Louisiana was transferred to Spain but was not long to be secure in
the possession of that country. France again claimed her in 1800, and
Napoleon, busy with his English war and realizing the dangers of a
province so open to British attack as was this bounded by the
Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, readily listened to the
proposition of the United States. Twenty days after the French
tri-color waved in place of the Spanish flag in the old Place d'Armes,
the American stars and stripes proclaimed the land American territory.
The Creoles, French though they were in spirit, in partisanship, in
sympathy, could not but breathe a sigh of relief, for Napoleon had
dangerous ideas concerning the freedom of slaves, and already had
spoken sharply about the people of color in the province.[50] Were the
terrors of San Domingo to be reenacted on the banks of Mississippi?
The United States answered with a decided negative.
Men of color, however, were to be important factors in the maintenance
of order in the province.[51] Laussat, the Colonial Prefect of France,
placed in charge of Louisiana in 1803, tells how the old Spanish
Governor Salcedo, in his anxiety to keep the province loyal to Spain,
had summoned all the military officers of the militia to come to his
lodgings and declare whether they intended to remain in the service of
the king of Spain. "The Marquis," writes Laussat to his friend Decrès,
"went so far as to exact a declaration in the affirmative from two
companies of men of color in New Orleans, which were composed of all
the mechanics whom that city possessed. Two of these mulattoes
complained to me of having been detained twenty-four hours in prison
to force them to utter the fatal yea which was desired of them."[52]
Within the next six years New Orleans doubled in population and that
population was far from white. Those refugees from San Domingo who had
escaped to Cuba were now forced by the hostilities between France and
Spain again to become exiles. Within sixty days between May and July
in one year alone, 1809, thirty-four vessels from Cuba set ashore in
the streets of New Orleans nearly 5,800 persons, 4,000 of these being
free colored and blacks.[53] Later others came from Cuba, Guadaloupe
and neighboring islands until they amounted to 10,000. The first
American governor of Louisiana certainly had no easy task before him.
Into the disorganized and undisciplined city, enervated by frequent
changes and corruption of government, torn by dissensions, uncertain
whether its allegiance was to Spain or to France, reflecting the
spirit of upheaval and uncertainty which made Europe one huge
brawl--into this cosmopolitan city swarmed ten thousand white, yellow
and black West Indian islanders, some with means, most of them
destitute, all of them desperate. Americans, English, Spanish,
French--all cried aloud. Claiborne begged the consuls of Havana and
Santiago de Cuba to stop the movement; the laws forbidding the
importation of slaves were more rigidly enforced; and free people of
color were ordered point blank to leave the city.[54] Where they were
to go, however, no one seemed to care, and as the free people of
color had no intention of going, the question was not discussed. For
some reason the enforcement of the law was not insisted upon. When a
meagre attempt was made, it proved unsuccessful, and the complexion of
Louisiana was definitely settled for many years to come.[55]
The administration of Governor Claiborne from 1803 to 1816 was one
long wrestle, not only with the almost superhuman task of adjusting a
practically foreign country to American ideals of government but of
wrestling with the color problem. Slowly and insidiously it had come
to dominate every other problem. The people of color had helped to
settle the territory, had helped to make it commercially important,
had helped to save it from the Indians and from the English, and they
seemed likely to become the most important factors in its history.
The Louisianians were greatly mortified at the enforcement by
Claiborne of the law against the importation of slaves. They were
undecided whether to blame Claiborne for enforcing the law or to blame
Philadelphia for harboring the first Abolition Society which met in
1804 and promulgated doctrines as dangerous as those of Napoleon
regarding human slavery. Slaves were daily smuggled into the territory
by way of Barataria Bay, the lakes, and all the innumerable outlets to
Spanish possessions.[56] Claiborne was alternately accused of
conniving at this smuggling and abused for trying to suppress it. Jean
and Pierre Lafitte, infamous in history for their feats of smuggling
and piracy, made capital of the slave trade, and but for their
stalwart Africans would have been captured and hung long before
Louisiana had suffered from their depredations and the bad reputation
which they gave her. The Lafittes appealed to the romantic temperament
of the French, and the fact that the American governor, Claiborne, had
set a price upon their heads was almost sufficient in itself to
secure them immunity from the Creoles.[57]
"Americans," says Grace King, "were despised and ridiculed." Men,
women and children of color, free and slave, united to insult the
American Negro or--"Mericain Coquin," as they called him. The French
and the Spaniards, moreover, united in using the people of color to
further their own interests, or to annoy the new American government
while the intrigues of Spain and France weakened the feeble territory.
