It was great of Al to post on Sherman’s Field Order No. 15. I also like the connection Al and Bernadette Atuahene make in their op-ed between the failure of the United States to deal with land distribution after the Civil War and the problems of land distribution in post-Apartheid South Africa.
As it happens, Sherman’s Field Order plays a part in the project I am currently working on and plan to blog about in a few weeks. I thought I’d take advantage of Al’s 150 anniversary post to take a break from blogging about AALS programs and give a little peek at that project.
When I say that Field Order No. 15 plays a part in the project, what I really should say is that the origin of the Field Order plays a part. This is because the Order was written after Sherman and Secretary of War Stanton held a historic meeting at the Green-Meldrim house on January 12th with twenty representatives of South Georgia’s black community (as the marker in Al's photo mentions). And Stanton’s minutes of that meeting were eventually published in the New York Daily Tribune, leaving us with a record of what the members of the black community said.
Ultimately, Sherman’s Order did just this, granting land to black families exclusively. And while Sherman and Stanton were probably predisposed to the land transfer prior to the meeting (motivated as much by the need to have the army relieved of the burden of feeding and supporting a large number of freed slaves as by claims of justice), it appears that the claims and arguments of Frazier and the other representatives had an important effect on the final Order.
My own project studies claims, arguments, and actions of African-Americans from this period and considers what they tell us about possible meanings for ideas of freedom and citizenship, and ultimately about the Reconstruction Amendments. The record of Garrison Frazier’s colloquy with Sherman and Stanton, for example, reflects both a free labor ideal that was common among white Republicans of the time, and a more radical idea of the necessity of property as a basic starting point for actual freedom to exist—Frazier argues that the land provision is essential to help black Georgians reach the capacity for full ownership. Moreover, notice that land serves two purposes: on the one hand it allows for the self-sufficiency that was central to free-labor Republicanism, yet on the other it also was central to the protection of black families and lives. This protection happens communally, as black citizens would support each other, financially and physically. And this protection was essential because of white prejudice. This is also why the connection to military protection was so important, and Frazier also speaks to black men being able to help the government protect the freedmen and serve in the army.
Such documents are significant for many reasons. As Henry Louis Gates has argued, it is important to see that Sherman’s Order had its roots in the assertive claims made by representatives of the black community. Forty-Acres-and-a-Mule originated as much in the African-American community as in white Radical Republicans. Moreover, the idea made its way into government documents—and but for Lincoln’s assassination might have stayed there—because of a dialogue between white leaders and leaders of the black community. Not only did Frazier speak, he was heard. Finally, the substance of what was said was critical: the emphasis on a version of free labor ideology which stressed a role for the government (initial provision and capacity-building, and also physical protection) and accounted for the essential problem of race prejudice as a continuation of slavery. As I hope to show in future posts and my fuller work, many Africans-American speakers and writers expressed versions of these themes, as well as other ideas that were often absent in the discussions of the white leaders that we commonly study.
For more on this episode, you can try these links at NPR, C-SPAN, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
This is a great project.
Posted by: Al Brophy | January 16, 2015 at 04:20 PM
An excellent project.
Posted by: AGR | January 16, 2015 at 06:49 PM
"He defined freedom as being able to “reap the fruit of our own labor, take care of ourselves, and assist the Government in maintaining our freedom.”
Wow.
Posted by: anon | January 16, 2015 at 07:29 PM