Plain Folks Struggle: Southern Yeoman Farmers and Their Reasons for opposing Emancipation Life for yeoman

farmers in the South was always a constant struggle, a struggle to farm with inadequate equipment or help, a struggle to earn a living in a rich mans farming economy and in many cases a constant struggle just to survive. As America began to be split into half and the South prepared for war, one large concern was on the minds of most yeoman farmers in the South other than war. It was the fear of emancipation in America. Emancipation in America brought about economic, social, and political changes that negatively affected most yeomen farmers way of life, thus causing some plain folks of the South to oppose emancipation. Many people may believe most yeoman farmers in the South opposed emancipation because it abolished slavery in America, eliminating the free labor system slavery created in the South. Yet many yeoman farmers owned very few, if any slaves at all. As Mark Wetherington stated in his book From Yeoman to Redneck, Emancipation threatened not only to bring about social and political inequality, but also an economic catastrophe, for the yeoman farmers of the South.1 This paper will introduce its readers to a different side of southern opposition for emancipation. Often times much attention is focused on the elite plantation owners of the South and their reasons for opposing emancipation. This paper will instead take a look at the common folk of the South, the yeoman farmers, and their reasons for opposing emancipation other than the free slave labor emancipation took away. For most yeoman farmers in the South emancipation brought major changes to their lives, adding to the everyday struggles they endured.

Stephen West, From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry , 1850-1950, (Richmond: University Press of Virginia, 2005), 70

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Since the vast majority of the population in the South was the yeoman farmers who owned very few if any slaves, the abolishment of slavery was not always the main reason some yeoman farmers opposed emancipation. This paper will show its readers other reasons than that of slavery that caused some yeoman farmers in the South to oppose emancipation. Emancipation brought many hardships to yeoman farmers in the South. First this paper will show the more obvious changes emancipation brought to the yeoman farmers, the economic changes. Then the readers will be taken through the social changes emancipation brought to the yeoman farmers. Finally this paper will introduce its readers to the political changes emancipation brought to the South, causing many yeoman farmers to oppose it. Since the abolishment of slavery was not a major concern of the many yeoman farmers who owned few or no slaves, many may have not heavily opposed emancipation at its beginning. Yet after emancipation brought the economic, social, and political changes in the South many yeoman farmers did in fact oppose it after emancipation was set forth and these changes were delivered. Southern Farmers Yeoman farmers in the South, at the most basic level, were the poor white farmers who owned very few slaves, if any at all. Many yeoman farmers lived on small plots of land and farmed with their families and in some cases a few slaves, for a self sufficient living. Smith Simmons, an ex-slave described his experience working for a yeoman farmer and his family in an oral account taken by a Works Progress Administration employee in the 1930s as follows. The place we lived on was very small. There were only three families living on it. Each family ate in their own house. There wasnt no quarters or eating kitchen like the big places had. The place had a big garden for the white folks and the slaves.____________________________ _____________ ___________________. My Masters name was Mr. Dick Baylock. His wife was Miss Janie. They had seven children My white folks lived in a common box
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house____ _______________________. They did not have an overseer or driver, Master looked after everything himself.2 Dick Baylock, the Master of Simmons, was what a typical southern yeoman farmer in the south, and lived a life very different from that of an elite southern planter. Yeoman farmers and the elite plantation owners of the South were greatly invested in the southern agriculture business, but for many different reasons. They were very different economically, socially, and politically from their counterparts, the elite large plantation owners of the South. These elite southern farmers owned many slaves and farmed large plots of land on which they grew mostly cash crops, such as cotton, to earn maximum profit. Most of the farmers in both groups opposed emancipation, but their reasons for opposing it were very different. Much like their reasons for opposing emancipation were very different, the lives of the southern elite plantation owners and yeoman farmers were different as well. The life for many yeoman farmers was very different from the elite planters who they often sided with opposing emancipation. The life of a yeoman farmer could in fact transition into one of the elite planters. The difference between a yeoman and planter often times relied on the style of farming one did. Yeoman farmers usually farmed with no or very few slaves and their goal was to farm for self sufficiently. The elite planters of the South owned a plantation that composed of many slaves, and farmed a cash crop in hope of obtaining a maximum profit. These two classes do in fact transition into each other, as some yeoman strived to increase the number of slaves they owned, increase the size of their farms, and increase their passion in the social structure in hope of one day achieving the status of an elite planter.3

