Slavery in Florida and Texas

From Wikipedia, 1/16/2022

Florida

Further information: History of slavery in Florida

One African slave, Estevanico arrived with the Narváez expedition in Tampa Bay in April 1528 and marched north with the expedition until September, when they embarked on rafts from the Wakulla River, heading for Mexico.[32] African slaves arrived again in Florida in 1539 with Hernando de Soto, and in the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, Florida.[29][30] When St. Augustine, FL, was founded in 1565, the site already had enslaved Native Americans, whose ancestors had migrated from Cuba.[6] The Spanish settlement was sparse and they held comparatively few slaves.[33]

The Spanish promised freedom to refugee slaves from the English colonies of South Carolina and Georgia in order to destabilize English settlement.[34][35] If the slaves converted to Catholicism and agreed to serve in a militia for Spain, they could become Spanish citizens. By 1730 the black settlement known as Fort Mose developed near St. Augustine and was later fortified. There were two known Fort Mose sites in the eighteenth century, and the men helped defend St. Augustine against the British. It is "the only known free black town in the present-day southern United States that a European colonial government-sponsored.[36] The Fort Mose Site, today a National Historic Landmark, is the location of the second Fort Mose."[36] During the nineteenth century, this site became marsh and wetlands.

In 1763, Great Britain took over Florida in an exchange with Spain after defeating France in the Seven Years' War. Spain evacuated its citizens from St. Augustine, including the residents of Fort Mose, transporting them to Cuba. As Britain developed the colony for plantation agriculture, the percentage of slaves in the population in twenty years rose from 18% to almost 65% by 1783.[37]

History of slavery in Florida

From Wikipedia,

The history of slavery in Florida predates the period of European colonization and was practiced by various indigenous peoples.[1] Florida had some of the first African slaves in what is now the United States in 1526-1565, as well as the first emancipation of escaping slaves in 1687 and the first settlement of free blacks in 1735.[2]

Few enslaved Africans were imported into Florida from Cuba in the period of Spanish colonial rule. Starting in 1687, slaves escaping from English colonies to the north were freed when they accepted Catholicism. Black slavery in the region was widely established after Florida came under British then American control. Slavery in Florida was theoretically abolished by the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, though as the state was part of the Confederacy this had little effect.

Slavery in Florida did not end abruptly on one specific day. As news arrived of the end of the Civil War and the collapse of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865, slavery unofficially ended, as there were no more slave catchers or other authority to enforce the peculiar institution. Newly emancipated African Americans departed their plantations, often in search of relatives who were separated from their family. The end of slavery was made formal by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. Some of the characteristics of slavery, such as inability to leave a disagreeable situation, continued under sharecropping, convict leasing, and vagrancy laws. In the 20th and 21st centuries, conditions approximating slavery are found among marginal immigrant populations, especially migrant farm workers and involuntary sex workers.

Spanish rule

See also: Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies and Negro Fort

First occupation

The first enslaved African in Florida, Estevanico, was brought to the area in 1528 as part of the Narváez expedition, which then continued on to Texas.[4][5][6] More African slaves arrived in Florida in 1539 with Hernando de Soto.[7][8]

When the Spanish founded the colonial settlement of San Agustín in 1565, the site already had enslaved Native Americans, whose ancestors had migrated from Cuba.[1] The Spaniards did not bring many slaves to Florida as there was no work for them to do—no mines and no plantations. Very few Spaniards came to Florida; there were only three military/naval support outposts: St. Augustine, St. Marks, and what is today called Pensacola. Under Spanish, colonial rule the enslaved in Florida had rights. They could marry, own property, and purchase their own freedom. Free blacks, as long as they were Catholic, were not subject to legal discrimination. No one was born into slavery. Mixed "race" marriages were not illegal, and mixed "race" children could inherit property. This was "unthinkable" in the United States.[9]: 8

In October 1687 ten enslaved Africans arrived from the Carolinas, and were accepted as paid workers. When an English officer arrived a year later to re-capture them, the Spanish paid to emancipate them and reported to the King. On November 7, 1693 King Carlos II issued a decree freeing all slaves escaping from the British Colonies who accepted Catholicism, similar to the May 29, 1680 Spanish decree for slaves escaping from the Lesser Antilles and the September 3, 1680 and June 1, 1685 decrees for escaping French slaves.[2]

In the early 1700s, Spanish Florida was a hotbed for the raiding Native Americans from the northern Carolina and Georgia areas. Though they were left alone for the most part by one of the original raiding groups, the Westos, Spanish Florida was heavily targeted by the later raiding groups, the Yamasee and Creek. These raids, in which villages were destroyed and local Native Americans were either killed or captured to be later sold as slaves to the British colonists, drove the local Native Americans to the hands of the Spanish, who attempted to protect them as best they could from the invaders. However, the strength of the Spanish dwindled and as the raids continued the Spanish and natives were forced to retreat farther and farther back into the peninsula. The raids were so frequent that there were few natives left to capture, and so the Yamasee and the Creek began bringing fewer and fewer slaves to the Carolina colonies and were unable to effectively continue the trade. The retreat of the Spanish was only ended when the Yamasee and Creek entered what would later be known as the Yamasee War with the Carolina colony.[10]

Since 1688, Spanish Florida had attracted numerous fugitive slaves who escaped from the British North American colonies. Once the slaves reached Florida, the Spanish freed them if they converted to Roman Catholicism; males of age had to complete a military obligation.[11] Many settled in Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first settlement of free blacks in North America, near St. Augustine. The church started recording baptisms and deaths there in 1735, and a fort was built in 1738, part of the perimeter defenses of San Agustin. The freed slaves knew the border areas well and led military raids, under their own black officers, against the Carolinas, and against Georgia, founded in 1731.[2] Another smaller group settled along the Apalachicola River in remote northwest Florida, centered on Prospect Bluff, future site of the famous Negro Fort.

