Despite racism and racial discrimination, the Buffalo Soldiers amassed an impressive record of service. Their desertion rate was the lowest in the frontier army although their posts were often in the most godforsaken places. In the post-Civil War era, more than one-third of white enlisted men went AWOL each year. The white Seventh Cavalry in 1876, for example, had seventy-two deserters, the Third had 170, and the Fifth had 224, but the black Ninth only had six deserters and the Tenth eighteen.99 Moreover, although alcoholism was often a problem among white soldiers, black soldiers escaped chronic alcoholism, “the scourge of the West.”100 Many factors contributed to the superior morale and performance of the black regiments. As had been the case with black Civil War troops, the Buffalo Soldiers regarded themselves as representatives of an entire race whose performance would determine its future treatment both in and outside the military. Many were determined not to confirm whites’ negative perceptions of them as shifty, lazy, cowardly, undisciplined, and prone to alcoholism. Furthermore, given the fact that a black deserter would stand out anywhere he went in the predominantly white Western territories, his color would limit the likelihood of desertion.101 And, certainly, a black soldier roaming alone would be vulnerable to a white population that was racist and had no love for blacks.
The fact that the Buffalo Soldiers helped subjugate Native Americans while their own people were being oppressed in American society is a tragic irony. It is all but certain that some of the Buffalo Soldiers were aware of this contradiction and concerned about it. In order to decipher the magnitude of their concern, however, more in-depth studies of Buffalo Soldiers are necessary. At this time, the literature seems to suggest that most black soldiers agreed with the U.S. government’s genocidal policies toward Native Americans, for they carried out their orders.102 To many blacks, fighting Native Americans was simply a job—one that they were determined to do to the best of their ability.
African Americans did all they could to carve out a place in American society and to build an economic foundation. Contrary to the claims of many Southern whites, freedmen and women worked at whatever jobs they could find to provide for themselves and their families. Believing that property ownership represented economic independence, many blacks struggled tenaciously to acquire land. To improve their economic situation, they formed labor unions, engaged in strikes, and migrated to points North and West;103 some even emigrated to Africa. That they failed to accomplish their objective in large measure is not due to a lack of effort on their part. They simply could not overcome the huge obstacles placed in the way of a “Working Class of People.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“We CAN NOW LIVE AS ONE”
The Reunification of the Family
THE BLACK FAMILY was vulnerable to disruption during slavery, but strong family ties existed nonetheless. Slaves fervently believed in the sanctity of the marriages that regularly took place among them. And although these marriages were not recognized by the state, they were sometimes sanctioned by owners who reasoned that these unions would make their slaves less likely to run away. The owners, however, broke up families at their own discretion. The grief and pain caused by forced separations were much more than any human ought to have to endure. Edwin Walker recalled a relatively peaceful family life “till one day Sis Julia wuz sole away from us. Her new Mars’ took her plum off to South Carolina away from us an’ her husband. We mourned an’ grieved fer her.”1 On the auction block, slaves cried out in anguish at witnessing the sale and separation of family members. James Brown asserted, “Ise see dem cry like deys am at de fune’al whens de am parted, dey has to drag dem away.”2 “When one of them buyers bought a slave you never did hear such bawling and hollering in your life that would take place because they did not want to leave each other,” explained Dave Byrd.3 Similarly, when Charlie Cooper observed several slaves being auctioned, he noted, “when they put them on the auction block you never heard such bawling and going on in your life. For 3 or 4 days they would bawl like a cow does when she is in a strange place.”4
Northern white travelers’ accounts of the trauma experienced at the auction blocks are even more graphic than those given by former slaves. One contemporary recorded a scene in which a slave girl named Lucy was sold as her mother stood by, brokenhearted, “with tears streaming down her face.” At the same auction, Harry, a fifteen-year-old lad, was sold while his mother was waiting for her turn. When she realized that Harry had been sold, she began to scream, “O, my child! my Child!” Her irritated slaveholder warned her, “Ah, my girl! if you do not stop that hollering, I will give you something to holler for.” The mother’s efforts to suppress her grief proved fruitless. As Harry left with his new owner, the children cried out, “Good by, Harry, good by.” His mother joined in, sobbing, “Farewell, my boy, try to meet me in heaven.”5 Another contemporary recorded a scene in which a white minister bought the mother of a young slave girl. “With eyes swimming in tears, and with loud, dolorous heart-rending cries, she approached the minister who had bought her mother and said, ‘pray, massa, please do, massa, buy me too.’ ” Although he was touched by her cries and tears, the reverend replied, “I can’t buy you, I am not able to keep you both.”6 Their only solace was one final embrace before they parted.
