The Souls of Black Folk | Page 8

Negro

problems of to-day.
It is the aim of this essay to study the period of history from 1861 to
1872 so far as it relates to the American Negro. In effect, this tale of the
dawn of Freedom is an account of that government of men called the
Freedmen's Bureau,--one of the most singular and interesting of the
attempts made by a great nation to grapple with vast problems of race
and social condition.
The war has naught to do with slaves, cried Congress, the President,
and the Nation; and yet no sooner had the armies, East and West,
penetrated Virginia and Tennessee than fugitive slaves appeared within
their lines. They came at night, when the flickering camp-fires shone
like vast unsteady stars along the black horizon: old men and thin, with
gray and tufted hair; women with frightened eyes, dragging
whimpering hungry children; men and girls, stalwart and gaunt,--a
horde of starving vagabonds, homeless, helpless, and pitiable, in their
dark distress. Two methods of treating these newcomers seemed
equally logical to opposite sorts of minds. Ben Butler, in Virginia,
quickly declared slave property contraband of war, and put the fugitives
to work; while Fremont, in Missouri, declared the slaves free under
martial law. Butler's action was approved, but Fremont's was hastily
countermanded, and his successor, Halleck, saw things differently.
"Hereafter," he commanded, "no slaves should be allowed to come into
your lines at all; if any come without your knowledge, when owners
call for them deliver them." Such a policy was difficult to enforce;
some of the black refugees declared themselves freemen, others
showed that their masters had deserted them, and still others were
captured with forts and plantations. Evidently, too, slaves were a source
of strength to the Confederacy, and were being used as laborers and
producers. "They constitute a military resource," wrote Secretary
Cameron, late in 1861; "and being such, that they should not be turned
over to the enemy is too plain to discuss." So gradually the tone of the
army chiefs changed; Congress forbade the rendition of fugitives, and
Butler's "contrabands" were welcomed as military laborers. This
complicated rather than solved the problem, for now the scattering
fugitives became a steady stream, which flowed faster as the armies

marched.
Then the long-headed man with care-chiselled face who sat in the
White House saw the inevitable, and emancipated the slaves of rebels
on New Year's, 1863. A month later Congress called earnestly for the
Negro soldiers whom the act of July, 1862, had half grudgingly
allowed to enlist. Thus the barriers were levelled and the deed was done.
The stream of fugitives swelled to a flood, and anxious army officers
kept inquiring: "What must be done with slaves, arriving almost daily?
Are we to find food and shelter for women and children?"
It was a Pierce of Boston who pointed out the way, and thus became in
a sense the founder of the Freedmen's Bureau. He was a firm friend of
Secretary Chase; and when, in 1861, the care of slaves and abandoned
lands devolved upon the Treasury officials, Pierce was specially
detailed from the ranks to study the conditions. First, he cared for the
refugees at Fortress Monroe; and then, after Sherman had captured
Hilton Head, Pierce was sent there to found his Port Royal experiment
of making free workingmen out of slaves. Before his experiment was
barely started, however, the problem of the fugitives had assumed such
proportions that it was taken from the hands of the over-burdened
Treasury Department and given to the army officials. Already centres
of massed freedmen were forming at Fortress Monroe, Washington,
New Orleans, Vicksburg and Corinth, Columbus, Ky., and Cairo, Ill.,
as well as at Port Royal. Army chaplains found here new and fruitful
fields; "superintendents of contrabands" multiplied, and some attempt
at systematic work was made by enlisting the able-bodied men and
giving work to the others.
Then came the Freedmen's Aid societies, born of the touching appeals
from Pierce and from these other centres of distress. There was the
American Missionary Association, sprung from the Amistad, and now
full-grown for work; the various church organizations, the National
Freedmen's Relief Association, the American Freedmen's Union, the
Western Freedmen's Aid Commission,--in all fifty or more active
organizations, which sent clothes, money, school-books, and teachers
southward. All they did was needed, for the destitution of the freedmen

was often reported as "too appalling for belief," and the situation was
daily growing worse rather than better.
And daily, too, it seemed more plain that this was no ordinary matter of
temporary relief, but a national crisis; for here loomed a labor problem
of vast dimensions. Masses of Negroes stood idle, or, if they worked
spasmodically, were never sure of pay; and if perchance they received
pay, squandered the new thing thoughtlessly. In