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Show your support for freedom and democracy

Even before the war ended, the government had begun discussing how to deal with the aftermath of the war. In March 1865 the U.S. War Department established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly called the Freedmen’s Bureau. The bureau was headed by Union General Oliver Otis Howard and furnished food and medical supplies to former slaves. It also established schools and helped former slaves negotiate fair wages and working conditions.

Your indulgence is requested in considering the story surrounding Jourdan Anderson, a former slave. After slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, Colonel P.H. Anderson asked his former slave Jourdan Anderson to come back to Tennessee and work for him again. In his eloquent and ironic reply, Jourdan Anderson draws comparisons between his life as a free man and as a slave. As a free man, he receives payment for his work, is treated kindly, and his children go to school. As Colonel Anderson’s slave, he received no wages, was shot at, and his children had no education.

Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master

[Written just as he dictated it.]

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865.

To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson,

Big Spring, Tennessee.

SIR: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves down in Tennessee". The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future.

I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Source: Articles from Bibliobase edited by Michael A. Bellesiles. Copyright © 1998 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

Some emancipated slaves quickly fled from the neighborhood of their owners, while others became wage laborers for former owners. Most importantly, African Americans could make choices for themselves about where they labored and the type of work they performed. This account book shows that former slaves who became free workers after the Civil War received pay for their work on Hampton Plantation in South Carolina.

Reconstruction did open the door for political involvement on the part of former slaves, and those free blacks that lived in southern states Shown in this picture are black congressmen from the late 1800s, including the first black to serve in the United States Senate, Hiram Revels, far left, of Mississippi who served in the 41st Congress from 1869 to 1871. More than 20 blacks were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate in the South during Reconstruction, the period of rebuilding after the American Civil War

In 1868 John W. Menard became the first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana, where nearly 50 percent of the population was black. Congress refused to seat Menard, but other blacks followed. In 1870 Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black person to sit in the U.S. Senate. In all, 20 blacks from Southern states served in the U.S. House of Representatives and 2 in the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction. Compare these statistics to today's U.S. Senate that has no blacks representing any state, but the fault might rest with the apathy of black voters over the racial intentions of bigots.

Hundreds of blacks were killed for attempting to vote, for challenging segregation, for organizing workers, or even for attending school. In 1871 President Ulysses S. Grant declared martial law in nine South Carolina counties because of the proliferation of lynching and beatings. In 1873 white terrorists massacred more than 60 blacks on Easter Sunday in Colfax, Louisiana, and killed 60 Republicans, both blacks and whites, during the summer of 1874 in nearby Coushatta. They killed 75 Republicans in Vicksburg, Mississippi in December 1874.

Even as Reconstruction ended, blacks continued to make some gains. In 1877 former slave and abolitionist, John Mercer Langston, became U.S. minister to Haiti, and Frederick Douglas served as federal marshal of the District of Columbia. During the late 1870s and the 1880s, several additional black colleges founded in the South joined Howard University in Washington, D.C., Morehouse College in Georgia, and Morgan State University in Maryland in broadening educational opportunities for black students. In 1888 Capital Savings Bank of Washington, D.C., opened as the first African American bank in the United States, and others followed in Richmond, Virginia; Birmingham, Alabama; and elsewhere in the South.

But, in 1879, the federal troops withdrew and states began to govern themselves. For southern states the absence of the Army closed the doors for opportunities for blacks as the klan terrorized all that dared to exercise citizen's rights.

The Ku Klux Klan  remains one of the largest continents of racist in the U.S. today. It has long been believed that those in the klan get more than tacit support from more influential and affluent whites whose hypocrisy prevents them from wearing the robes of their beliefs.

Time to pack up and move on. By the late 1870s much of the optimism of emancipation had faded to the reality of the post-Reconstruction South. Thousands of blacks, landless and poor, decided to leave the South. In 1878 over 200 blacks sailed from Charleston harbor for Liberia in Africa. Many others decided to move west to the new territories that had been opened to settlement. In the "Exodus of 1879," sometimes called the Exoduster Movement, almost 20,000 blacks left Mississippi and Louisiana for the frontiers of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Oklahoma. They established a number of all-black towns like Langston, Oklahoma, and Nicodemus, Kansas, planted farms, settled in cities, and worked in mines.

The Nicodemus Town Company was incorporated in 1877 by six black and two white Kansas. It was the oldest of about twenty towns established predominately for blacks in the West. After the Civil War there was a general exodus of blacks from the South. These migrants became known as "Exodusters" and the migration became known as the "Exoduster" movement. Some applied to be part of colonization projects to Liberia and locations outside the United States; others were willing to move north and west. Benjamin Singleton led an exodus of African Americans from various points in the South to Kansas.