Smith Simmonss WPA oral interview, 1930, in Mississippi: A Documentary History. Edited by Bradley Bond, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi 2003), 71 3 Stephen A. West, From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850-1950, 17

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John Horton, an elite southern plantation owner in the Georgia upcountry could be found at the top of the social and economic hierarchy anywhere in the antebellum South. Horton owned twenty-five slaves and more than one thousand acres of crops in Jackson County Georgia. Horton grew crops such as oats, corn, beans, and sweet potatoes and owned over one hundred heads of livestock helping him produce a maximum profit each year from his harvest. Horton was among the top of the planting elite in the antebellum South.4 Farmers such as John Horton would have been seen as an elite planter in the South. Richard White, who also resided in Jackson County, was seen as the more typical Southern farmer. White farmed fifty acres of his land with just the help of his family and sometimes a hired hand if one could be afforded. White farmed more focused on growing food for self sufficiency rather than obtaining a large profit. All of Whites attention was focused on farming beans, grains, potatoes, and peas to feed his family. White also raised livestock, owning a few cows, horses, and oxen on his small farm.5 White was the typical Southern yeoman farmer, or the plain folk of the South. The difference in the lives of farmers such as Horton and White was very significant. Horton was of the planting elite who owned many slaves, and White was a yeoman farmer who owned no slaves. If both men opposed emancipation their reasons for opposing it would have been very different as well. For most yeoman farmers such as White, emancipation would not directly affect the labor system on their farms, since many yeoman farmers did not rely heavily on slave labor. In fact in some areas in states such as South Carolina statistics show a very small number of farmers

Steven Hann, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 26 5 Steven Hann, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890, 26

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owned slaves. In the Pickens District of South Carolina, a farming district in the South Carolina upcountry, 309 farmers owned no slaves at all, making up almost half of the population. Of the entire farming class in the Pickens District, 96.1% of the farmers owned no slaves. Most of this 96 percent of farmers would have been yeoman farmers. Also in Pickens, 3.9% of the farmers owned slaves; most of those were the large plantation owners in the South.6 Statistics such as these shown in the Pickens district of South Carolina could often been seen in counties all over the South, showing slave owners in much of the South were the minority. Throughout the South, the rich soil and open land was farmed primarily by small yeoman farmers, who owned a very few slaves at most.7 Although these yeoman farmers had little money, land, social status, or political power in the South, compared to the large plantation owners, these plain folks of the South had a large impact on the South, as they were the Souths white majority population. Emancipation in America struck fear in the farming elite of the South by the thought of it taking away the Souths free labor that slavery provided. Even though yeoman farmers chose to side with the large plantation owners by opposing emancipation, the plain folks of the South had very different reasons for their opposition. Economic Effects Some yeoman farmers opposed emancipation because of the economic impact it had on them. Emancipation, in fact, did have a huge impact on yeoman farmers economically but since most yeoman farmers owned no slaves the economical impact emancipation had on the plain folk in the South was not as obvious as one would think. For example, local farmers and the
6

Census chart, Manuscript Census Returns of 1850 and 1860(Population and Slaves) National Archives Microfilm Services M432(1850) M653(1860): in From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850-1915, by Steven West (Charlottesville and London: University Of Virginia Press( 2008), 32 7 Lacy K. Ford, Yeoman Farmers in the late South Carolina Upcountry: Changing Production Patterns in the Later Antebellum Era. Agricultural History Journal 60, no. 4, (Columbia: University Press of South Carolina 1986), 17