The psychological and emotional toll of forced separation was high. For example, Elizabeth Hyde Botume, who taught slaves to read and write on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, came across one young slave woman whom forced separation had psychologically and emotionally damaged. Botume described the woman as the “saddest person I ever saw,” who always kept to herself. Initially, she had been sold to a trader to pay a gambling debt; then she was sold to her third owner and was forced to leave her child behind in Virginia. As a result, she told Botume, “I cannot sleep nights. Every time I shut my eyes I hear my baby cry, ‘Take me wid you, mammy, take me wid you!’ ” In despair, the woman continued, “I put my fingers in my ears, but all the time I hear him just the same, crying, ‘Take me wid you, mammy, take me wid you!’ ”7
THE IMPORTANCE OF MARRIAGE AMONG SLAVES
In most instances, the wedding of slaves would be simple, particularly when field hands were involved. On plantations where there were overseers or strict masters, the ceremony would be held before or after work or at noon in the row of slave cabins at the home of the bride. All would walk in, the bride and bridegroom in the center, with their attendants close beside them. Very solemnly someone would lay a broomstick across the middle of the floor. Arm in arm the two would step across, and that was all there was to it. Ella Booth remembered, “When my mammy and daddy got married, dey jest ‘jumped over de broom’—den dey wuz married.”8 When an interviewer in the 1930s asked Rena Clark how slaves were married, she responded, “Dey just jumped over de broom stick and some of dem didn’t have dat much ceremony.”9 Henry Lewis McGaffey noted, “I seed Marse marry his slaves an’ all I seed wus he wud hold a straw broom out an’ make dem jump over it frontward an’ den backward, an’ sed dey was married.”10 Similarly, Cynthia Erwing recalled, “Ol’ Marster would make them jump over a broom stick, and then they would be married.”11
Weddings of house slaves were sometimes more elaborate than those of field hands. Although house slaves also customarily jumped over the broom, a much larger number of them were married by either black or white preachers. James Bolton remembered, “Effen the slaves gittin’ mahied was house servants sometimes they mahied on the back porch or in the back yahd at the big ’ouse.” However, with respect to “plantation niggers,” Bolton said, “whut was fiel’ hands, mahied in their own cabins. The bride an’ groom jes’ wo’ plain cloes, kyazen [’cause] they diden’ have no mo!”12 Squire Irvin also recalled field slave couples getting married in “them pretty colored clothes,” and house slave couples dressing more elegantly for their ceremony, with the brides being “given lilly white dresses to wear.”13
Various accounts of weddings of house slaves told by Northern white travelers and former slav
es demonstrate the detailed nature of these ceremonies. Fredrika Bremer was invited to attend the weddings of two couples of house slaves owned by a white professor. She described both brides as being fashionably dressed in white, with beautiful bouquets. The preacher married both couples, and dancing followed. Bremer was impressed by the attire of the black women at the weddings, who were “dressed and decked out in gauze and flowers, altogether like our ladies.” She also found the dinner table to be so splendidly covered with flowers, fine cakes, and an abundance of meats that it seemed almost to bend under the weight.14 Henry Lewis vividly recounted his wedding several years later: “I had a nice hat and a nice suit of black close,” and his bride was dressed in white. His father, a shoemaker, made him a pair of new shoes. He and his bride were married by a white preacher. There were some whites in attendance, and “some of ‘em give us presents and some give us money.”15 Phoebe Henderson and her bridegroom had “de weddin’ dere in de house.” They were married by a black Baptist preacher. Phoebe wore a white cotton dress. As wedding gifts, her mistress gave her a pan of flour and her master gave the couple a house of their own.16
The wedding of Tempie Durham was no doubt one of the most elaborate involving a slave couple. Tempie and her bridegroom were married on the front porch of the big house. Her master killed a shoat for the event, and her mistress had the cook prepare a large wedding cake, “all iced up white as snow wid a bride an’ groom standin in de middle holdin’ hands. De table was set out in de yard under the trees, an’ you ain’t never seed de like of eats.” With delight, Tempie recalled that she “had on a white dress, white shoes, an’ long white gloves dat come to my elbows, an’ Mis’ Betsy done made me a weddin’ veil out of a white net window curtain.” They were married by the black preacher from the plantation church. The newlyweds spent a one-day honeymoon in a cabin that Tempie’s mistress had decorated.17
That slaveowners would sometimes exhibit favoritism toward their house slaves is not surprising. A disproportionate number of these slaves were mulattoes, many of whom were related by blood to their owners. As such, they often were emancipated in larger numbers than their brothers and sisters of a darker hue, and sometimes their white fathers would leave them property in their wills. Bestowing better treatment on house slaves, as was the case with respect to wedding ceremonies, could also have the advantage of dividing the slave population, thereby making it easier to control.