Buffalo Soldiers

The film industry had done a mammoth job in promoting "Hollywood's version" of the western frontier. From Tom Mix and silent films to Clint Eastwood and multi-million dollar budgets much that we consume about the Old West come from film. Certainly in the U.S.A. there is great evidence that people have become visually dependent to the point that reading is threatening to become a lost skill. However, there is no blame to be placed. It remains an individual's decision of what information they consume and the sources they access. The harm done is based upon presentation. The early western films portrayed blacks as only cooks. This misconception found its way into our daily culture to the point that few even accept today the contributions of black men to western lure. There is no greater evidence than the Buffalo Soldiers that was the United States Cavalry that policed the western frontier. Film producers are truly missing the boat. There remains thousands of genuine stories of western heroics that have never been told, re-told, and worn out. Authentic heroes whose names are seldom spoken.

Henry O. Flipper (1856-1940) was not only the first black man to graduate from West Point Military Academy, but was also assigned to the 10th U.S. Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers.

The 9th United States Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers

Flipper was truly a product of the Re-Construction Era, the first civil rights movement. However, controversy was an constant element in Flipper's life from birth. His mother, Isabella Flipper, a slave, was owned by Reverend Reuben H. Lucky. Flipper's father, Festus Flipper, was also a slave, but owned by Ephraim G. Ponder, a prosperous Georgia slave dealer. Festus Flipper was a skilled shoe maker, and carriage trimmer that was highly valued by his owner who rented him out to any that could pay. On March 21, 1856, Isabella gave birth to Henry in Thomasville, Georgia. Three years of persistence by Festus caused his owner to purchase Isabella and baby Henry with funds provided by Festus Flipper.

Also in 1859 Ponder re-located to Atlanta; taking with him his sixty plus slaves that included the Flipper Family. Most likely because Ephraim Ponder made considerable money renting out his skilled slaves he permitted the Flipper children to learn to read and write. After the civil war Festus hired the wife of an ex-Confederate soldier to tutor his children. So intense was his education that Henry was admitted to Atlanta University to continue his studies. It was while there that Henry received his appointment to West Point from Congressman J. C. Freeman, 6th District of Georgia. Other blacks were appointed, but Henry was the only to graduate; June 14, 1877 ... 50th in a Class of 76.

Henry O. Flipper (1856-1940)

Flipper's appearance, popularity, and notoriety did not make him a favorite of his commanders. He was constantly re-assigned serving at Fort Elliot, Fort Concho, Fort Davis, and Fort Quitman. Wherever he went he was the "colored officer" that was not well received. In addition Flipper was physically dashing and handsome, and somewhat of a "lady's man" that mistakenly escorted a young white female riding one pleasant afternoon. BIG MISTAKE !!!! On August 13, 1881 formal charges were placed against Lieutenant Flipper, the commissary officer, by his commander, Colonel William R. Shafter. The initial charge was embezzlement of $3,791.07 in government funds that were reportedly missing. Two weeks after the charges were placed the funds were located where they should be; Washington D.C. The initial charges were dropped and normally that would be the end of the story. Not so. This is the United States of America where justice wears many faces. A Court Martial found Lt. Flipper guilty of "conduct unbecoming of an officer" stemming from the initial charge that was dropped. GO FIGURE !!!!   

Lt. Flipper was Dishonorably Discharged from the United States Army on June 30, 1882. His life, or contributions did not end there. For all the years of his life he lobbied for an Honorable Discharge that did not come in his lifetime. He authored several books; The Colored Cadet at West Point, 1878, Homer Lee & Co.; Negro Frontiersman, The Western Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper; and a booklet, Did a Negro Discover Arizona and New Mexico. Flipper died on May 3, 1940.

James W. Smith also attended West Point, but his response to the constant harassment was to attack a fellow cadet with a coconut dipper. He was set back a full term year. Smith was attending West Point when Henry O. Flipper arrived, and they became close friends. Smith had been appointed by Congressman S. L. Hoge in 1870 as the result of the Re-Construction efforts to establish a place for Negroes in American culture. His defiance made him a target for even greater harassment and after four years he was dismissed from the academy and discharged from the military.

Johnson C. Whittaker was another young black cadet at West Point. Arriving in the early 1880s he found no warmer reception then those that had preceded him. One evening he was physically assaulted by a group of fellow cadets. His hair was cut, his ears sliced, and he was tied up and beaten. In typical hypocritical fashion it was Whittaker that was brought up on charged for "staging" the assault to gain sympathy. He was found guilty and Dishonorable Discharged. In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur, ordered the case to be reconsidered, a military review supported the original findings and sentencing. That is how justice is handled in the United States today. The years have changed nothing. 

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