US Civil War: Liberated Slaves - Where did they go?

[Cikomyr]

I am having a Wild Weird West RPG game at the moment, and the question of "what happened to Liberated Slaves who didn't joined up the US Army?" has becomed relevant to my storyline.

I keep researching "liberated slaves", but all I get are results of the status of the liberated slaves who joined the US army, and the discrimination they faced. I already have something planned about that; I am wondering about those who did not joined the Army. You know, the women, the kids, and those who just didn't wanted to join.

Were they just sent in the cities and told "Good luck!". Were they resetteled?

[Grinner]

When you say "US Army", are you talking about the Union or the Confederacy?

If you were a recently liberated slave living in the former Confederacy, you would often become what was called a "sharecropper", or you would try to move north. In either case, having little in the way of education or financial resources, you didn't have many prospects.

Edit: Oops. Hit the Submit button by accident.

Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not really about slavery, civil rights, or racism. In reality, it came down to money, as most wars are wont to do. The economy of the South was built on cheap labor in the form of slavery. Following the end of the Civil War, the local powers-that-be were able to adapt the labor-intensive agricultural economy to the use of the poor instead of slaves via sharecropping. In many cases, the people to get the short end of the stick were the former slaves, though poor whites also got wrapped up in sharecropping.

Don't remember much about former slaves in the north. A hazy recollection of a certain book tells me they tended to move into ghettos as a result of having little income. The phrase "Color me dark" also seems to pop up a lot in that book.

Edit: Wait. I remember now. That book was about a black family moving north, and it took place well after the Civil War.

[Rockphed]

When you say "US Army", are you talking about the Union or the Confederacy?.

The army of the rebellion would be the CS Army as they were the Confederate States of America.

As to the fate of former slaves, there was a plan to give them all 40 acres and a mule. It didn't pan out.

[shawnhcorey]

Slavery was abolished in the north before the Civil War but I can't remember the date.

[nooblade]

If you want to read about history around this time what you are looking for is Reconstruction Era (Wikipedia). It's popular in American colleges for general education credits for some reason.

If you were a recently liberated slave living in the former Confederacy, you would often become what was called a "sharecropper", or you would try to move north. In either case, having little in the way of education or financial resources, you didn't have many prospects.

Edit: Oops. Hit the Submit button by accident.

Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not really about slavery, civil rights, or racism. In reality, it came down to money, as most wars are wont to do. The economy of the South was built on cheap labor in the form of slavery. Following the end of the Civil War, the local powers-that-be were able to adapt the labor-intensive agricultural economy to the use of the poor instead of slaves via sharecropping. In many cases, the people to get the short end of the stick were the former slaves, though poor whites also got wrapped up in sharecropping.

I guess this is basically correct, but saying "the Civil War wasn't really about slavery" can ruffle feathers. For lots of people on either side that was the biggest thing. Money was just a big reason why slavery existed to them. Constitutions of Confederate states guaranteed slavery, lots of abolitionists fought for freedom. There were others like Lincoln who wanted to "preserve the Union" and lots of talk about rights and freedom of course, but slavery was at least a talking point.

If it were only about economics, maybe they could've worked out a deal. I think politics got in the way.

[Douglas]

The Mod Radiant: Please do not discuss the reasons for the American Civil War. That is a real world political issue and thus an inappropriate topic per the forum rules. Historical, perhaps, but political nonetheless.

[Killer Angel]

Slavery was abolished in the north before the Civil War but I can't remember the date.

I'll try to keep this merely historical... but even this is a topic really borderline.
The Emancipation Proclamation was during war, in 1863: basically, if a slave escaped the Confederacy government, he became legally free... BUT the Proclamation didn't explicitly outlaw slavery, and didn't apply to the slave states that were not in CSA (Missouri and maybe Maryland). It was basically a war measure.

Speaking about the doubt of the OP (where did the liberated slaves go?), even now things are unclear and uncertain. For example, the historian Jim Downs of Connecticut College believes that a lot of freed slaves died for disease and hunger because they don't have a place to go and live. Who knows? the subject is still debated today, so I don't think you can have a "real" answer.

