Climbing Up to Glory (21 page)

The sad story of Bess, told by Tom Epps, further illustrates the painful consequences of slavery. When she was a little girl, Bess was sold from City Point, Virginia. Her mother was sold to a second trader, and her brother to a third one. Separated by many miles, they were unlikely to meet again. After the Civil War concluded, Bess walked all the way from Georgia to Richmond looking for her mother and her older brother but failed to locate them. While in Richmond searching for her family, Bess met and married a man, and two boys were born to this union. One day, Bess's husband came home extremely happy because he had found his mother. The next day his mother came to live with him and Bess. The older woman knew right away that Bess was her daughter but only said, I am glad to know you. However, it bothered the woman so much that she could not keep it to herself. She “tole ‘em dat she was de mother to dem both, an' dey was brother an' sister.” Of course, both were very upset, “but dey was really in love so dey ‘cided to stay married.” This was too much for their mother to bear, and it was not long before she died, “ ‘cause she couldn't stan' seein' her son and daughter livin' wid each other.”
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Slave families, many of whom were divided because their members belonged to different owners, could now live together without the fear of forced separation. Parents began to assert the right to raise their own children. After the war, one mother reclaimed her child, Sarah Debro, whom the former mistress, Miss Polly, had been rearing in her own house. When the mother came to get her, Sarah did not want to leave, and Miss Polly said, “Let her stay with me.” But Sarah's mother was defiant: “You took her away from me an' didn' pay no mind to my cryin', so now, I's takin' her back home. We's free now, Mis' Polly. We ain' gwine be slaves no more to nobody.”
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In most cases, however, black men and black women were not able to reclaim their children on their own and had to solicit the assistance of law enforcement officials or the Freedmen's Bureau. Millie Randall remembered, “After Freedom ol' marster wouldn' ‘low my maw to hab us chillen. My maw hatter git de Jestice of de Peace to go mek him t'un us a-loose.”
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Lucinda Jacoway sought the aid of the Bureau in February 1866 to force William Bryant to release her four-year-old daughter, Jane Ellen. Bryant demanded that he be paid fifty dollars for the child. A Freedmen's Bureau agent in Arkansas, John Vetter, directed a letter to Bryant on Jacoway's behalf: “You are hereby instructed to surrender said child to the complainant.” He added, “and that immediately.”
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In late 1867, Mary Brown returned from Canada to claim her two children whom she had left behind when she fled slavery. One of her daughters, Dinah, still lived as a slave in Nicholasville, Kentucky, and the other daughter, Mary Jane, was held in Fleming County in the same state. Brown was forced to seek redress through the Bureau since in each instance the former owner refused to give up the child.
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Even a woman who was considered insane appealed to the Bureau to force her former mistress to return her child. Mollie Williams's mother had repeatedly tried to get Miss Marguerite to free Mollie, but efforts on her own proved futile. Then, according to Williams, “Nex' time she come, she brung a written letter to Miss Marqurite frum de Free Man's Board an' taken me wid her.”
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The system of apprenticeship was more threatening to black families than the random refusal, which had no legal basis, of some former owners to release black children. Apprenticeships, on the other hand, were legal. Under the system, some Southern states allowed “responsible” employers to capitalize on the labor of minor children until they reached eighteen or twenty-one years of age, depending on gender. Wholesome food, suitable clothing, and medical care along with training in industry, housekeeping, or husbandry were to be provided to those apprenticed. Moreover, it was also understood that they were to be taught to read and write. Although children allegedly could not be apprenticed without parental consent, they frequently were. Ages were sometimes falsified to retain apprentices for longer periods of time. And, since many parents were not present when slavery ended, many former owners took advantage of their absence by apprenticing the children before parents could return to claim them. Owing to the fact that there was not yet any protection of legal marriages, any child born in slavery could be considered an orphan and subject to apprenticeship. Indeed, postwar apprenticeship laws allowed former slaveholders to salvage much of the old labor system. At the same time, it divested parents of the labor useful to a family's stride toward economic independence.
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Understandably, since blacks possessed a fierce attachment to family and were determined to take back control of the lives of kinfolk now that they were free, they waged intense battles against apprenticeship laws. They either defied the system on their own, used legal means through the hiring of lawyers, or sought the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau. When Jane Kamper, for example, learned that her former master regarded her children's apprenticeships as the price of her freedom, she took their recovery into her own hands. Kamper wrote in a letter to the Bureau that her former owner, William Townsend, “told me that I was free but that my children should be bound to me [him]. He locked my children up so that I could not find them. I afterwards got my children by stealth and brought them to Baltimore.” Townsend pursued her to the wharf in an effort to seize her children, but Kamper “hid them on the boat.” Although she made a successful escape, Kamper had to leave her bedclothes and furniture and requested the aid of the Bureau in retrieving them.
