Been in the Storm So Long

by Leon F. Litwack

  Responding to a sympathetic Quaker missionary from Massachusetts who had rebuked her for referring to the freedmen as “niggers,” an elderly black woman in Savannah defended her use of the term as appropriate to the condition of her people. No matter what they might be called, she suggested, and regardless of what emancipation might bring, deeply entrenched views would not be easily given up. “We are niggers,” she insisted. “We always was niggers, and we always shall be; nigger here, and nigger there, nigger do this, and nigger do that. We’ve got no souls, we are animals. We are black and so is the evil one.” The missionary interrupted her at this point to explain that nothing in the Bible indicated that the devil might be black. “Well, white folks say so,” the freedwoman replied, “and we’se bound to believe ’em, cause we’se nothing but animals and niggers. Yes, we’se niggers! niggers! niggers!” Whether this Quaker missionary understood what the black woman was trying to tell her is not clear. Fortunately for the well-meaning emissary from New England, she could turn to some of the more attractive features of Savannah, like the “excellent music in a fine colored church,” to take her mind off this unpleasant encounter with “an old cotton-picking ‘auntie.’ ”70

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  WHILE PROBING the limits of their freedom, black people quickly discovered that the line between impudence and the traditional subservience expected of them was perilously narrow, that matters of racial etiquette could seldom be compromised, and that whites were more sensitive than usual to any behavior which suggested social equality or manifested an unbecoming assertiveness, familiarity, or lack of respect. To have lost the war and suffered the humiliation of Yankee occupation had been penance enough. “It is hard to have to lay our loved ones in the grave, to have them fall by thousands on the battle-field, to be stripped of everything,” a Savannah white woman declared, “but the hardest of all is nigger equality, and I won’t submit to it.”71

  That did not mean, as a farmer in North Carolina assured two northern visitors, whites in the South wished to return the blacks to slavery, only that they had no desire to mix with them socially. He expected any white man in the country could readily appreciate that principle without ascribing evil intent or inhumanity to those who merely wished to implement it in day-to-day life,

  I haven’t any prejudices against ’em because they’re free, but you see I can’t consider that they’re on an equality with a white man. I may like him, but I can’t let him come to my table and sit down like either of you gentlemen. I feel better than he is. The niggers has a kind of a scent about him that’s enough for me. You Northern men needn’t think that we hate ’em; I rather like ’em myself, and I believe we treat ’em better than you would.

  As if to underscore his decent instincts, the farmer reminded his guests that during slavery blacks had usually been tried by a jury of slaveholders. “That don’t look much as if we were inclined to be too hard on ’em, does it?” If blacks or Yankees tried to force equal rights upon the South, the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates warned, they would only poison the good feelings that now prevailed between the races. “There is no unkind feeling towards the negro in a position where he is not asserting an equality; but the best friend a negro ever had in the world, the kindest friend he ever had, a young boy or girl raised by a negro mammy, and devotedly attached to her, would become ferociously indignant if the old mammy were to claim equality for a moment.”72

  To free the slaves did not make them equal. That was a maxim to which all classes of whites could subscribe, and any actions by freed blacks to the contrary broke the limits of toleration and invited not only condemnation but vigilant action. Recognizing the universality of that sentiment, many freedmen who were eager to test their freedom hesitated to provoke post-emancipation white sensitivities. Since the slightest deviation from “normal” behavior might be deemed impudent or presumptuous, they often found themselves forced to act with even greater caution than usual. But black tolerance, too, had its limits. Without necessarily flaunting their freedom, blacks demanded, at the very least, a respect that would be commensurate with their new status. In a hotel dining room in Knoxville, Tennessee, for example, a white guest requested service by calling out to the black waiter (who was about thirty years old), “Here, boy!” That familiar greeting had no doubt been uttered thousands of times in this setting, but the “boy’s” response had few if any precedents. “My name is Dick,” he announced. Whether irritated at being corrected or at the tone of the black man’s voice, the hotel guest quickly turned into an irate defender of his race. “You’ll answer to the name I call you,” he roared, “or I’ll blow a hole through you!” When the waiter ignored him and went about his business, the much-disgusted white man addressed the other dining-room patrons on the proper treatment of impudent freedmen:

  “Last week, in Chattanooga, I said to a nigger I found at the railroad, ‘Here, Buck! show me the baggage-room.’ He said, ‘My name a’n’t Buck.’ I just put my six-shooter to his head, and by ——! he didn’t stop to think what his name was, but showed me what I wanted.”