[Hoosigander]

In the immediate postwar period (from 1865 to 1872, although its budget was slashed in its later years) there was a Freedman's Bureau that was responsible for helping former slaves. It was part of the Department of War and was headed by a general. It dispensed direct aid in the form of food, clothing, and medical care, particularly in the aftermath of the war. It also organized a long term effort to educate former slaves; property that had been confiscated during the war was turned into schools and there was a huge campaign with charitable organizations in the North to send Northerners (particularly young women) south to become schoolteachers.

Slavery was abolished in the north before the Civil War but I can't remember the date.

It varied by state, for example New York abolished slavery in 1827. The Northwest Ordinance (passed in 1787) that laid the foundation for what would become the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin forbade slavery and so slavery was never legal in those states.

[Cikomyr]

Guys, i thank you for your enthusiasm. But i am not actually interested in the modalities of Slave Liberation, the timing of the Emancipation, or any Reconstruction.

I mean, my story happens in an Alternate History where the South has used the magical potential of its slaves to allow a Steampunk Revolution. They uses these Steampunk technologies to beat the Union. The War lasted 10 years, both sides have been completely spent during the war, and Mexico (as well as the Native Americans) took the opportunity to reconquer/Liberate Western territories.

In my story, the Union has started experimenting with the same process of... Extracting Magical Power (its gory) from people with Magic Potential, and desperation to prevent the South from becoming a military Superpower has driven the Union's less ethic leaders to.. Exploit liberated slaves in order to "juice" them.

So, I was wondering what happened to liberated slaves in the North. I like the idea of "ten acres and a mule" as a mean some North officials have used as bait, but where was no settlement or program whatsoever?

[Bulldog Psion]

A lot initially went to Canada, but returned after slavery's abolition due to Canadian racism and difficult farming conditions.

Most became "sharecroppers," meaning they hired themselves out to the large landowners, mostly in the south. Which was a pretty lousy economic arrangement; however, control of state politics by former slave owners pretty much put paid to all attempts at economic or legal improvement for a long time.

[Cikomyr]

I see.. well, that's interesting..

OBviously, they can't go work in the South, since the slaveowners are still thriving over there.

I will have to reflect on that. The whole "ten acres and a mule" is starting to sound like a good alternative.

[Grinner]

May I make a suggestion?

Just make it up.

You've changed the economic, technological, and political landscape so much that anything following the historical American Civil War is basically irrelevant.

[Trixie]

I mean, my story happens in an Alternate History where the South has used the magical potential of its slaves to allow a Steampunk Revolution. They uses these Steampunk technologies to beat the Union.

Um, no. North was already industrial power by then. No matter what hand-wave you use, these steampunk machines would at least need to match their output for the South to have any hope of winning. But, here's the catch, South doesn't have material sources to build these machines (They were so iron-starved they could only field a single iron-clad vessel in the face of crippling US Navy blockade, and even then it was of inferior coverage and quality. They also couldn't even replace singular iron railroads damaged by US raiders, rails crucial to their war effort), had no coal sources, had no money for construction as Southern states were generally poorer, plus they ran away with their new-found influence and promptly starved their own federal government of virtually everything. Including money. Oh, and that money (CSA dollars) was virtually worthless outside of their own territory so the only thing they could use to purchase what they missed was cotton and their meagre supply of precious metals, none of which could leave CSA anyway thanks to mentioned blockade. So, no. Unless that magical potential can summon tens of thousands of tons of iron, coal, plus a few dozen more things, that won't happen. Sorry. You'd need to place point of divergence earlier.

So, I was wondering what happened to liberated slaves in the North. I like the idea of "ten acres and a mule" as a mean some North officials have used as bait, but where was no settlement or program whatsoever?