It was difficult to know how to treat this almost alien people.
Governor Claiborne found the militia in the territory entirely
inadequate for the purposes of protection, should Spain make an
attempt to wrest the land back from the United States. In one of his
anxious despatches to headquarters he says plaintively: "With respect
to the Mulatto Corps in this city, I am indeed at a loss to know what
policy is best to pursue."[58] The corps, old and honorable, as it
was, had been ignored by the previous Legislative Council, and was now
disaffected. The neglect had "soured them considerably with the
American government."[59]
Claiborne, however, determined to procure a census of free people of
color in the city. He estimated that there were five hundred capable
of bearing arms, and added that he would do all in his power to
conciliate them, and secure a return of their allegiance to the
American government. One Stephen, a free black man, had appeared
before Claiborne and declared on oath that the people of color were
being tampered with by the Spanish government.[60] This caused the
governor to redouble his energies toward conciliating the doubtful
militia. Louisiana bordered on the Spanish territory, Texas, and a
constant desertion of people of color to this foreign land continued,
Spain doing all in her power to make the flight of these free men and
slaves interesting. Colored men were furnished the Spanish cockades,
and dances were given in their honor when they escaped over the
border. The disaffected adherents of Aaron Burr on the border-land of
Texas kept up the underhand warfare against the government, through
these people of color. Perhaps it was as a means of protection that
Louisiana and a much restricted Louisiana was admitted as a State in
1812.
Writers describing the New Orleans of this period agree in presenting
a picture of a continental city, most picturesque, most un-American,
and as varied in color as a street of Cairo. There they saw French,
Spaniards, English, Bohemians, Negroes, mulattoes; varied clothes,
picturesque white dresses of the fairer women, brilliant cottons of
the darker ones. The streets, banquettes, we should say, were bright
with color, the nights filled with song and laughter. Through the
scene, the people of color add the spice of color; in the life, they
add the zest of romance.[61]
Such was the situation in the city of New Orleans. The condition of
the free people of color in Louisiana as a whole, however, and the
form of slavery which existed in that state are somewhat difficult to
determine because of the conflicting statements of observers who did
not distinguish between the conditions obtaining in the metropolis and
those obtaining in the parishes. All seem to agree, however, that on
account of the extensive miscegenation so common in the French
colonies there had been produced in that state various classes of
mixed breeds enjoying degrees of freedom in conformity with their
proximity or separation from the white race. Paul Alliot said in his
reflection on Louisiana in 1803: "The population of that city counting
the people of all colors is only twelve thousand souls. Mulattoes and
Negroes are openly protected by the Government. He who was to strike
one of those persons, even though he had run away from him, would be
severely punished. Also twenty whites could be counted in the prisons
of New Orleans against one man of color. The wives and daughters of
the latter are much sought after by the white men, and white women at
times esteem well-built men of color."[62] Elsewhere the same writer,
in speaking of the white men, said that few among them married,
choosing rather to live with their slaves or with women of color.[63]
A generation later the situation was apparently the same despite the
reactionary forces which seemed likely to change the social order.
While on a tour through this country in 1818 Evans saw much in New
Orleans to interest him. "Here," said he, "may be seen in the same
crowds, Quadroons, mulattoes, Samboes, Mustizos, Indians, and Negroes;
and there are other commixtures which are not yet classified. As to
the Negroes, I may add that whilst in this place I saw one who was
perfectly white. This peculiarity, however, is rarely witnessed in
this country."[64] Thereafter the tendency seemed to be not to check
promiscuous miscegenation but to debase the offspring resulting
therefrom.[65]
In the midst of this confusing commixture of population and unstable
society of mixed breeds of three nations the second war between
England and the United States came like a thunderbolt to upset the
already seething administration of Claiborne. As of old, Louisiana was
the strategical point upon which both powers had their eyes. It was
the intention of England to weaken the United States by capturing
Louisiana and handing it over in its entirety to the Spanish
government waiting greedily over the border of Texas. On the same day
that Gov. Claiborne sent the communication to the Secretary of War
containing this astounding piece of information which he had obtained
from authentic sources, he wrote to General Jackson, the despised "red
Indian" of the aristocratic Louisianians. He had reason, he said in
this letter, to doubt the loyalty of many men in the state, because of
their known adherence to foreign nations, but he hopefully adds,
"Among the militia of New Orleans there is a battalion of chosen men
of color, organized under a special act of Legislature, of which I
inclose a copy for your perusal."
