'Extravagant expectations' of freedom: rumour, political struggle, and the Christmas insurrection scare of 1865 in the American South

Past & Present, Nov, 1997 by Steven Hahn

During the summer and fall of 1865, in the tense and uncertain aftermath of the Civil War and slave emancipation, rumours spread through the former Confederate states of an impending moment when, by federal government fiat or armed black insurrection, the already shattered world of the Old South might be turned fully upside down. Some thought, or feared, that the day of reckoning could arrive at any time; most looked to the Christmas season, and particularly to Christmas or New Year's Day. Expectations varied as to what would, in fact, occur. A good many freedpeople seemed to hold the rather vague belief that there would be `some great change in the condition of affairs', that `something very important is going to happen', or that there would be `some great enhancement of their condition'.(1) Growing numbers of whites, on the other hand, warned of a race war, `a negroe Jubilee insurection (sic)', when ex-slaves, re-enacting the `horrors of Jamaica and St. Domingo', would attempt to murder or drive off their former masters.(2) Of widest currency, however, was the idea that `the Government is going to take the Planters land and other property from them and give it to the colored people', or, failing that, that the blacks would carry out such a `general division of property' themselves.(3)

As it happened, the holidays passed without major disturbance. There was neither retribution from armed and vengeful blacks nor redistribution of white-owned property. Thus, what is called the `Christmas insurrection scare of 1865' has come to be understood chiefly as a `drama of the white imagination', of `fevered minds [fanning] ... the flames of conflagration they had largely created themselves', of white `schizophrenia' and `paranoia', and as a further example of the racial panics that sporadically gripped the white South. In so far as the rumours of black violence that circulated among whites are treated as the principal narrative or as separable from the rumours of land redistribution that circulated among freed blacks, such an interpretation may seem plausible, if not compelling.(4) But if, instead, the various currents of rumour are treated together and, in certain regards as mutually reinforcing, then the rumours become something more than psychological projections, and the interpretive possibilities become more complex and intriguing.

Most importantly, the rumours may be imagined as a field and form of political struggle. This is not, of course, readily apparent, for rumours often seem to indicate either disruptions in communication or perhaps haphazard and rearguard interventions. At all events, they seem easily distinguishable from `news' and scarcely illustrative of serious political engagement.(5) Yet, scholars in a number of disciplines have of late begun to interrogate the distinction between `rumour' and `news', and to find in rumours social dynamics and collective aspects that lend then substantial political bearing. And they have suggested that for subordinate groups in societies marked by great disparities of wealth and high levels of repression, rumours can be essential means of conducting cultural and political affairs: of establishing identities, interpreting information and actions, and entering the terrain of public discourse. Rumour surely has much to offer subalterns as a discursive and political practice. Its source is cloaked in anonymity; it normally flows through the channels of everyday life; and it is open to continuous improvisation and embellishment. Indeed, where events of vital importance are taking place among social groups historically subjected to direct personal domination and excluded from the official arenas of politics, rumour may be critical to popular communication and resistance. In the words of the political scientist and ethnographer, James C. Scott, `rumor ... is not only an opportunity for anonymous protected communication, but also serves as a vehicle for anxieties and aspirations that may not be openly expressed'.(6)

So considered, the Christmas insurrection scare of 1865 may emerge as a significant episode, less in the collective psychology of the white South than in the grass-roots politics of early Reconstruction. The ex-slaves, to be sure, had not been invested with official political standing, but in a more general sense the South of 1865 was very much a liminal political world. The foundation of social relations (slavery) and the most recent structure of governance (the Confederacy) had almost simultaneously been destroyed, but no new social or political system had either quickly emerged or been imposed to replace them. Only the Union army of occupation held official political authority in most areas, and even then local commanders had much latitude in carrying out their still-ambiguous assignments. Thus, with so much at stake in so explosive an environment, resolution of the great issues of land, labour, power and authority often involved, at least initially, the elaboration and intensification of customary political practices.