The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

V >> Various >> The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

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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 Barres
also achieved unusual fame.

Natives of New Orleans remember now how some years ago Edmond Dede
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.

ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Rose, "Life of Napoleon I," 333-336.

[51] As to the ability of a man of color to rise in this territory,
the life of one man, recorded by the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,
will furnish a good example. James Derham was originally a slave in
Philadelphia, sold by his master to a physician, who employed him in
the shop as an assistant in the preparation of drugs. During the war
between England and America, he was sold by this physician to a
surgeon, and by that surgeon to Dr. Robert Dove of New Orleans. Here
he learned French and Spanish so as to speak both with ease. In 1788,
he was received into the English church, when he was twenty-one and
became, says the report, "one of the most distinguished physicians in
New Orleans." "I conversed with him on medicine," says Dr. Rush, "and
found him very learned. I thought I could give him information on the
treatment of diseases, but I learned more from him that he could
expect from me." _The Columbian Gazette_, II, 742-743.

[52] Gayarre, III, p. 595.

[53] _Ibid._, IV, p. 218.

[54] _Ibid._, p. 219.

[55] Gayarre, IV, p. 219.

[56] _Ibid._, p. 229.

[57] Grace King tells a pretty story of the saving of Jean Lafitte's
life. On the very day that a price was set upon his head by Gov.
Claiborne he was invited to be the guest at a plantation, and almost
at the same instant there arrived unexpectedly Mrs. Claiborne, the
wife of the governor. The hostess, with quick presence of mind,
introduced the gentleman to the wife of the governor as Monsieur
Clement, and then hurriedly went out of the room, leaving her guests
together. She called Henriette, her confidential servant, and looking
her straight in the eyes, said: "Henriette, Gov. Claiborne has set a
price upon Monsieur Lafitte's head. Anyone who takes him a prisoner
and carries him to the governor will receive five hundred dollars
reward, and M. Laffitte's head will be cut off. Send all the other
servants away; set the table yourself, and wait on us yourself.
Remember to call M. Lafitte, M. Clement--and be careful before Mme.
Claiborne." The colored woman responded with perfect tact and
discretion. See Grace King, "New Orleans, the Place and the People,"
204.

[58] Gayarre, IV, p. 127.

[59] _Ibid._, p. 127.

[60] Gayarre, IV, p. 131.

[61] King, "New Orleans: The Place and Its People."

[62] Paul Alliot's Reflections in Robertson's "Louisiana under the
Rule of Spain," I, p. 67.

[63] _Ibid._, 103, 111.

[64] Evans, "A Pedestrian's Tour, etc." Thwaites, "Early Western
Travels," VIII, 336.

[65] Harriet Martineau painted in 1837 a picture of this society,
showing how the depravity of the settlers had worked out. "The
Quadroon girls of New Orleans," said she, "are brought up by their
mothers to be what they have been, the mistresses of white gentlemen.
The boys are some of them sent to France; some placed on land in the
back of the State; and some are sold in the slave market. They marry
women of a somewhat darker color than their own; the women of their
own color objecting to them, '_ils sont si degoutants_!' The girls are
highly educated, externally, and are, probably, as beautiful and
accomplished a set of women as can be found. Every young man early
selects one and establishes her in one of those pretty and peculiar
houses, whole rows of which may be seen in the Remparts. The connexion
now and then lasts for life; usually for several years. In the latter
case, when the time comes for the gentleman to take a wife, the
dreadful news reaches his Quadroon partner, either by letter entitling
her to call the house and furniture her own, or by the newspaper which
announces his marriage. The Quadroon ladies are rarely or never known
to form a second connexion. Many commit suicide, more die heartbroken.
Some men continue the connexion after marriage. Every Quadroon woman
believes that her partner will prove an exception to the rule of
desertion. Every white lady believes that her husband has been an
exception to the rule of seduction." See Harriet Martineau, "Society
in America," II, 326-327; see also Nuttall's Journal in Thwaites,
"Early Western Travels," XIII, 309-310.

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