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The 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery, but for many African Americans, they still needed to work for white land owners in order to secure a job, so they were still essentially enslaved and servants to them until the labor shortages.

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Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.".

Read more at Our Documents..

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13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery

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Enlarge PDF Link 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery The House Joint Resolution proposing the 13th amendment to the Constitution, January 31, 1865; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1999; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

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Her writing inspired tens of thousands of African Americans to migrate from southern areas to northern areas. In one of her pieces she wrote, "The tides and tongues said North, and men moved like the herds before the glaciers."

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There was an increase in labor shortages in the north and many African Americans were able to jump at the movement because places who previously were not hiring blacks were now willing because of all the openings. However, there was a lot of tension between whites and blacks within the work force.

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Federal Records and African American History (Summer 1997, Vol. 29, No. 2)
By James Gilbert Cassedy

The records of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) have been, and will remain, indispensable to the study of African American labor history. Thirty NARA record groups (approximately 19,711 cubic feet of documentary material) document the activities of federal agencies whose core missions pertained to labor and labor management relations. There are also many other record groups that contain material of interest to students of American labor history even though they document the activities of federal agencies whose primary concern was not the resolution of labor disputes or the control of labor management relations. Locating records that document the role of African Americans in American labor history can be difficult because the federal agencies and offices that created these records arranged their indexes and files by name of institutions such as the name of the company or the name of the union involved in a controversy. This overview briefly traces the growth of black labor relations and provides an introduction to the research value of several NARA record groups.

African Americans are known to have participated in labor actions before the Civil War. In the early nineteenth century, African Americans played a dominant role in the caulking trade, and there is documentation of a strike by black caulkers at the Washington Navy Yard in 1835. 1 Caulking was of great importance in shipbuilding, for a ship was not fit for service unless it was caulked to prevent leaking.

At the end of the Civil War, ex-slaves had to adjust to freedom and a new labor system. The National Archives contains millions of documents concerning this transition. Luckily, researchers can avail themselves of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, a multivolume documentary editing project.

The Freedom volumes were compiled from twenty-five National Archives record groups, including Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Record Group 105); Records of Civil War Special Agencies of the Treasury Department (RG 366); Records of the United States General Accounting Office (RG 217); the Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917 (RG 94); the Records of the Office of the Paymaster General (RG 99); and Records of District Courts of the United States (RG 21). 2

Other record groups are less obvious sources of information. The General Records of Department of State (RG 59) and the General Records of the Department of Justice (RG 60) contain documentation of the black dock workers in Pensacola, Florida, who, in the winter of 1873-1874, organized a Workingman's Association and successfully defended their jobs against Canadian longshoreman brought in by dock owners. 3

The formation of American trade unions increased during the early Reconstruction period. Black and white workers shared a heightened interest in trade union organization, but because trade unions organized by white workers generally excluded blacks, black workers began to organize on their own. In December 1869, 214 delegates attended the Colored National Labor Union convention in Washington, D.C. This union was a counterpart to the white National Labor Union. The assembly sent a petition to Congress requesting direct intervention in the alleviation of the "condition of the colored workers of the southern States" by subdividing the public lands of the South into forty-acre farms and providing low-interest loans to black farmers. 4 In January 1871, the Colored National Labor Convention again petitioned Congress, sending a "Memorial of the Committee of the National Labor Convention for Appointment of a Commission to Inquire into Conditions of Affairs in the Southern States." 5

Congress evidently showed little interest in either petition. Five years later the disputed presidential election of 1876 led to the Compromise of 1877 and the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as President of the United States, the end of Reconstruction, and the beginnings of "Redeemer Rule" and "Jim Crow." When the Supreme Court handed down the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896, giving official recognition to the "separate but equal" doctrine, the official relegation of blacks to second-class status was complete.

A systematic review of the records and reports of the Bureau of the Census (RG 29), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (RG 257), the U.S. House of Representatives (RG 233), and the U.S. Senate (RG 46) will reveal volumes of information concerning the lives of African Americans during this period. A small sampling of these reports and publications includes the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin No. 8, Negroes in the United States (1905); the U.S. Bureau of Labor, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner (1901); and the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Forty-ninth Congress, second session, Testimony Before the Committee to Investigate the Relations Between Capital and Labor (1885). W.E.B. Du Bois provided some of the statistical data on black labor to the Bureau of Labor and wrote reports for the Census Bureau. 6

The decline in the relative position of African Americans vis à vis organized labor can also be seen in the railroad industry. During the Great Strike of 1877, for instance, rallies and marches in St. Louis, Louisville, and other cities brought together white and black workers in support of the common rights of workingmen. By 1894 Eugene Debs, leader of the American Railway Union in a strike against the Pullman Company, was unable to convince members of his union to accept black railroaders. Blacks in turn served as strikebreakers for the Pullman Company and for the owners of Chicago meatpacking companies against whom stockyard workers struck in sympathy with the Pullman Company employees. 7

