The End of the Reconstruction Era

The Reconstruction Era is considered to have lasted between 1865–1877. It began with the end of the Civil War, got jumpstarted with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and ended after the Compromise of 1877. The history books give you the condensed version, leaving one to believe it was a smooth process under which the former enslaved Black people got the right to vote. Sent several elected representatives to Congress and assumed all the rights of a free people. That is what the history books would lead us to believe.

As is still clear in the present, white supremacy doesn’t die easily, and the end of the war saw the founding of the Ku Klux Klan in 1865 and the implementation of the Black Codes, which did their best to replicate enslavement under the law. Let’s take a look at the Black Codes to see how well they did their job?

In many areas of the South, the newly freed slaves outnumbered white people. Having received the right to vote, run for office, own property, and more. The Reconstruction Period saw great advances for some freed slaves while others were faring far worse. They were only able to make those gains because of the continued presence of federal troops. One of the reactions was the formation of terrorist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Red Shirts (story to come), and White Leagues, who sought to keep blacks from voting and address any form of insult they felt the need for action.

Tuskeegee Institute estimates the Klan killed over 1,500 people (including 300 white) between 1865–1867. The Smithsonian Magazine ran an article suggesting the toll may have been as high as 53,000 and why the records that could prove the claim don’t exist. That averages out to about five Black people murdered a day for those counting. The other reaction was individual states imposing “Black Codes” with the encouragement of President Andrew Johnson who saw this as an issue of “states’ rights” and not the business of the federal government.

The Black Codes were simply an effort to reimplement slavery as best they could under the law. Mississippi and South Carolina issued the first Black Codes. In Mississippi, former slaves were required to show proof of employment each January. Suppose they left their employment before the end of the year. They would forfeit their wages and were subject to arrest. In South Carolina, if blacks worked in any other occupation besides farmer or servant, they were subject to an annual tax. Failure to pay would lead to forced servitude on a plantation. Blacks were unable to own guns and knives.

Preventing blacks from voting was one of the major themes of the Black Codes. Laws were passed requiring ownership of property. Poll taxes and unpassable literacy tests were en vogue. Other measures including scaring voters away or just killing them,

The 13th Amendment eliminated slavery except for those convicted of crimes. The Black Codes encouraged America’s first efforts at mass incarceration, resulting in hundreds of thousands of blacks being forced into slavery under the guise of law and order. Vagrancy violations were punished by forced work; orphans were sent to plantations against their will. Parents had to demonstrate their ability to support their children or be removed, ultimately sent to a plantation. Legalized slavery by another name. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because voter suppression, mass incarceration, and the murder of Black people with little recourse under the law are still part of everyday life. If this were a debate, I could make the case how much has changed for Black Americans for the better since Reconstruction ended. Unfortunately, I could also make the case how much things have stayed the same and growing steadily worse.

Rather than talk about the end of Reconstruction generally, I’d like to focus on a single community that might be easier to relate to. Hamburg, South Carolina, is located just across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia. Indeed, Hamburg was constructed to compete with Augusta and was a leading inland port shipping goods downriver. For a time, the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company only extended west from Charleston to Hamburg, making Hamburg an important shipping location. An 1848 completion of the Augusta Canal siphoned off much of Hamburg’s export business, and the westward expansion of the railroad into Augusta made Augusta the far more important port location.

Hamburg was a dying city before the Civil War. After the war, it became a haven for freedmen who sought to avoid the retribution of pissed off white people who lost their ability to enslave people, at least technically. Black families moved to Hamburg to avoid lynchings and in the hope of exercising self-government. In 1868, South Carolina got a new State Constitution that removed barriers for Black people to vote. South Carolina was one of those states where Black people outnumbered white people, and fair and free elections could equal Black rule in a logical world.

“For us, the war was not ended. We had met the enemy in the field and lost our fight, but now we were threatened with a servile war, a war in which the negro savage backed by the U.S. and the intelligent white scoundrel as his leader was our enemy.” Thomas Pinckney Lowndes

Democrats, who were then worse than Republicans are now, organized their own Conservative State Convention and assured the nation in an open letter that “white South Carolinians would never acquiesce in Negro equality or supremacy.” They attempted to implement a series of voter suppression laws that ultimately failed. Their current counterparts in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere have had much more success, getting their voter suppression laws enacted while appeals to the courts determine their constitutionality. Having failed at the ballot box, the 1876 South Carolinians turned to violence.

Leading up to the 1876 Presidential election with Republican Rutherford B. Hayes facing off against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The Democrats formed a strategy to prevent Black people from registering and voting. Targeting the majority Black counties (sounds like current Republican efforts to negate the Black votes in Atlanta, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Detroit). They relied on those Constitutionally-approved well-regulated militias, including the Red Shirts associated with the Democratic Gubernatorial candidate and the Ku Klux Klan. Sounding much like today’s Republicans, Democrats made unfounded claims that the rise of the Klan was in response to widespread voter fraud when white Democrats committed almost all documented fraud. In the majority-Black, Edgefield County, 2,000 more people voted than the number of registered voters in the county, with the white candidate edging out the win. Republicans are currently trying to suppress minority and youth vote in forty-seven states. They learned the lessons of history well.