Second occupation

The former slaves also found refuge among the Creek and Seminole, Native Americans who had established settlements in Florida at the invitation of the Spanish government. In 1771, Governor John Moultrie wrote to the English Board of Trade, "It has been a practice for a good while past, for negroes to run away from their Masters, and get into the Indian towns, from whence it proved very difficult to get them back."[12] When British officials pressured the Native Americans to return the fugitive slaves, they replied that they had "merely given hungry people food, and invited the slaveholders to catch the runaways themselves."[12]

After the American Revolution, slaves from the State of Georgia and the South Carolina Low Country escaped to Florida. The U.S. Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. The United States afterwards effectively controlled East Florida. According to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the US had to take action there because Florida had become "a derelict open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States, and serving no other earthly purpose than as a post of annoyance to them."[13][ Spain requested British intervention, but London declined to assist Spain in the negotiations. Some of President James Monroe's cabinet demanded Jackson's immediate dismissal, but Adams realized that it put the U.S. in a favorable diplomatic position, allowing him to negotiate very favorable terms.[14]

The Spanish established outposts in Florida to prevent others from having safe ports to attack Spanish treasure fleets in the Caribbean and in the strait between Florida and the Bahamas.[2] Florida did not produce anything the Spaniards wanted. The three garrisons were a financial drain, and it was not felt desirable to send settlers or additional garrisons. The Crown decided to cede the territory to the United States. It accomplished this through the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, which took effect in 1821.

Treatment of blacks under Spanish rule

Under the Spanish, enslaved workers had rights: to marry, to own property, to buy their own freedom. They were not chattel. Free blacks, as long as they were Catholic, were not subject to legal discrimination. No one was born into slavery. Mixed "race" marriages were not illegal, and mixed "race" children could inherit property.

British Florida

Further information: British Florida

Florida under American rule

Florida became an organized territory of the United States on February 22, 1821. Slavery continued to be permitted.

Free negros were unwanted

The free blacks and Indian slaves, Black Seminoles, living near St. Augustine fled to Havana, Cuba, to avoid coming under US control. Some Seminole also abandoned their settlements and moved further south.[15] Hundreds of Black Seminoles and fugitive slaves escaped in the early nineteenth century from Cape Florida to The Bahamas, where they settled on Andros Island,[16] founding Nicholls Town, named for the Anglo-Irish commander and Abolitionist who fostered their escape, Edward Nicolls.[17]

In 1827 free negros were prohibited from entering Florida, and in 1828 those already there were prohibited from assembling in public.[18]: 192–193 In antebellum Florida, "Southerners came to believe that the only successful means of removing the threat of free Negroes was to expel them from the southern states or to change their status from free persons to... slaves."[19]: 112 Free Negroes were perceived as "an evil of no ordinary magnitude,"[19]: 119 undermining the system of slavery. Slaves had to be shown that there was no advantage in being free; thus, free negroes became victims of the slaveholders' fears. Legislation became more forceful; the free negro had to accept his new role or leave the state, as in fact half the black population of Pensacola and St. Augustine immediately did (they left the country).[20]: 193 Some citizens of Leon County, Florida, Florida's most populous[21] and wealthiest[19]: 140 county, which wealth was because Leon County had more slaves than any other county in Florida,[22] petitioned the General Assembly to have all free negroes removed from the state.[19]: 118 Legislation passed in 1847 required all free Negroes to have a white person as legal guardian;[19]: 120 in 1855, an act was passed which prevented free Negroes from entering the state.[19]: 119 "In 1861, an act was passed requiring all free Negroes in Florida to register with the judge of probate in whose county they resided. The Negro, when registering, had to give his name, age, color, sex, and occupation, and had to pay one dollar to register.... All Negroes over twelve years of age had to have a guardian approved by the probate judge.... The guardian could be sued for any crime committed by the Negro; the Negro could not be sued. Under the new law, any free Negro or mulatto who did not register with the nearest probate judge was classified as a slave and became the lawful property of any white person who claimed possession."[19]: 121

The growth of plantations

American settlers began to establish cotton plantations in northern Florida, which required numerous laborers, which they supplied by buying slaves in the domestic market. On March 3, 1845, Florida became a slave state of the United States. Almost half the state's population were enslaved African Americans working on large cotton and sugar plantations, between the Apalachicola and Suwannee Rivers in the north-central part of the state.[23] Like the people who owned them, many slaves had come from the coastal areas of Georgia and The Carolinas; they were part of the Gullah-Geechee culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Others were enslaved African Americans from the Upper South, who had been sold to traders taking slaves to the Deep South.[citation needed] By 1860, Florida had 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved, and fewer than 1,000 free people of color.[24] Their labor accounted for 85% of the state's cotton production. The 1860 Census also indicated that in Leon County, which was the center both of the Florida slave trade and of their plantation industry (see Plantations of Leon County), slaves constituted 73% of the population. As elsewhere, their value was greater than all the land of the county. (References in History of Tallahassee, Florida#Black history.)

