The Negro in the Reconstruction of Florida, 1865-1877 (review)

378civil war history laws than with similar mihtary regulations. Finally, why these army and bureau measures furnished "bad" examples for southern legislatures is hard to see. Wilson tends to assume that the best test of whether a law is "discriminatory " is whether its provisions specifically refer by name to Negroes er freedmen. Thus, as in the case of a Mississippi law punishing certain misdemeanors when committed by Negroes, he too often labels a law discriminatory without explaining how whites might be punished under other statutes for the same offenses. He also gives insufficient attention to the enforcement of the codes by local officials. Chapter six, entitled "The Campaign Against Reunion," requires special notice. Wilson demonstrates that the Radicals misrepresented the codes and magnified their harsh features, and he concludes that on the whole the sentiment against a speedy reunion was intensified by the codes but did not originate in them. Unfortunately, eighteen pages of the chapter are not fully relevant to the Black Codes, being a scissors-and-paste assemblage of thirty indented quotes—a stylistic device which the author greatly overuses—from politicians, abolitionists, ministers, and literary figures on the general subject of reunion. Since the text of this book only embraces 152 pages to begin with, those eighteen are precious and would have been better employed in elaborating the numerous crucial topics left undeveloped. As to the motives of southern legislators, Wilson concludes that there was no general desire to re-enslave the Negroes. His treatment of the attitudes of the governor and legislature of South Carolina seems erroneous , however, in view of letters from General Sickles to Grant and O. O. Howard. In the light of current reconstruction historiography Wilson's findings are significant, particularly his summation that, considering all factors, the Black Codes were "surprisingly mild" and represented a gain for southern Negroes. Because this book treats a generally glossed-over subject, it fills a need. But I wish it filled that need, as it easily could have done, a litde better. James E. Sefton San Fernando Valley State College The Negro in the Reconstruction of Florida, 1865-1877. By Joe M. Richardson. (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1965. Pp. xi, 255. $7.00.) This book consists of topical studies of Negro social, economic and religious life during the reconstruction era, of the work of the Freedmen's Bureau, and of pohtical aspects of reconstruction in Florida. Students of the period will not find in this work interpretations which are not fairly well known; they will, however, appreciate the presentation in one volume of much information concerning the Negro people of Florida in a manner which stresses the difficulties that they faced and which points to their book reviews379 significant accomplishments without overlooking their shortcomings. Although this work will be classed as a revisionist book, it contains a mixture of old and revisionist views. Some of its coverage and several of its interpretations are in fact quite similar to those of William Watson Davis' The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida. Richardson even illustrates more clearly than the older writer could the coercion of reluctant Negro agricultural workers by the Federal mihtary authorities and the role of the Freedmen's Bureau in establishing the sharecropping system. His evaluation of the work of conservative whites and Republicans in drawing up a constitution which guaranteed white pohtical dominance and which made possible liberal public services is not new. Also, it was Davis who first noted that the terms "scalawag" and "carpetbagger" were "loaded with opprobrium and contempt" and that Radical Republican finances possessed some virtues. The treatment of education, religion, Negro politicians, and lawlessness and the author's general attitude toward the Negro and Radical Republican rule constitute the heart of this book's revisionist outlook. It shows that Negroes gained a great deal from the educational work of the Freedmen's Bureau and from the public school system begun by the Republicans, although that system permitted segregation and benefited whites the more. It portrays the growth of independent churches—the one worth-while type of segregation—as a movement that provided Negroes with a "symbol of freedom," but it admits that there was "considerable disagreement as to...