Testimony before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction on Atrocities in the South against Blacks

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The most powerful testimony came from the small group of black men who testified before the committee. Although they received some condescending questions from some committee members (particularly Democrats opposed to the whole process), who asked if they had any “white blood” or could read and or write, the black deponents responded patiently and with great detail about freedpeople’s desire to live peaceably and build a better life.

They testified to the mistreatment of freedpeople by white southerners and the need for increased federal protection. The physician Daniel Norton, living in Yorktown, Virginia, testified that he believed freedpeople would be “hunted and killed” if federal troops were removed. As a doctor working among the black community, he was in a position to observe their relationship with local whites. He related how numerous freedmen had not been paid their wages and how their white employers threw them off the land and sold the crops that the freedmen had raised. The employers then dared the freedmen to complain to the government. He insisted that freedpeople were “law-abiding citizens” who loved the federal government and wanted nothing more than to work hard and be productive.

Like Norton, the Reverend William Thornton told of the violence freedpeople endured from whites. In his testimony, Thornton recalled how a white man became enraged at his mention of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in a sermon and told Thornton that once the troops and the Freedmen’s Bureau were gone, “we will put you to rights” and promised to break up the black churches. Thornton also recounted how a white man shot a neighboring black man who had unintentionally trespassed on the white man’s property.

The black witnesses also negated the contentions of many southern deponents that blacks were lazy and indolent and that they committed breaches of the peace by drinking, carrying weapons, and acting aggressively toward whites. Madison Newby, a landowner, related how he had gone to the county courthouse to pay his taxes but found no federal agent there to take them, so he held on to the money, fearing that disloyal southerners would pocket it. He insisted that blacks wanted to work and would work diligently for decent pay. He reminded the committee that as slaves, blacks were used to hard work. He said that in Surrey County whites would tie blacks up by the thumbs if they did not consent to work for low wages. Newby also testified that whites continued to patrol black neighborhoods, searching their houses, confiscating valuables, and terrorizing the residents.

Richard Hill, a former slave from Hampton, reassured the committee that blacks had no intentions of “amalgamating” with the whites. However, Hill did point out that during the years of slavery, white men frequently had sexual relations with black women, and he suspected that this would continue. White southerners and opponents of Radical Reconstruction argued that interracial marriage would result from extending civil and political rights to freedpeople.

Alexander Dunlop had aided Union troops by giving them information about the local area and had suffered because of it. He was considered a “Union man” and targeted for special abuse by former Confederates. He insisted that freedpeople were anxious to get an education. Because they were poor, however, and whites threatened teachers and drove them away, they needed assistance from the government.

Thomas Bain, living and working as a Methodist missionary in Norfolk, told how whites tricked freedpeople into believing that the military officials had ordered them to punish blacks. Because they did not want to disobey the government, Bain said, freedpeople often submitted to being whipped. Like the others, however, Bain also spoke of freedpeople’s eagerness for education and independence.

Finally, Edmund Parsons, formerly a slave, testified that before he was emancipated he always felt “secure” with whites but that now he stood in fear of them. He testifies to the threats that had been made against him and describes how he had been evicted from his house. He also indicates that the African Americans he knows would like to become educated and are grateful for any education they receive.