Secession

In January 1861, nearly all delegates in the Florida Legislature approved an ordinance of secession, declaring Florida to be "a sovereign and independent nation"—an apparent reassertion to the preamble in Florida's Constitution of 1838, in which Florida agreed with Congress to be a "Free and Independent State." According to William C. Davis, "protection of slavery" was "the explicit reason" for Florida's declaring of secession, as well as the creation of the Confederacy itself.[26]

Confederate authorities used slaves as teamsters to transport supplies and as laborers in salt works and fisheries. Many Florida slaves working in these coastal industries escaped to the relative safety of Union-controlled enclaves during the American Civil War. Beginning in 1862, Union military activity in East and West Florida encouraged slaves in plantation areas to flee their owners in search of freedom. Some worked on Union ships and, beginning in 1863, with the Emancipation Proclamation, more than a thousand enlisted as soldiers and sailors in the United States Colored Troops of the military.[27]

Escaped and freed slaves provided Union commanders with valuable intelligence about Confederate troop movements. They also passed back news of Union advances to the men and women who remained enslaved in Confederate-controlled Florida. Planter fears of slave uprisings increased as the war went on.[28]

In May 1865, Federal control was re-established, and slavery abolished.

References

1. Lauber, Almon Wheeler (1913). "Enslavement by the Indians Themselves, Chapter 1 in Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within the Present Limits of the United States". 53 (3). Columbia University: 25–48.

2. Borrego, Pedro Damián Cano (2019). "La libertad de los esclavos fugitivos y la milicia negra en la Florida española en el siglo XVIII". Revista de la Inquisición: ( intolerancia y derechos humanos ) (23): 223–234.

3. "St. Augustine's "Slave Market": A Visual History". Southern Spaces.

4. Parish, Helen Rand (1974). Estebanico. New York: Viking Press.

5. Herrick, Dennis (2018). Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

6. MacDougald, James (2018). The Pánfilo de Narváez Expedition of 1528: Highlights of the Expedition and Determination of the Landing Place. St. Petersburg: Marsden House.

7. Francis, J. Michael , Gary Mormino and Rachel Sanderson (2019-08-29). "Slavery took hold in Florida under the Spanish in the 'forgotten century' of 1492-1619". Tampa Bay Times..

8. Torres-Spelliscy, Ciara; Law, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of; Br, the author of "Political; s." (2019-08-23). "Perspective - Everyone is talking about 1619. But that's not actually when slavery in America started". Washington Post.

9. Clavin, Matthew J. (2019). The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community. New York: New York University Press.

10. Ethridge, Robbie Franklyn, and Sheri Marie Shuck-Hall. 2009. Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South. U of Nebraska Press.

11. Nuño, John Paul (Fall 2015). "' República de Bandidos': The Prospect Bluff Fort's Challenge to the Spanish Slave System". Florida Historical Quarterly. 94 (2): 192–221, at p. 195.

12. Miller, E: "St. Augustine's British Years," The Journal of the St. Augustine Historical Society, 2001, p. 38.

13. Alexander Deconde, A History of American Foreign Policy (1963) p. 127

14. Weeks (2002)

15. "Notices of East Florida: with an account of the Seminole Nation of Indians, 1822, Open Archive, text available online, p. 42".

16. Mulroy, Kevin. The Seminole Freedmen: A History (Race and Culture in the American West), Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007, p. 26

17. Dold, Gaylord; Rough Guides (Firm) (2003). The Bahamas. Internet Archive. London ; New York : Rough Guides.

18. Allman, T.D. (2013). Finding Florida The True History of the Sunshine State. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

19. Smith, Julia Floyd (1973), Slavery and Plantation Growth in Antebellum Florida 1821-1860, Gainesville: University of Florida Press

20. Schafer, Daniel L. (2013). Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic World. Slave Trader, Plantation Owner, Emancipator. University Press of Florida.

21. "Florida Population 1840-2000 by County". Exploring Florida (University of South Florida).

22. Rivers, Larry E. (1981), "Slavery in Microcosm: Leon County, Florida, 1824 to 1860", Journal of Negro History, 66 (3): 235–245, at p. 237,

23. Tebeau 1999, p. 158

24. Tebeau 1999, p. 157

25. "Key West slave ship depiction".

26. Davis, William C. (2002). "Men but Not Brothers". Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America. pp. 130–135.

27. Murphree, R. Boyd. "Florida and the Civil War: A Short History" Archived 2010-04-26 at the Wayback Machine, State Archives of Florida.

28. Murphree (2008)

29. Cordner, Sascha (August 22, 2014). "What Might Future Florida Human Trafficking Legislation Look Like For 2015?". Florida State University. WFSU.

30. Coonan, Terry S. (2003). "Human Rights in the Sunshine State: A Proposed Florida Law on Human Trafficking". Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 31 (2).