  Upon hearing his story, the other hotel guests “warmly applauded” his sentiments, except for one unenlightened white man who failed to perceive the impudence in the freedman’s response.73

  Even if the ex-slave made no overt move to exercise his freedom, even if his demeanor remained virtually unchanged, that in itself might be greeted with suspicion, as though he were masking his real feelings behind the old “darky” façade. All too often, in fact, the freedman did not have to say anything in order to displease or raise suspicions in the whites; he only had to look a certain way or fail to exhibit the expected lowered head and shuffling feet. “They perceive insolence in a tone, a glance, a gesture, or failure to yield enough by two or three inches in meeting on the sidewalk,” a visitor to Wilmington, North Carolina, observed. Some of his fellow whites, a Virginian remarked, “can’t see a nigger go along the street now-a-days that they don’t damn him for putting on airs.” To defy the expectations of whites had always been a highly dangerous undertaking, even when no “offense” had been intended, but to do so in the wake of the recent military disaster and emancipation was to invite an even more volatile response.74

  The behavior of white men and women underscored the tacit assumption most of them embraced with a kind of religious zeal—that neither the Civil War nor emancipation had in any way altered the time-honored etiquette of racial relations. “With us, the death of slavery is recognized,” affirmed a South Carolina Unionist and former slaveholder, “but we don’t believe that because the nigger is free he ought to be saucy; and we don’t mean to have any such nonsense as letting him vote. He’s helpless and ignorant, and dependent, and the old masters will still control him.” If anything, in fact—and innumerable whites testified to this effect—the need to maintain the traditional code regulating the relations between the races was now more urgent than ever before, perhaps even a matter of self-preservation. After all, a North Carolina farmer warned, seemingly unaware of the implications of what he was saying, “If we let a nigger git equal with us, the next thing we know he’ll be ahead of us. He’s so impudent and presumin’.”75

  During slavery, custom and habit had largely defined the behavior expected of blacks, and the rules had been sufficiently understood to make special laws unnecessary. The slave addressed his owners in respectful terms; he never sat down or kept his hat on in the presence of whites; he never initiated a conversation with them unless first addressed; if he accompanied his master or mistress to town or to church, he walked several steps behind them; if he encountered any whites on the sidewalk, he made ample room for them to pass, stepping down into the street if necessary; and he never suggested by any words, looks, or mannerisms anything less than the respect, humility, and cheerful obedience expected of him at all times. From his own experience, Frederick Douglass had described the circumscribed world of the slave:

  A mere look, word, or motion,—a mistake, accident,
or want of power,—are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time. Does a slave look dissatisfied? It is said, he has the devil in him, and it must be whipped out. Does he speak loudly when spoken to by his master? Then he is getting high-minded, and should be taken down a button-hole lower. Does he forget to pull off his hat at the approach of a white person? Then he is wanting in reverence, and should be whipped for it. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when censured for it? Then he is guilty of impudence,—one of the greatest crimes of which a slave can be guilty. Does he ever venture to suggest a different mode of doing things from that pointed out by his master? He is indeed presumptuous, and getting above himself …76

  And it was out of this world that the slave stepped into freedom and tried to define its dimensions.

  Whether emancipation warranted deviations from the traditional code of racial etiquette prompted sharp differences among whites and blacks and invited immediate misunderstandings and confrontations. The way most whites chose to view these matters, any breaches of expected behavior or decorum in their former slaves, no matter how trivial they seemed, threatened to disrupt the entire fabric of a society based on racial subordination. What was permissible behavior for a white person, in other words, was not necessarily permissible behavior for a black man or woman. When freedmen declined to remove or touch their hats upon meeting a white person, or if they failed to stand while they spoke with whites, they were “growing too saucy for human endurance.” When freedmen took to promenading about the streets or public places, refusing to give up the sidewalks to every white who approached, that was “impudence” of the rankest sort. (“It is the first time in my life that I have ever had to give up the sidewalk to a man, much less to negroes!” Eliza Andrews wrote. “I was so indignant that I did not carry a devotional spirit to church.”) When black women attired themselves in fancy garments, carried parasols, and insisted upon being addressed as “ladies” (or “my lady” rather than “my ole woman”), that was “putting on airs”; and when black men dressed themselves conspicuously, that was sufficient provocation to cut the clothes from their backs. When white “gentlemen” engaged in hunting encountered freedmen “enjoying themselves in the same way” (with shotguns and a pack of dogs), that was called still another instance of “insubordination and insolence.” When freedmen staged parades, dances, and barbecues, like those scheduled to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation, whites invariably characterized them as “orgies” or “outrageous spectacles.” When freedmen roamed about at night, disregarding the old curfew and refusing orders to return to their quarters, that was “a terrible state of insubordination” bordering on insurrection. And when freedmen attended meetings in which they openly talked about “perfect equality with the whites,” acquiring land, and even voting, that was an incitement to race war. “Such incendiary and revolutionary language,” a white Louisianan wrote of one such meeting in New Orleans, “was enough to freeze the blood. I fear they will have trouble there soon.”77

  What the white South characterized as “insolence,” “sauciness,” and “putting on airs” were more often than not simply the ways many ex-slaves chose to demonstrate their freedom. To refuse to touch their hats to whites, to ignore their former masters or mistresses in the streets, to remain seated while speaking with whites, or to neglect to yield the sidewalks to them were not so much discourtesies or intended provocations as positive assertions of their new status as free men and women. But each of these actions violated the white man’s double standard. That is, although few whites would have thought of extending any of these social courtesies to black men or women, they insisted that the freedmen comply, as before, with the traditional and one-sided code of etiquette. The failure of blacks to do so, or still worse their open refusal, constituted further evidence of how emancipation had “ruined” them and filled their heads with mistaken notions about their place in society. “Their freedom’s made ’em so sassy there’s no livin’ with ’em,” an exasperated North Carolinian declared. Even the usually mild-mannered, gentlemanly Henry W. Ravenel, who had often expressed his pleasure at the “good” conduct of the ex-slaves, could scarcely believe what he saw during a visit to Charleston several months after the end of the war.