Under the Spanish Government the men of color of New Orleans were
always relied upon in time of difficulties, and on several occasions
evinced in the field the greatest firmness and courage.[66] "With
these gentlemen, Colonel Fortier and Major Lacoste, and the officers
attached to companies," Claiborne continued, "I had an interview on
yesterday, and assured them that, in the hour of peril, I should rely
on their valor and fidelity to the United States. In return, they
expressed their devotion to the country and their readiness to serve
it."[67] Claiborne then ordered the taking of a census of the men of
color in the city capable of bearing arms, and found that they
numbered nearly eight hundred. In his appeal to General Jackson,
Claiborne said, "These men, Sir, for the most part, sustain good
characters. Many of them have extensive connections and much property
to defend, and all seem attached to arms. The mode of acting toward
them at the present crisis, is an inquiry of importance. If we give
them not our confidence, the enemy will be encouraged to intrigue and
corrupt them."[68] General Jackson took the cue from Governor
Claiborne and enlisted the services of the battalion of men of color,
addressing them in stirring and thrilling words. There were not
wanting objections to this address. Its publication was delayed a few
days to give him time to reconsider the matter, since advisers of Gov.
Claiborne thought it a little too free with its suggestions of perfect
equality between the companies. But the well-known temper of General
Jackson precluded the possibility of any retraction, and the address
came down in history as he originally drafted it.[69]
The American soldiers on the field aggregated 3,600, among whom were
430 colored. The first battalion of men of color was commanded by
Major Lacoste, a wealthy white planter. In reviewing the troops, Gen.
Jackson was so well pleased with Major Lacoste's battalion, that he
deemed it prudent to levy a new battalion of the same description.
Jean Baptiste Savary, a colored man who had fled from Santo Domingo
during the struggle there, undertook, therefore, to form a battalion
of his countrymen. Savary obtained the rank of captain, and was
remarkably successful.[70] The new battalion was put under the command
of Major Jean Daquin, also a native of Santo Domingo. Whether or not
Major Daquin was a white man as Gayarré tells us, or a quadroon as
other writers assert, is a disputed question.[71]
But not only was this regiment of free men of color to have all the
honor of the struggle. The colored men were enlisted in more ways than
one. Slaves were used in throwing up the famous entrenchments. The
idea of a fortification of cotton bales, which we are told practically
saved the city, was that of a colored man, a slave from Africa, who
had seen the same thing done in his native country. It was the cotton
breastworks that nonplussed the British. Colored men, free and slave,
were used to reconnoitre, and the pirate Lafitte, true to his word, to
come to the aid of Louisiana should she ever need assistance, brought
in with his Baratarians a mixed horde of desperate fighters, white and
black.
On the British side was a company composed of colored men, and
historians like to tell of their cowardice compared with the colored
men of the American side.[72] Evidently a scarlet coat does not well
fit a colored skin. To the eternal credit of the State troops composed
of the men of color, not one act of desertion or cowardice is recorded
against them. There was a most lamentable exhibition of panic on the
right bank of the river by the American troops, but the battalion of
the men of color was not there. They were always in the front of the
attack.[73]
In the celebration of the victory which followed in the great public
square, the Place d'Armes, now Jackson Square, where a statue of the
commander rears itself in the center, the colored troops came in for
their share of glory.[74] The train which brought in the four hundred
wounded prisoners was met by the colored women, the famous nurses of
New Orleans, who have in every war from the Revolutionary until the
Spanish-American held the reputation of being some of the best nurses
in the world.
The men of color were apparently not content with winning the victory;
they must furnish material for dissension for many days afterwards.