31. The Unsavory Story of Industrially Grown Tomatoes

32. "United States Report: 1/1/2015 – 12/31/2015" (PDF). National Human Trafficking Resource Center. National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

Texas and the Southwest

Main article: History of slavery in Texas

An African slave, Estevanico, reached Galveston island in November 1528, with the remnants of the Narváez expedition in Florida. The group headed south on the mainland in 1529, trying to reach Spanish settlements. They were captured and held by Native Americans until 1535.[32] They traveled northwest to the Pacific Coast, then south along the coast to San Miguel de Culiacán, which had been founded in 1531, and then to Mexico City.[32]

Spanish Texas had few African slaves, but the colonists enslaved many Native Americans.[38] Beginning in 1803, Spain freed slaves who escaped from the Louisiana territory, recently acquired by the United States.[39] More African-descended slaves were brought to Texas by American settlers.

History of Slavery in Texas

From Wikipedia,

The history of slavery in Texas began slowly at first during the first few phases in Texas' history. Texas was a colonial territory, then part of Mexico, later Republic in 1836, and U.S. state in 1845. The use of slavery expanded in the mid-nineteenth century as White American settlers, primarily from the Southeastern United States, crossed the Sabine River and brought slaves with them. Slavery was present in Spanish America and Mexico prior to the arrival of American settlers, but it was not highly developed, and the Spanish did not rely on it for labor during their years in Spanish Texas.

The issue of slavery became a source of contention between the Anglo-American settlers and Spanish governors. The governors feared the growth in the Anglo-American population in Texas, and for various reasons, by the early 19th century, they and their superiors in Mexico City disapproved of expanding slavery. In 1829 the Guerrero decree conditionally abolished slavery throughout Mexican territories. It was a decision that increased tensions with slave-holders among the Anglo-Americans.

After the Texas Revolution ended in 1836, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas made slavery legal. Sam Houston made illegal importation from Mexico a crime in 1836. The General Provisions of the Constitution forbade any slave owner from freeing his slaves without the consent of Congress and forbade Congress from making any law that restricted the slave trade or emancipated slaves.

Americans of European extraction and slaves contributed greatly to the population growth in the Republic and State of Texas. Settlements grew and developed more land under cultivation in cotton and other commodities. The cotton industry flourished in East Texas, where enslaved labor became most widely used. The central part of the state was dominated by subsistence farmers. Free and runaway blacks had great difficulty finding jobs in Texas. Many worked in other parts of the state as cowboys herding cattle or migrated for better opportunities in the Midwest, California, or southward to Mexico.

Early slavery

The first non-Native slave in Texas was Estevanico, a Moor from North Africa who had been captured and enslaved by the Spanish when he was a child.[1] Estevanico accompanied his enslaver Captain Andrés Dorantes de Carranza on the Narváez expedition, which landed at present-day Tampa. Trying to get around the Gulf Coast, they built five barges, but in November 1528 these went aground off the coast of Texas.[2] Estevanico, Dorantes, and Alonso Castillo Maldonado, the only survivors, spent several months living on a barrier island (now believed to be Galveston Island) before making their way in April 1529 to the mainland.[3] American Indians captured and enslaved the party, putting them to work as laborers. They survived with the help of Castillo's faith healing among the Indians. Later they were joined by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.[3] Five years later, in September 1534, they escaped to the interior. Although Estevanico was still enslaved, after these events the Spaniards treated him more as an equal. Later he was given leadership of a Spanish expedition.[4] His account, along with those of the others, led to more extensive Spanish exploration of the new territory.[5]

Slavery in colonial times

Main articles: Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies and Slavery in New France

Both the civil and religious authorities in Spanish Texas officially encouraged freeing enslaved people, but the laws were often ignored.[6] Beginning in the 1740s in the Southwest, when Spanish settlers captured American Indian children, they often had them baptized and "adopted" into the homes of townspeople. There they were raised to be servants. At first, the practice involved primarily Apaches; eventually Comanche children were likewise "adopted" as servants.[7]

Importation of enslaved Africans was not widespread in Spanish Texas. In 1751, after three Frenchmen were found to have settled along the Trinity River to trade with the American Indians, the Spanish arrested and expelled them from the colony.[8] A 1777 census of San Antonio showed a total of 2,060 people, with 151 of African descent.[9] Of these, only 15 were enslaved, 4 males and 11 females.[7] The 1783 census for all of Texas listed a total of 36 enslaved people.[8] There was intermarriage among blacks, Indians and Europeans. In 1792 there were 34 blacks and 414 mulattos in Spanish Texas, some of whom were free men and women. This was 15 percent of the total 2,992 people living in Spanish Texas.[10]

When the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, Spain declared that any enslaved person who crossed the Sabine River into Texas would be automatically freed. For a time, many enslaved ran away to Texas. Free blacks also emigrated to Texas. Most escapees joined friendly American Indian tribes, but others settled in the East Texas forests.[9] When some French and Spanish slaveholders moved to Texas, they were allowed to retain their enslaved people.[11] In 1809, the Commandant General of the Interior Provinces, Nemesio Salcedo, ordered the Texas-Louisiana border to be closed to everyone, regardless of ethnic background.[12] His nephew, governor of Texas Manuel María de Salcedo, interpreted the order as allowing slaveholders from the United States to enter Texas to reclaim runaways.[13]

