II: Of the Dawn of Freedom explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• The Color Line

  The chapter opens with the famous statement that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, framing the entire discussion of the Freedmen's Bureau and Reconstruction.

• Emancipation and Disappointment

  Details the promise of emancipation followed by the failures of the Freedmen's Bureau, including land promises unkept and the collapse of the Freedmen's Bank.

• Education and Leadership

  Discusses the founding of black colleges and the opposition to Negro education, as well as the educational work of the Bureau.

• Economic Oppression

  Covers the exploitation of black labor, the system of free labor, and the financial frauds that deprived freedmen of their savings.

Characters to notice

• The Narrator

  Provides a historical analysis of the Freedmen's Bureau and the era of Reconstruction.

• Oliver O. Howard

  Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, later court-martialed and exonerated.

• Pierce

  A Bostonian who helped found the Freedmen's Bureau by caring for refugees at Fortress Monroe and starting the Port Royal experiment.

• Ben Butler

  Declared slave property contraband of war in Virginia.

• Fremont

  Declared slaves free under martial law in Missouri, but his action was countermanded.

• Halleck

  Successor to Fremont who ordered that no slaves should be allowed into Union lines.

• Cameron

  Secretary of War who recognized slaves as a military resource.

• Chase

  Secretary of the Treasury; Pierce was a friend of his.

Key passages

• “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”

  The central issue of the 1900s will be racial division and the relationship between people of color and white people worldwide.

  This is the thesis statement of the chapter and the book.

• “It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War; and however much they who marched South and North in 1861 may have fixed on the technical points, of union and local autonomy as a shibboleth, all nevertheless knew, as we know, that the question of Negro slavery was the real cause of the conflict.”

  The Civil War was fundamentally about slavery, even though many pretended it was about union or states' rights.

  Du Bois asserts the centrality of slavery to the Civil War.

• “Two methods of treating these newcomers seemed equally logical to opposite sorts of minds. Ben Butler, in Virginia, quickly declared slave property contraband of war, and put the fugitives to work; while Fremont, in Missouri, declared the slaves free under martial law.”

  Union generals had different approaches: Butler treated escaped slaves as captured war supplies, while Fremont freed them outright.

  Illustrates the early confusion over how to handle fugitive slaves.

• “The opposition to Negro education in the South was at first bitter, and showed itself in ashes, insult, and blood; for the South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.”

  Southern whites violently resisted educating Black people because they feared educated Blacks would challenge the status quo, and indeed education often leads to social change.

  Du Bois acknowledges the threat education poses to oppressive systems.

• “Such was the dawn of Freedom; such was the work of the Freedmen's Bureau, which, summed up in brief, may be epitomized thus: for some fifteen million dollars, beside the sums spent before 1865, and the dole of benevolent societies, this Bureau set going a system of free labor, established a beginning of peasant proprietorship, secured the recognition of black freedmen before courts of law, and founded the free common school in the South.”

  The Freedmen's Bureau achieved several key things: it created a free labor system, helped Blacks own land, gave them legal recognition, and started public schools in the South.

  Du Bois summarizes the Bureau's positive accomplishments.

• “On the other hand, it failed to begin the establishment of goodwill between ex-masters and freedmen, to guard its work wholly from paternalistic methods which discouraged self-reliance, and to carry out to any considerable extent its implied promises to furnish the freedmen with land.”

  The Bureau fell short in fostering racial harmony, avoiding paternalism, and providing land to the freedmen as promised.

  Du Bois notes the Bureau's failures alongside its successes.