When the British army withdrew from Louisiana on January 27, 1815,
they carried away with them 199 slaves, whom they had acquired by the
very easy method of taking them willy-nilly. The matter of having
these bondmen restored to their original owners, of convincing the
British that the Americans did not see the joke of the abduction
caused one of the most acrimonious discussions in the history of the
State. The treaty between the two countries, England and America, was
distorted by both sides to read anything they wished. The English took
a high stand of altruism, of a desire to free the oppressed; the
Louisianians took as high a stand of wishing to grow old with their
own slaves. It was an amusing incident which the slaves watched with
interest. In the end the colored men were restored, and the
interpretation of the treaty ceased.[75]
Following the War of 1812 the free people of color occupied a peculiar
position in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans. There were distinct
grades of society. The caste system was almost as strong as that of
India. Free people of color from other states poured into Louisiana in
a steady stream. It was a haven of refuge. Those were indeed halcyon
times both for the Creole and the American, who found in the rapidly
growing city a commercial El Dorado. For the people of color it was
indeed a time of growth and acquisition of wealth. Three famous
streets in New Orleans bear testimony to the importance of the colored
people in the life of the city. Congo Square, one of the great open
squares in the old Creole quarter, was named for the slaves who used
to congregate in its limits and dance the weird dances to the tunes of
blood-stirring minor strains. Those who know the weird liet-motif of
Coleridge-Taylor's Bamboula dance have heard the tune of the Congo
dance, which every child in New Orleans could sing. Gottschalk's Danse
des Nègres is almost forgotten by this generation but in it he
recorded the music of the West Indians. Camp Street, to-day one of the
principal business streets in the city, was so called because it ran
back of the old Campo de Negros.[76] Julia Street, which runs along
the front of the so-called New Basin, a canal of great commercial
importance, connecting, as it does, the city with Lake Pontchartrain,
and consequently, the greater gulf trade, was named for one Julia, a
free woman of color, who owned land along the banks.[77] What Julia's
cognomen was, where she came from, and whence she obtained the
valuable property are hidden in the silent grave in which time
encloses mere mortals. Somewhere in the records of the city it is
recorded that one Julia, a F. W. C. (free woman of color), owned this
land.
The minor distinctions of complexion and race so fiercely adhered to
by the Creoles of the old regime were at their height at this time.
The glory and shame of the city were her quadroons and octoroons,
apparently constituting two aristocratic circles of society,[78] the
one as elegant as the other, the complexions the same, the men the
same, the women different in race, but not in color, nor in dress, nor
in jewels. Writers on fire with the romance of this continental city
love to speak of the splendors of the French Opera House, the first
place in the country where grand opera was heard, and tell of the
tiers of beautiful women with their jewels and airs and graces. Above
the orchestra circle were four tiers, the first filled with the
beautiful dames of the city; the second filled with a second array of
beautiful women, attired like those of the first, with no apparent
difference; yet these were the octoroons and quadroons, whose beauty
and wealth were all the passports needed. The third was for the hoi
polloi of the white race, and the fourth for the people of color whose
color was more evident. It was a veritable sandwich of races.
With the slaves, especially those outside of New Orleans, the
situation was different. The cruelty of the slave owners in the State
was proverbial. To be "sent down the Mississippi" became a by-word of
horror, a bogie with which slave-holders all over the South threatened
their incorrigible slaves. The slave markets, the tortures of the old
plantations, even those in the city, which Cable has immortalized,
help to fill the pages of romance, which must be cruel as well as
beautiful.
The reaction against the Negro was then well on its way in Louisiana
and evidences of it soon appeared in New Orleans where their condition
for some time yet differed much from that of the blacks in the
parishes. Moved by the fear of a rising class of mixed breeds
resulting from miscegenation, the whites endeavored to diminish their
power by restraining the free people of color from exercising
influence over the slaves, who were becoming insurrectionary as in the
case of those of the parish of St. John the Baptist in 1811. The State
had in 1807 and 1808 made additional provisions for the regulation of
the coming of free Negroes into Louisiana, but when there came reports
of the risings of the blacks in various places in the Seaboard States,
and of David Walker's appeal to Negroes to take up arms against their
masters, it was deemed wise to prohibit the immigration of free
persons into that Commonwealth. In 1830 it was provided that whoever
should write, print, publish or distribute anything having the
tendency to produce discontent among the slaves, should on conviction
thereof be imprisoned at hard labor for life or suffer death at the
discretion of the court. It was further provided that whoever used any
language or became instrumental in bringing into the State any paper,
book or pamphlet inducing discontent should suffer practically the
same penalty. Any person who should teach or permit or cause to be
taught, any slave to read or write should be imprisoned not less than
one month nor more than twelve.[80]
Under the revised Black Code of Louisiana special care was taken to
prevent free Negroes from coming in contact with bondmen. Free persons
of color were restricted from obtaining licenses to sell spirituous
liquors, because of the fear that intoxicants distributed by this
class might excite the Negroes to revolt. The law providing that
there should be at least one white person to every thirty slaves on a
plantation was re-enacted so as to strengthen the measure, the police