The United States outlawed the importation of enslaved people in 1808, but domestic trade flourished, especially in New Orleans during the antebellum decades. In part due to the trade in enslaved people, New Orleans was the fourth largest city in the US in 1840 and one of the wealthiest. Between 1816 and 1821, Louis-Michel Aury and Jean Lafitte smuggled enslaved people into the United States through Galveston Island.[11] To encourage citizens to report unlawful activity, most southern states allowed anyone who informed on a slave trader to receive half of what the imported enslaved people would earn at auction. The men sold enslaved people to James Bowie and others, who brought them directly to a customhouse and informed on themselves. The customs officers offered the enslaved people for auction, and Bowie would buy them back. Due to the state laws, he would receive half of the price he had paid. After that, he could legally transport the enslaved people and sell them in New Orleans or areas further up the Mississippi River.[14][15]

Mexican Texas

In 1821 at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence, Texas was included in the new nation.[16] That year, the American Stephen F. Austin was granted permission by Mexican authorities to bring Anglo settlers into Texas.[17] Most of the settlers Austin recruited came from the southern slave-owning portions of the United States.[11] Under Austin's development scheme, each settler was allowed to purchase an additional 50 acres (20 ha) of land for each enslaved person he brought to the territory.[17] At the same time, however, Mexico offered full citizenship to free blacks, including land ownership and other privileges. The province continued to attract free blacks and escaped enslaved people from the Southern United States. Favorable conditions for free blacks continued into the 1830s.[10]

In 1823, Mexico forbade the sale or purchase of people, and required that the children of the enslaved be freed when they reached age fourteen.[11] By 1825, however, a census of Austin's Colony showed 1,347 Anglo-Americans and 443 people of African descent, including a small number of free blacks.[17] In 1827, the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas outlawed the introduction of additional enslaved people and granted freedom at birth to all children born to an enslaved person.[11]

In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery, but it granted an exception until 1830 to Texas. That year, Mexico made the importation of enslaved people illegal.[11] Anglo-American immigration to the province slowed at this point, with settlers angry about the changing rules. To circumvent the law, numerous Anglo-American colonists converted their enslaved people to indentured servants, but with life terms. Others simply called their enslaved people indentured servants without legally changing their status.[18] Slaveholders trying to enter Mexico would force the people they enslaved to sign contracts claiming that they owed money and would work to pay the debt. The low wages the enslaved person would receive made repayment impossible, and the debt would be inherited, even though no enslaved person would receive wages until age eighteen.[19] In 1832, the state passed legislation prohibiting worker contracts from lasting more than ten years.[20]

Many enslaved people who escaped from slaveholders in Texas or in the United States joined various East Texas Indian tribes. Although not considered equals in the tribes, they were generally treated well. Many former enslaved people fought with the Cherokee against the Texan army that drove the tribe from East Texas in 1838.[21] Enslaved people often fought against the Comanche tribe, however. The Comanche indiscriminately killed enslaved people and their white owners during raids. The Comanche sold any captured enslaved people to the Cherokee and Creek in Indian Territory, as they were both slaveholding tribes.[22]

By the 1800s, most enslaved people in Texas had been brought by slaveholders from the United States.[18] A small number of enslaved were imported illegally from the West Indies or Africa. In the 1830s, the British consul estimated that approximately 500 enslaved people had been illegally imported into Texas.[23] By 1836, there were approximately 5,000 enslaved people in Texas.[24]

Exportation in the slave-owning areas of the state surpassed that of the non-slave-owning areas. A survey of Texas in 1834 found that the department of Bexar, which was mostly made up of Tejanos, had exported no goods. The Brazos department, including Austin's colonies and those of Green DeWitt, had exported 600,000 pesos worth of goods, including 5,000 bales of cotton.[25] The department of Texas, which included the eastern settlements, expected to export 2,000 bales of cotton and 5,000 head of cattle.[26]

The abolition of slavery created tensions between the Mexican government and slave-holding settlers from the United States. These tensions came to a head in the Anahuac Disturbances. In August 1831, Juan Davis Bradburn, the military commander of the custom station on Upper Galveston Bay, gave asylum to two men who had escaped from slavery in Louisiana. The slaveholder hired William Barret Travis, a local lawyer, in an attempt to retrieve the men. When Bradburn arrested Travis on suspicion of plotting an insurrection, settlers rebelled. The disturbances were resolved through a combination of arms and political maneuvering. One result was the Turtle Bayou Resolutions, which were an explanation of the grievances that had led to the disturbances. One of the resolutions challenged Bradburn for "advising and procuring servants to quit the service of their masters, and offering them protection; causing them to labor for his benefits, and refusing to compensate them for the same."

Republic

As the Texas Revolution began in 1835, some enslaved people sided with Mexico, which provided for freedom. In the fall of 1835, a group of almost 100 enslaved people staged an uprising along the Brazos River after they heard rumors of approaching Mexican troops. Whites in the area defeated and severely punished them. Several enslaved people ran away to serve with Mexican forces. Texan forces executed one runaway taken prisoner and resold another into slavery.[27] Other enslaved people joined the Texan forces, with some killed while fighting Mexican soldiers. Three enslaved people were known to be at the Battle of the Alamo; a boy named John was killed, while William B. Travis's enslaved person, Joe, and James Bowie's enslaved person, Sam, survived to be freed by the Mexican Army.[28]

The Section 9 of the General Provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, ratified in 1836, made slavery legal again in Texas and defined the status of the enslaved and people of color in the Republic of Texas.[29]

· People of color who had been servants for life under Mexican law would become property.

