500 Years of Indigenous resistancebla Ck reCONsTrUCTION
aND DeCONsTrUCTION
The beginning of the U.S. Civil War in 1861 posed various problems for
the northern Union ruling class. Not only was the war for the preserva-
tion of an expanding continental empire, but it also opened up a sec-
ond front: that of a liberation struggle by enslaved Afrikan peoples. With
a population of four million, the rising of these Afrikans in the South
proved crucial in the defeat of the Confederacy. By the tens of thousands,
Afrikan slaves escaped from the slavers and enlisted in the Union forces.
This massive withdrawal of slave-labour hit the Southern economy hard,
and the Northern forces were bolstered by the thousands.
Towards the end of the War in 1865, those Afrikans who did not
escape began a large-scale strike following the defeat of the Confederacy.
They claimed the lands that they had laboured on, and began arming
themselves—not only against the Southern planters but also against the
Union army. Widespread concerns about this ‘dangerous position’ of Af-
rikans in the South led to ‘Black Reconstruction’; Afrikans were prom-
ised democracy, human rights, self-government and popular ownership
of the land. In reality, it was a strategy for returning Euro-American
dominance involving:
- The military repression of the most organized and militant
Afrikan communities. - Pacifying the Afrikan peoples by neocolonialism, using ele-
ments of the Afrikan petit-bourgeoisie to lead their people into
embracing U.S. citizenship as the answer to all problems. Instead
of nationhood and liberation, the neo-colonial agents told the
masses that their democratic demands could be met by following
the Northern settler capitalists...^28 - Ibid, pg. 39.