African Americans in the Reconstruction Era

Chungchan Gao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138966260
• eBook ISBN: 9781317775935
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This ethnographic study explores the status of African Americans during the Reconstruction era, examining the particularities of such topics as race relations, social systems, legal systems, and economic and political status. Rather than dealing with the status of African Americans as an isolated human rights issue, Gao examines the African American role in American society in the context of American society, particularly paying attention to the intellectual roots of the belief system of white and black Americans during the Reconstruction.

CHAPTER 1

The Origins of Discrimination against African Americans

THE ORIGINS OF WHITES’ SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE CORE VALUE

The self-consciousness of white men was not merely a result of their contact with blacks, but it was a self-identity long maintained in English culture. As birds of a feather flock together, its basis, of course, included their biological self-identity, which, at the same time, was mingled with their superiority complex concerning their cultural tradition. The white color, in fact, conveyed a special meaning to English people in the Elizabethan era. White was the ideal color of perfect human beauty, especially when it was complemented by red. English subjects praised their queen as follows:

Her cheeke, her chinne, her neck, her nose,

This was a lillye, that was a rose;

Her bosome, sleeke as Paris plaster,

Held upp twoo bowles of Alabaster.⁴⁰

In England, white and black connoted utterly contrary messages, while red and yellow were generally inconsistent. Red was as likely to be compared to a rose as to blood, and yellow as the symbol of cowardice seemed to have little relationship to human beings.⁴¹ Yet the usage of white and black was always consistent. The connotation of white was always highly positive in England. Being used in weddings and religious ceremonies, it represented purity, beauty, sincerity, goodness, kindness, intelligence, and courage, and angels always had a pair of white wings. On the contrary, black was the symbol of depravity and wickedness. As the contemporary Oxford English Dictionary explained, it meant

Deeply stained with dirt; soiled, dirty, foul. Having dark or deadly purpose, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly; baneful, disastrous, sinister. Foul, iniquitous, atrocious, horrible, wicked. Indicating disgrace, censure, liability to punishment, etc.⁴²

When two different cultures come into contact with each other, the dominant one inevitably measures the inferior one by its own criteria. If “we recognize the fact,” wrote Brewton Berry, “that conflict involves also those subtle, restrained forms of interaction wherein one seeks to reduce the status of one’s opponent, and not to eliminate him entirely from the conflict, then perhaps it is true that conflict invariably occurs when unlike people meet.” ⁴³ Seeking dominant power over blacks in the era of colonial expansion, English culture provides such an example.

When they initially met blacks in West Africa, Englishmen immediately realized the marked racial and cultural differences between them and showed some disgust and curiosity.

Of the biological differences between them, the complexion of Africans was most impressive. Compared with the Portuguese and Spanish, Englishmen suddenly found themselves in contact with blacks, and the complexion of the Africans on the West Coast was much deeper than that of Moors in North Africa, with whom the Portuguese and Spanish had long had dealings. People were very uneasy about the possible mixture of the two races. Being so “discontented at the great number of ‘Negars and blackamoors’ which are crept into the realm” by 1601, Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation for their transportation out of the country.⁴⁴

Yet overseas exploration and plantations could not manage without blacks. How to treat this distinctive race? What did the presence of blacks mean? In such circumstances, Englishmen began to explore the origins of blackness. At first, they were satisfied with the version that the blackness of Africans was caused by their exposure to the hot sun, but they soon found that Native Americans in the same latitudes had no similar trait, and that blacks brought to the low latitudes made no change to their color. Therefore, some Englishmen resorted to the Bible to explain their innate nature. Jeremiah 13:23 said that “Can Ethiopians (or Nubians) change their skin / or leopards their spots? / Then also you can do good / who are accustomed to do evil.” A modern writer believes that it was the “first recorded slur” against the black race.⁴⁵ Adopting this version as early as 1578, George Best, an Elizabethan voyager and geographer, declared that the blackness “proceedeth of some naturall infection of the first inhabitants of that country, and so all the whole progenie of them descended, are still polluted with the same blot of infection.”⁴⁶ Furthermore, the Bible could give a seemingly satisfactory explanation about the origin of blackness and enslavement of Africans. Genesis 9 described that when his father Noah became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent, Ham did not evade him, whereas his two brothers, Shem and Japheth, took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. When Noah awoke from his wine, he blessed Shem and Japheth and cursed Ham and his son Canaan: “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” He also said: “Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. May God make space for Japheth, be his slave.” This story could be connected with slavery.