system for the control of Negroes was reorganized to make it more
effective, and slaves although unable to own property were further
restricted in buying and selling. Those taken by masters beyond the
limits of the State were on their return to be treated as free
Negroes. But it was later provided on the occasion of the institution
of proceedings for freedom by a slave who had been carried to the
Northwest Territory[81] that "no slave shall be entitled to his or her
freedom under the pretense that he or she has been, with or without
the consent of his or her owner, in a country where slavery does not
exist or in any of the States where slavery is prohibited."[82]
After that the condition of the Negroes in Louisiana was decidedly
pitiable, although in certain parts of the State, as observed by
Bishop Polk,[83] Timothy Flint,[84] and Frederic Law Olmsted[85] at
various times, there were some striking exceptions to this rule. About
this time Captain Marryat made some interesting remarks concerning
this situation. "In the Western States," said he, "comprehending
Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, the Negroes
are, with the exception, perhaps, of the latter States, in a worst
condition than they were in the West India Islands. This may be easily
imagined," continued he, "when the character of the white people who
inhabit the larger portion of these States is considered--a class of
people, the majority of whom are without feelings of honor, reckless
in their habits, intemperate, unprincipled, and lawless, many of them
having fled from the Eastern States, as fraudulent bankrupts,
swindlers or committers of other crimes, which have subjected them to
the penitentiaries, miscreants, defying the climate, so that they can
defy the laws. Still this representation of the character of the
people, inhabiting these States, must from the chaotic state of
society in America be received with many exceptions. In the city of
New Orleans, for instance, and in Natchez and its vicinity, and also
among the planters, there are many honorable exceptions. I have said
the majority: for we must look to the mass--the exceptions do prove
the rule. It is evident that slaves under such masters can have but
little chance of good treatment, and stories are told of them at which
humanity shudders."[86]
The free people of color, however, kept on amassing wealth and
educating their children as ever in spite of opposition, for it is
difficult to enforce laws against a race when you cannot find that
race. Being well-to-do they could maintain their own institutions of
learning, and had access to parochial schools. Some of them like their
white neighbors, sent their sons to France and their daughters to the
convents to continue their education beyond the first communion. The
first free school ever opened for colored children in the United
States was the "Ecole Des Orphelins Indigents," a School for Indigent
Orphans opened in 1840. Mme. Couvent, a free woman of color, died,
leaving a fund in trust for the establishment and maintenance of this
institution. It has been in continuous operation ever since. Later, it
was aided by Aristide Mary, a well-to-do Creole of color, who left
$5,000 for its support, and by Thomy Lafon, also a colored Creole, one
of the noted benefactors of the city. Until now, the instruction is in
both English and French, and many children, not orphans, are willing
to pay a fee to obtain there the thorough education obtainable.[87]
In 1859 John F. Cook, afterwards of Washington, D. C., went to New
Orleans from St. Louis, Missouri, and organized a school for free
children of color. This was just at the time when discontent among
Southern States was rife, when there was much war-talk, and secession
was imminent. Mr. Cook had violated two laws, he was an immigrant, and
he opened a school for children of persons of color. He continued as
a successful instructor for one year, at the expiration of which he
was forced to leave, being warned by one John Parsons, a barber, who
had been told by his white friends that Mr. Cook was to be arrested
and detained.[88]
Mr. Trotter, in his "Music and Some Musical People," gives unwittingly
a picture of the free people of color of this epoch in fortune and
education. He quotes the _New Orleans Picayune_ in its testimony to
their superior taste for and appreciation of the drama, particularly
Shakespeare, and their sympathetic recognition of the excellence of
classical music. Grace King aptly says "even the old slaves, the most
enthusiastic of theatre-goers, felt themselves authorized to laugh any
modern theatrical pretension to scorn."[89] Trotter records a number
of families whose musical talent has become world-wide. The Lambert
family, one of whom was decorated by the King of Portugal, became a
professor in Paris, and composer of the famous Si J'Etais Roi,
L'Africaine, and La Somnambula.[90] In this same field Basile Barrès
also achieved unusual fame.
Natives of New Orleans remember now how some years ago Edmond Dédé
came from Paris, whence he had been sent in 1857 by an appreciative
townspeople to complete his musical education. He became director of
the orchestra of L'Alcazar in Bordeaux, and a great friend of Gounod.
When he returned to New Orleans after an absence of forty-six years to
play for his native city once more, he was old, but not worn, nor
bent, the fire of youth still flashed in his eye, and leaped along the
bow of his violin.[91] One may mention a long list of famous musicians
of color of the State, but our picture must be filled in rather with
the broad sweep of the mass, not of the individual.
Across the cloudless sky of this era of unexampled commercial,
artistic and social sphere[92] the war cloud crept with ominous
grimness. It burst and drenched the State with blood. Louisiana made
ready to stand with the South. On the 23d of November, 1861, there had
been a grand review of the Confederate troops stationed in New
Orleans. An associated press despatch announced that the line was
seven miles long. The feature of the review, however, was one regiment
composed of fourteen hundred free colored men. The state militia was
reorganized entirely for whites but Governor Moore ordered the men of
color into the army. Another grand review followed the next spring.
