The African Americans

by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

  South Carolina whites, sick of black political power, were determined to seize control and reinstall the Democratic Party in office. On July 4, 1876, just a year after the start of Smalls’s congressional career, whites besieged a building in Hamburg, South Carolina (present-day North Augusta), after a black political rally and rolled up a cannon, threatening to use it if those inside refused to surrender. When they did, many were mowed down. The “Hamburg Massacre” set the tone for the coming months. “Red Shirt” militia and “rifle clubs” roamed the state, intimidating black voters and murdering any black people with the temerity to resist. Such actions, apologists protested, were “excusable, if not justifiable” given the threat posed by black rule.

  Robert Smalls as congressman, circa 1870–1880. Glass plate photograph. Library of Congress.

  The next year, South Carolina Democrats “redeemed” the state from Republican rule and declared that the only black voting right they would acknowledge was “permission to vote the all-white leadership of the party into office.” Without any federal objection, the party of the former Confederacy reinstituted white domination and virtual slavery with the infamous convict-lease system. Throughout the South, white officials imprisoned thousands of black men on the flimsiest pretexts, then rented their labor to private contractors. The system brought money into state coffers, provided cheap labor to white businessmen, and returned thousands of blacks to servitude. However, despite their efforts, because of 20,000 black votes, Democrats could not unseat Smalls through the ballot box. Instead, they drove him from office with charges of corruption. When he declined a $10,000 bribe from the governor to resign his seat, the state arrested him in October 1877 for taking a bribe from a Republican printer. Found guilty, he was removed from office. But in 1881, his loyal constituents returned him to office. He managed to hang on until 1886, but by then the political landscape of South Carolina had become almost as repressive as in the days before the Civil War.12

  In 1890, with no hope of returning to office, Smalls published a fascinating account of the political tactics of white Democrats and the state of repression in South Carolina. Reflecting the importance of the author and the significance of his subject, the essay appeared in the North American Review, the oldest and most important literary journal in the United States. Smalls put the dilemma blacks faced, as Reconstruction was dying, in the most direct terms:

  In South Carolina there is neither a free ballot nor an honest count, and since the election of 1874 the history of elections in the State is the history of a continued series of murders, outrages, perjury, and fraud…. Republicanism was in that year overthrown by murderous gangs called “rifle clubs,” who, acting in concert, terrorized nearly the entire State, overawing election officers and defying the courts. The elections in 1878 and 1880 were repetitions of the outrages of 1876. The shot-gun and rifle were factors that prevented a thorough canvass, and a false count in those counties where Republicans made contests completed the work. Having perfect immunity from punishment, the encouragement, if not the active participation of the State government, and the protection of the courts of the State, the rifle clubs committed their outrages without restraint, and the election officers their frauds without even the thin veneer of attempted concealment. Elections since then have been carried by perjury and fraud—two things worshipped and adored by the South Carolina Democracy.13

  Heroes of the Colored Race, by J. Hoover, Philadelphia, 1881 and 1883. Chromolithograph. Library of Congress. In contrast to Emancipation, by Thomas Nast, Heroes of the Colored Race celebrates the emergence of the black political and social leaders Blanche K. Bruce, Frederick Douglass, Hiram Revels, Robert Smalls, Jonathan Lynch, Joseph H. Rainey, and Charles E. Nash. Equally celebrated are Lincoln, U. S. Grant, James A. Garfield, and John Brown—who is given a special place of honor. Moreover, it acknowledges the role of African Americans in securing their own freedom.

