Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890

12. The AMA and the White Community

The AMA and the White Community ~1~_ _ _ _~'!. CONFLICT between northern teachers and southern whites was IE inevitable in the postwar South. Hatred, fueled by years of sectional discord and the war, was intense. Augusta J. Evans of Mobile reflected the views ofmany southerners. In late 1865 she accompanied her brother to consult aNew York physician, and while there "freely expressed her abhorence of the principles and people of the North. Nothing but the desire to save my brothers' life," she confided to a friend, "would have induced me to visit a section, which ... I cordially detest." An AMA teacher stationed in Louisiana during the war concluded in November 1865 that hatred of northerners was actually increasing. Yankees generally were not widely admired in the South and freedmen's teachers were even less so. Those who fought so determinedly for slavery could hardly be expected to welcome "abolitionist emissaries" among their former chattels. When an association agent visited a fellow Presbyterian, an Atlanta pastor, in December 1865, social relations were pleasant but the minister stated "fully & frankly" that the southern cause was just and that he was "only sorry" it did not succeed. "And in all the efforts ofour church to help the Freedmen or in his elevation," the agent reported, "he can not wish us success."l Initially, black education found little favor among southern whites. A Kentucky Bureau agent's claim of white "malignant hostility" was confirmed by southern testimony. A Louisiana physician and planter confessed that there was "a bitter prejudice" against freedmen's schools, and a former Mississippi slaveholder agreed that "unfortunate though deep seated" opposition to educating former slaves would frustrate any attempts in that direction. An American Missionary Association agent in Missouri concluded that "the bushwhacking miscreants and unrepentant rebels" there could "be civilized in no way so well as 213 214 CHRISTIAN RECONSTR UCTION to furnish and sustain colored schools among them; but they swear vengeance on the attempt." A few prominent whites cautiously supported black education. Howell Cobb privately admitted that freed people should have some learning, as did Ben Yancey, brother ofthe famous fire-eater William L. Yancey. A former master purchased books for an Atlanta student and helped him with his studies. The master's daughter was teaching the youth's mother and sister to read. But a Mississippi Bureau agent's evaluation ofwhite attitudes applied generally to all ofthe former Confederate states. There was a small minority, he said, who saw the propriety of educating blacks, yet opposition by enemies was "so virulent , and hatred is so much more active a principle than faint and uninterested approval" that implementation of an educational system would be hazardous. An AMA supporter in Louisiana, who directed that the American Missionary be sent to four men in the interior, requested that it be wrapped in order "to guard the receivers . . . from the abuse ofthose who hate the principles you advocate."2 Whites opposed black education for reasons that seemed logical to them. It had been forbidden to slaves, and most saw no need to change that policy with emancipation. Moreover, states which had "looked with criminal indifference" upon the education of the white masses were not likely to be enthusiastic about training freedmen. A more obvious reason for resisting black schools involved the issue of control. Blacks wished to assert their independence, while whites were just as determined to retain economic and social domination over former slaves. The school was discerned as a direct threat to white supremacy . Still others agreed with a former Confederate colonel from Virginia that the idea of freedmen's schools was not so much repugnant as it was "absurd and ridiculous." Whites chuckled at talk of educating blacks, the editor of De Bow's Review said, because they "have been accustomed to the idea that the negroes are pretty stupid." Some "well meaning" women informed a 'young Arkansas teacher that she was wasting northern money and her own energy on those "poor creatures," since God's curse on blacks made efforts to improve them fruitless-she could better spend her time with poor whites who were capable of advancement. The following sarcastic comment in the Richmond Times was typical of, though less bitter than, many newspaper responses to black education. "White cravatted gentlemen from The AMA and the White Community 215 Andover with a nasal twang, and pretty Yankee girls with the smallest...