Trials and Triumphs: Reconstruction in Tennessee: June 1, 2017 Carroll Van West MTSU Center for Historic Preservation
War s End Ushered in Turbulent Era Union had been preserved Doctrine of states rights repudiated Slavery had been abolished
African Americans grasped political, social, economic equality Confederate elite lost political power and faced economic uncertainity
Freedmen s Bureau, established March 1865
A Tennessean at the Helm Tennessee s Military Governor, Andrew Johnson, was now President, April 1865 Becomes a controversial Reconstruction president for his opposition to civil rights laws on constitutional grounds Impeached but not convicted, 1868.
A Momentous Spring 1865 April 5: William G. Brownlow begins his term as governor April 7: Tennessee ratifies 13 th Amendment April 15: Lincoln dies after assassination attempt, Johnson becomes President. April 26: Army of Tennessee, C.S.A. surrenders
Civil Rights Law: April 1866 All persons born in the United States, except Native Americans, were hereby declared to be citizens of the United States All citizens had full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property
Memphis Massacre: May 1866 Vicious attack on African American property and residents Aimed at the insult of U.S. Colored Troops at Fort Pickering Federal officials realized that the fighting had stopped but the war was not over Led to national headlines, a congressional investigation, and the 14 th Amendment
14 th Amendment All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Approved by Congress, June 1866 Tennessee ratifies in July 1866 A key part of the peace treaty of the Civil War
Franklin Riot, July 1867 White mob breaks up a Union League political rally at the courthouse in Franklin
Rogersville Riot, July 1867 Firefight during competing rallies at town square for supporters of Emerson Etheridge (conservative Republican) and William G. Brownlow (radical Republican) leaves a black man and a white man dead
Creating the Ku Klux Klan, 1866-1868 General Assembly gives former slaves the right to vote and political Reconstruction is over. Federal troops begin to leave. Klan reorganized into a political and terrorist group in April 1867 in Nashville, after its 1866 creation in Pulaski. In 1868 Klan declared itself the defender of the true constitution and a protector of southern white women and their children Klansmen were required to swear that they had never been members of the Union army, the Union League, or the Republican Party, and they supported re-enfranchising ex-rebels. (Mark Wetherington in Tenn. Encyclopedia)
Reconstruction and Politics 1868: TGA gives Brownlow the power to declare martial law in individual counties to fight the Klan and other groups. 1869: Brownlow resigns to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. Federal troops return to selected communities. 1870: New State Constitution puts Confederates in control John C. Brown, of Pulaski, becomes governor, 1870
New State Constitution in 1870 set in motion a new political process that would soon define Tennessee as a Jim Crow segegation state.
Reconstruction and Economics Impact of end of slavery: sharecropping Rebuilding destroyed infrastructure: railroads, urban industries, iron and copper industries Rebuilding destroyed farms: roles of women and children Dividing the land: the boom of new farms
Impact of Freedmen s Bureau, late 1860s Gen. O. O. Howard Support for education, elementary and higher education Labor contracts District offices throughout state Regularly reported local outrages
African American Institution Building Eric Foner: churches, schools, and cemeteries Safe Havens: enclaves in the city and country Institutions that could weather the storms of Reconstruction violence and Jim Crow segregation
Episode 1: Pierce Chapel, Kingsport Listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Pierce Chapel AME Cemetery
Pierce Chapel, Sullivan County Established between 1865-1870. Bay Mountain area was a Unionist stronghold in an otherwise Confederate county African-Americans in Kingsport relate that this group of Unionists included Jerome Pierce, who had been born a slave but was the mulatto son of a white farmer named John Pierce. Jerome escaped to freedom behind Union lines and worked with cavalry. He established the community after the war. One-room church was also a school, supported by Freedmen s Bureau. In 1883, community officially named Butterfly.
Fisk University, Nashville
Begins 1866 as Fisk Free Colored School in old army barracks Established by American Missionary Association
After a year-long concert tour of Europe, the Jubilee Singers returned to Nashville in May 1874, having raised nearly $50,000 for Jubilee Hall, located on site of old federal fort
Episode 3: Doe Creek School, Scotts Hill vicinity, Henderson County
Doe Creek: A Confederate Outpost in Unionist West Tennessee Between 1868 and 1873, Robert Kennedy donated land and logs for the construction of a school/baptist Church adjacent to the cemetery. Brownlow s public education law spurred school building in Henderson County: the number of white children enrolled in public school was 2,700 in 1869 Doe Creek was one of these schools in all probability.
Doe Creek as a Heritage Site
Freedmen s Mission Cemetery, Knoxville
Pickett Chapel Methodist Church, Lebanon
Pikeville Chapel AME Zion, Sequatchie County
Stereotypes are wrong East Tennessee was not all Unionist, or Republican; nor was West Tennessee all Confederate, or Democrat. Reconstruction government was not all carpetbagger corruption: it empowered groups such as African Americans over the former Confederate elite and it created the tradition of mass public education. Tennessee s two-party tradition survived well beyond Reconstruction