  SMALLS HARDLY HAD BEEN THE ONLY AFRICAN AMERICAN IN CONGRESS. Hiram Revels (1827–1901) and Blanche K. Bruce (1841–1898) from Mississippi served in the Senate; Benjamin Turner (1825–1894) of Alabama, Josiah Walls (1842–1905) of Florida, Jefferson Long (1836–1901) of Georgia, and Robert DeLarge (1842–1874), Joseph Rainey (1832–1887), and Robert B. Elliott (1842–1884) of South Carolina, all served in the U.S. House. After 1873, several more followed in their footsteps. For a people who only a few short years before were routinely denounced as inferior, fit only for enslavement, the changes since the close of the war seemed almost beyond comprehension. While African Americans had indeed enjoyed a new and warm burst of sunshine, a frightening eclipse, as Smalls’s career shows, had begun to cast deep shadows on the future of the black electorate.14

  The gains of African Americans under Reconstruction were quite significant, but they proved to be all too fragile. Seething over the new assertiveness of African Americans, whites across the South viewed the dramatic results of the war with derision and outrage. Fueled with indignation, many—like those in Hamburg, South Carolina—picked up the guns they had laid down in 1865. In 1866, white mobs in Memphis had attacked the local black neighborhood in a three-day riot of murder, arson, and gang rape; in New Orleans, 34 black people were killed when a police-aided mob attacked a suffrage convention. On Easter Sunday in 1873, whites massacred 150 black members of a local militia in Colfax, Louisiana, an event that helped finally to crush Reconstruction for good.

  Faced with an astonishing array of social and political changes following the war, Southern whites resorted to an ever-escalating campaign of racist terror and intimidation. Members of shadowy organizations like the South Carolina rifle clubs and the newly formed Ku Klux Klan terrorized or assassinated black people (and their white allies) who dared to vote or seek an education or otherwise challenge the old order. Whites denounced “carpetbaggers,” Northerners who had come South to aid in the Reconstruction. They were depicted as vultures, greedy Yankees who manipulated their black minions to strip whites of whatever wealth they possessed. Endless, beastly caricatures appeared in the popular press of black politicians as ignorant, apelike, fat, corrupt, and venal, dripping with political patronage all too readily for sale, presiding over legislatures wearing ill-fitting, garish suits.

  Klan Sentinel, from A Fool’s Errand, By One of the Fools, by Albion W. Tourgée, enlarged edition (New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert; Boston: W. H. Thompson & Co., 1880).

  GIVEN THIS UNRELENTING WHITE HOSTILITY, ONLY EXTREMELY RESOURCEFUL MEN AND WOMEN WHO ENJOYED RELIABLE CONNECTIONS AND PROTECTIONS from powerful white men could take advantage of the few opportunities for advancement that existed after the end of slavery. The “experiment” at Davis Bend, Mississippi—not far from Vicksburg on the Mississippi River—represents a startling interlude in the history of Reconstruction. Not only did one family of former slaves, led by an exceptionally enterprising freedman, cooperate closely with their former owner, but they gained the former master’s cooperation to amass a fantastic level of wealth and property, while establishing a safe and prosperous colony for hundreds of former slaves. The story’s central figures could not have been more unlikely partners, and the world they forged still astonishes today, just as it also reveals the limitations of African American life in the South after the Civil War.15

  Back in 1818, Joseph Davis, a wealthy Mississippi lawyer and brother of Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy, purchased 11,000 acres of land to grow cotton in a bend of the Mississippi River near Natchez and Vicksburg. By 1850, his plantation epitomized southern success, producing a fine grade of cotton and becoming the home for 345 slaves. While his brother rose in the world of national politics, Joseph Davis entered the top 12 percent of the state’s most successful planters. Each brother owned a plantation in Davis Bend—Joseph named his Hurricane, and Jefferson called his Brierfield. While Jefferson Davis conformed to the archetypal image of the southern master, never wavering from his belief in the innate inferiority of African Americans, brother Joseph proved difficult
to categorize. While striving to embody the southern ideal of the landed master, he also read widely in the New England reform tradition and was deeply influenced by the English social theorist Robert Owen. English utopianism is, perhaps, one of the least likely influences on an elite member of the slave-owning aristocracy. Yet Joseph Davis went as far as he could to adapt it to the seemingly inhospitable context of slavery.

