by ©2021 Sarah Becker Juneteenth On June 19th, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger entered Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of the Civil War, the belated end of southern slavery. General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a [January 1, 1863] proclamation from the Executive of the United States [President Abraham Lincoln], all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equalityof personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” Texans celebrated Juneteenth beginning in 1866. It was revived in 1979 and became an official state holiday in 1980. The Commonwealth of Virginia first acknowledged the June 19th jubilee in 2007—the 44th state to do so. Why so late to the table? Virginia—for more than 150 years—has championed southern history: Confederate Generals, Lee-Jackson Day, and the Lost Cause. “The lessons that negroes make a bad use of liberty is taught daily in the police court of this and all other cities in which they are numerous,” the Alexandria Gazette wrote on August 1, 1895. “Nearly all the cases before such courts are those of negroes, the parties to which are either sent to jail or the work house, put on the chain gang, or impoverished by fines. Before the Negroes were freed it was a rarity for one of them to be arrested…their money spent in the payment of fines.” “Between the idea of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the…
by ©2019 Sarah Becker Mary V. Thompson Researcher, Historian, Writer Mount Vernon Research Historian Mary V. Thompson awaits the release of her second book, The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon (2019). It comes on the heels of Thompson’s first, In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life of George Washington (2008). Mary and I first met in 1995; we are colleagues and she joins me for a Q&A. Q1. Jamestown now celebrates 400 years of African-American history. The first 20 black Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, twelve years after the Colony’s founding. They came by ship, as human cargo, for sale as indentured servants. Yet George Washington, son of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington of Westmoreland County, Virginia, grew up with slaves. Explain the transition from indenture to slavery; the plantation practices that promoted slavery. A1. George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, into a world in which slavery was simply a fact of life. The first Africans had arrived in Virginia more than one hundred years earlier and new research has shown that, contrary to long-held beliefs, most were enslaved from the outset. The basic outlines of the legal status of Virginia slaves were clarified in the 1660s and 1670s, with the passage of legislation stating that: whether children born in Virginia were free or enslaved depended on the condition of their mother (1662); conversion to Christianity and subsequent baptism would not result in freedom for a slave (1667); masters would have almost total control over how their slaves were disciplined, and would not be prosecuted if a slave died while being punished (1669); and the government would police slaves and owners would be reimbursed for any slaves who were killed while…
by Sarah Becker ©2018 The South Secedes! More Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than in any other state. The majority of the clashes occurred between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, an interesting fact given Virginia’s initial reluctance to secede. “In spite of all excitement, rash conduct, and reckless language indulged in by the ultras at the South, we plainly perceive that the calm attitude and conservative course of Virginia, so far, is exercising its influence in several of the States around South Carolina,” the Alexandria Gazette reported on November 16, 1860. “Enough is known now to satisfy every body that Virginia will not favor ‘precipitate action…that she does not consider the election of Lincoln, as, of itself, ground for an attempt to break up and dissolve the Union….” “What is secession?” The New York Times then asked. “The Southern Disunionist journals are laying great stress on their assumed right to secede.” Said James Madison father of the Constitution in 1832, “It is high time that the [nullifiers] claim to secede at will should be put down by public opinion, and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.” After much political pondering—on April 17, 1861—delegates to Virginia’s secession convention voted 88-55 to depart the Union. The vote came only two weeks after the convention roundly rejected an April 4 secession proposal. What changed the delegates and, in turn, the public’s mind? Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln took his Presidential oath of office approximately three weeks after Virginia’s secession convention began. The 1860 Republican platform was clear: “That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is freedom.” Lawyer Lincoln’s 1861 inaugural message was also clear: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of…
By Sarah Becker ©2018 Robert E. Lee, the Marble Model West Point classmates called Virginia-born Robert E. Lee the Marble Model, the Marble Man. He was nicknamed such probably for reason of heritage; his statuesque quality, dignity and bravura. Lee entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on July 1, 1825, mostly because it was free. “We beg leave to recommend to your personal consideration Mr. Robert Edward Lee, a son of the late General Henry Lee of Virginia, as an applicant for admission to the Military Academy at West Point,” the Congressional signers wrote. “The assurances which we have received of the talents and attainments of this young gentleman, apart from the regard we feel for the military services of his deceased father, induce us to hope…for the admission.” A plebe cum cadet staff sergeant, Lee was born January 19, 1807, the fifth child of overspent Revolutionary War hero General Henry “Light-horse Harry” Lee and his second wife Ann Hill Carter. Robert E. did not live the “legendary Victorian virtue” as “celebrated in a thousand marble statues across the South.” His sense of Duty did not include the South’s “terrible hardening of the heart.” Lee emancipated his in-laws’ slaves on December 29, 1862; approximately three months after President Abraham Lincoln’s September 23 Emancipation Proclamation was published in draft. The Emancipation Proclamation became law on January 1, 1863. “Know all men by these presents, that I, Robert E. Lee, executor of the last will and testament of George W.P. Custis deceased, acting by and under authority and direction of the provision of the said will, do hereby manumit, emancipate and forever set free from slavery the following named slaves.” “[Lee’s] specialty was finishing up,” Alexandria school teacher Benjamin Hallowell said of young Robert’s studies. “He imparted a finish and…
For centuries slavery has been common among African tribes. Black slaves, usually taken captive during war, were bought and sold to enhance a leader’s wealth. Bartering for human capital is an age-old practice some African countries still practice today. Portuguese sailors, European sailors brought the first Africans to the New World. The voyage to America was arduous and if the shackled cargo became contaminated, succumbed to smallpox or dysentery, the sick were dumped at sea. Slave history is heart-rending. Roughly 8-15 million Africans reached the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Many of Alexandria’s early trading partners, such as Portugal, Spain and the Caribbean, not only sanctioned slavery but also engaged in its trade. Slave-traders accepted only the best African specimens. In 1740 the Virginia colony declared slaves “chattel [property] personal in the hands of their owners and possessors for all intents, construction and purpose whatsoever.” Pioneer farmer George Washington, in 1760, paid ten shillings for runaway slave Boson’s Mount Vernon return. Washington, unlike many contemporaries, freed his slaves upon his death. The slaves’ stories are many. James Armistead, a Virginia planter’s slave, served as a double spy during the Revolutionary War. Armistead infiltrated traitor Benedict Arnold’s camp; then later helped Generals Washington and Lafayette ensure Great Britain’s surrender at Yorktown. An empathetic Marquis de Lafayette asked the Virginia General Assembly to give the “essential” slave “every reward his situation can admit of.” Armistead’s freedom was granted in 1787. George Mason vigorously opposed that portion of the 1787 Constitution which permitted the continued importation of slaves. “We became callous to the Dictates of Humanity….,” Mason wrote in 1773. “Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject & contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the Dignity of Man….” Virginia “laid plans for…