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In an effort to get his son released from an apprenticeship under W. R. Holt, his former owner, Orange Holt hired a lawyer to represent him and argued that his son had been neglected in W. R.'s care. Orange maintained that his son had become ill because of insufficient clothing. Harriet Holt also hired a lawyer to present her argument against W. R. Holt. Her attorney argued that Harriet's two sons had been apprenticed to W. R. against her will and then contracted to another party. As a consequence of the strenuous efforts made by parents and relatives to regain their children, by January 1867, W. R. Holt asked to be released from his obligation for all but six of the eighteen children.
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In another case, Henry Walton's father went to court to have his apprenticeship to Mrs. Miller nullifed.
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While some Freedmen's Bureau officials were reluctant to interfere with contracts, others showed some sensitivity toward blacks who were concerned about the welfare of their children and relatives. As a result, they sometimes tried to ferret out thinly disguised ruses that were used to reenslave children.
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Certainly, the Bureau was beseiged by letters seeking help in getting children released from apprenticeships. In Florence, Alabama, Martin Lee asked for assistance in getting custody of his nephew from his former owner, Sebe Burson, in Georgia. Lee could not understand why his family could not have custody of his nephew since “the law in our State is that a childe cannot be bounde when the[y] have mother father brother sistter uncl or Aunt that can take care of them.”
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Sallie Harris, a Virginian, wrote the Bureau requesting that her cousin Wilson, who was apprenticed to Mr. Jefferson, be released from his contract and allowed to come stay with her and her brother Albert. In a letter full of concern, Harris said, “I have a house for him and will take care of him and do all I can for him.” She wanted to take Wilson from Jefferson “because he is not treated well and as he is my cousin I think it my duty to see to him.”
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Another Virginian, Wister Miller, wrote to the Bureau asking that Charles Ganaway, his eleven-year-old brother-in-law, who was parentless and without a permanent home, be bound to him: “As I married his sister I feel it my duty to take care of him.”
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Moreover, Penny Barksdale also appealed to the Bureau for the return of her two grandchildren. Bureau officials ruled that Barksdale's grandchildren be sent back to her because the teenagers were nearly old enough to support themselves and could help their aging grandmother.
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And, if they could, their help would free the government from having to take care of her.

Both those who held young blacks under apprenticeship and those working to nullify contracts claimed to represent the interest of the child. But how did the children themselves feel about apprenticeship? Apparently, many were opposed to the system. Their opposition was expressed through their refusal to return to their employers after visiting their families at Christmas or by fleeing to relatives. For example, Alfred, a twelve-year-old, left his master after two years and made his way to South Carolina. Although Alfred's owner decided not to retrieve him, and to cancel the indenture, in many other cases the Bureau ordered the children returned to their lawful masters. Not only did some children resist apprenticeship for themselves but they fought on behalf of their siblings as well. In March 1867, five brothers filed for a writ of habeas corpus to release their sisters, aged eighteen, sixteen, twelve, and eight, all orphans held as apprentices.
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Concern for the welfare of family members was also reflected in the attitudes of black soldiers in the post-Civil War period. A large number were not mustered out of service at the conclusion of the war but instead were retained as a part of the army's occupation force in the South. This job fell on black troops to a large extent because they had not been allowed to join the armed services until well into the war, and, of course, many whites had enrolled from the start. Thus, black troops were required to serve out their terms. As expected, many of the black soldiers still on duty after the war were very worried about their families. After all, their relatives often had to depend on them for survival. Black soldiers from a Virginia regiment on garrison duty in Texas were so desperate to return home after receiving discouraging news from their loved ones that they offered to buy their way out of their enlistments. In a candid letter to army officials, the men spelled out their concern: “Wee have been on Dayley fetig [fatigue] from the last of Juli up to this Day without a forlough or any comfort what ever and our wives sends Letters stateing thir suferage saying that they are without wood without wrashions [rations] without money and no one to protect them.” Rather than allow their families to continue to suffer without their aid, the men argued that they would “pay for our next years serviss and be turned out then to stay in and no pertecttion granted to our wife.”
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Black soldiers from a South Carolina regiment pointed out that they “was expected to get out at the closing of the war, and then go back over the Rebels lands to look and seek for our wives and mother and father.” They were especially concerned because “we hadent nothing atall and our wifes and mother most all of them is aperishing.”