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plantation masters who owned more than five slaves in Georgia belonged to an elite group that possessed more than ninety percent of Georgias wealth, while only accounting for one-fifth of white families in the state.8 Instances such as this showed emancipation would impact the slave owning class economically by taking away their free slave labor, but impact the yeoman farmers very differently. After emancipation, yeoman farmers were forced to carry most of the tax burden in their state, forced to compete with the cheap labor of newly freed slaves, and forced to make major changes in their production patterns in order to keep up with the changing agriculture market. At its most basic level it is easy to see one major reason yeoman farmers in the South opposed emancipation was the negative impact it had on the plain folks of the South economically. One very reliable source of income many yeoman farmers had in the South was tenant farming, or also later known as sharecropping. Emancipation disrupted the tenant farming many yeoman farmers did in the South for a stable source of income. Many yeoman farmers were already involved in a tenant system. Emancipation then forced yeoman farmers to compete with newly freed slaves, who were willing to work the land for much less pay and share in the profit. Many Northerners argued that abolishing slavery would create a free economy, resulting in free people without land being able to work for the large plantation owners of the South who already had the resources to establish a larger tenant system.9 Yeoman farmers strongly opposed this idea of forming a new free economy for the emancipated slaves because most yeoman farmers already were renting land from the rich farmers and involved in some type of tenant system with

Mark V. Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2005), 26
9

Harold D. Woodman, Class, Race, Politics and the Modernization of the Post antebellum South. The Journal of Southern History 63, no. 1 (1997),3

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them. Before emancipation, yeoman tenants rented land from an elite landowner for a percentage of the crops produced and a fixed quantity of a cash crop such as cotton or corn.10 After emancipation, many new freed slaves became tenants, relying on the small group of the landowning elite to allow them to farm on their land much like the yeoman farmers did in the postbellum era. After emancipation newly free blacks were beginning to be tenants, and white yeoman then had to compete against their cheap labor. Many labor contracts were written out stating the terms of the contract the tenant farmer and the land owner would agree on, such as the labor contract written on January 5, 1886 between W. R. Bath, a landlord and Ned Littlepage, a freedman. The tenant contract was stated as follows. Contract for cultivating land between W. R. Bath and freedman Ned Littlepage for the year eighteen hundred & sixty six beginning the 8th of January, Ned Littlepage agrees to cultivate a part of W. R. Baths farm on shares as follows_____________________________ half of the cotton raised, half of the potatoes and one third of the corn and fodder and also to gather had house the same._______________________________________________________ Bath is to also furnish two mules or horse to work on said farm for the cultivation of the said crop.____________________________. I Ned Littlepage agrees to pay for half of the cotton seed used, one half of the potato seed used, and one third of the pea seeds necessary to cultivate the crop11 A labor contract such as the one stated above was much less profit than what many yeoman farmers worked for before emancipation, thus allowing freedmen such as Littlepage and many others to obtain many more tenant farming jobs than the white yeoman farmers of the South. A 1980 census taken in Georgia, collected data on tenants and discovered for the first time that tenant farming grew more than the previous year, but one in four American farms were operated by tenants who were newly freed slaves.12 Evidence such as this shows that tenant

10 11

Stephen A. West, From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850-1950, 40 W.R Bath and Ned Littlepage Labor Contract, 1866, in Mississippi: A Documentary History. Edited by Bradley Bond, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi 2003), 127 12 Harold D. Woodman, Class, Race, Politics and the Modernization of the Post antebellum South., 5

