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The Horrible Side of Reconstruction
Most of us know about the good things that happened during Reconstruction, a time period that stretches roughly 10 years after the Civil War. What we don’t know, and what the educational system often refuses to discuss, is the opposition to Reconstruction by the former slave owners as they attempted to derail the human dignity and citizenship of black people. The Freedman’s Bureau did not begin to function in helping Black folk until the end of 1865 and was removed by white supremacist politicians by 1870. Racialized whites feared that allowing blacks to be educated implied equality with whites and competitors for jobs with white people. This would create a backlash even after several blacks were elected to the Texas legislature. Black progress is always seen as a threat to the racial caste system and the proponents of white supremacy.
The Freedmen Bureau was set up by Congress to help former enslaved people to survive after the Civil War in 1865. The black folk of Texas celebrated the news of emancipation but were in for the horror that followed. They shouted for joy and were heard to say, “No more whippings,” but just like with the election of Obama the racist forces organized and refused the policies of the progress. The freedmen’s Bureau records show that the southern states refused to accept the freedom of black people and in the years 1865 to 1866 over 500 blacks were killed for leaving the plantations or just murdered by crazed white vigilantes. Despite the announcement that slaves were free at Galveston, plantation owners refused to tell blacks about it until Union troops arrived or the next crop was picked. Blacks that did find out about being free were shot if they attempted to leave the plantation. No slaves owned by Alex Simpson were freed until three years after the Civil War. Attack dogs were still used years after blacks were freed in Texas and hunted them down when they ran away from a plantation.
Near Houston and other places blacks were convinced to board ships with the promise of freedom and jobs only to be chained and set back into slavery in Brazil. Black schools set up by the Freedmen’s Bureau were all burned down and the new schools had to be sponsored by wealthy whites and taught by white teachers for a time. This was the case in San Antonio as the Republican authorities wanted the Lincoln School to flourish with white teachers. Black people wanted black teachers and the democrats of that time sought to create a black educational system that serviced the needs of whites. The Lincoln School in San Antonio was sabotaged by the anti-Lincoln forces and named their school the Rincon School that may have been an attempt to confuse blacks with word play. In fact, if any pictures of Abraham Lincoln were found hanging in the classroom, or any abolitionist picture, the teacher would be fired and the picture ripped down.
Freedmen Bureau agents were ran out of towns, beaten, and shot and one report stated that several white gangs offered to kill blacks for seventy-five cents in Harrison County. In Bowie County, racist gangs could be hired to kill blacks for a few dollars. Whites killed blacks during Reconstruction for any display of their freedom; refusing to look down when passing a white person or the shouting of joy for freedom resulted in death. According to Smallwood, the sheriff of DeWitt County shot a black man for whistling “Yankee Doodle.” It gets worse as the crimes of this guilty land are being exposed. Black Lives never mattered and the struggle to make Black Lives Matter continues unabated.