The _New Orleans Picayune_ made the following comment. "We must also
pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all
very well drilled and comfortably uniformed. Most of these companies,
quite unaided by the administration, have supplied themselves with
arms without regard to cost or trouble."[93] On the same day, one of
these colored companies was presented with a flag, and every evidence
of public approbation was manifested.
These men of color in New Orleans were the only organized body of
Negro soldiery on the Confederate side during the Civil War. They were
accepted as part of the State militia forming three regiments and two
batteries of artillery. In the report of the Select Commission on the
New Orleans Riots, Charles W. Gibbons testified that when the war
broke out, the Confederacy called on all free people to do something
for the seceding States, and if they did not a committee was appointed
to look after them, to rob, kill, and despoil their property. Gibbons
himself was advised by a policeman to enlist on the Confederate side
or be lynched. This accounts for the seeming disloyalty of these free
men of color.[94] The first victories of the South made their leaders
overconfident thereafter and the colored troops were dismissed.
When Unionists finally got control of New Orleans they found it a city
of problems. Wherever there was a Union fort, slaves, the famous
"contrabands of war," made their appearance, and in a few months
General Butler, then in command, found himself face to face with one
of the most serious situations ever known in the history of a State.
Obviously, the only thing to do was to free all of the slaves, but
with Gen. Hunter's experience in South Carolina to warn him, and with
Lincoln's caution, Butler was forced to fight the problem alone. He
did the best he could under the circumstances with this mass of black
and helpless humanity. The whipping posts were abolished; the star
cars--early Jim Crow street cars--were done away with. Those slaves
who had been treated with extreme cruelty by their masters were
emancipated, and by enforcing the laws of England and France, which
provided that no citizen of either country should own slaves, many
more were freed. But the problem increased, the camps filled with
runaway slaves, the feeling grew more intense, and the situation more
desperate every day. Gen. Butler asked repeatedly for aid and
reenforcement from the North. Vicksburg was growing stronger, Port
Hudson above the city became a menace with its increasing Confederate
batteries, and Mobile and a dozen camps near the city made the
condition alarming. No help coming from the North, General Butler
turned to the free men of color in the city for aid, and as usual,
they responded gallantly to his appeal.
The free people of color in Louisiana then furnished the first colored
contingent of the Federal Army, just as they had furnished the first
colored contingent of the Confederate Army.[95] The army records
likewise show that Louisiana furnished more colored troops for the war
than any other State. By the 27th of September, 1862, a full regiment
of free men of color entered the service of the government, many of
them being taken over from the State militia. It was in the beginning
called the First Regiment of the Louisiana Native Guards. In June,
1863, its designation was changed to the First Regiment Corps
D'Afrique, and later to the 73d Regiment U. S. C. Infantry. In
October, 1862, another regiment was formed and the following month a
regiment of heavy artillery was organized. About the same time a
fourth regiment of men of color answered the call. Gen. Butler was
succeeded in Louisiana by General Banks, who was so pleased with the
appearance and drill of the colored regiments, that he issued an order
for the organization of more in 1863, contemplating 18 regiments,
comprising infantry, artillery, and cavalry. These were entirely
officered by colored men, at first, but, as Col. Lewis tersely puts
it, after the battle of Port Hudson,[97] a "steeple-chase was made by
the white men to take our places."[98] These troops thereafter
acquitted themselves with great honor in this battle and also at that
of Milliken's Bend.
The Emancipation Proclamation of January, 1863, was a most complicated
matter in Louisiana, for the reason that out of the forty-eight
parishes in the State, thirteen were under federal control, and
consequently the slaves there were left in their original state. Many
of the masters even in those parishes where the slaves were declared
emancipated sent their most valuable slaves to Alabama and Texas,
some of them themselves fleeing with them. In parishes far removed
from Union headquarters, news of the Emancipation Proclamation did not
reach the slaves until long after it had been issued. Even then, in
many cases, the proclamation had to be read at the point of the sword,
federal soldiers compelling the slave owners to tell their chattels
the news.[99]
From the time of the accession of General Banks to 1876, the history
of Louisiana becomes a turmoil of struggle, centering around the
brother in black.[100] It is no longer romance; it is grim war, and
the colored man is the struggle, not the cause of it. Political
parties in 1862 were many and various. The Free State party was in
favor of abolishing slavery, but wanted representation based
altogether on the white population. This was opposed by the Union
Democrat party, which repudiated secession, but wished slavery
continued or rather revived, believing that emancipation was only a
war measure, and that after cessation of hostilities, slavery could be
reestablished. But the plans of both parties fell to the ground.[101]
The colored man became more and more of a political factor from day to
day.