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farming grew after emancipation, but the growing number of jobs were being overtaken by the newly freed slaves, which was not a good thing for the plain folk of the South. Emancipation created a whole new class of newly freed slaves, who were willing to work the lands of the plantation owners for a very cheap wage. Yeoman farmers then had to compete for these tenant jobs with these cheaper freedmen, often causing them to lose many tenant jobs they had held for many years before. Since emancipation caused many yeoman farmers to lose their tenant jobs, it can be credited for causing many yeoman farmers to oppose emancipation after it was made law in America. Also in the antebellum South some yeoman farmers worked as farm laborers. A farm laborer was very different from a tenant farmer. He was usually an unmarried young white man, hired by the month or year to work as a paid hand on neighboring farms. For the yeoman of the South who owned no land and was not a tenant, this was a source of income, which for most plain folks was hard to come by.13 After emancipation white yeoman farmers who made a living as farm laborers, like tenants, saw jobs being overtaken by the cheap labor of the newly freed slaves. For tenant farmers as well as farm laborers, emancipation brought job opportunities once held primarily by only white yeoman farmers, to freedmen. This caused the white yeoman farmers to compete for jobs with the newly freedmen which was another reason for the yeoman farmers to oppose emancipation in America.14 Emancipation also brought another negative impact for yeoman farmers in the South economically. After the Civil War the demand for cotton saw no decline, forcing the war ravaged South to continue to produce the large, worldwide demand for cotton. Since emancipation was in

13 14

Stephen A. West, From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 42 Harold D. Woodman, Class, Race, Politics and the Modernization of the Post antebellum South., 8

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place after the war, and ended slavery, elite southern farmers had no free slave labor working in their fields and were forced to hire farm hands or lease out land to produce a crop. Slaves or not, cotton was still king all throughout the South and yeoman farmers were enticed to shift production from self-sufficient farming to the high demand of the cash crop cotton, in hope of taking advantage of the high cotton prices. The abandonment of self-sufficient farming to shifting to growing cotton was not the cause of the Civil War, but that of emancipation.15 Many yeoman farmers in the South engaged in safety-first or self-sufficient farming. This was among the most common types of farming for the plain folks of the South before emancipation. For example in Anderson County, South Carolina, eighty six percent of all farmers were yeoman farmers striving for self-sufficiency farming, while the production of a surplus cash crop such as cotton was a secondary concern.16 After emancipation, cotton production in the South increased, due in part to the increased demand for the Souths most profitable crop. The increasing cotton demand turned most yeoman farmers to abandon the selfsufficient farming they had done for decades and turned to cotton farming to supply the demand for America and the rest of the world. Many yeoman farmers turned to cotton farming during this time with the high hopes of reaching the economic success the elite planters had gained from cotton in the past. Now that the elite farmers had no slaves due to emancipation, many yeoman farmers saw this as a fair opportunity to shift to cotton farming. As stated by David Weiman in his article The Economic Emancipation of the Non-Slaveholding Class: Upcountry Farmers in the Georgia Cotton Economy

15

David F. Weiman, "The Economic Emancipation of the Non-Slaveholding Class: Upcountry Farmers in the Georgia Cotton Economy." The Journal of Economic History 45, no. 1 (1985), 82
16

Lacy K. Ford, Yeoman Farmers in the late South Carolina Upcountry: Changing Production Patterns in the Later Antebellum Era., 24

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According to the recent studies by Ransom and Sutch, and Wright and Kunreuther, farmers throughout the cotton south specialized more in cotton after the Civil War. The shift to cotton they argue, caused the decline in food production on the Southern farms and increased the dependence of farm households on interregional trade for their food supplies. 17

After the Civil War and emancipation the expansion of the cotton economy pushed yeoman farmers into deeper commercial involvement in hope of reaching big economical gains from the high cotton prices. As cited in Lacy Fords article, Yeoman Farmers in the South Carolina Upcountry, many of these farmers were reluctant to part ways with the self-sufficient farming they did all their lives but was drove into the vortex of the cotton economy by the local large landowners and credit-brandishing merchants of the South, in hope of making a large profit. 18 Steven Beckert cited the cotton economy for yeoman farmers after the civil war as follows The Civil War experience had shown the non-slave owning class that cotton had entered world markets only under conditions of unsustainable high prices.19 This transformation of yeoman farmers production patterns from self-sufficient farming to cotton farming due to emancipation did much more harm than good to the yeoman farmers of the South. For example, in the Georgia upcountry, after emancipation drove many southern yeomen to turn to cotton production, the region later saw a drastic decline in cotton prices between 1866 and 1869. Years of bad harvests also followed the high cotton prices sending many yeoman farmers in the Georgia upcountry into deep debt and forever tied to the life of a struggling yeoman farmer.20
17

