[please stand by] [please stand by] [please stand by] 3372 children. 57 children. Unlike most wars in this case, refugees are running towards the. Ine they were giving birth out of slavery because it was meaningful, even though it was even birth in a war zone. It was often ugly, against fence posts, women finding whatever they could to cut on the local court straight cut umbilical cords. They need to bury the placenta, so they looking for places to do that and they are determined to do that even if they are in a place of deprivation. This is a reconstruction from the point of view of midwives of invention. This was ingenuity in the face of great crisis. Midwiferygraph is in school at penn school at saint helena island, where a. Uccessful refugee camp is your is picture of refugees in the rain. Shoes and water. These are not familiar scenes in the same way we see the gero type. But shoes and water are all over the record. You cant get through a page another plea, another action motivate
In 1861. It started in these refugee camps. Im going to start with two stories. The first one might be familiar. The story of how the contraband decision got handed down. It happened Important Role virginia. Baker,ownsend, James Shepherd mallory get a boat where the union just arrived. There are confederates all around and these gentlemen had been building confederate fortifications for their master. They knew they were about to go to North Carolina and would be leaving their families and they decided to chance it. Next morning, a confederate soldier comes under flag of truce and says, please return the slaves. Were rebels really entitled . Werent they foreign country . You say you are a foreign country. Said, im confiscating these three men as contraband property of war. He even gave the confederate soldier a receipt. This spreads incredibly quickly. It is an in between status. Property likee of smuggled goods but you are a person. But whatever the ambiguities of contraband, it defini
Werent they foreign country . That is what he said. You say you are a foreign country. I guess u. S. Laws dont apply to you. So he said, im confiscating these three men as contraband property of war. They were used in service of the confederacy. Now they are union property. He even gave the confederate soldier a receipt. So what is contraband . This spreads incredibly quickly. Through newspapers rub the north. All of a sudden you see minstrel shows of the contraband. It becomes a now, part of common parlance. Is something of a legal trick. Is in in between status. Matter slave nor free. You are a ward of the government. You are a piece of property like smuggled goods but you are a person. Your labor is useful. But whatever the ambiguities of contraband, it definitely is a link to emancipation. We can save fort monroe is the birthplace of the emancipation because this contraband decision does one of two things. It makes congress recognize they first, have to do something. Congress sanct
Were moving for and if you dont believe in that you have no business supporting anyone other than George Mclelland and the democratic ticket. If you are a republican, in 1864, youre going to do everything you can to deflect the emphasis on race. You cannot win the election defined in terms of racial equality. You must win the election if youre going to win at all, defining the issue in terms of union. So what the republicans are going to stress above all is the disloyalty of the Democratic Party. Theyre going to link the Democratic Party with the south. Theyre going to emphasize the Democratic Partys support for a ceasefire, at least according to its platform. And so you have other images. Again im going to skip over. There are other images about mesogenation here. Heres one particular republican car too that shows the Democratic Party in 1832 and 1864. This should resinate to some degree. 1832 is the midst of whats called the nullcasi if icasion process nullinicatoin process, stanch a
Emancipation. Its important to us. Because when we think about a reunified United States in the aftermath of civil war, what conclusion must we draw. Clearly, a large majority of the American Free population was not enthusiastic about emancipation. And to come back to a final theme that has been the bedrock of this course throughout, in a democratic society, where a large majority holds a particular value, that is inconsistent with the interest of minority, theres not much reason to be optimistic for the rights of that minority. Remember James Madison had said if majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. I think that is a foreshadowing of the history of reconstruction on end through the rest of the 19th into the 20th centuries. So very fast whirlwind overview. Next time, were going to zero in on Abraham Lincoln and were going to enter into conversation with him because what lincoln is trying to do more than anything else is shape how we remem