· Congress should pass no law restricting emigrants from bring their enslaved people into Texas.

· Congress shall not have the power to emancipate enslaved people.

· Slaveowners may not free their enslaved servants without Congressional approval unless the freed people leave Texas.

· Free persons of African descent were required to petition the Texas Congress for permission to continue living in the country.

· Africans and the descendants of Africans and Indians were excluded from the class of 'persons' having rights.

The following year all those who had been living in Texas at the time of independence were allowed to remain. On the other hand, the legislature created political segregation; it classified free residents with at least 1/8 African heritage (the equivalent to one great-grandparent) as a separate category, and abrogated their citizens' rights, prohibiting them from voting, owning property, testifying against whites in court, or intermarrying with whites.[30] As planters increased cotton production, they rapidly increased the purchase and transport of enslaved workers. By 1840 there were 11,323 enslaved people in Texas.[24]

Statehood

In 1845 the state legislature passed legislation further restricting the rights of free blacks. For example, it subjected them to punishments, such as working on road gangs if convicted of crimes, similar to those of enslaved rather than free men.[31]

By 1850, the enslaved population in Texas had increased to 58,161; in 1860 there were 182,566 enslaved, 30 percent of the total population. Texas ranked 10th in total enslaved population and 9th in percentage enslaved (30 percent of all residents).[24]

Forty percent of Texas enslaved people lived on plantations along the Gulf Coast and in the East Texas river valleys, where they cultivated cotton, corn, and some sugar.[24] Fifty percent of the enslaved people worked either alone or in groups of fewer than 20 on small farms ranging from the Nueces River to the Red River, and from the Louisiana border to the edge of the western settlements of San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and Fort Worth.[32] Some enslaved people lived among the cattlemen along the southern Gulf Coast and helped herd sheep and cattle. Rarely, an enslaved person also broke horses, but generally only white men were used for that dangerous task. If they died, the boss did not suffer a monetary loss.[33] Enslaved people were not held between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. A large supply of cheap Mexican labor in the area made the purchase and care of a slave too expensive. [33]

Although most enslaved people lived in rural areas, more than 1000 resided in both Galveston and Houston by 1860, with several hundred in other large towns.[34] Unlike in most southern cities, the number of urban enslaved people in Texas grew throughout the 1850s. Most worked as house servants or on farms on the edges of towns, but others served as cooks and waiters in hotels, as teamsters or boatmen, or as coachmen and skilled artisans, such as blacksmiths, carpenters, and barbers.[34]

Plantation enslaved people generally lived in one or two-room log cabins. Most field hands received two sets of clothing twice each year, with a hat and coat for winter. Meals often consisted of bread, molasses, sweet potatoes, hominy, and beef, chicken, and pork.[35] Enslaved people often lived similarly to poor whites in Texas, especially those new to the territory and just getting started. The whites, however, could hope to improve their lives with their own hard work, while the enslaved people could have no such hope or expectation as, of course, their work belonged by law to their owners and not to them.[33]

Many churches in Texas accepted enslaved people as members. Both the Baptist and Methodist churches appointed missionaries to the enslaved people and allowed active participation by them. In 1860, the Methodists claimed 7,541 enslaved people among their members in Texas. Some enslaved people became ministers, but their masters often tried to instruct them in what they were supposed to preach. As in other southern states, however, the enslaved people made Christianity their own and they developed strong religious faith.[36]

Many local communities adopted laws forbidding enslaved people from having liquor or weapons, from selling agricultural products, hiring their own time, or being hired by free blacks. In rural areas, counties often set up patrols to enforce restrictions on enslaved people traveling without passes from planter owners.[37] Urban enslaved people often had greater freedoms and opportunity.[38] Unlike most southern states, Texas did not explicitly ban education of enslaved people, but most slaveholders did not allow the practice. In 1865, 95% of the enslaved were illiterate.[39]

Many enslaved people ran away. Some hid in the bayous for a time, while others lived among the Indians, and a few managed to board ships bound for northern or foreign ports. Most runaways attempted to go to Mexico.[21] By 1850, an estimated 3,000 enslaved people had successfully escaped to Mexico, and an additional 1,000 crossed into Mexico between 1851 and 1855. Ninety percent of the runaways were men, most between ages 20 and 40, because they were best equipped to deal with the long, difficult journey. All ages were represented, however, from 5 months to 60 years.[40] As early as 1836, Texas slaveholders sent representatives to Matamoros to try to reclaim their runaways, but Mexico refused.[41] See Underground Railroad § South to Mexico.