David F. Weiman, The Economic Emancipation of the Non-Slaveholding Class: Upcountry Farmers in the Georgia Cotton Economy., 78
18

Lacy K. Ford, Yeoman Farmers in the late South Carolina Upcountry: Changing Production Pattern s in the Later Antebellum Era., 19
19

Sven Beckert, Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War. The American Historical Review, Vol 109, No.5 (2004), 1420 20 David F. Weiman, The Economic Emancipation of the Non-Slaveholding Class: 83

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Examples such as these could be seen all over the South, as the yeoman farmers began to spiral deeper and deeper into debt trying to keep up with the vortex the cotton economy caused by emancipation, yet again showing negative impact emancipation brought economically to the plain folk of the South. As the high price of cotton drove many yeoman farmers away from self-sufficient farming to cotton farming, which lead many yeoman farmers into deep debt, some freedmen took advantage of the high cotton prices and saw a much better result than the yeoman. Since many freedmen had neither land nor equipment, they often turned to tenant farming like stated above. The freedmen had nothing to lose in a sense and just earned straight profit for their tenant work. Julia Dixon, the wife of a plantation owner, wrote a letter to her son in 1869, telling her son about the success the high cotton prices brought to the freedman they had tenant farming on their land. Dixon said in her letter where as hands are able to furnish everything the painters are offering them of the crop, and when they furnish half they give them half the crop. What an opportunity for the negro to make a fortune, at the present prices of cotton.21 As many yeoman farmers fell deep into debt after the cotton market fell in the South, the freedmen had no overhead such as land or equipment to loose, allowing freedmen to earn more profit during years of high cotton prices after the war. This also caused many yeoman farmers to oppose emancipation after it was made law in America. Emancipation in America had a drastic impact on the southern economy, an impact that affected the elite plantation owners of the Mississippi delta all the way down to the poorest plain folk in the Georgia hill country. Although emancipation hindered both classes economically, the

21

Julia Dixons letter to her son, Washington County Mississippi plantation, The First Letter, 1869, in Mississippi: A Documentary History. Edited by Bradley Bond, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi 2003), 128

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ways it affected the two classes was very different. For the elite plantation owners, emancipation took away the free labor their slaves provided by working in their fields. Since most yeomen did not own slaves, they saw very little change in the number of labor hands they had working in their fields. Emancipation forced yeoman farmers to compete with newly freed slaves in jobs such as tenant farming and farm laborers. Emancipation also caused a shift in yeoman cotton production, causing many to develop a lifetime of debt. Economic factors such as the ones stated above forced many yeoman farmers to not oppose emancipation after it was made a law in America. Social Effects Slavery has played a major role in the formation of the American social structure, from the first slave that arrived in America until the last slave was emancipated by President Lincoln more than two hundred years later. Slavery created a social ladder that benefited the richest white southern plantation owner to the poorest white yeoman farmer. As for the elite plantation owners, slavery gave them economic power. Planters who had a farm full of slaves working in their fields helped them achieve the maximum profit for every crop. Often a slave owner would be judged on how wealthy he was by the number of slaves he owned. In the South, a person would rise up or fall down the social ladder by the number of slaves they owned. Class and slavery were the determining factor of the difference between the elite plantation owners and yeoman farmers of the South. Since most yeoman farmers owned very few, if any, slaves at all, they would usually be found toward the bottom of the social ladder in the South. Slavery allowed these yeoman farmers

