Of earlier discussions about the meaning of fremont when we thought about free communities, free black folks in the north and the south and how we came up with this way of representing freedom as freedom with a line through it. Not quite freedom to freedom. Right, this question of freedom and what did it mean. And so, for today were going to be talking about what did freedom mean and in particular, well be thinking about what did freedom mean to the free people, right. And in 19 january of 1865, secretary of war, Edwin Stanton and Union GeneralWilliam Sherman had a meeting with 20 preachers in savannah, georgia, and they wanted to find out from these preachers basically what is it that free people wanted from freedom . What did they expect and particularly wanted to know what did they expect in the aftermath of the emancipation proclamation. The group of 20 people, who was representative of free black folks in the community, selected one person, garrison frazier, a 67yearold man, to be the representative of the community. And to speak for them. And so, general sherman asked them or asked him, basically, what did he understand freedom to mean, especially in light of the emancipation rock cla mags. He said taking us from under the yolk of bon damage to where we can reap the fruit of our labor and assist the government in maintaining our freedom. You can hear some of the language from the emancipation proclamation. He talked about sort of having the people who were emancipated serve in the military, go to work, and do that diligently. Hes reflecting that. But hes also reflecting, you know, the ability to reap the fruits of their labor so theyre going to get the benefit of their labor, right. The secretary and the general asks other questions like could black people take care of themselves . Yes, they could. What did they need . Land. Did they want to live among white people . Some did, but garrison frazier did not. So in this discussion we can start to see what it is that free people wanted from their lives, even as its couched in this sort of governmental exploration of what was freedom going to mean for the free people. They were already asserting what it is they wanted freedom to mean, what they wanted freedom to be. Im saying this is building on our conversations of freedom and free black life and how precarious it was. We were moving to a moment where freedom could mean something more. Were going to think about what did that freedom mean when we think about it from the perspective of the free people. One of the other things were connecting into from the earlier part of the term has to do with the question of how do black people appear on the landscape of the United States, right. We started at the very beginning of the term talking about whether or not black peoples experience in the United States is something about black people, identity formation or about pushing the nation as people have said to live out the true meaning of its creed. Well think about the question whether or not free people were pushing the meaning of what this nation was supposed to be and what its founding documents sort of claimed for it. In the process of doing that well start to see how it is when people talk about, historians write about emancipation and the moment of reconstruction that sometimes the question is framed the way that sherman and stanton framed it, which is basically what can the free people do for the country. And then theres this question of what did the free people want for themselves . And when we think about the sort of longer process, well talk about over the remaining weeks over reconstruction and what happened, a lot of times what is it free people wanted for themselves gets crowded out by the question of what could they do for the nation. Im hoping today we can keep both of those questions in balance here to think about the relationship of free people to the nation in the project of building and more prominently what it is free people wanted for themselves. One of the a couple of ways well get at that is thinking about the first sites of freedom. The first places where free people lived, where they went to, basically these they were called contraband camps. Ill get into the language and why. But then really spending a majority of our time thinking about how free people define freedom and its many aspects of their lives. I wanted to start out with some of the what i call sort of the first fa langs of freedom. Thats the black soldiers, right. And when we think about sort of black soldiers, many of them were free black men who enlisted to support the union effort. Some of them were selfemancipating men who liberated themselves from slavery and went and joined the union ranks. But it was a real debate about whether or not enslaved men, free black men should support the war effort. And you can think about reasons why. If you think about what the experience of African People was in the American Revolution, for example, and sort of thinking a about what happened after the American Revolution. Did they realize the freedom that the American Revolution promised . No. Thats why we have the graphic of freedom with a line through it. They had freedom but it wasnt a full freedom or complete freedom. So it was a debate whether black men should support the war effort. And eventually they do. They enlist after the emancipation proclamation because it becomes a war measure to enlist black men and support the union effort but they do it anyway, believing they could again demonstrate the commitment to the union, the principles of the nation, and that would reflect well on African People that they were participating in this process. Some refused, right. Some black men refused to enlist and others were pressed and forced into the army, even on the union side. It wasnt all soldiers who participated were sort of ready to jump in for the war effort. But many did. And, in fact, they made up about 10 of the union army. About 25 of the union navy. So there was a significant buy in for black soldiers. And when they participated in the war, they often times, in terms of leadership, didnt get competent leadership because they were laboring under the systems of racism and