A group of enslaved people killed the sheriff of Gonzales when he attempted to stop their going to Matamoros. Over 30 of the fugitives made it safely to freedom in Mexico.[22] From 1849 until 1860, Texas tried to convince the United States government to negotiate a treaty with Mexico to permit extradition of runaways, but it did not succeed. Some slave hunters illegally traveled to Mexico and captured runaways. After José María Jesús Carvajal promised to return all escapees, more than 400 Texans joined his revolt of 1851. He tried to create a Republic of Sierra Madre in Northern Mexico but was defeated by the Mexican Army.[41]

White Texans were fearful about revolts, and as in other southern states, rumors of uprisings took hold rapidly, often in times of economic and social tension. In 1854, citizens in Austin and other towns drove many poor Mexicans from the area in fear that they might assist in revolts.[42] Two years later, Colorado County hanged several enslaved people and drove one white man and several Mexicans from the area after uncovering a plot to equip 200 enslaved people with pistols and knives to escape into Mexico.

In 1860, mass hysteria ensued after a series of fires erupted throughout the state. Planters had hundreds of enslaved people arrested and questioned forcefully. Several confessed to a plot by white abolitionists to avenge John Brown's execution by burning food supplies and poisoning slaveowners. Up to 80 enslaved people and 37 whites may have been executed as a result of the supposed plot.[43] Later newspaper accounts revealed that most of what was confessed under torture appeared to be false. Many of the fires had coincided with a summer drought, and new matches were susceptible to spontaneous combustion. The supposed "poison" found in enslaved quarters was baby powder.[44] There was an auction block next to the Menger Hotel and near the Alamo.[45][i][ii][iii]

Confederacy

Texas seceded from the United States in 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. It replaced the pro-Union governor, Sam Houston, in the process. During the war, slavery in Texas was little affected, and prices for enslaved people remained high until the last few months of the war. The number of enslaved people in the state increased dramatically as the Union Army occupied parts of Arkansas and Louisiana. Slaveholders in those areas often moved their enslaved to Texas to avoid having them emancipated. By 1865 there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. Many planters, however, lost part of their workforce temporarily to the Confederate Army, which impressed one-quarter of the enslaved on each plantation to construct defensive earthworks for the Texas coast and to drive military supply wagons.[46] Anyone convicted of providing arms to enslaved people during the war was sentenced to between two and five years of hard labor.[46]

Unlike in other Southern states, only a small number of enslaved Texans, estimated at 47, joined the Union Army. Few battles took place in Texas, which acted as a supply state to the Confederacy. As Texas was much more distant from the Union Army lines for much of the war, enslaved people were unable to reach them.[47] The last battle of the war was fought at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, in 1865.

Emancipation

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger and over 2,000 federal troops arrived at Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce the two-year-old Emancipation Proclamation. There, he proclaimed his "General Order No. 3" on the balcony of Ashton Villa:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of 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 quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.[48]

On some plantations, many enslaved people left immediately after hearing of the emancipation, even if their former owners offered to pay them wages.[49] Throughout the summer, many East Texas newspapers continued to recommend that slaveholders oppose ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, in the hopes that emancipation could be gradually implemented. Some slaveowners did not free their enslaved people until late in 1865.[50]

Slavery was officially abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment which took effect on December 18, 1865. Slavery had been theoretically abolished by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation which proclaimed, in 1863, that only those enslaved in territories that were in rebellion from the United States were free. Since the U.S. government was not in effective control of many of these territories until later in the war, many of these people proclaimed to be free by the Emancipation Proclamation were still held in servitude until those areas came back under Union control.[citation needed]

Legacy

Further information: History of African Americans in Texas

June 19, the day of the Emancipation announcement, has been celebrated annually in Texas and other states as Juneteenth.[51]

The long-term effects of slavery can be seen to this day in the state's demographics. The eastern quarter of the state, where cotton production depended on thousands of slaves, is considered the westernmost extension of the Deep South. It contains a very significant number of Texas' African-American population. On the other hand, western parts of Texas were still a frontier during the American Civil War. While settled chiefly by Anglo-Southerners after the war; with the history of ranching, some of these parts have been more associated with the Southwest than the South.

After whites regained power in Texas and other southern states in the 1870s, they imposed a system of legalized racial segregation and white supremacy. In 1876 Texas adopted a new constitution requiring segregated schools and imposing a poll tax, which decreased the number of poor voters both black and white.[52] By the late 19th century, Texas passed other Jim Crow laws. The system of school support was inadequate, and schools for racial minorities were seriously underfunded. Texas did not, however, employ techniques common in other Southern states such as complex voter registration rules and literacy tests; even the "white primary" was not implemented statewide until 1923.[53]

In 1900, African Americans comprised 30% of the state's population of 3,084,710.[54] The drop in proportion of population reflected greatly-increased European immigration to the state in the 19th century, as well as population growth.

Like Georgia, the Texas Democratic Party adopted a whites-only primary. Since they politically dominated the state for decades after 1900, the only contest for office was at the primary level. The white primary was another way to exclude African Americans from making electoral decisions, and it was not overturned by the Supreme Court until 1944 in Smith v. Allwright. States that had used it adopted other means to keep most African Americans from voting.

African Americans immediately started raising legal challenges to disfranchisement, but early Supreme Court cases, such as Giles v. Harris (1903), upheld the states. Through organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans continued to work to regain their ability to exercise their civil and voting rights as citizens. The civil rights movement led to the U.S. Congress and President Lyndon Johnson passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected the rights of all citizens to integrated public facilities and enforcement of voting rights.