  It is impossible to describe the condition of the city—It is so unlike anything we could imagine—Negroes shoving white persons off the walk—Negro women drest in the most outré style, all with veils and parasols for which they have an especial fancy—riding on horseback with negro soldiers and in carriages. The negro regiments have just been paid off which gives them money to indulge their elegant tastes …

  As if this were not bad enough, his own personal servant became “excessively insolent” after being exposed to city life. “So much for the fidelity of indulged servants,” Ravenel sighed. “I bought him at his own request and he had always fared as I had. I am utterly disgusted with the race, and trust that I may some day be in a land that is purged of them.”78

  Rather than confess their sense of betrayal, many whites preferred another explanation, one that had served them well during the war. The “insolent” freedmen were exhibiting the natural effects of contamination from Yankee soldiers (white and black) and northern missionaries and teachers. After being shoved off the sidewalk by blacks, Eliza Andrews recalled “a time when such conduct would have been rewarded with a thrashing—or rather, when such conduct was unheard of, for the negroes generally had good manners till the Yankees corrupted them.” Although southern whites had frequently blamed “outside influences” for their troubles, the evidence now seemed more compelling than ever before, particularly with all the wild talk about granting privileges and rights to the newly freed slaves. As a New Orleans newspaper quickly noted, only “wicked demagogues” could induce otherwise innocent and well-behaved blacks to entertain ideas about “rights.”

  Negroes care nothing for “rights.” They know intuitively that their place is in the field; their proper instruments of self-preservation, the shovel and the hoe; their Ultima Thule of happiness, plenty to eat, a fiddle, and a breakdown.

  Sambo feels in his heart that he has no right to sit at white man’s table; no right to testify against his betters. Unseduced by wicked demagogues, he would never dream of these impossible things.

  Let us trust that our Legislature will make short work of Ethiopia. Every real white man is sick of the negro, and the “rights” of the negro. Teach the negro that if he goes to work, keeps his place, and behaves himself, he will be protected by our white laws; if not, this Southern road will be “a hard one to travel,” for the whites must and shall rule to the end of time, even if the fate of Ethiopia be annihilation.79

  With some justification, white Southerners accused the North of hypocrisy in seeking to impose upon them a racial equality which most Northerners would have abhorred. Everyone knew, a South Carolina magistrate averred, that in northern schools, street railways, steamers, and hotels, racial distinctions were maintained “which we have been accustomed to observe at the South.… This is all we ask—no more, no less, than our northern brethren claim for themselves.” Whatever use whites made of this charge, some came to question its veracity, particularly after watching certain Yankee officers, missionaries, and teachers overindulge the freedmen, mix with them socially, and encourage their “impudence.” The Reverend Samuel A. Agnew of Mississippi found incredible the reports that Federal authorities had fined a “gentleman” for merely “slapping a negroe off the pavement” and that Yankees had “cruelly beaten” a white clergyman “because his wife whipped a little negroe.” Apparently, Agnew concluded, “the negroe is a sacred animal. The Yankees are about negroes like the Egyptians were about cats. Negrophilism is the passion with them. When they come to their senses they will find that the negroe must be governed in the same way.” But the chances of Yankees coming to their senses seemed rather dim to Ethelred Philips, the Florida farmer and physician, after observing in his wife’s “Lady’s book” that �
��the most fashionable head dress” in the North had become “the African,” because the “very short curls” were meant to imitate the “beauty of the negro’s kinks of wool!” The next “rage,” he assumed, would be “to marry no other color.”80

  If the North seriously intended to recast the South in its own image, that could conjure up all kinds of “mongrel” images in the minds of whites already made uneasy by the actions of the freedmen. Even as some southern newspapers and orators chided the North for oppressing its own blacks, white visitors to that region wrote home alarming reports of the veritable Negro haven they had uncovered in Yankeedom.

  Here you can see the negroe all [on an] equal footing with white man. White man walking the streets with negro wenches. White man and negroe riding together. White man and negroe sit in the same seat in church or in a word the negroe enjoys the same privileges as the white man. They address each other as Mr and Miss.… I long for the day to come when I will leave this abominable place.81

  With nearly 4,000,000 newly freed blacks in the South, as contrasted with less than 400,000 blacks in the North, this surely was for southern whites a most frightening vision of the future.