Bruce E. Baker, Brian Kelly, eds. After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Citizenship in the Reconstruction South. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013. 279 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN
978-0-8130-6097-2; $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8130-4477-4.
Reviewed by Amy French (Delta College)
Published on H-SHGAPE (August, 2014)
Commissioned by K. Stephen Prince
Freed Laborers in the Reconstruction South
In Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935),
W. E. B. Du Bois emphasized the importance of studying
the era through the lens of labor. Influenced by Du Bois’s
assertion that the working-class deserves a prominent
role in the telling of the history of Reconstruction, the
scholars contributing essays to After Slavery: Race, Labor,
and Citizenship in the Reconstruction South show the crucial role that laborers played in shaping an economic system to replace slavery, defining post-emancipation freedom, and securing political and economic rights. The Reconstruction era was a turbulent time for all Americans,
but southerners faced the unique challenges of replacing their labor system, and reconstructing their social,
political, and physical infrastructure. Explaining the disparity between promises made and experiences lived, the
authors show the difficulties that freed laborers faced as
they tried to negotiate labor contracts, hold relationships
with employers as paid employees, claim rights of citizenship, and act upon new freedoms. Moving beyond
a generalized study of the entire region to intensive localized studies, the ten essays span the South geographically, giving the reader snapshots into the various facets
of freedpeople’s lives.
ernment. Asserting that loyalty to the Union was political currency for both whites and blacks, Mathisen argues
that freedmen leveraged loyalty for federal protection,
rights, and claims to property. Thus, freed Mississippians were tied to the federal government in their bid for
citizenship and property. Downs explores the relationship between former slaves in North Carolina and the
Freedmen’s Bureau. Lacking power, freedpeople looked
to allies in the federal government to provide support
and keep order. However, Freedmen’s Bureau agents
lacked power, staffing, and the military presence to provide meaningful assistance. Downs, therefore, provides a
picture of why federal power failed and “the central role
of state institutions in shaping the experience of Reconstruction and the extent and limits of emancipation” (p
.99).
Building on scholarship regarding Republican Party
inadequacies, Bruce Baker looks at a generally neglected
cast of characters—poor, upcountry whites in South Carolina. There was a potential constituency for a white
Republican Party in the mountain area of Greenville
County, but Baker argues that economic initiatives by local Republicans and national party policies undermined
Freedpeople’s agency in shaping their lives and de- their potential constituents and drove the area to a dratermining the restructuring of the South has long in- matic political realignment. Brian Kelly also looks at
terested historians. Erik Mathisen and Gregory Downs missed opportunities by the Republican Party. Studyboth explore that autonomy. Looking at Mississippi, ing the collapse of Reconstruction in South Carolina,
Mathisen shows how demands for property became the Kelly shows that race did not unite all freedpeople in
basis for freedmen’s relationship with the federal gov- their vision of the new South. Working-class blacks
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had supported Radical Republicans, but fragmented Republican leadership failed to serve their laboring constituents. When Republican officials opposed labor tactics like striking, they turned their backs on their supporters and hastened the end of their rule. Tracing
the rise of more conservative African American politics,
Kelly’s study also reveals social stratification in South
Carolina between laborers and a small contingency of
middle-class Democrats.
ex-slaves had certain advantages that other freedmen did
not, including strong family ties; jobs in powerful seaport industries where a host of information exchange occurred; homes in multicultural, urban areas; and involvement in community organizations. Because of the array
of social and institutional resources available to them,
O’Donovan holds that freedpeople were able to hold off
a return to elite, white control for a relatively long time.
J. Michael Rhyne reminds us how frequently issues
of gender are inherent in acts of violence. In his study
of Kentucky, Rhyne notes how violent tactics emasculated freedmen while restoring manhood to white perpetrators. Freedwomen were also abused and assaulted—
their gender did not afford them the same protections as
white women. Besides the fact that Kentucky government officials often turned a blind eye to the violent treatment of emancipated laborers, the apprenticeship system and vagrancy laws underscored that freed Kentuckians did not enjoy a truly free labor system. Such issues
are not unique to the South, though. In his comparison
of late eighteenth-century Guadeloupe to late twentiethcentury American sweatshops, Thomas Holt notes that a
principal area of contest after the abolition of slavery has
been the control of women’s labor.