oppression that kept them from getting the primary sort of leaders. And they were sometimes denied the ability to hold the commissioned positions as leaders. But eventually they were allowed to gain some commissions. So they had some leadership role. They were oftentimes placed at the forefront. Sometimes called like cannon fodder. Sort of put nit front lines of different wattlbattles so they suffered the greatest numbers of casualties as a result of the service. They suffered casualties because of them being placed on the front lines, but also the tenor of the war was so charged at points that they would sort of experience extreme violence because they were free black men or free black men but they were viewed as being sort of runaway slaves or Something Like that. So at fort pillow in tennessee, there were sort of a group of black soldiers and it basically ends up as a massacre of union troops trying to surrender. The black soldiers were oftentimes on the front lines, thats what happened at fort pillow in tennessee where they were basically hold up in a fort and they the Union Soldiers were trying to escape. And when they tried to escape from the fort, they believed that there was going to be sort of transport waiting for them. It turned out there wasnt. As theyre trying to escape and surrender, they were basically massacred and shot as they were fleeing from the fort. And a similar situation happened in the battle of the crater where there were black soldiers on the front effort and as they rushed into what was a sort of blown up sort of mine area, they were massacred as the confederate soldiers were shouting no quarter. They would not be allowed to surrender. That they would only sort of end they could have would be death. So we can see how black soldiers were leading the cause of the war by sort of articulating how they could be supportive of the union. We can see how they were sort of thinking through and struggling under some of the limitations, including being denied pay. That was something that happened early on, they were denied pay and some of them refused to be paid until they were getting paid the same amount as white soldiers, the same in terms of compensation in terms of wages and clothing and things like that. But the other thing they did in the leadership in the war effort was helping to secure freedom for their families. Ill talk about the contraband camps and how enslaved people were liberating themselves but one of the things that happened for the men who served in the military, they were able to gain freedom for their wives and for their children. Right. So they were able to figure out that by serving in the union they could also gain freedom for their families and children. We also know that when it comes to pursuing freedom, its not always sometimes its viewed as an individual sort of moment and we talked about that where people make choices for themselves, but also people make choices for their families and their communities. And so, when we start to think about some of the first freedoms and the places where enslaved people started to find their first freedoms it was in the contraband camps. It was the places where enslaved people ran to the union lines when they heard there was a union army in the area. They would go because they knew that there could be they could find freedom there. They knew what the significance of the war was. This is significant because sometimes people think enslaved people didnt know what was going on, but they did. They had a robust Communication Network that shared messages about what was happening in the lead up to the war so when the union came to their areas they understood what it meant. So one of the first places of freedom was fortress monroe, in virginia, near hampton virginia, in 1861. We find the first freedoms were both this moment of a political crisis for the nation and a humanitarian crisis and its at the hands of enslaved people who were liberating themselves into freedom. The second place is port royal, South Carolina, which was viewed as a rehearsal of reconstruction, the first moment of figuring out what the reconstruction process would look like. So in fortress monroe, virginia, there were three enslaved men who ran they ran from the person who was enslaving them, he was a colonel in the confederate army, they ran to fortress monroe and said they didnt want to work anymore for the confederate colonel who was their enslaiver. When they got there, general butler had no plan exactly for a what to do in a situation like that. What was he going to do with these men liberating themselves coming from slavery. He thought quickly how to handle their situation and determined these men should be treated like contraband. Contraband was an idea he pulled from International Law that said basically any goods are being transported by any neutral parties could be for the benefit of the enemy could be confiscated as contraband. So he decided he would deem these men as contraband but also recognized quickly that that idea of treating these human beings like property wasnt really a workable idea and also realized it was a conflict what was the union going to do with these people now that theyre deeming them as property as well but they didnt want to hold formerly enslaved people as property. But in this moment it starts to lay out, right, the landscape for by which the union can start to think about these selfemancipating men as potential laborers for the war and echventually as soldiers. He started by putting the men to work in the union camps. Good work around for the time being. They had to figure out what that was going to mean much later. But what ends up happening is not only are men coming to camps like it, but there are also women coming, there are children coming, there are elderly people coming. They couldnt imagine how they could easily absorb that labor into the war project so it becomes a question what do we do with these people, how do we navigate . He starts to create a work camp, essentially, and under the union guard, and have these people work for the union. Have women doing laundry, cooking and things like that, taking care of the elderly they brought with them. He didnt see that he