Excellency W. L. Sharkey Provisional Governor [&c?] Dear Sir Although not known to you personally—yet I have so long, and so favorebly known you by character; that I feel I need have no hesitetion in addressing you, on any question; in which the public good may be in=volved. I flatter myself that I may not be entirely unknown to you by chacter, also. I feel the deep=est interest, in a question which I have reflected on a great deal letterly—out of which I think practical benefit may accend to the South. I mean, the obtaining payment in small part from the genl. government for slave property,—lost under the emancipation programme. This idea had no doubt presented itself, to the northern mind during the war. It seems, that Mr. Horace Greely's plan, (as lately published in the correspondence between him & Mess. Clay & Thompson) was to pay the southern people $400.000.000 in government 5 per cent. bonds, for their slaves. We learn, on reliable authority, that of the Fortress Monroe correspondence, Mr. Lincoln said that whilst he could give no pledges yet he believed, there would be a strong disposition even among the members of the "Republican" party; to pay three or four hundred millions of dollars to the losers of slave property—provided the South would abandon the contest & make peace. My idea is as fol=lows. First, the south must act in accord & harmony, [on?] the subject, It must be a unit. Page 2: Any bickering among ourselves, on the subject, would destroy all the moral power and infulence on which the movement must rely, for success. Let every state convention in the South, by ordinance or some other equally solemn and dignified proced=ure, appeal to the Justice, the generosity, the magnanimity, of the general government of northern people, and the Northern States; in favor of the slight compensation of, say $400.000.000 to the losers of slave property. Or if thought best, no ^special^ sum need be mentioned. I doubt, whether it could be carried through Congress, in a shorter period than three or four years. But if the Southern States will all act in concert in this matter, first in the conventions to be holden this Fall, and after that, press it from year to year in their Legislatures; I feel confident, that in a few years , it would pass triumphantly. The idea itself will not startle the Nothern mind, for it is one, which has been thought of, and considered, as a basis of peace during the progress of the war. The proposition would start, with ever member from the South, and the members from the North, that are known to have friendly feelings for us—in its favor. Let the South press it from session to session—as the great appeal to the justice and human=ity of the nation. The moral strength and power of the movement, would soon gain for it, political power. It would carry with it the entire vote of the South as so much practical capital, in a presidential election. In a few years, it would pass—and it would to some extent, save thousands ^of our people^ from ruin. Page 3: My opinion is, it should not be put forth as a de=mand—it should not pressed as a claim, even; but it should be addressed to the sense of jus=tice—of generosity—of magnanimity—of humanity—on the part of a victorious conqueror.—My decided conviction is, that we of the South must adapt ourselves to our situation—we must bow to destiny—we must try and direct, to the promotion of the public good, events, that we can not control. And we should do so, not grudgingly, but calmly and resignedly. As to perpetuatuing slavery, or resurecting it, under a different name, the idea is utopian. It never can be done. And I am equally sure that all idea of obtaining terms for gradual emancipation, is equally vain. Even if it were practicable (which I do not believe) the Federal government would not allow it to be done. Our only hope of obtaining any thing for the immense amount of property we have lost—is in the scheme I have suggested. If the south is true to herself, this scheme is practicable, I feel sure. I regret that I had not ad=dressed you on the subject, before this. I fear your convention may have adjourned before this reaches you. If it has not, I shall to be pleased to hear, that you deem it compatible with your views of duty, and of the public good—to address a commu=nication to the convention, advising such action in the premises, by ordinance, or otherwise, as will carry out the object aimed at.—Let Mississippi inaugurate the movement, to be followed up by the other Southern state conventions—let Page 4: your convention direct you (as governor [&c?],) to transmit a copy of the ordinance, to all the other provisional governors in the south, to be laid before their respective conventions. I should be glad to lay before your Excellency, at length, the many arguments in favor of the project—and the many bles=sings that would result from the distribu=tion of $400.000.000 of capital (for it would be tantamount to that) throughout the Southern States. But in the narrow lim=its of a letter, I can not go into the consideration of those [strikethrough][subjects][strikethrough] views. I hope, my dear sir, you will pardon the liberty, I have thus taken in addressing you on this subject. The deep interest I feel in this question, as promis=ing some relief to our poor unfortunate suffering South—and my conviction that success is certain, of our people will be prudent, energetic, and harmonious-—consti=tute my apology for troubling you. I shall be much gratified to hear from you—and to learn your views on this subject. I doubt not, it may meet with ^some^ opposition from certain quar=ters, even here in the South; but time & discussion among the people are all that is wanting to thoroughly unite the South in its favor. The man, who may identify his name with the measure of relief will be regarded as a public benefac=tor.— Yours most respectfully, K. Rayner Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from K. Rayner to Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey; August 21, 1865 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context mdah_776-960-01-21 Subject The topic of the resource Freedmen.; Mississippi. Governor; Sharkey, William Lewis, 1798-1873; Slavery.; Slaves--Emancipation--United States. Description An account of the resource From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Governor Sharkey Collection. Letter from K. Rayner in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey concerning a plan to have the federal government pay Southerners for the enslaved people whose labor they lost due to emancipation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rayner, K. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Mississippi Department of Archives and History. (electronic version); Mississippi Digital Library. (electronic version) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865-08-21 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Funding for this project provided by The Dale Center for Study of War and Society-USM, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Mississippi Digital Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the University of Southern Mississippi, and the Watson-Brown Foundation Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1865