The Bible, however, did not mention here whether the descendants of Ham or Canaan were blacks or not. This was not found until the oral traditions of Jews were collected in the Babylonian Talmud from the second century to the sixth century A.D. One story related that God forbade anyone to have sexual relations while on the Ark and Ham disobeyed this command. Another legend was that Ham was cursed with blackness because he resented the fact that his father desired to have a fourth son. To prevent the birth of a rival heir, Ham was said to have castrated his father. Therefore, Ham was cursed by being black.⁴⁷ In the sixteenth century, Englishmen mixed the two legends. In 1577, George Best incisively and vividly developed this idea. Noah and his sons and their wives, he thought, were “white” and “by course of nature should have begotten white children. But the envie of our great and continuall enemie the wicked Spirite is such, that as hee coulde not suffer our olde father Adam to live in the félicite and Angelike state wherein he was first created so againe, finding at this flood none but a father and three sons living, hee so caused one of them to disobey his fathers commandment, that after him all his posteritie should bee accursed.” The commandment was that they should behold God “with reverence and feare,” and that “while they remained in the Arke, they should use continencie, and abstaine from carnall copulations with their wives which good instructions and exhortations notwithstanding his wicked sonne Cham disobeyed, and being perswaded that the first ehilde borne after the flood should inherite all the dominations of the earth.” To punish the “wicked and detestable fact,” God commanded that

a sonne should bee born whose name was Chus, who not onely it selfe, but all his posteritie after him should bee so blacke and loathsome, that it might remain a spectacle of disobedience to all the worlde. And of this blacke and cursed Chus came all these blacke Moores which are in Africa.⁴⁸

Here, Best willfully connected blackness with licentiousness, stubbornness, and the devil, and at the same time linked whites with the image of God, piety, and self-restraint. Putting blackness and whiteness as two opposing extremes, this view vividly expressed the self-consciousness of his white contemporaries.

Englishmen also realized that African natives had different aesthetic standards. To Africans, the “horrid Curies” and “disfigured” lips and noses described by whites were reckoned as “the Beauties of the Country.”⁴⁹ Obviously, the aesthetic temperaments that connected with self-consciousness were considerably relative, and different peoples with different cultures might have different views. The problem was not the existence of differences, but how to adopt a tolerant attitude towards a people with a different culture. In the period of colonial expansion, however, the power of the strong cast aside the dignity of the weak, with the aesthetic standard of the dominant race being consolidated in the social systems; the tastes of the dominant race in turn continuously extended the color line. The vicious circle was then formed.

Besides the biological differences between whites and blacks, the cultural ones were also very important. In the opinion of Englishmen, the heathenism and savageness of Africans was in sharp contrast to the English Christian civilization in the process of commercial revolution. Africans were distinctive in many ways: many counties had not yet gotten rid of their tribalism; tribes were often in bloody warfare; and the natives wore exotic clothes and ornaments, lived in simple and crude houses, used seemingly queer languages, and believed in gods never heard of. Having enormous curiosity about this new world, Englishmen took great delight in talking about the cosmetic mutilation, polygamy, infanticide, ritual murder, and alleged incest between human beings and apes. This interest, however, was not only the psychology of curiosity, but also a mirror of self-introspection. In England, an earthshaking change took place in the sixteenth century, and the agricultural and commercial revolution was developing indepth. The development of capitalism had not only created the enterprising spirit, but also spread the general mood of avarice and depravity. On the one hand, people were busy making fortunes, on the other hand, they were rather disturbed by the social atmosphere. Once in their field of vision, Africans became a reminder of self-restraint. The African reality was regarded as the antithesis of Christian civilization. How terrible a condition they would land themselves in if they departed from the course of God! It was a savage state that English people were absolutely unwilling to involve themselves in, and that they must constantly warn themselves to avoid. They understood that the inevitable price to maintain their own civilization and purity was perpetual vigilance over the invasion of foreign matter. When an island race that thought no end of himself went into the “wildness,” the presence of a different culture strengthened the self-identity of English people.