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a chance to move up into the elite class of plantation owners if they possessed more slaves.22 More importantly slavery insured that no matter how poor or low a yeoman farmer could get on the social ladder, he would never fall as low as a slave. As Mark Wetherington stated in his book Plain Folks Fight The lower Ocmulgees social structure found slave men, women, and children at the bottom of a society arranged around white concepts of race, class, and gender. Above the slaves were white plain folks, ranging from poor whites to yeoman farmers. At the top were planters, who though constituting powerful elite, were never less a small minority of the population. Everyone had a place or social standing in the community.23

The order of the social structure Wetherington talks about above is one that could be found all over the South. As long as slavery existed in America, poor yeoman farmers all over the South still had a chance to move up the social ladder by owning more slaves. Also the most important factor slavery brought to the social structure in the South for yeoman farmers was that no matter how poor a yeoman farmer could get or how low he fell on the social ladder, he would never be as low as a slave. Yeoman farmers could look at the social structure slavery formed in the South as a way to help them move up in social status, but never would they be at the bottom, like that of a slave. The social structure slavery formed in the South benefitted yeoman farmers greatly. Yeoman who did not directly own slaves still had the social control over all slaves due to the social structure it created.24 Emancipation took away this social control and hierarchy all white men, including the yeoman farmers, had over the slaves. Emancipation disrupted the whole

22

Stanley Engerman, "Slavery and Emancipation in Comparative Perspective: A Look at Some Recent Debates. The Journal of Economic History 46, no. 2 (1986), 324 23 Mark V. Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia, 31 24 Stephen A. West, From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850-1950, 53

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social structure slavery formed in the South. After emancipation freedmen had the opportunity to move up the social ladder as they pleased. Freedmen were able to start their own farms, businesses, or even political careers. Advancements, such as the ones stated above, allowed the newly freed slaves to move up the new social structure created by emancipation. This left the yeoman farmers at the bottom of the social ladder, with no social hierarchy over any group. Slavery created a social structure that naturally formed the elite planters at its top, and then dwindled down to the yeoman farmers toward the bottom. At the very bottom of the social ladder slavery created, laid the slaves themselves.25 Yeoman farmers could fall as low as possible in the slavery social structure, but no yeoman would ever be as low as a slave, and he would always have social control over the slaves. Emancipation disrupted the social structure the South saw for years, giving freedmen, for the first time ever, a chance to improve their social status. Yeoman farmers then had no social control over the slaves and moved to the bottom of the social ladder in many cases. Many yeoman farmers opposed emancipation not just because it took slaves out of the southern fields, but for reasons such as the social structure it shifted. As Stephen West described in his book Plain Folks Fight, many yeoman farmers feared emancipation would force them to live on the most perfect equality with the Negros.26 As mentioned before in this paper, in rare cases there were some slave owning yeoman farmers. In order to conduct an effective argument about reasons yeoman farmers opposed emancipation other than the free slave labor it took away, this paper will also examine the slave owning yeoman farmers as well. Emancipation shifted the southern social structure in ways that

25 26

Mark V. Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia, 31 Stephen A. West, From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850-1950, 70

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did not benefit yeoman farmers, and it also took away order and control many slave owning yeoman farmers had over their family, given to them by slavery. As Stephanie McCurry states in her book Masters of Small Worlds about the yeoman household, In slave states the yeoman household was a spatial unit, defined by the property to which the owners held legal title and over which he exercised exclusive rights to control.27 Yeoman farmers had a strong desire to control their families and be known by their wives and children as the head of the house hold. Mark Wetherington described this desire for control in his book Plain Folks Fight as Yeoman farmers were husbands, fathers, property owners, voters, soldiers, and slave patrollers. The household, the basic unit of domestic production and reproduction, was normally organized around white male landowners who controlled the dependent women and children living on their place. Members of society-male and female, slave and free-found their social station largely defined by the status of the male head of household, and their desire for control.28 With emancipation the slave owning yeoman farmers had no way of showing his family his control over his slaves, which in turn gave him control over his family. Yeoman farmers would often control each group with the presents of the other. For example, a yeoman farmer would tell his family to never disrespect him in front of his slaves, or the disrespect will show him as being weak and not having control over his household. With emancipation the yeoman farmers no longer had slaves they could use to control his family. The desire for control over their families drove many slave owning yeoman farmers to use the slaves they owned to control their families, but as emancipation freed the slaves yeoman farmers no longer possessed this tool for control, many yeoman farmers began to oppose emancipation and the social changes it brought.

