9 minute read
A Bit of History
Mural Artist: Reginald C. Adams
On June 19th, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger entered Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of the Civil War, the belated end of southern slavery. General Order No. 3:
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“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a [January 1, 1863] proclamation from the Executive of the United States [President Abraham Lincoln], all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
Texans celebrated Juneteenth beginning in 1866. It was revived in 1979 and became an official state holiday in 1980. The Commonwealth of Virginia first acknowledged the June 19th jubilee in 2007—the 44th state to do so.
Why so late to the table? Virginia—for more than 150 years—has championed southern history: Confederate Generals, Lee-Jackson Day, and the Lost Cause.
“The lessons that negroes make a bad use of liberty is taught daily in the police court of this and all other cities in which they are numerous,” the Alexandria Gazette wrote on August 1, 1895. “Nearly all the cases before such courts are those of negroes, the parties to which are either sent to jail or the work house, put on the chain gang, or impoverished by fines. Before the Negroes were freed it was a rarity for one of them to be arrested…their money spent in the payment of fines.”
“Between the idea of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the notion of popular sovereignty, between the demands of nationalism and the intimacies of community, between the bumptious sense of manifest destiny of a growing nation and the hard rock of slavery…stood an old and enduring tension in American life,” author Jay Winik penned.
“Since 1619, when representative democracy and enslaved African people arrived in Virginia—within a month of each other—we have said one, but done another,” Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said in 2020. “It’s time we elevate Juneteenth not just as a celebration by and for some Virginians, but one acknowledged and commemorated by all of us.”
“About the last of August came in a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty ‘Negars,’” Virginia colonist and Pocahontas husband-tobe John Rolfe noted in 1619. The first “Negars” entered as “indentured servants who could theoretically be freed in five years.” The remainder came as slaves.
According to Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln the earliest Congresses viewed slavery “in the narrowest limits of necessity.” Declared Lincoln in 1854:
“When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia—to their own native land [by way of the American Colonization Society].
That said…When the white man governs himself that is self-government. But when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government— that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal’ and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another.
In 1794 [Congress] prohibited an out-going slavetrade—that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to sell. In 1798 [Congress] prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa into the Mississippi Territory—this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama.
In 1800 [Congress] prohibited American citizens from trading in slaves between foreign countries— as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil. In 1803 [Congress] passed a law…in restraint of the internal slave trade. In 1807, in apparent hot haste, [Congress] passed the law… prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties. [Finally] in 1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, [Congress] declared trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death…Thus we see the plain unmistakable spirit of that age was hostility to the principle of slavery and toleration of it only by necessity.”
U.S. Representative Abraham Lincoln [Whig-IL] first tried to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia—the shameful slave trade—in 1849. He unsuccessfully “reported a bill for the abolition of slavery… with the consent of the voters of the District, and with compensation to owners.” Twelve years later President Abraham Lincoln [R-IL] signed the 37th Congress’ District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act.
The Act, as signed on April 16, 1862: Sec. 1: “Be it enacted That all persons held to service or labor within the District of Columbia by reason of African dissent are hereby discharged and freed of and from all claim to such service or labor and from and after the passage of this act neither slavery nor involuntary servitude—except for crime whereof the party shall be duly convicted—shall hereafter exist in said District.”