Most slaves esteemed their marriages even if the unions were not recognized by the state. For example, Jennie Hill, a freedwoman from Missouri, declared: “I was proud of my marriage, performed by the ‘educated nigger’ and I sure got mad when anybody said anything about us not being married.”18 The vast majority of husbands and wives were loyal to each other and demonstrated a fierce attachment to family. Millie Ann Smith’s father belonged to a different master in Mississippi than did his wife and three children. When his family’s master moved them to Texas, Smith remembered, “Pappy run off and come to Texas and begged master into buying him so he could be with his wife and chil‘ren.”19 When some fathers were sold away from their wives and children, the experience was so painful that it was almost unbearable. When Hannah Chapman’s father was sold away from them, she recalled, “My pa sho’ did hate ter leave us. He would often slip back ter us’ cottage at nite.” His affectionate children would crawl onto his lap. But he paid a heavy price for it. “When his Mars missed him he would beat him all de way home,” Chapman maintained. “Us could track him de nex’ day by de blood stains.”20
Because of their devotion to family, some escaped slaves who were able to live as free individuals put themselves back in bondage. For instance, Wash Ingram’s father escaped from a plantation in Richmond and secured work in a gold mine. Freedom was sweet as long as his family remained in the vicinity. However, his wife died. When he heard of his three sons’ master’s plan to sell them to a planter in Texas, he became distraught. Ingram overtook them before they reached Texas and put himself back in bondage alongside his sons under their new master, Jim Ingram. Wash’s father simply could not stand the thought of being separated from his children.21
Not all slave husbands and wives were faithful. Some took advantage of the lax rules governing marital relations. Former slaves tell of semi-legendary “travellin’ men,” “married” to several women, each on a different plantation. Israel Massie remembers adventurous Tom, who died “befo’ he oughter.” It seems that “Tom woulda been in a mess of trouble, ef he’d lived. But he died. An’ dere come to mourn over his grave four women, Jenny, Sarah, Nancy, and Patience, all four of ’em his wives an’ cryin’ over dat one man. Do you know, chile, dem women never fought, fuss, or quarrel over who was de true wife of dat man? Guess dat was because he was daid, but dey walk way fum de grave together jus like dey was sisters. Yes, Sir.”22
LEGALIZATION OF MARRIAGE BONDS AFTER EMANCIPATION
Once blacks acquired freedom, they were able to affirm and solidify their family connections. Former slaves in contraband camps moved eagerly to legalize marriage bonds. In fact, as early as September 1861, the demand to legalize their marriages was so great among black contrabands at Fortress Monroe that the Reverend Lewis G. Lockwood felt compelled to perform mass marriages for hundreds of blacks.23 When the Freedmen’s Bureau and state governments made it possible to register and formalize slave marriages, blacks would still continue to hold mass marriage ceremonies. General Howard, the general superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, boasted to Whitelaw Reid, a Northern correspondent, that weddings among blacks at Beaufort, South Carolina, occurred on a frequent basis. After spending some time in Beaufort, Reid reached the conclusion that the superintendent had not made an idle boast, and he acknowledged that “scarcely a Sunday passes without a marriage.”24 An army chaplain, A. B. Randall, attached to a regiment of black soldiers in Arkansas, reported that he spent much of his time conducting marriage ceremonies among blacks in the area. Randall wrote, “Weddings, just now, are very popular, and abundant among the Colored People. I have married, during the month, at this post, twenty-five couples; mostly, those, who have families, and have been living together for years.”25 J. R. Johnson, a Freedmen’s Bureau superintendent of marriages working among blacks in northern Virginia, recorded similar activity. In a one-month period, he gave out fifteen marriage certificates but seemed disappointed in his work: “Nearly three weeks of sickness prevented me from accomplishing more.” Once he recovered, however, he reported, “Yesterday, 31st of May, we gave seventy-nine certificates in Freedmen’s Village.”26