27

Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country, (New York :Oxford University Press, 1997), 6 28 Mark Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia , 31

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Since the beginning of slavery in America, until emancipation nearly two hundred years later, slavery had played a key role in shaping the social structure in America, especially in the South. The social structure slavery created was one that benefitted the richest plantation owner in the South to the poorest yeoman farmer of the South. Slavery created a social structure that put the elite planters at the top, and dwindled down to the yeoman farmers toward the bottom. At its very bottom laid the slaves, who until emancipation would never be anything but a slave at the bottom of societys social order. Emancipation disrupted this southern social structure, putting the yeoman farmers at the bottom of the social ladder with the newly freed slaves. Emancipation also took away the social control many slave owning yeoman farmers had over their families. For social reasons such as the ones stated above, many yeoman farmers saw the negative effects emancipation brought to their way of life, forcing many to oppose emancipation after it was set forth in America Political Effects Emancipation brought about many changes for yeoman farmers of the South. Thus far this paper revealed a few of the economic and social changes emancipation brought to the South, forcing some yeoman farmers to oppose it. Now this paper will show its readers the political changes emancipation brought to yeoman farmers of the South, yet again providing many yeoman farmers a reason to see the negative effects emancipation brought in their lives, forcing them to oppose it. After emancipation, newly freed slaves were given a major role in the politics of the new reconstruction government. Freedmen were given political power during reconstruction not again seen by African Americans in the South until the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Because of

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this new political power given to the newly freed slaves, and the northern Republican takeover in the South, under new previsions of the reconstruction government, many of the southern Democratic yeoman farmers political interest were lost. In the majority of the South, politics was one voice the yeoman farmers had that could be heard just the same as that of the elite planters. As Mark Wetherington described the role yeoman farmers played in southern politics, In theory, yeoman farmers and planters were political equals at election time, each man had one vote.29 Emancipation brought many political changes to the South, many of which had a negative impact on yeoman farmers. In fact it was during the time of emancipation that a new political party was formed, the Populist Party30 The Populist Party is described by Steven Hahn in his book The Roots of Southern Populism, as a political party where thousands of southern rural folk who made Populism a mass movement and challenge to dominant intuitions, relations, and ideas of that time.31 The next portion of this paper will show the political change during that acquired during emancipation, which shifted the tax burden to the yeoman farmers. This shifting tax burden caused them to oppose emancipation, began to set up the new peoples party, the Populist Party. Emancipation brought about a transformation of southern wealth by eliminating tax revenue generated by the slave property.32 Much like today, Americans during the nineteenth century hated paying taxes. One Mississippi yeoman gave his view on taxes as a necessary evil

29 30

Mark Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia, 46 Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890, 28 31 Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890, First page of preface 32 Michael R. Hyman, "Public Policy and Political Dissent: Yeoman Disaffection in the Post-Reconstruction Lower South." The Journal of Southern History 55, no. 1 (1989) , 49

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that should be kept down to a minimum.33 Most yeoman farmers did not have enough money to feed their families, let alone pay money to the high tax rates of their state. After the Civil War and emancipation, taxes were much more burdensome for the poor white yeoman of the South. The new political system set up by the reconstruction government set forth this shifting tax system. The war ravaged South had vast economic needs after the war. Emancipation formed a new class of newly freed southern slaves, who were now eligible for state services. As a result, the southern tax rates were raised even higher. These higher tax rates often fell on the yeoman farmers of the South. During the antebellum era, light taxes were imposed on farming property and other property that small farmers owned was generally tax exempt. This was achieved by Southern states compensating for low real estate taxes by having a specific tax on luxuries and commercial interests, which included slave labor. With emancipation, the tax on slave labor was eliminated, forcing the state governments to raise land taxes in order to make up for the deficit. The poor yeoman farmers were hit the hardest by the increase in land tax, causing most to oppose emancipation.34 Political changes such as the shifting tax burden to the yeoman farmers of the south were again another reason that forced many yeoman farmers to oppose emancipation. Emancipation in the South also brought about larger populations in the large towns of the South, as the slaves were now free citizens of these towns. In the states where African Americans made up about half the population, cities were filled with newly freed men after emancipation. Newly formed Reconstruction governments had more state services to supply for more people, including freedmen. For the poor yeoman farmers in the South, living in the backwoods of the