The 1862 Act immediately emancipated “2,989 former slaves; compensated former owners who were loyal to
—Abe Lincoln, 1854
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Section 1: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, the Union of up to $300 for each freed slave, voluntary colonization of former slaves to locations outside the United States, and payments of up to $100 for each [freed slave] choosing emigration.” except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2: Congress shall have the power Freedom, as defined by to enforce this article by the American Heritage appropriate legislation.” Black Dictionary: 1. The condition slaves once were property as of being free. 2a. Political are/were married women. independence. 2b. Possession Women, black women of civil rights. 3. Ease of included, still wait for Senate movement. 4. Frankness or passage of the Equal Rights boldness. 5. Unrestricted use Amendment. Here’s hoping or access. a national day will promote Freedom, as limited by equality for All! legislated Black Codes: in “Ain’t no more Juneteenth 1808 District Mayor Robert like it used to be,” poet J. Brent and the D.C. Board of Mason Brewer wrote in 1960. Aldermen “made it unlawful “When Abe Lincoln writ a for ‘Negroes’ or ‘loose, letter/ Settin’ all the black idle, disorderly persons to folks free./ Ain’t no more be on the streets after 10 big picnics, by the riverside./ p.m.’” Mississippi was the Where we all sang ‘Swing Low first southern state, first Sweet Chariot’/ ‘Til we all defeated Confederate state to broke down and cried.” formalize the Black Code—on “Juneteenth marked the November 24, 1865. end of slavery in this country, Freedom, as limited by and it matters now because it racial segregation in the cities: in 2020, “Our nation still has says…this is everyone’s shared 215 King St. Alexandria, VA 22314 Virginia, readmitted to the Union in 1870, enacted its first a long way to go to reckon with and overcome the dark history and we will celebrate it together,” Governor Northam sales@johncrouch.comcastbiz.net (703) 548-2900 | (703) 739-2302CALL BY JUNE 30statewide segregation law in 1900. Still Alexandria buries its 1930s-1950s history of Colored Rosement. Of white legacy of slavery; the violence and injustice that has persisted after its end.” “Many people and nations reminded. “Right-minded men would very easily bring order out of our American chaos, if to schedule your FREE in-home consultationdeveloper Virginia Fitzhugh Wheat Thomas; the GI bill get national amnesia when it comes to remembering evil, working with courage, & without by-ends,” Ralph 571-932-5842 and black home ownership, segregation and unrestricted racial covenants. Musician the disgraceful, the follies, the shameful and the bad portions of history,” Van Waldo Emerson said in 1864. “Absolute Emancipation establishes the fact that the and socialite; heiress and Caldwell wrote in 2002 in United States henceforth realtor Virginia Thomas The Washington Post. “To knows no color, no race, in its bought “real estate [on June become mentally healthy and law, but legislates for all alike— 19, 1939] bounded by Wythe, whole, as a nation, we must one law for all men [and BOGO Payne, West and Pendleton Streets” as part of a privatelydeal honestly with the good and evil parts of our individual women].” “Morals is the test,” Emerson 40% OFF funded housing project known as colored Rosemont. and national personalities and character…But with continued in 1865, “and it is only very lately that our own Call for details D.C.’s first Emancipation the national assassination of Churches, formerly silent on Day Parade took place on Lincoln second- and third-rate slavery & notoriously hostile April 19, 1866. Today it also politicians from the North and to Abolitionists, wheeled into celebrates Juneteenth. For South took over…A national line for Emancipation.” many, Juneteenth offers an day to remember, study, opportunity “to discuss the and celebrate the abolition links between segregation, of legalized slavery could racial discrimination, give us another start toward xenophobia, and nativism,” reconciliation and integration.” Shennette Garrett-Scott Reconcile, as defined wrote in When Peace Come: by the American Heritage Teaching the Significance Dictionary: 1. To establish a of Juneteenth. “By World close relationship between. War I segregation laws were 2. To settle or resolve. 3. To firmly in place and a tide of bring oneself to accept. 4. To nativism engulfed the country. make compatible or consistent, Many whites and even some as to reconcile opposing views. blacks saw Juneteenth as un- Integrate, as defined by the American because it focused American Heritage Dictionary: attention on a dark period of 1. To make into a whole; unify. U.S. history.” 2. To join with something else; Maryland officially unite. 3. To open to people recognized Juneteenth in 2014; male and female, of all races Virginia declared it a state and ethnic groups without holiday in 2020. U.S. Senator restriction. Cory Booker (D-NJ) now Amendment 13, as seeks “to make Juneteenth a ratified December 6, 1865, federal holiday.” Said Booker constitutionally ended slavery.
...Absolute
Emancipation establishes the fact that the United
States henceforth knows no color, no race, in its law, but legislates for all alike—one law for all men [and women]. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1865
Sarah Becker started writing for The Economist while a graduate student in England. Similar publications followed. She joined the Crier in 1996 while serving on the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association Board. Her interest in antiquities began as a World Bank hire, with Indonesia’s need to generate hard currency. Balinese history, i.e. tourism provided the means. The New York Times describes Becker’s book, Off Your Duffs & Up the Assets, as “a blueprint for thousands of nonprofit managers.” A former museum director, SLAM’s saving grace Sarah received Alexandria’s Salute to Women Award in 2007. Email: abitofhistory53@ att.net