James Illingworth’s study of black urban workers in
New Orleans provides a picture of grassroots activism
with labor at its core. Illingworth argues that from 1865
to 1868, “the interplay between federal state intervention
and urban working people’s activism became the determining factor in the progress of change at the local level”
(p. 37). New Orleans laborers successfully used labor
protest as economic and political capital to advance a vision for their city that embraced Radical Reconstruction.
Although Illingworth demonstrates that strong local support could encourage more immediate change, Jonathan
Bryant reveals the fragility of freedmen’s power. Studying the Ogeechee Insurrection, Bryant asserts that the
media and elite officials manipulated the event to make it
seem as if it were a lawless rebellion when, in fact, it was
a labor dispute by Georgian workers who were trying to
use their newly gained political and economic rights to
assert control over labor relations.
Through a broad scope of sources and clear organization, the collection shows the varied roles that laborers played in defining freedom, securing rights, and remaking the post-emancipation South. The essays show
a rich use of censuses, newspapers, military accounts,
congressional documents, Freedman’s Savings and Trust
Company and Freedmen’s Bureau records, and archival
sources. The sources are only as good as the questions
posed, however, and here the authors shine. By framing some of the old debates in light of labor history, as
well as asking new and provocative questions, the collection provides an interesting look into the Reconstruction South. Through localized studies, the reader journeys into aspects of history that may not have been universal, but should not be marginalized. Adding to the
broad scope of the work, O’Donovan and Kelly expand
the chronological period of Reconstruction to 1898 and
1900, respectively. This “long Reconstruction era” gives a
more complete picture of the issues in light of the broader
course of national history and assists in understanding
the racial divisions in the southern labor movement.
Undermining progress for freedpeople was the use of
violence to suppress their voices and actions. Michael
Fitzgerald explores myriad motivations for racial terrorism in Alabama by studying men indicted under the federal anti-Klan legislation of 1871. Fitzgerald’s work identifies a larger body of participants than have previously
been detected and provides new light on their circumstances. He finds that these men were “downwardly mobile on a vast, even catastrophic scale” (p. 149). Fitzgerald’s study gives a more complete picture than previous
studies of the perpetrators and the reasons for their violent actions. As most of the authors note, racial terror was an effective method to thwart Reconstruction.
But all of the South did not experience the return of
elite white rule by 1877. Susan O’Donovan shows how
family connections and community networks staved off
Redemption in Wilmington, North Carolina, until 1898,
when racial terror swept through the town forcing “an
exodus that dramatically remade the city’s public and poAs a history of labor and citizenship in the Reconlitical face” (p. 177). Why did Democrats have such a difstruction
South, After Slavery would have benefited from
ficult time taking control of Wilmington? Through a defurther
discussion
of the legal frameworks structuring
tailed examination of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust
midto
late
nineteenth-century
labor relations. An unCompany records, O’Donovan explains that Wilmington
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derlying premise of the collection is that freedpeople understood that to truly be free they needed property. By
the turn of the century, classical legal thought emphasized individual rights based on property (tangible or otherwise) and largely disregarded how the nation treated
laborers, especially former slaves and women.[1] As historian Eric Foner notes in the afterword: “Liberty of contract, not equality before the law for blacks, came to be
defined as the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment”
(p. 228). Considering the powerful role of judicial discourse in defining citizenship and freedom of contract,
legal aspects of freedmen’s work are important to the labor narrative of Reconstruction.
the Reconstruction South. The essays show that the
working-class narrative is key to a complete understanding of the remaking of the South. Raising provocative
questions about black/white relations in the labor movement, workers’ responses to labor legislation, and the
role of gender (especially conceptions of manhood), the
work encourages additional analysis of laborers’ experiences. In sum, After Slavery is enlightening scholarship on the history of labor and citizenship in the postemancipation era.
Note
[1]. Melvin Urofsky and Paul Finkelman, A March of
Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2:518.
Coeditors Baker and Kelly, along with the contributors, provide an informative study of labor history in
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
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Citation: Amy French. Review of Baker, Bruce E.; Kelly, Brian, eds., After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Citizenship in the
Reconstruction South. H-SHGAPE, H-Net Reviews. August, 2014.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=41276
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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