Race

Title: Unequal Relations between Black and White People in the 19th-Century US
Context after the Abolition of Slavery

Introduction

The abolition of slavery, declared as early as in 1865, was a point in US history and
served as a bridge to the novel era for African Americans. Yet, the abolition of slavery
did not beat the profound and so well-rooted racial inequality that existed between black
and white people. The further subordination of African Americans throughout their post-
slavery 19th century was characterized by legal discrimination, economic exploitation,
social segregation, and racial violence. This paper examines some features of unequal
relationships between the black and white populations in the aftermath of abolition: the
rise of Jim Crow laws, economic systems such as sharecropping, and the racial
violence accompanying social segregation.

Legal Discrimination and the Role of Jim Crow Laws Slavery may have been abolished,
and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments enacted to guarantee freedom, citizenship,
and the right to vote for African Americans; nevertheless, the legal system in the South
did its most vigorous to defeat these gains. Jim Crow laws, enacted in the late 19th
century, institutionalized racial segregation and, in effect, disenfranchised most African
Americans. Southern states put in place voting restrictions, such as literacy tests, poll
taxes, and grandfather clauses, which practically excluded African Americans from
voting. According to Eric Foner, the "legal barriers were so effective that by the 1890s,
almost no African Americans could vote in the South."(HSY2601 Assessment 4 S2…)
This created a political system which ensured that white elites continued to dominate
and that the African Americans would remain excluded.

The landmark U.S. Supremes Court case Plessy v Ferguson, 1896, confirmed
constitutionality of racial segregation based on the "separate but equal" doctrine. Yet,
historian Allen C. Guelzo writes that those facilities given to black Americans were far
from equal compared to whites, with the result that in every direction lay second-class
citizenship for African Americans.(HSY2601 Assessment 4 S2…) The legal
entrenchment of segregation not only deepened racial inequality but also reinforced an
ideology of white supremacy dominant in much of the social and political talk of the
time.

Economic Exploitation: Sharecropping and Debt Peonage The new economic

relationship between black and white post-slavery was a mechanism of the exploitative
labor system that had at the forefront the sharecropping system and debt peonage.
Most of the newly freed African Americans had no access to either land or sources of
financing. Under this system, black farmers would work a portion of the land and give a
share of their crops to the landowner in exchange for the use of the land and
equipment. In practice, however, sharecropping often resulted in a cycle of debt since
black farmers were being charged exorbitant prices for seeds, tools, and other
necessities that made it nearly impossible for them to break free from poverty.

As Gregory P. Downs underlines, "Sharecropping was little more than a new form of
slavery in economic terms, binding African Americans to the land and keeping them
dependent on white landowners."(HSY2601 Assessment 4 S2…) The system of debt
peonage further exacerbated this economic exploitation, with many black laborers
forced to work off debts that were impossible to repay. This kept African Americans
subordinate economically, ensuring that the economic division between black and white
people continued to persist for a good while after slavery was over.

Social Segregation and Racial Violence

Besides this, social segregation played a major part in the unequal relations between
blacks and whites within the post-slavery period. Through systematic exclusion from
public space, education, and services intended for whites, African Americans were
treated as subordinate citizens. This was upheld with both legal tools, namely the Jim
Crow laws, and informal social practices enforced by the whites themselves. As Nell
Irvin Painter says, "Segregation was not merely a matter of law; it was a deeply
ingrained social custom that reinforced the notion of white supremacy."(HSY2601
Assessment 4 S2…)
The social order was policed by racial violence, which was an accustomed tool applied
for that matter. White supremacist groups-most notably, the Ku Klux Klan-employed
terror tactics, not limited to lynching, as methods to intimidate and further subjugate
African Americans. It was more implicit in the pace at which lynchings and other forms
of racist violence occurred that foretold an uphill predicament for blacks within American
society.

Yet, most times, the police were either unmindful of those actions or seriously involved
in them, enhancing marginalization against African Americans and making races farther
from each other

Reconstruction Failure

Reconstruction, the period between 1865 and 1877, was the time when the future of
African Americans had a chance to take a different route as the federal government was
trying to rebuild the South and integrate former slaves into political and social life. Some
Radical Republicans immediately began pressing Congress for legislation that would
continue the war against the South and guarantee the security and enfranchisement of
the freedpeople, establishing the Freedmen's Bureau and passing civil rights laws. Yet,
as Eric Foner says, "Reconstruction was ultimately a missed opportunity to
fundamentally transform Southern society."(HSY2601 Assessment 4 S2…) Indeed, the
withdrawal of federal troops in 1877 and its imposition of white supremacist "Redeemer"
governments brought an effective close to any attempt at racial equality worthy of the
name.

The collapse of Reconstruction allowed white elites to reclaim their hegemony over
Southern politics and society and to restore much of the antebellum South's
exclusionary practices. And thepledges of civil rights and land for the former slaves
were never met, while the dream of racial equality proved little more than an illusion.

Social Darwinism and Scientific Racism

Apart from legal, economic, and social factors, the unequal relations between black and
white people were influenced by ideologies such as Social Darwinism and scientific
racism. Social Darwinism applied the theory of natural selection to human societies,
with racial hierarchies thus being seen as natural consequences of evolution. This
ideology legitimized the continued subjugation of African Americans because it
expressed the belief that African Americans were inherently, biologically inferior to
whites. Scientific racism, or the idea that used the pretense of "science" to prove that
whites were a superior race, also gained traction at this time. Further support for the
intellectual and moral inferiority of black people came through phrenology, craniometry,
and other forms of pseudoscience. All of the above culminated in further manifestation
through social and political inequality between the races.

Conclusion

Abolition marked a milestone in the struggle for freedom, not equality. Racial
segregation empowered through legislation, economic exploitation through
sharecropping and debt peonage, social segregation, and racial violence have been
underpinning unequal relations between black and white people in 19th-century US
society. The failure of Reconstruction, with the rise of Social Darwinism and scientific
racism, made sure that African Americans remained marginalized and oppressed, thus
shutting off any prospects for equality given to them by emancipation. The legacy of
those inequalities would go on to shape the contours of race relations for decades into
the future.
Bibliography

 Foner, Eric. The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction
Remade the Constitution. W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

 Guelzo, Allen C. Reconstruction: A Concise History. Oxford University Press,

2018.

 Downs, Gregory P. The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle
Over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic. University of North
Carolina Press, 2020.

 Painter, Nell Irvin. The History of White People. W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.