On June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional,[55] a ruling which was shortly followed the implementation of Voter i.d. laws in Texas.[56] Those against this decision typically argue that it unfairly targets key Democratic constituencies such as minority groups and the elderly,[57] while proponents argue that the law's intention is to prevent voting by illegal immigrants.[58]

Footnotes and references

Footnotes

1. Williams (1997), p. 1.

2. Barr (1996), p. 1.

3. Donald E. Chipman, "Estevanico", Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 13 Aug 2009

4. Barr (1996), p. 2.

5. Williams (1997), p. 2.

6. Barr (1996), p. 5.

7. de la Teja (1956), p. 123.

8. Barr (1996), p. 13.

9. Williams (1997), p. 4.

10. Hales, "Free Blacks", Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 12 Aug 2009

11. Barr (1996), p. 14.

12. Almaráz, p. 35.

13. Almaráz, p. 29.

14. Hopewell (1994), p. 19.

15. Edmondson (2000), p. 91.

16. Chipman (1992), p. 239

17. Williams (1997), p. 6.

18. Barr (1996), p. 15.

19. Vazquez (1997), p. 57.

20. Vazquez (1997), p. 63.

21. Barr (1996), p. 28.

22. Barr (1996), p. 29.

23. Barr (1996), p. 16.

24. Barr (1996), p. 17.

25. de la Teja (1997), p. 91.

26. de la Teja (1997), p. 92.

27. Barr (1996), p. 32.

28. Barr (1996), p. 6.

29. Gammel, Hans Peter Mareus Neilsen (1898). The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897 Volume 1. p. 1087.

30. Barr (1996), p. 8.

31. Barr (1996), p. 9.

32. Barr (1996), p. 19.

33. Barr (1996), p. 20.

34. Barr (1996), p. 24.

35. Barr (1996), p. 18.

36. Barr (1996), p. 22.

37. Barr (1996), p. 21.

38. Barr (1996), p. 25.

39. Barr (1996), p. 23.

40. Barr (1996), p. 30.

41. Barr (1996), p. 31.

42. Barr (1996), p. 26.

43. Barr (1996), p. 33.

44. Barr (1996), p. 34.

45. Express Newspaper, 1939, University of Texas at San Antonio archives

46. Barr (1996), p. 36.

47. Barr (1996), p. 37.

48. "Juneteenth". State of Texas website. Retrieved 2006-07-06.

49. Barr (1996), p. 40.

50. Barr (1996), p. 39.

51. Gates Jr., Henry Louis (January 16, 2013). "What Is Juneteenth?". PBS.org.

52. "1876 Constitution", Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 12 Apr 2008

53. Donald S. Strong, "The Rise of Negro Voting in Texas," American Political Science Review Vol. 42 (June, 1948): 510, 511-12.

54. Historical Census Browser, 1900 US Census, University of Virginia Archived 2007-08-23 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 15 Mar 2008

55. "Shelby County v. Holder". Oyez. Retrieved 2019-03-07.

56. "U.S. appeals court allows Texas to implement voter ID law". Reuters.

57. Thursday, Ed Espinoza; May 25; 2017 (2015-08-10). "Updated: Texas voter ID law allows gun licenses, not Student ID's". progresstexas.org. Retrieved 2019-03-07.

58. "Someone did not do their due diligence: How an attempt to review Texas' voter rolls turned into a debacle". Texas Tribune.

Inline references

1. "The Texas Slave Insurrection of 1860," by William White, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 3, 1949, pps. 259–285;

2. Texas Terror: the Slave Insurrection Panic of 1860 and the Secession of the Lower South, by Donald Eugene Reynolds, PhD (born 1931), Louisiana State University Press (2007)

3. (re: Insurrection Scare in East Texas) "Smith County and Its Neighgors During the Slave Insurrection Panic of 1860," by Donald Eugene Reynolds, PhD (born 1931), Chronicles of Smith County, Vol. 10, Fall 1971

References for footnotes

· Almaráz, Félix D., Jr. (1971), Tragic Cavalier: Governor Manuel Salcedo of Texas, 1808–1813 (2nd ed.), College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press,

· Barr, Alwyn (1996), Black Texans: A history of African Americans in Texas, 1528–1995 (2nd ed.), Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press,

· Campbell, Randolph B., An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821-1865, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989

· Chipman, Donald E. (1992), Spanish Texas, 1519-1821, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,

· de la Teja, Jesus F. (1996), San Antonio de Bexar: A Community on New Spain's Northern Frontier, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press,

· Edmondson, J.R. (2000), The Alamo Story-From History to Current Conflicts, Plano, TX: Republic of Texas Press,

· Hopewell, Clifford (1994), James Bowie Texas Fighting Man: A Biography, Austin, TX: Eakin Press,

· Vazquez, Josefina Zoraida (1997), "The Colonization and Loss of Texas: A Mexican Perspective", in Rodriguez O., Jaime E.; Vincent, Kathryn (eds.), Myths, Misdeeds, and Misunderstandings: The Roots of Conflict in U.S.–Mexican Relations, Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc.,

· Williams, David A. (1997), Bricks Without Straw: A Comprehensive History of African Americans in Texas, Austin, TX: Eakin Press,

· Salas. Mario Marcel, "Foundation Myth in Political Thought: The Racial Moorings of Foundation Myth", Dubugue: Kendal Hunt Publishers, 2011