Some of the black couples married on the spur of the moment. Elizabeth Botume, for example, reported from Beaufort that on “one evening four couples came to the schoolhouse to meet ‘the parson’ who was to perform the marriage ceremony for them.” They came straight from the field, “in their working-clothes,” she noted.27 Hattie Austin remembered little or no planning going into her and James Austin’s wedding. According to her, “Jim was wukkin’ in’ come in from d’ turpentine wuks. I was cookin’ ‘n’ cleanin‘, ‘n’ d’ preacher come t’ d’ house, ‘n’ us jis’ stan up ‘n’ git marry. Us didn’t tek no time t’ dress.”28 When Frank Ziegler and his future bride decided to “get hitched,” they started out to find a preacher. When they found one, they were married right there in the middle of the road.29 Similarly, Anna Lee’s future husband picked her up on a horse, “and away he went to the preachers and we were married.”30 Orris Harris recalled, “Sam just got de papers en we went to de parson en got married, en dat wus all.”31
Despite the simple weddings of some blacks, most spent time preparing for the ceremony. Whether they were married at someone’s house or in a church, a minister usually performed the service. Much attention was devoted to the clothes worn by the bride and bridegroom. After the wedding, a huge feast would take place, along with music and dancing, that might continue for days and nights. The wedding of Austin Grant and his fiancée is fairly typical. Grant wore a black suit with a
nice shirt and a good pair of boots, and his bride wore a pretty white dress. They were married at her house at about seven o’clock in the evening. Shortly thereafter, the eating and dancing commenced. Grant asserted, “Yes ’m, they had a dance. Danced about half the night at her house.... Eat? My God, we had everything to eat. Barbecued a calf and a hog too! All kinds of cakes and pies. The men had whiskey to drink and the women drank coffee.”32
Apparently, some blacks did not grasp when it was time to stop celebrating. For example, when Charlie Sandles and his bride returned home from their wedding, nearly every black person in the vicinity was waiting for them at their house. They had an abundance of food and whiskey and were already eating, drinking, and dancing. Sandles recalled, “Boy oh boy, did we have a time. It lasted us about a month. I’ve done plum wore out before it was over.”33 Perhaps one of the most elaborate ceremonies held by freedmen was that of Harriet Jones and her bridegroom, who were married under a big elm tree at the house of Jones’s former owner. The wedding party included nicely dressed flower girls. As for Jones’s attire, “I has on one of my mistis dresses wid a long tram, hit is a white dress an I wear a red sash an’ a big bow in de back, den I has on red stockings an a pair of bran new shoes, an a big wide brim hat.” The dinner table was laden with barbecued pork, roast sweet potatoes, dumplings, pies, and cakes. Once the large crowd had finished eating, they were ready to dance all night.34
Regardless of whether the ceremonies of blacks were simple or elaborate, most were proud of their newly official status. Elizabeth Botume, for example, reported the case of Smart and Mary Washington, who had lived together for over forty years. They were among the first persons to come forward to be married. According to Botume, “They were very happy when they walked away together side by side, for the first time endowed with the honorable title of husband and wife.”35 One freedwoman was so excited about marrying a soldier that “when the minister asked [the groom] if he would have this woman to be his wife, she hastily exclaimed, ‘Oh! Yes, massa, I’ll be his wife.’ And when the irrevocable words were said, the huge veil disappeared with wondrous rapidity before the ardor of the kISS.”36 Marie Aurelia Green boasted, “Dey got my marriage license dere in de chu’ch. You find my name in de big book dere, and at de white house in Washington, D.C.”37
Climbing Up to Glory Page 18