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Throughout the South, blacks extended bonds of kinship to nephews, nieces, and cousins. For example, Adam Woods of Kentucky rushed home from Kansas to take care of his three nephews when he found out that his brother, who was their father, had died. Woods indicated “that he is married and has an industrious wife and a good manager, and that he owns two houses and lots in Leavenworth and has no children and is well able to raise and educate the children of his deceased Brother.” Furthermore, in order to convince Freedmen's Bureau officials that he had access to additional support if he needed it, he added that he “has Four sisters living and they are all doing well” together with two brothers who were doing superbly. All six of them “are able and willing to assist in raising and educating these children,” he noted.
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In Florida, Dave Waldrop invited a female cousin in Montgomery, Alabama, who was struggling by herself to raise her three children, to come and live with him and his family. Waldrop promised her, “if you will come down here to me I will take care of you and your children and you and children shall never want for anything as long as I have anything to help you with... it is hard enough for a woman to get along that has a husband to help her and one that has not I do not know how they do to get a living these times.” With open arms, Waldrop wrote, “Cousin I want you to be shure and come down if you possibly can and stay here as long as you want to if it is three or four year it will not make a bit of difference to me.”
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Moreover, after the parents of Sally Porter, a former Virginia slave, died, Washington Brown, her uncle, took her into his household.
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Many freedmen took it upon themselves to adopt kin and non-kin children, again demonstrating not only a commitment to family but also a determination to protect children. Hannah Allen and her husband had no youngsters of their own but adopted a little boy who was born to her husband's sister. The lad came to live with them when he turned three years of age and remained in their household until the age of nine. Hannah and her husband also adopted the biracial daughter of a black man and a white woman who was not related to them. After the woman and the girl's father separated, the woman remarried, this time to a white man. Her new husband, however, did not want the child since its father was black. This couple went on to help raise about one dozen children.
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Although adoptions were acceptable to many African-American freedmen and women, some adoptive parents were guarded and sensitive. While Evangeline Banks grew up as the adopted daughter of Anna DeCosta Banks, her grandmother, Elizabeth DeCosta, allowed no one to refer to her adopted status. Anna still had not informed Evangeline when she died in 1930. Nevertheless, Evangeline had discovered her adoption several years earlier, but she refused to allow it to emotionally disrupt the pleasant life given to her by Anna Banks.
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Even during slavery, the parents of black children sometimes chose whom their children dated and married, although circumstances might limit their influence. As expected, then, when freedom arrived, they often took it upon themselves to play a major role in determining whom their children were to date and marry. After all, to do so was consistent with their concern for the welfare of the family. Since the position of breadwinner fell on the male, parents were especially interested in the marital partners selected by their daughters. Dicy Windfield, a former slave, recalled, “when I wuz ‘bout eighteen years ole I met de boy dat I married. Pa an' ma never would let us chillun run ‘bout none so he wuz de onliest boy I ever did court. We wont allowed to go no whars together to ‘mount to nothin'.”
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Another freedwoman, Lucy Dunn, remembered that during the whole year of her courtship with her future husband, they were seldom alone. Not only did her mother accompany them when they walked home from church, but she also forbade Lucy to walk her suitor to the gate at the end of his Sunday visits. Lucy, however, finally won a big concession after her future husband proposed to her. She was allowed to walk him to the gate provided that her mother “was settin dere on de' porch lookin.”
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Laura Bell met her future husband when she was only twelve years old. Her parents told her that she was too young to have a male friend, but they gave their blessings to her seeing him at an older age if she still wanted to.
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At least in these cases, former slaves were eventually given their parents' blessings to marry. This, however, was not the case for some others. For example, one young woman remarked on the frustrating veto that her mother had held over her marriage plans. “My first husband courted me seven years,” she related, “and then liked to have steadied me ‘for my mother never did say yes.”
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George Weathersby remembered the problems while trying to date the woman who eventually became his wife of more than fifty years. According to Weathersby, “My love affair wont very smooth as de gals pa did not want us to git married an'did a heap o' interferring.” At several points in their relationship, the woman's father was working hard to keep them from getting married. But, since they loved each other so much, “de more he tried to break us up de more us wuz determined.” With the aid of his brother Steve and two cousins, Weathersby concocted a plan to steal his future wife from her father. Although the plot did not turn out exactly as planned, his lover did escape from her father and she and Weathersby were subsequently married.
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Although enslaved parents had insisted upon respect from their children and were not reluctant to use the rod on them, they would now decide when and how their children were to be punished. One freedwoman became defiant when her former master claimed the right to whip her children, boldly informing him that “he warn't goin' to brush none of her chilluns no more.”