Cognomens here too proved to be another difficulty. Louisiana had two
classes of colored men, freedmen and free men, a delicate, but
carefully guarded distinction, the latter distinctly aristocratic. In
1863, the free men of color held a meeting and appealed to Governor
Shepley for permission to register and vote. In the address to him,
they reviewed their services to the United States from the time of
General Jackson through the Civil War, and stated that they were then
paying taxes on over $9,000,000. Several petitions of this sort failed
to move General Banks,[102] for he thought it unfeasible to draw the
line between free men of color and the recently emancipated Negroes.
The war of Reconstruction in Louisiana was fairly well launched in the
Constitutional Convention of 1864. The issue on which this body
divided was what treatment should be accorded the freedmen. The two
parties had much difficulty in reaching an agreement.[103] P. M.
Tourne was sent to Washington to see President Lincoln. He had already
suggested the ratification of the Emancipation Proclamation and the
education of the colored youth.[104] In a letter congratulating the
recently elected Governor Hahn on his election as the "first
free-state governor of Louisiana" in 1864, Lincoln suggested suffrage
for the more intelligent Negroes, and those who had served the country
in the capacity of soldiers. This letter of Lincoln's, says Blaine,
was the first proposition from any authentic source to endow the Negro
with the right of suffrage.[105] In his last public utterance on April
11, 1865, Lincoln again touched the subject of suffrage in Louisiana,
repeating that he held it better to extend to the more intelligent
colored men the elective franchise, giving the recently emancipated a
prize to work for in obtaining property and education.[106] The
Convention tried in vain to declare what constituted a Negro, giving
it up in disgust. It did abolish slavery in general; granted suffrage
to those whites who were loyal to the government; and to colored men
according to educational and property qualifications. In 1865, the
Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and the body adjourned.
The culmination of the fight between the Democrat and the Radical was
in the struggle over the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in July,
1866. An attempt was made to re-open the Constitutional Convention of
1864.[107] The delegates, who favored the reopening of the convention,
formed in the streets of New Orleans, and proceeded to march to the
famous Mechanics Hall, the scene of almost every political riot in
the history of the city. The paraders became involved in a brawl with
the white spectators; the police were called in; and the colored
members of the convention and their white sympathizers fled to the
hall where they attempted to barricade themselves. A general fight
ensued, and over two hundred were killed.[108] The effect of this riot
was electrical, not only in Louisiana but in the North, where it was
construed as a deliberate massacre, and an uprising against the United
States Government by the unreconstructed Louisianians.[109]
Efforts were made to bring about changes satisfactory to all. In 1867,
Sheridan, in charge of the department of Louisiana, dismissed the
board of aldermen of New Orleans, on the ground that they impeded the
work of reconstruction and kept the government of the city in a
disorganized condition. He appointed a new board of aldermen, some of
whom were men of color, and in the next month this council appointed
four assistant recorders, three of whom were colored, and two colored
city physicians. In this month, September, 1867, the first legal
voting of the colored man under the United States Government was
recorded, that being their voting for delegates to the Constitutional
Convention of 1868.[110]
This body proved to be an assemblage of ardent fighters for the rights
of the factions they represented. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback
proposed the adoption of the Civil Rights Bill, and the abolition of
separate schools. In the convention were proposed the most stringent
of all suffrage laws which would practically disfranchise many whites.
Mr. Pinchback voted against this. He saved the day for the Republican
party by opposing Wickliffe and other demagogues who wished to use the
vote of the colored man by promising a majority of the offices to
Negroes. Pinchback maintained that offices should be awarded with
reference not to race, but to education and general ability.[111] In
this he was fiercely opposed by many who were anxious for office, but
not for the good of the State.[112]
Louisiana did not long delay in returning to the Union. On the same
day on which she voted for the constitution which restored her to the
Union, H. C. Warmoth was elected governor, and Oscar J. Dunn, a
colored man, Lieutenant-Governor. Pinchback was then a State
senator.[113] When the State legislature met in New Orleans in 1868,
more than half of the members were colored men. Dunn was President of
the Senate, and the temporary chairman of the lower house was R. H.
Isabelle, a colored man. The first act of the new legislature was to
ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.[114]
And then ensued another halcyon period for the colored man in
Louisiana, a period about which the average historian has little but
sneers. Government in Louisiana by the colored man was different from
that in other Southern States. There the average man who was
interested in politics had wealth and generations of education and
culture back of him. He was actuated by sincerest patriotism, and
while the more ignorant of the recently emancipated were too evidently
under the control of the unscrupulous carpetbagger, there were not
wanting more conservative men to restrain them.