could let the families what else was he going to do with them . So that starts to push the sort of Political Landscape of emancipation. And in port royal, South Carolina we can see how the contraband camps pushed the social and culture aspects of emancipation. There to you have sort of union presence. You have selfemancipating enslaved people, but you have the influence of religious communities that start to set up basically what a humanitarian crisis response. How do we take care of, add resources to the people who are emancipating themselves in South Carolina. They envisioned, right, these northern missionaries, called themselves gideons band. And they imagined themselves going down to help people in need of resources. They imagined themselves going down to teach formerly enslaved people how to become citizens, how to labor diligently, reproduce families, and imagine themselves creating religious community and they were shocked to find that they were Robust Networks already for education. There was already robust education for churches and people have been taking care of their own spiritual lives they were already pushing the landscape of what it meant to be free in terms of their families. But nevertheless they set up what could look like other elements of reconstruction. In terms of establishing the establishing some of the landscape for what how the government would interact with free people, which later becomes the freemans bureau. Or which is the freemans bureau at this point and other elements. In these first moments you have the contraband camps created by the free people running to union lines and the union army having to sort of adapt and figure out politically what are we going to do . Socially, culturally, what are we going to do, how do we support these communities even if they initially thought they would be leading these communities. But if we turn and look a little bit more deeply at this question of sort of what did it mean to be free from the perspective of selfemancipating folks, theres a pretty robust landscape of information to start thinking about. What did it mean in terms of labor, their mental, intellectual pursuits, their personal goals for their families, themselves, their own bodies, their political goals, in terms of government, Office Holding all those things, religious community and even geography and movement. So what did it mean to be free . One of the key areas, so we already heard from garrison frazier what the free people wanted was land. They wanted to be able to be independent, but land was an important part of it, and they wanted control of their labor. They wanted to be able to get the fruits of their own labor. One of the ways we sort of get a picture of what it is that free people wanted was from the now pretty famous letter of a formerly enslaved man named Jordan Anderson, writing to his former enslaver about his response really to his enslavers request that he return to the plantation that he left from and return to work. And one of the things that jordan, he basically, very memorably challenges the former enslaver about the ways he treated him, the violence he visited upon him and his family, and then he says basically in dayton, ohio where he is, hes able to work, get paid every week. His wife is sort of able to be respected and called by her name, as mrs. Anderson. He calculates, you know, how much money he would get in back pay if his former enslaver were to basically, you know, pay him the hourly wage that he gets now for the years of service he had done without pay, if he would compensate mandy for her labor as well. And then if we subtract the amounts for any care that was meted out for them while they were enslaved, he estimated the amount owed to them would be about 11,680, in 19th century dollars. Right. So a pretty significant amount. Hes like if youre willing to pay me that and guarantee other things well come back. Hes having this moment of im not doing that but letting his former enslaver know this is what the wages are, i want to be respected for the work that i did, compensated for the work i do. In another instance, in terms of labor and sort of controlling labor and getting the fruits of their labor, there was an enslaved woman down in georgia, in 1860s and she was sort of known for and disciplined a few times for going and putting on her the enslaving womans perfume. And sort of going into the vanity and sort of, you know, putting on a little bit of makeup and, you know, looking at herself in the mirror, take a side profile or whatever. So shes known for doing this and was disciplined for it a few times. For her thats what freedom was going to mean, the ability to do that and not policed in that way. She may have responded after emancipation the same way another enslaved woman did when she was sort of disciplined for not responding appropriately or quickly enough, she said bells is played out. Thats over. That time is over. So theres a sense of like im going to control my labor and im going to sort of push back against those systems of sort of disciplining black labor that had been existent at the time. Some people wanted to not labor at all. They didnt want to have to work for anybody, they didnt want anybody to control their labor bo. One of the ways it manifested itself, not to labor but control the labor of the family, the children or the wives that wanted to be home, so this idea of choosing not to labor was another choice that free people wanted, or to labor for themselves, right. And to be able to gain the fruits of their labor from the plows of their own hands and what they were able to produce for themselves. That manifested itself because as garrison frazier pointed out and as we know, enslaved people were liberated without land. So they had to secure land from their secure land from the landowners and engage in sharecropper where they gain a portion of the crop and sort of profit from that, or from having crop liens where they own their own land, right, they would sort of grown their own crops and have a portion of that crop they have to give to the landowner or to the person who was assisting them. But all this was not on the best terms for the formerly enslaved people, r