You know what is even more effective "bait"? Freedom. Who could have guessed? Anyway, they did the same things as whites - were employed in farming and industry, ironically enough, a lot of them went back to cotton industry as it was already established and profitable, this time as freedmen working to schedule, though, not slaves.

[Grinner]

So, no. Unless that magical potential can summon tens of thousands of tons of iron, coal, plus a few dozen more things, that won't happen. Sorry. You'd need to place point of divergence earlier.

Interesting....

I don't think I have my atlas handy, but what if he waved it away as dowsing magic being used to divine the location of deposits of iron ore, maybe somewhere along the Appalachian Mountains?

[Cikomyr]

Um, no. North was already industrial power by then. No matter what hand-wave you use, these steampunk machines would at least need to match their output for the South to have any hope of winning. But, here's the catch, South doesn't have material sources to build these machines (They were so iron-starved they could only field a single iron-clad vessel in the face of crippling US Navy blockade, and even then it was of inferior coverage and quality. They also couldn't even replace singular iron railroads damaged by US raiders, rails crucial to their war effort), had no coal sources, had no money for construction as Southern states were generally poorer, plus they ran away with their new-found influence and promptly starved their own federal government of virtually everything. Including money. Oh, and that money (CSA dollars) was virtually worthless outside of their own territory so the only thing they could use to purchase what they missed was cotton and their meagre supply of precious metals, none of which could leave CSA anyway thanks to mentioned blockade. So, no. Unless that magical potential can summon tens of thousands of tons of iron, coal, plus a few dozen more things, that won't happen. Sorry. You'd need to place point of divergence earlier.

You do what you want with your world, I'll do what I want with mine. In maeh story, the South managed to develop super artillery as well as man-portable repeating weaponry, and thus managed to beat the North in a few key victories and draw in support from Texas.

Hardly realistic, can't argue with you there. But that's of little import. The point is that it makes a good story. At least I didn't go full on "The south conquered the entire USA" silliness there's been in a few alternate history novels.

You know what is even more effective "bait"? Freedom. Who could have guessed? Anyway, they did the same things as whites - were employed in farming and industry, ironically enough, a lot of them went back to cotton industry as it was already established and profitable, this time as freedmen working to schedule, though, not slaves.

Any reason you are being rude and passive-aggressive? Bait for freedmen. That's the entire point; the North needs for former slaves to come forward so they can test them for magic potential. It's a steampunk story after all.

[Rockphed]

I will have to reflect on that. The whole "ten acres and a mule" is starting to sound like a good alternative.

As a note, the fourty acres were probably taken from lands confiscated from rebels. Mosty, I think, they were charred farm land in Georgia.

If memory serves, western territories often had more space than people. Offering land on the Missouri or Platte would be a mild enticement to come forward.

Out of curiosity, what are your plans for Utah?

[BannedInSchool]

the North needs for former slaves to come forward so they can test them for magic potential.

How'd Southern slaves end up magic anyway and couldn't the North just replicate that?

[Cikomyr]

How'd Southern slaves end up magic anyway and couldn't the North just replicate that?

They always have been. It's just that, in classic Urban Fantasy, people usually dismissed magical potential as "luck" or "superstition". Hell, two of my three players want to have some Magic Potential of their own. One is wielding a magical bloodrinking Macuahuitl (Aztec Sword).

The south, with their massive pool of available experiment, managed to find a way to distill that magic potential, and mingled with metal allows for practically impossible stuff. I made a big case, while the players were investigating a mere bullet case (taken from Confederate Agents,who was using it for a 30-round Gatling Pistol) that this case was made of a metal that resisted extremely high temperature without expanding or losing integrity. You can build a 300mm guns with 19th century methods using that metal, and it will work 100% fine, without any worry about petty things like "stress", or "overheating".

This new.. steampunk revolution is on the rise in this alternate world. The South has used it to build very powerful weapons. The Railway Company in the North are the ones currently developping the same techniques (but doing it only in the Western Territories, since technically owning a slave in U.S. soil is illegal). They are planning to use these magic-metal to boost the industry instead.

