and most of his
race were slaves; in 1865, he was no longer a slave, but whether he was
to be serf, ward, or citizen was an unsettled problem; in 1868, he was
in the South the legal and political equal, frequently the superior, of
the white; and before the end of the reconstruction period he was made
by the legislation of some states and by Congress the legal equal of the
white even in certain social matters.

The race problem which confronted the American people had no parallel
in the past. British and Spanish-American emancipation of slaves had
affected only small numbers or small regions, in which one race greatly
outnumbered the other. The results of these earlier emancipations of the
Negroes and the difficulties of European states in dealing with subject
white populations were not such as to afford helpful example to American
statesmen. But since it was the actual situation in the Southern States
rather than the experience of other countries which shaped the policies
adopted during reconstruction, it is important to examine with some care
the conditions in which the Negroes in the South found themselves at the
close of the war.

The Negroes were not all helpless and without experience "when freedom
cried out."* In the Border States and in the North there were, in 1861,
half a million free Negroes accustomed to looking out for themselves.
Nearly 200,000 Negro men were enlisted in the United States army between
1862 and 1865, and many thousands of slaves had followed raiding Federal
forces to freedom or had escaped through the Confederate lines. State
emancipation in Missouri, Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and
the practical application of the Emancipation Proclamation where the
Union armies were in control ended slavery for many thousands more.
Wherever the armies marched, slavery ended. This was true even in
Kentucky, where the institution was not legally abolished until the
adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. Altogether more than a million
Negroes were free and to some extent habituated to freedom before May
1865.

* A Negro phrase much used in referring to emancipation.

Most of these war-emancipated Negroes were scattered along the borders
of the Confederacy, in camps, in colonies, in the towns, on refugee
farms, at work with the armies, or serving as soldiers in the ranks.
There were large working colonies along the Atlantic coast from Maryland
to Florida. The chief centers were near Norf