  Key to the success of the scheme—and the welfare of more than 300 slaves—was one slave named Benjamin Thornton Montgomery (1819–1877). Born in Loudoun County, Virginia, Montgomery was abruptly sold south, making the Second Middle Passage to Natchez in 1836 and becoming the property of Joseph Davis. The young slave promptly fled, but was soon recaptured. Montgomery likely expected a thorough thrashing at the hands of a dreary overseer. Instead, Davis asked him why he had run away and used sympathy and understanding to quell the young slave’s fears. He found in Montgomery much innate ability and encouraged his education. Soon, Montgomery had the run of Davis’s considerable library and began building his own collection of books.

  Davis saw something in the young man that touched and, perhaps, inspired him. Before long, Montgomery mastered land surveying, began making architectural plans, and soon demonstrated considerable skills as a mechanic. He invented a propeller to replace a river vessel’s paddle wheel, and had he been free, Montgomery could have obtained a U.S. patent on his invention. Davis also encouraged Montgomery’s business acumen, permitting him to open a store on the plantation, a business that would become the foundation for his later success. In short order, Montgomery’s store became an important source of supplies for the other slaves and even whites in the region, and he soon was trading up and down the Mississippi River, supplying food and fuel to riverboat captains, maintaining a $2,000 account with a New Orleans wholesaler. His skills proved so invaluable that Davis made him the plantation’s business manager. By 1851, Montgomery had married another Virginia-born slave named Mary, had five children, and effectively lived as a free, successful businessman on the Hurricane plantation.

  Slave quarters at Jefferson Davis’s plantation, circa 1860–1870. Photograph. Library of Congress. Inscribed on the front: “Sent Home by Elizabeth Findley Missionary to the freedmen” and on the back: “Graveyard Joe Davis Plac[e]. Davis Bend, Miss.”

  Joseph Davis clearly had the wisdom not to let racism cripple his own economic interests. But the relationship went far beyond that; the two trusted one another implicitly, and Davis encouraged the education of Montgomery’s children. He even took the ten-year-old Isaiah Montgomery into his mansion to become his personal valet and private secretary. He hired a slave from his brother’s plantation to tutor the Montgomery children, and when they outpaced their teacher, Montgomery hired his own tutor for his children: a white man. One is hard-pressed to think of another similar instance in the entire history of the Deep South.

  While it is unlikely that the other 350 or so slaves on the plantation received similar treatment from Davis, life at Hurricane—compared to other plantations in the region—was probably about as good as one could expect under the slave regime. Abundant food for all made life more than bearable, and no record survives of sexual exploitation or severe beatings. Montgomery, who likely found many opportunities to flee, remained content with his growing authority, his increasing wealth, and the protection he enjoyed as a slave of one of the most powerful men in the state. His remarkable abilities might have become the basis for a highly successful career in the free North, but it was a risk that he found unnecessary to take. Prudence remained the central feature of Montgomery’s life and business dealings.

  But the war brought changes and revealed much about how the other slaves perceived life at Hurricane. With the approach of Union forces in April 1862, Joseph Davis fled Davis Bend, leaving Montgomery in charge of the entire plantation—clearly an enormous sign of the trust Davis placed in his “property.” But the other slaves at Hurricane and at Brierfield, regardless of how well Jefferson Davis and his brother thought they treated the African Americans they owned, fled for the Union blue at the first opportunity. Others broke into their master’s home and took furniture and clothing. Of the hundreds of slaves owned by the president of the Confederacy, only 17 remained behind.

  Defenders of the Old South like the Davises described slaves as “contented” and slavery as a paternalistic institution that cared for a people who could not care for themselves. African Americans, however, voted with their feet and believed in the benefits of freedom. They also showed Union soldiers where Jefferson Davis had buried his family silver.