The core of the story is that a train that was built using that special metal was used to ferry captured freedmen with magic potential. That train could theoretically travel all the way from Chicago to the Western Territories without the need to stop a single time, not for water or coal. Thing is.. Well, the railroad went through some Native America mystical territory.. and the mix of:

- Train made out extracted magical blood
- 15 magically-powered individuals
- Magical territory

Somewhat backfired, and the train tore a hole between the Spirit World and the Material world. So now spirits and other supernatural stuff are invading, the magical freedman escaped (and are starting a rebellion of their own to genuinely free their people, having been betrayed by the North).

In other words, it's a fun setting! Pretty happy with myself, as it allow a wide variety of story potential. The game's initial story was that the players were Pinkerton agents hired by the Company (Railroad Company) to recover the missing train.

From there.. well, the story was blown open. I have a new players who wants to already have a background in the occult, and whose family is rich and also in the occult. So I was thinking they might be the ones the Company used to... ferret out the Magic-sensitives. He's just been kept out of the loop.

[GloatingSwine]

Actually, the real question, in a setting where you can extract the magic from others, is why did nobody do it on a large scale before?

Why were the Conquistadores repulsed by the Aztecs' magic, them being past masters of mass sacrifice, which in this case would obviously generate real power.

And that being the case why would North America have developed as a European colony with a magical global superpower based on mass sacrifice (and hence probably aggressively expansionist to obtain more fuel) just to the south?

[Killer Angel]

Why were the Conquistadores repulsed by the Aztecs' magic, them being past masters of mass sacrifice, which in this case would obviously generate real power.

That would be a nice story to develope.

Also druidic magic Vs Caesar.

[Cikomyr]

Actually, the real question, in a setting where you can extract the magic from others, is why did nobody do it on a large scale before?

Why were the Conquistadores repulsed by the Aztecs' magic, them being past masters of mass sacrifice, which in this case would obviously generate real power.

And that being the case why would North America have developed as a European colony with a magical global superpower based on mass sacrifice (and hence probably aggressively expansionist to obtain more fuel) just to the south?

I made a point that the Aztec sword was extremely feared by all native americans they encountered. Basically calling it the "Demonsword", saying it drains both soul and blood. So from there, I guess you could infer that local native american mystical power supported the Conquistadors.

It's all backstory anyway. I am a big believer in Schrodinger's backstory, meaning it's up in the air until someone asks about it. A question was made about Utah, well.. with the Mexicans officially reclaiming these territories, I think it's a bit more complicated for the Mormons.

[BannedInSchool]

They always have been. It's just that, in classic Urban Fantasy, people usually dismissed magical potential as "luck" or "superstition".

Okay, I just missed any reference to it being in the North at all, so it sounded like it was somehow unique to the slave population of the South, originating there for some reason. I mean there were African Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line, both slave and free, before the end of the Civil War, just not in the same numbers.

[GloatingSwine]

I made a point that the Aztec sword was extremely feared by all native americans they encountered. Basically calling it the "Demonsword", saying it drains both soul and blood. So from there, I guess you could infer that local native american mystical power supported the Conquistadors.

It's all backstory anyway. I am a big believer in Schrodinger's backstory, meaning it's up in the air until someone asks about it. A question was made about Utah, well.. with the Mexicans officially reclaiming these territories, I think it's a bit more complicated for the Mormons.

The magic of the setting (specifically: that it is in industrial use via mass sacrifice) implies a far wider divergence from our reality than just "UC Civil War with mass slave sacrifice".

There needs to be some element of the setting which delimits why nobody did this before, despite the long history humans have of being fantastically horrible to each other on an industrial scale. Because if they did, the world looks too different to produce a "US Civil War" in any recognisable means. Other slave owning empires in history have new ways to expand and conquer, changing the face of Europe, the African tribes which were the source of slaves have other, more proximately useful, things to do with their enemies than to sell them to Europeans, etc.