The suppression of the Black vote in South Carolina was not simply the exercise of intimidation by non-violent means. The aforementioned Hamburg, South Carolina, was attacked by Democratic paramilitary groups (well-regulated militias) that murdered Black citizens to keep them from voting. Black citizens had the gall to believe they could form their own National Guard unit for protection but soon learned the Constitution and local laws didn’t recognize their Second Amendment Rights; the Second Amendment was designed to protect white people and help maintain the enslavement of Black people. Never has it worked the other way around.

Led by Benjamin Tillman (who later served 24 years as a US Senator), a group called the Red Shirts gathered hundreds of white militiamen with guns and demanded the Black militia give up their guns. The Black group sought refuge in the Sibley building while the white militia got a cannon from Augusta. One might ask from what civilian source a cannon was available in 1876, eleven years after the Civil War ended? I can only surmise the US Military or the Georgia National Guard aided the white “patriots” in helping take the guns away from the Black militia.

Not wanting to face the cannon, the Black militia slipped out of the Sibley building. Hamburg’s Black Town Marshall, James Cook, was shot and killed in the street. Several Black militiamen were captured as the white group, sanctioned by Republican Governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain, sought the Black militia leader, Dock Adams. Adams was able to escape, and here is a quote from his testimony before Congress.

I could look right into my bedroom and sitting room window. I saw them taking down my pictures and breaking up the furniture. They took all my clothes, my mattresses and feather-bed and cut it in pieces, destroying everything I had. They took all my wife’s clothes and everything.

By that time they commenced getting very thick in the [town] square. I jumped over a little fence and went up in the postmaster’s house . . . Right on the street, there were over a thousand men. They had their headquarters there. Every time the party would bring a colored man that they had captured they would bring him to what they called the “dead-ring.” Every time they would come in General Butler would yell, “Good boys! Goddamnit! Turn your hounds and bring the last one in,” and they would ask, “Can you find that Dock Adams? We want to get him.” Some asked what kind of man I was and some would agree — “man with side-whiskers and a moustache.” One man said, “We’ll have him before day.” And I was standing right there looking at him through the blinds. That was between two and three o’clock. So finally they said, “Well we had better go to work and kill all the niggers we have. We won’t be able to find that son of a bitch.” They called them out one by one and would carry them off across the railroad, and stand them up there and shoot them. M.C. Butler was telling them what men to kill. They were shot, I guess, about four o’clock in the morning. The moon was shining very bright — about as bright as ever you seen it. I remained in the house until you could just discover day. I went out through the back way and got on the South
Carolina Railroad and came to Aiken.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Q: When they were killing those colored men, was anything said about politics?

A: Yes, sir. You could hear it all the time. “By God! We will carry South Carolina now. About the time we kill four or five hundred men we will scare the rest.” Even before it begun you could hear, “We are going to redeem South Carolina today!” You could hear them singing it on the streets, “This is the beginning of the redemption of South Carolina.

When the white mob couldn’t find Dock Adams, they decided to “kill all the niggers we have,” including Black state legislator Simon Coker of Barnwell. The total record of Black deaths is incomplete, but we do know that one white man died while attacking the Black militia, McKie Meriwether.

We now report that during the 12-year period of Reconstruction, at least 2,000 Black women, men, and children were victims of racial terror lynchings.

By telling the story of Hamburg, South Carolina, I don’t mean to suggest this was an isolated incident. There were at least 34 documented mass lynchings during the Reconstruction period. The record should reflect mass lynchings didn’t end after Reconstruction. This period doesn’t include the 1920 Ocoee Massacre and the 1921 desecration of Black Wall Street, among others where whole towns were decimated.

In many ways, modern-day America resembles the final days of Reconstruction. The efforts to restrict Black voters and other minorities and youth have reached a fever pitch with ongoing attempts in forty-seven states. White people are gathering guns with great fervor, yet Black people with or without guns are singled out for investigation as “Black identity extremists.” Politicians on one side are actively recruiting white supremacists, reminiscent of the Democrats during the Reconstruction era. White allies are questionable, much like the one-time supporters, the Republicans, who helped end Reconstruction with the Compromise of 1877.

After the Hamburg Massacre, ninety-four white participants were indicted, yet none were ultimately punished. They didn’t have the qualified immunity current police officers have, but they might as well of had it. It’s said that those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. America seems to be doing a whole lot of repeating.

—

This post was previously published on Medium.

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

You Said ‘Race’, but Are You Actually Talking About Race?

Understanding the Nonbinary: Are You Confusing Gender With Sex?

The Difference Between Compassion for Those With Disabilities & Ableism?

‘Masculinity’ Is Having an Identity Crisis

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.