On June 19, 1865 Major General Gordon Granger and a contingent of Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas. Among his first orders of business was the reading of General Order Number 3. The order began:
“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.”
The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863 and, two and a half years later, the occupation of the Department of Texas by General Granger and his men and the issuing of General Order Number 3 formally ended slavery in Texas and freed the 250,000 slaves there—among the last in the United States to be freed.
This day has been celebrated as “Juneteenth”, first by the freed slaves of Galveston, then in Texas, and has now spread throughout the United States. It’s a day of revelry, certainly, but, above all, it should be a day of reflection.
When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation it was a great step forward in human rights (a step which I won’t deny has been incomplete and inadequate at times). But it was also a weapon of war—an attack on the strategic rear of the Confederacy and it was such attacks that ended the American Civil War as much as the direct confrontation of Confederate soldiers in battle by the Army of the Republic.
Slavery itself has not ended. And opposition to slavery can and should be an important weapon of war again. We should be openly condemning any way of life that depends on slavery wherever it is. I don’t know precisely who we’re at war with in the War on Terror. But we should be at war with anyone who practices slavery whether they’re in Iran, Pakistan, China, or Colorado.
The first step is condemning slavery. Let’s stop condoning or excusing people who practice slavery. We should be snubbing them not welcoming them into our homes. Even if it costs us a buck or two to take a stand. Let’s stand behind our beliefs rather than knuckling under to tyrants. Microsoft and Yahoo, that means you.
Second, let’s not make specious equivalences. Low wages isn’t slavery. Being chained to your workbench or locked up at night to prevent escape is slavery. And, particularly, working for no wages and being physically and sexually abused is slavery. And it takes place today in Iran and Pakistan and China and Germany and Colorado and Florida and on every continent and in many countries. People who practice slavery may temporarily be our allies but they can’t be our friends and we shouldn’t put up with it.
“… among the last [slaves] in the United States to be freed.” Who was freed later than them? The slaves in the border states that remained in the Union under Lincoln, that’s who. Many of them had to wait til December 1865, when the 13th amendment was ratified. If there’s going to be a celebration of the end of slavery, I suggest this date. It puts the onus of slavery — and the credit for dissolution of it — squarely on the national government, the whole country, where it belongs.
And, no, worker exploitation is not slavery. The slavery apologists of the 1850s were eloquent in distinguishing the treatment of their human chattels from the despicable treatment of Northern workers. Statistics seem to bear out their contention that, at least in terms of physical health and material comfort, most slaves lived better than most free workers at the time. Of course, life is more than physical health and material comfort.