The US in your world should be a magical Aztec empire from which Europe was comprehensively repulsed by superior mass sacrifice driven magic, or if you ascribe magic power to the native North Americans it should be at least a tense standoff between a southern empire and a number of northern nations it can't quite bring to heel. Europeans still shouldn't have made enough of a dent in the continent to produce the US Civil War or anything remotely like it, because their colonies were driven into the sea. You need something else which makes it possible for that world shape to have arisen, something which placed a hard limit on magic until very recently.

Take the Laundry Files series as an example. Magic is possible there, it's an exotic branch of higher mathematics, but it's so inherently unsafe* and complicated that it really needs to be done on a computer, so it couldn't really get anywhere until the mid 20th century even if you were willing to kill a lot of people.



* In a "cthulhu eats your brain if you get it right, heaven help if you get it wrong" way

[Tev]

Logic in any fantasy setting breaks down when subjected to sufficient level of examination, because they - by definition - can't have deep enough foundations to withstand it.

So it doesn't make sense to shoot many holes in the settings' backstory. However Trixie did say a few (to me) new and interesting insights about history . . .

Grinner's advice is the best:

Just make it up.

You've changed the economic, technological, and political landscape so much that anything following the historical American Civil War is basically irrelevant.

[leafman]

I think I came up with a plausible backstory for you:

Magic and it's practitioners have existed for centuries. There are legends of great mages such as Merlin, but most magic adept can only perform minor cantrips. In some cultures this led to the adept being elevated to shamans and witch doctors. In others the adept were labelled witches and executed by being burned at the stake or hanged, thus, leading to magic use being shunned and users having to hide their abilities from the rest of the world.
During the American Civil War, the South was losing badly. In desperation, slave owners began experimenting with their slaves that were known to have magical abilities. It was discovered that through mechanical means, the magical energies could be channeled and used to great effect at the expense of the magic user. The use of magically powered weaponry brought about a stalemate in the war... [Your story begins here]

[BannedInSchool]

Meanwhile, Ben Franklin used magic to impress the ladies in Paris.

ETA: The not facetious part of that would be one would think the world-famous scientist would have dabbled in it some too.

[Grinner]

Meanwhile, Ben Franklin used magic to impress the ladies in Paris.

ETA: The not facetious part of that would be one would think the world-famous scientist would have dabbled in it some too.

Empire of Unreason. Hands down one of the weirdest books I have ever laid eyes on.

[Brother Oni]

They always have been. It's just that, in classic Urban Fantasy, people usually dismissed magical potential as "luck" or "superstition". Hell, two of my three players want to have some Magic Potential of their own. One is wielding a magical bloodrinking Macuahuitl (Aztec Sword).

Well more a wooden club with obsidian blades than an actual sword.

Meanwhile, Ben Franklin used magic to impress the ladies in Paris.

Given his letter, Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress from 1745, magic would have been overkill if he were pursuing his 'type'.

[TheThan]

Another large portion of freed slaves moved out west into the Midwest regions that weren’t really involved in the fighting. They became cowboys (as in cattlemen); homesteaders (as in farmers) etc and eventually made it clear to the pacific. Many of them worked for the railroad companies laying track across the west, many also became miners and other sorts of blue collar workers.

[Alent]

It's all backstory anyway. I am a big believer in Schrodinger's backstory, meaning it's up in the air until someone asks about it. A question was made about Utah, well.. with the Mexicans officially reclaiming these territories, I think it's a bit more complicated for the Mormons.

There likely never would have been a Mormon church in a setting with real magic. Joseph Smith made his living as a Diviner who "found lost things" with dousing rods and the like, which saw him routinely thrown in jail as a conman/thief before he eventually realized there were no laws against founding a cult. If I recall correctly, the most common accusation levied against him was he stole the thing he found, and then tricked people into paying him to get it back, because divination isn't real. So... if Magic was real, they'd really have no grounds on which to accuse him of being a conman, so he likely would have enjoyed a profitable career as a Seer and Divinationist for the rest of his life.

Adjust until you see fit. :)