Obviously, the biological and cultural elements were connected. While Englishmen made value judgments about the blackness of Africans, they measured the “savageness” and heathenism of Africans on the basis of the significance of racial traits. Compared with the blackness of Africans, the color of Native Americans had not shaken Englishmen deeply. While emphasizing the “savageness” or heathenism of Native Americans, Englishmen never allowed their racial traits to be the obstacle of conversion. So it was not strange that Thomas Jefferson later on suggested intermarriage between whites and Native Americans. Meanwhile, the seemingly incorrigible traits of blacks and the despair of whites never caused whites to seriously undertake the mission of converting blacks before the eighteenth century. In American thought, Native Americans became the symbol of conflict between savageness and civilization, whereas blacks became the evil spirit in whites’ subconsciousness, and the semihuman and semibeast image of blacks was deeply rooted into whites’ mind. Because blackness itself was so disgusting, it would be more serious if it was connected with savageness, licentiousness, and the “black devil.” Using many metaphors in Othello, Shakespeare unremittingly hinted at the presence of this connection. Without mincing words, some contemporary critics even asserted that blacks were descended from apes, or that apes were the mongrels reproduced by blacks and other unknown beasts. When alleging that “promiscuous coition of men and animal took place, wherefore the regions of Africa produce for us so many monsters,” Jean Bodin was not alone.⁵⁰

While whites’ self-consciousness was strengthened by their cultural contact with blacks, the attitudes of English people toward other white peoples explained the range of their self-identity. By the criterion of religion or nationality, Englishmen confidently placed themselves at the center of concentric circles, each of which successively contained Welshmen, Scots, Irish, and other peoples. Although the arrangement might vary with individuals and time, blacks were always placed at the outermost circle by whatever criterion was used and were thereby the chief object of enslavement.

The difference between Native Americans and Englishmen was so large that Englishmen might quietly enslave the former, for they were heathens, “savages,” and “red men.” Yet as a whole, their relationship with English colonists was not so much one of enslavement as one of opponent. Unlike blacks, they were not the unwilling uprooters and had the strong backing of a tribe or even a whole race. One result of this relation was that whites never enslaved Native Americans in large numbers as they pleased. On the contrary, the state that blacks were placed in was total conquest. How they were treated, to a large extent, depended on the economic, political, and psychological need of the dominating race. But Native Americans represented an unfinished conquest. When treating Native American prisoners, whites had to take account of the retaliatory danger of other Native Americans as well as the bellicose nature of the prisoners. No wonder that Native American slaves were so few and cheap that only blacks became the emblem of slavery, and that Native Americans became the symbol of whites’ adventure in North America. Certainly, Native Americans and blacks also shared the same features, i.e., they were all “strangers” and “heathens,” but on these points whites often paid fewer attentions to Native Americans than they did to blacks, which could explain the deepness of their biological self-identity.

To Englishmen, Welshmen, Scots, and I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Origins of Discrimination against African Americans
• Chapter 2 Issues Affecting African Americans and African American Reconstruction
• Chapter 3 Issues Affecting African Americans and White Reconstruction
• Chapter 4 African American Issues and Congressional Reconstruction
• Chapter 5 The Withering of the New Democracy
• Chapter 6 The Heritage of Reconstruction
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index