The period following the meeting of the State legislature in 1868 was
a stirring one. The Louisiana free people of color had a larger share
in their government than that class had in any other Southern State.
Among their representatives were Lieut.-Governor Oscar J. Dunn, State
Treasurer Antoine Dubuclet, State Superintendent of Education Wm. G.
Brown, Division Superintendent of Education Gen. T. Morris Chester, a
Pennsylvanian by birth, congressmen, William Nash, and J. Willis
Menard, the first colored representative elected, although he was not
seated. Col. Lewis became Sergeant of the Metropolitan Police,
following his service as Collector of the Port. Upon the death of
Dunn, C. C. Antoine, who had served his country as a captain in the
famous Seventh Louisiana, and then in the State Senate, succeeded him.
Antoine was Lieutenant-Governor for eight years, first under Governor
Kellogg, and then re-elected to serve under Governor Packard.
But the most thrilling part of the whole period centers about the
person of that redoubtable fighter, Pinchback. He was nominated for
Governor, and to save his party accepted a compromise on the Kellogg
ticket. In 1872 he ran the great railroad race with Governor Warmoth,
being Lieutenant-Governor and Acting Governor in the absence of the
Governor from the State. His object was to reach the capital and sign
two acts of the legislature, which involved the control of the State
and possibly the national government.[115] It was a desperate
undertaking, and the story of the race, as told by Governor Pinchback
himself, reads like a romance. By a clever trick and the courage to
stay up and fight in the senate all night, he saved the senate to the
Republicans and perpetuated their rule four years longer in Louisiana
than it would have continued.[116]
By the impeachment of Governor Warmoth in December, 1872, he became
Acting Governor of the State until Jan., 1873, when the term expired
and the Kellogg government was inaugurated, with C. C. Antoine,
Lieutenant-Governor. That period when Pinchback was Governor of
Louisiana was the stormiest ever witnessed in any state in the Union;
but he was equal to the emergency. Then followed his long three years'
fight for the seat in the United States Senate, with the defeat after
the hard struggle.
The campaign of 1874 was inaugurated. The White Camelias, a league
formed of Southern white men, determined to end the existing
government, stood armed and ready. The Governor was garrisoned at the
Custom-house, a huge citadel, and the fight was on between the White
League and the Metropolitan Police. It was characteristic of this
community that the fight should take place on Sunday. The struggle
lasted all day, September 14, 1874, and by evening the citizens were
in command of the situation. President Grant ordered troops to the
place; the insurgents were ordered to disperse in five days, and the
Governor resumed his office. But it was the end of the government by
the men of color and their allies in the State. President Hayes, in
order to conciliate his constituents in the South, withdrew federal
support, and the downfall was complete.[117]
The history of the Reconstruction and the merits and demerits of the
men who figured in that awful drama belong to the present generation.
The unstable Reconstruction regime was overthrown in 1874 and the
whites, eliminating the freedmen and free people of color from the
government, established what they are pleased to call "home rule." The
Negroes, who had served the State, however, deserved well of their
constituents. It should be said to the credit of these black men that
upon an investigation of the Treasurer's office which had for years
been held by Antoine Dubuclet, a man of color, the committee of which
Chief Justice Edward D. White of the United States Supreme Court was
then chairman, made a report practically exonerating him. Although
making some criticisms as to irregularities and minor illegalities,
the committee had to report that "the Treasurer certainly by a
comparison deserves commendation for having accounted for all moneys
coming into his hands, being in this particular a remarkable
exception." A minority report signed by C. W. Keeting and T. T.
Allain[118] thoroughly exonerated him. The expected impeachment
proceedings which were to follow this investigation did not
materialize.[119]
More about the people of color in Louisiana might be written. It is a
theme too large to be treated save by a master hand. It is interwoven
with the poetry, the romance, the glamour, the commercial prosperity,
the financial ruin, the rise and fall of the State. It is hung about
with garlands, like the garlands of the cemeteries on All Saints Day;
it may be celebrated in song, or jeered at in charivaris. Some day,
the proper historian will tell the story. There is no State in the
Union, hardly any spot of like size on the globe, where the man of
color has lived so intensely, made so much progress, been of such
historical importance and yet about whom so comparatively little is
known. His history is like the Mardi Gras of the city of New Orleans,
beautiful and mysterious and wonderful, but with a serious thought
underlying it all. May it be better known to the world some day.