33 34

Michael R. Hyman, Taxation, Public Policy, and Political Dissent, 51 Michael R. Hyman, Taxation, Public Policy, and Political Dissent, 52

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state, fewer benefits were being received, but more taxes were being paid after emancipation.35 For the political changes the shifting tax burden brought after emancipation that fell mostly on the yeoman farmers, many yeoman farmers began to oppose emancipation in America after it was made a law. Many yeoman farmers saw the political changes that emancipation brought to the South as no longer being in their best interest. Political changes such as the shifting tax rate that fell heavily on many yeoman farmers, was one political change of many that displeased many yeoman farmers in the South. Dissatisfaction with the changing political system emancipation brought lead to the formation of the Populist Party. The goal of the Populist Party was to preserve the endangered small family farms.36 In a letter written by Frank Burkitt, a yeoman politician from Mississippi, he tells his followers about his dissatisfaction with the shifting tax system and his decision to join the Populist Party. I regret as much as you that circumstances compelled my resignation as a Democratic elector, but I could not retain the position after what has recently transpired at home__________ ___________ ______________. I cannot defend the recent acts of Congress ignoring the demands of the industrial classes. I was born a plebeian and I prefer to suffer with my people.__________ _____________ _____________. The shifting tax burden has visited upon the laboring people of this country for the past twenty- five years37 Burkitt later became a leading Mississippi Populist, and strived to end the political turmoil many yeoman farmers of the south saw after emancipation. Emancipation brought many political changes for yeoman farmers in the south. The shifting tax burden was one political change emancipation brought that shifted a much heavier

35 36

Michael R. Hyman, Taxation, Public Policy, and Political Dissent, 53 Harold D. Woodman, Class, Race, Politics and the Modernization of the Post antebellum South, 17 37 Frank Burkitts letter to Walker Barker, 1892, in Mississippi: A Documentary History. Edited by Bradley Bond, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi 2003), 153

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tax burden on the yeoman farmers. This new heavy tax burden caused many yeoman farmers to oppose emancipation after it was made into law in America. A new political party, the Populist Party, was also formed as a result of the political dissatisfaction many yeoman farmers had with the new political changes emancipation brought, and the shifting tax burden was a contributor to the Populist movement. The shifting tax burden many yeoman farmers saw that fell heavily on them was a political change that caused some yeoman farmers to oppose emancipation after it was set forth in America. Conclusion of paper Life for yeoman farmers was always a constant struggle, a struggle to provide for their families and in many cases a struggle just to survive. After emancipation in America, struggles in the lives of yeoman farmers became much more prominent. Struggles to compete with the freedmen economically, struggles to retain their social status with the shifting social structure emancipation brought, and struggles to retain the political rights they desired after emancipation. Emancipation in America brought about economic, social, and political changes that negatively affected most yeomen farmers way of life, thus causing some plain folks of the South to oppose emancipation. The goal of this paper was to show some economical, social, and political affects some yeoman farmers saw emancipation brought to their lives, causing many to oppose it. Emancipation did in fact free thousands of slaves, giving them the inevitable rights promised to all Americans by our Founding Fathers. But in many cases throughout the South, emancipation brought major struggles to the yeoman farmers, adding to the plain folks struggle and in turn, causing many yeoman farmers of the South to oppose emancipation.

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