  While Benjamin cared for the remnants of the plantation, the livestock, and the few other slaves still in Davis Bend, his son Isaiah left with Union Admiral David Dixon Porter, who, for a time, took over as a guarantor of the Montgomery family. He suggested that given the chaos of the war, the family should remove to Cincinnati, where Benjamin worked as a carpenter. Porter, however, found the self-sufficiency of the remaining slaves in Davis Bend to be a great surprise and helped foster it as an independent colony. Montgomery and his family returned after six months and took over leadership of the plantation and the growing number of freedmen who began to collect there. General U. S. Grant also supported the effort, paternalistically believing that the good management of the area proved it could become “a negro paradise.”16

  The local Freedmen’s Bureau officer, Chaplain John Eaton, Jr., used his contacts in Philadelphia to promote the colony and make it a model for the rest of the nation. They divided up 1,000 acres among 100 freedmen for their own cultivation, ultimately leasing them the land, rather than granting it to them as was done in the South Carolina Sea Islands or even selling it to them. Nevertheless, at the beginning, the effort worked, and until crops could be planted, the bureau issued rations to the former slaves and protected them with several companies of soldiers from the USCT. For many in the North, there was much poetic justice in seeing the land belonging to the former president of the Confederacy turned over to former slaves.

  As the “experiment” continued, much confusion reigned in Washington and within the federal bureaucracy. At first, land was leased to the former slaves and credit lines extended. The land was turned over to whites, who then hired the former slaves, a temporary measure that caused immense frustration and disappointment, just as it had in the Sea Islands. Many of the freedmen discovered, much to their amazement, that their former masters had proved far more trustworthy than the Yankees.

  But the numbers of slaves collecting at Davis Bend had increased dramatically, swelling at one point in early 1864 to more than 10,000. In response, the Army and then the bureau began pouring resources into the colony, setting up a hospital and several schools. By 1865, about a dozen teachers were instructing anywhere from 700 to 1,000 eager students. The work on the Hurricane plantation was an unqualified success, with the freedmen building houses, investing in their lands, and producing crops that brought a profit.

  After the Montgomery family returned in the summer of 1865, they organized the black farmers and obtained government leases of the lands for them. Benjamin Montgomery even formed a “Colored Planters” group that sought to take control of the only cotton gin on the plantation and process the cotton at a lower price than the government could obtain. Montgomery continually challenged bureau agents to promote his interests and those of the “Colored Planters” and maintained contact with his former owner, Joseph Davis. As Davis suffered from the Confederate defeat, Montgomery—who had saved his profits from his store—sent his former master writing paper, cigars, and $400. Both cooperated in opposing the Freedmen’s Bureau, Montgomery to promote his business and plans for the future of the Hurricane plantation, and Davis to seek restitution of his property and his losses as a result of the Union occupation. The world had surely turned upside down.

  For his own part, Montgomery leased more than 200 acres, and as the bureau withdrew its agents from the Bend, the local African Americans moved in and produ
ced cotton and sufficient crops to feed themselves. Montgomery reopened his store, and under his direction Hurricane became largely self-supporting, with a judicial system and schools that had black teachers chosen by the residents and paid for out of revenue raised through their own assessments. Montgomery was able to keep interlopers at bay by lending up to $20,000 for his fellow ex-slaves to rent the land they had been working.

  His store and planting had been so profitable that he could not only guarantee such a sum for the former slaves’ rent payments, but he could also buy Hurricane and Brierfield from Joseph Davis. The two men worked out a secret deal in which Montgomery would pay Davis $300,000 over ten years for the lands that had been restored to him. The extent of Davis’s commitment is astonishing, given that at the time the state’s black codes barred the sale of land to blacks. His intent, however, was to extend his prewar vision well into the future, but this time as a free black colony, owned and run by African Americans.

  When Joseph Davis died in the fall of 1870, the Montgomery business interests flourished, and the following year Benjamin’s crop produced 2,500 bales of cotton—an outstanding figure. Moreover, the quality of his cotton was superior, winning awards at the 1870 annual St. Louis Agricultural Fair for the best long-staple cotton and in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centenary Exposition for the best short-staple cotton in the world, beating out Egypt, Brazil, and the Fiji Islands. Indeed, Montgomery may have become the third largest planter in all of Mississippi. His company, Montgomery & Sons, became nationally known and in 1873 received R. G. Dun’s highest credit ranking, with his business worth valued at $230,000, equal to about $4 million today. The journey from a Virginia slave to a Reconstruction cotton magnate still amazes.