Freedmen and Southern Society Project

that the longor you keep my Child from me the longor you will have to burn in hell and the qwicer youll get their for

“…the longor you keep my Child from me the longor you will have to burn in hell and the qwicer youll get their…”

Spotswood Rice, a Black soldier in the US Army, to a Missouri woman who held his daughter in slavery, #otd 1864

The Freedmen and Southern Society Project is a terrific resource and everyone should use it!

Also, we're in the process of updating our web presence & dramatically expanding our online resources. If you use our collections in your teaching, we would *love* to hear from you as we advance & refine this digitization project.

As we begin the 1st few weeks of classes, a reminder that FSSP hosts a large collection of classroom-ready documents related to slavery & its destruction. These first-hand testimonies of enslaved people, Black soldiers, & officials give life to lessons on slavery & the contested arc of emancipation.

Home, Keywords for Black Louisiana The K4BL Story Site is the home for stories about documents collected and compiled by Keywords for Black Louisiana. Check out the Stories tab to learn more about Black and Black Native life in colonia...

Keywords for Black Louisiana give firsthand accounts of Black Louisianans during the colonial era.

Slavery Law & Power in Early America and the British Empire SLP is dedicated to providing access to sources to understand the long history of slavery and its connection to struggles over power in early America and the British Empire.

Slavery, Law, & Power provides documents in the fight against slavery from the colonial era.

The Colored Conventions Project provides documents produced by Black organizers demanding abolition and civil rights from the 1830s through the 1890s.

The Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi likewise contains important first-hand accounts relating to the ideas & experiences of Black Mississippians.

Other important online resources for teaching African American history with primary documents include Last Seen, edited by @jgiesber.bsky.social.

The documents that we publish online offer students an important opportunity to understand the lives, struggles, & aspirations of formerly enslaved people beyond what any textbook could hope to convey.

Screenshot of passage from article linked above: Several of my students have reflected on being impacted by the personal connections they found to the documents. Kevin Vanderbilt worked with three letters written in Jacksonville in the 1880s. In his essay, he described how compelling he found the personal details in that correspondence, remarking on his experience with one document in particular: “I felt myself connect to a story of a mother writing to her beloved son on his birthday while he was away at school. I let every detail consume me, and I analyzed it as if it were my own mother.” Finley Jensen thought explicitly about how such a link to people in the past can be forged through editorial work. Comparing his engagement with primary sources to more traditional course activities, he concluded that the former offered greater possibilities for connection: “It’s one thing, of course, to research a historical figure and understand their lives outwardly through secondhand resources, but it’s another thing entirely to be involved in the transcription of their personal life. In many ways, this method is much more intimate, more private, encouraging a closeness [. . .] that wouldn’t otherwise be available.” Whitney Kerr considered the same matter from a different angle. She explained that her editing work helped her to understand her own family’s experiences within larger narratives in African American history: “I was lacking a connection that I did not even know existed until I had transcribed and edited other stories similar to that of my family.” In reflecting on this years later, she reiterated this idea: “I really appreciate this class for how it has bridged the gap in my emotional understanding.”

This is frankly good pedagogy regardless of circumstance & shows how careful use of primary documents can help students grasp the meaning & importance of content better than any lecture or secondary reading.

Teaching Tolerance and Empathy through Digital Documentary Editing

The latest issue of Scholarly Editing by ‪‪@editorial-notes.bsky.social‬ features an important essay on how to use documentary editing assignments to help students grapple w the legacies of inequalities, esp in instances where teaching abt these topics is banned. Highly recommend!

We hope you'll join us for today's Annual Meeting sessions and again tomorrow for Rachel Lane's lightning talk about "My Hat Is In the Drink: The Story Behind the Cocktail Inspired by TR’s Unprecedented Run for a Third Term." All Annual Meeting info: www.documentaryediting.org/wordpress/?p...

White vigilante attacks like the one on Green Jones & his Black employees were extremely common after emancipation & were often coordinated w/local police & courts to prevent Black workers from gaining property & autonomy.

The local Freedmen's Bureau agent, Captain Blanton, remarked on the case that “cruelties of all kinds inflicted on the Freedmen are greatly on the increase in the Parish” & “[p]ublic opinion is against inforcing the laws against the whites for the protection of the colored people.”

Jones concluded that "I have rented part of Mr Reagers place & have cultivated it on my own account... I can't say whether Mr Reagers had any hand in whipping us or not. had a difficulty with Mr Reagers some time ago but thaught that was settled. My house is about 300 yards from his."

Jones testified that "they then told me I had to sell my horses, that they would not allow negroes to have horses. that must get into some white man's yard for protection."

"When they were through" beating him, Jones continued, "they asked me if I could be obedient to every little white child & could call every white man & woman Master & Mistress & raise my hat to every white man I met & never to leave home without a pass."

After emancipation, Green Jones testified that he was dragged from his home & brutally beaten by white vigilantes for daring to rent land & employ other formerly enslaved people.

The men told him "that they would not allow negroes to live off to themselves."

After emancipation, Elizabeth Weden, who was sold away from her family in 1845, managed to locate her father, writing that "I am at this place trying to do the best I can for my self. times are harde here & money scearse. I wish to leve this place, & move out to whare you are."

The government ultimately denied Weden's petition for help reuniting with her family, noting that "It is not deemed advisable at this time" bc "the number of freedpeople already there [in Alexandria, Va], is so large that employment cannot be obtained for them."

Unable to find the money to help her relocate, Weden's father brought the case to the local Freedmen's Bureau agent, who reported that Elizabeth & her children "are now at Enon, Alabama, in a destitute and suffering condition, sent to this City, where he and his son can provide for them."

Desperate to return to her family, she told her father "If you can make any shift to get me a way from here, I will work for you or any that may help me to get to whare you are antill you or they are paid."

After emancipation, Elizabeth Weden, who was sold away from her family in 1845, managed to locate her father, writing that "I am at this place trying to do the best I can for my self. times are harde here & money scearse. I wish to leve this place, & move out to whare you are."

In the aftermath of slavery, white employers & local officials frequently conspired to keep formerly enslaved people like Body from receiving their wages or changing employers, tactics that became key features of the Jim Crow economy.

"We are left without anything after our hard years labor," Body continued, noting that his white employer "took away from us 200 Blls. of corn, about 20 head of hogs & our wagon & harness. We called on Judge Tinge but he could not do anything for us as he said he would not interfere with civil Law."

Formerly enslaved ppl like Richmond Body regularly had their wages stolen by white employers. He explained:

"Mr Beckwith has had all of our part of the crop attached claiming that we were owing him a very large amount– I dont' know what we can owe him for we never have received any thing."

After they won their freedom, formerly enslaved ppl from coastal VA staged a daring raid to rescue their loved ones from slavery. When they were cut off by white locals seeking to kill them or return them to slavery, a desperate struggle ensued.

After they won their freedom, formerly enslaved ppl from coastal VA staged a daring raid to rescue their loved ones from slavery. When they were cut off by white locals seeking to kill them or return them to slavery, a desperate struggle ensued.

While Lt. Truxton may have been perplexed by the Rebel attack on a peaceful, self-directed community of formerly enslaved ppl, secession itself was based on the idea that Black freedom posed an existential threat to white power. Independent Black existence would always be treated as an act of war.