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In another case, Eliza James refused to punish her son because a white man had demanded it. She explained that “she would not whip her child for no poor White folks.” For a white person to either claim the right to beat black children or demand their punishment, smacked of slavery to most freedmen and women, and this they would not tolerate.
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Once freedom arrived, some black women refused to let their sons and daughters accept clothing donated by whites that they considered ill-fitting or immodest. As free men and women, they might be poor but they were proud. Many regarded it as a badge of honor not to accept hand-me-downs from whites. Freedmen's Bureau officials were sometimes baffled by this refusal. Northern teachers were also taken aback. Mary Ames, a Yankee, recorded in her diary: “One girl brought back a dress she had taken home for ‘Ma says it don't fit, and she don't want it.' It was rather large and short, but she was very dirty and ragged, and we told her she must keep it.”
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Black men and women also took steps to free their families economically from white control now that they had been emancipated. Black men often forbade their wives and children to continue to work in the fields or as domestic servants in white households, believing that such work was a mark of slavery. One freedman told a former master who was attempting to hire his wife as a servant, “When I married my wife I married her to wait on me. She got all she can do right here for me and the children.”
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As the heads of their families under emancipation, black men hoped to be able to allow their wives to remain at home to care for the household. This was seen as important, not just so that black women could have roles similar to those of white women, but also so that black women could be protected from the sexual exploitation that had existed under slavery.
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In addition, freedmen regarded a nonworking wife as a symbol of a financially successful husband able to support her without her having to work outside the household.
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Many black women were happy to stay at home and no longer work in the fields or as domestic servants in white households. They, too, wanted to reduce the chances of sexual exploitation by white men and to devote more time than had been possible under slavery to caring for their children and attending to their own households.
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Withdrawal from the fields and from the white plantation house was also tied to their insistence on working less and differently than they had as slaves and was part of their strategy to take absolute control over their time and labor. Historian Leslie Schwalm has shown that with respect to freedwomen in the South Carolina Low Country, this strategy may have reflected their efforts to cope with the conditions of life after the war. Owing to the physical devastation of the countryside, the shortage of food, clothing, and the most basic necessities, and the poor harvests of the 1860s, home labor increased after the war.
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Noralee Frankel argues that freedwomen in Mississippi chose to work in their own households as much as possible because they needed more time for their families. Cooking and clothes-making often ceased to be communal activities as they had been under slavery.
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Moreover, now that they were free, some black women felt that they should stay at home and be supported by their husbands just as white women were by their men. As one planter learned, “The black women say they never mean to do any more outdoor work; ... white men support their wives and they mean that their husbands shall support them.”
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White Southerners found the withdrawal of black women and children from wage labor intolerable because it upset the daily operations of many white households. Furthermore, it smacked of social equality for black families to have the same roles and expectations for their members that white families had. These fears were unwarranted, however, for the shift in the locus of black female labor from field work and paid domestic service to the unpaid maintenance of their own homes proved to be only temporary. With the rising cost of rents and the dire poverty of most black families as a consequence of the depression of the 1870s, it became necessary for both black men and women to contribute to the family's income. Therefore, although emancipation did not eliminate wage labor by black women and children, it fundamentally altered control over it. The family itself, headed now by the black man, not the white owner or overseer, made the decision about where and when black women and children would work. Thus, blacks were able to liberate their families to some extent from the authority of whites.
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This liberation was to them an important element of freedom.

Emancipation also transformed the black family itself. Within the slave family, men were not the breadwinners and their authority was limited. The dominance of masters was paramount. In a real sense, both black men and black women were powerless during slavery, but with emancipation men's new role strengthened their position within the family and institutionalized the notion that men and women should inhabit separate spheres. Thus, for the first time, many black men assumed authority and a sense of superiority over women.
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This evolution was strongly influenced by outside events. Because black men had fought in the Union army, they had been able to participate more directly than women in the struggle for freedom. Also, black men assumed the same attitude toward women that they saw in white men and that was supported by the policies of the Freedmen's Bureau. The Bureau officially designated the man as the head of the black household, insisting that men sign contracts for the labor of their entire families and establishing wage scales that set lower wages for women than for men doing identical plantation labor. Political developments also contributed to promoting the notion that black men should be dominant over black women. Whereas both black men and women participated in informal mass meetings in the early days of freedom, only black men served as delegates to organized black conventions. Black men were given the right to serve on juries, vote, hold office, and play a leading role in the Republican Party. But neither black nor white women could vote and play formal roles in political parties. And although militia units and fraternal societies might have female auxiliaries, their memberships were all male.
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