Freeing the United States Slaves 1862-1866

Juneteenth is a good day to post something to look at the history of US slavery coming to an end in 1865 (and surprisingly into 1866, which I did not know). Also as a Civil War historian (more on the financial side, but it is all linked), thought I would shed some light on the differences between the Emancipation Proclamation (both preliminary and issued in final form), how that document freed slaves and which ones and when (map highlighted above), Juneteenth, the 13th Amendment, and the Treaties of 1866 with the 5 Tribes.

In addition to African Americans escaping slavery via the underground RR and other means before and during the US Civil War, we find that on:

Sept 22, 1862 – US President Lincoln issues preliminary Emancipation Proclamation saying that on January 1, 1863, slaves held in areas still in rebellion would be forever free. He did this to attempt to entice the CSA states to rejoin the Union in 1862 by allowing them to keep their slaves. He also did this to help keep European nations such as the British Empire and France from supporting the Confederacy as there was widespread antislavery sentiment in Europe by this time.

January 1, 1863 – US President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation carrying out his promise made on Sept 22, 1862. In and of itself, the Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves on that day. It required the Union Army to conquer Confederate held territory to enforce it. Slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and parts of Missouri were not freed under this, nor were they freed in western Virginia, parts of northern and coastal Virginia, parts of coastal NC, SC and Florida, northern Mississippi and norther Alabama, southeast Louisiana, northern Arkansas nor most of Tennessee all of which were held by the Union at that point.

April-July 1863 – US General Grant invades central Mississippi as part of Vicksburg campaign – first major campaign that freed significant numbers of slaves.

May-December 1864 – US General Sherman invades Georgia and marches to the sea – frees large numbers of slaves along the way, but since he does not occupy Georgia, a good number are captured by Confederate cavalry after Sherman passes through, though others do escape that fate.

Fall 1864 – US General Sheridan burns the Shenandoah Valley and frees large numbers of slaves.

Jan-May 1865 – Carolina and Alabama invasions free large numbers of slaves.

May 26 1865 – CS General Kirby-Smith surrenders Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River.

June 19 1865 – Juneteenth - US General Gordon Granger's orders given on June 19th, 1865 read "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer." Just a few weeks earlier, the men of the 36th US Colored Troops arrived in Texas, where they remained until mustered out in 1866, ending four years that began with them escaping to Union lines in North Carolina from the plantations where they were enslaved. (copied from a John Kraljevich post). Since Texas was all CSA controlled territory Jan 1 1863, while the Emancipation Proclamation applied to all of Texas – it required Union troops control of the area to enforce; that freedom was announced along with the beginning of implementation on this day.

June 23 1865 – CS Native American General Watie surrenders Native American CS allied troops (Cherokee and Choctaw and others) in Indian Territory (now known as Oklahoma). Last Confederate troops to surrender.

December 6, 1865 – 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolishes slavery and frees remaining slaves in Union controlled territories as of Jan 1 1863.

Treaties of 1866 – Last slaves held legally in US or its territories freed in Indian Territory.

Although the Cherokee Nation had resolved to remain neutral at the outset of the Civil War in April 1861, by October they entered into a treaty to join the Confederate cause. The reason, they argued in that document, was that the “Cherokee people had its origin in the South; its institutions are similar to those of the Southern States, and their interests identical with theirs.” In addition, they painted the war as one of “Northern cupidity and fanaticism against the institution of African servitude; against the commercial freedom of the South, and against the political freedom of the States.”

But by the following fall, with the Nation sorely divided as thousands of Cherokee fled to Union lines, the Cherokee Council abrogated its treaty alliance with the Confederacy. On Feb. 19, 1863 — shortly after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect — the Cherokee Nation issued An Act Providing for the Abolition of Slavery in the Cherokee Nation, which called for “the immediate emancipation of all Slaves in the Cherokee Nation.” In a treaty ratified on July 27, 1866, the Cherokee Nation declared that those Freedmen “and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees.” (from a Time magazine article)

The Five Tribes involved themselves in the Civil War militarily to preserve their practice of slavery and to fight for political autonomy. Members of all nations served on both the Union and Confederate sides of the war, and several battles took place within Indian Territory. After the war, the treaties signed between the US and all five of these slaveholding Native American nations, called the Treaties of 1866, ended wartime hostilities and freed and enfranchised people of African descent. These treaties were part of a larger American mission to take over Native American land and included land cessions and American settlement and railway construction in Indian Territory. (by Alaina E Roberts 26 Dec 2018)