In 1909 white employees of the Georgia Railroad, represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, walked off their jobs, demanding that lower-paid black firemen be replaced by higher-paid whites. A Federal Board of Arbitration, appointed under the provisions of the Erdman Act of 1898, ruled two to one against the Brotherhood, stating that blacks had to be paid equal pay for equal work, thereby eliminating the financial advantage of hiring blacks. Erdman docket file 20, the Georgia Railroad Co. v. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, is found in the Records of the National Mediation Board (RG 13). 8

The National Mediation Board was created by the amended Railway Act of June 21, 1934, to mediate railroad and, later, airline disputes. The board inherited the functions of an assortment of boards and panels created to mediate railroad disputes. The records of the National Mediation Board and its predecessors date from 1934 to 1965 and consist of 1,362 cubic feet of records.

The creation of the various federal railroad arbitration boards is significant, for it marks the beginning of federal efforts during the Progressive Era to stabilize and rationalize labor relations. An act of March 4, 1913, upgraded the U.S. Department of Labor to cabinet rank and authorized the secretary of labor, William Wilson, to act as a mediator or to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes. This conciliation function was assumed by the United States Conciliation Service, which became the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service under the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947.

The Records of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (RG 280), 1913-1948, contain approximately 1,300 cubic feet of information. This material includes an index with four sections: a subject index with perhaps seven hundred topics; a geographic index; a name index arranged by name of person, organization, or firm; and a name index to the conciliators and arbitrators. Approximately 180,000 dispute and arbitration case files are indexed. The files may range in size from one to several thousand pages and include intermediate and closing reports, agreements and other documentation of settlement, awards, and related correspondence (which may include union and company documents, transcripts of testimony, and newspaper articles). A reasonable estimate of the total number of extant Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service files pertaining to African American labor is nine thousand to eighteen thousand. 9

During the Great Migration of 1916-1930, over one million blacks moved from the south to the north in search of better lives. It is conservatively estimated that 400,000 left the South during the two-year period of 1916-1918 to take advantage of a labor shortage created in the wake of the First World War. 10 African Americans made significant gains in industrial employment, particularly in the steel, automobile, shipbuilding, and meatpacking industries. Between 1910 and 1920 the number of blacks employed in industry nearly doubled from 500,000 to 901,000. 11

The U.S. government, under pressure from African American leaders who demanded representation in the policymaking and administrative councils of government, established special offices concentrating on the mobilization of the black community. One such office, set up by Labor Secretary Wilson in 1918, was the Office of the Director of Negro Economics. The office, originally designed to help mobilize the black work force for the war effort, developed into a rudimentary economic employment opportunity agency. Except for the postbellum Freedmen's Bureau, the division was the first agency of its kind in the nation. 12 Records concerning the office are found in the Chief Clerks Files and the records of the Division of Negro Economics, both part of the General Records of the Department of Labor (RG 174). Other sources of information concerning African American labor during World War I may be found in the Records of the Council of National Defense (RG 62), the Records of the U.S. Shipping Board (RG 32), the Records of the United States Food Administration (RG 4), and the Records of the National War Labor Board (NWLB)- World War I (RG 2). During the NWLB's brief existence (April 1918-June 1919), 1,251 controversies were presented for settlement.

The U.S. government set up an intense security apparatus during World War I to monitor, detain, and prosecute those suspected of hampering the war effort. These offices included the Department of Justice (RG 60), the (Federal) Bureau of Investigation (RG 65), and the War Department General and Special Staff-Military Intelligence Division (RG 165). The security apparatus watched over the African American labor situation and kept tabs on individuals such as A. Philip Randolph, Ben Fletcher (president of the IWW-associated Marine Workers Association), and Marcus Garvey, leader of the "Back to Africa Movement." Information concerning Fletcher and Garvey is also in the Records of the Office of the Pardon Attorney (RG 204).

The Records of the United States Coal Commission (RG 68), 1922-1923, document the efforts of the federal government to control upheavals in the coal mining industry caused by the end of the war. The United Mine Workers of America Union was light years ahead of other AFL unions in its organization of black miners, but white miners and employers, however, more often than not shared fundamental ideas of black inferiority. Despite the uneven relationship between black and white coal miners, a substantial degree of solidarity arose among miners of all colors and nationalities. The Public Health Sanitary Surveys and the Mining Community Schedules prepared by the Living Conditions Section of the Coal Commission provide an opportunity to glimpse the lives of African American mining families living in Alabama and West Virginia during the early twenties. The Records of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (RG 280) contain a substantial amount of information regarding black and white miners during these postwar years. 13

In 1925 A. Philip Randolph began his twelve-year fight to gain recognition of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters by the Pullman Car Company, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and the U.S. government. Randolph ultimately succeeded in his quest in 1937 and in the process became a leader in the fight against racism in the workplace and the nation. The Records of the National Mediation Board (RG 13) and the Records of the U.S. Railroad Administration (RG 14) document the efforts of African American railroad workers and their unions to procure satisfactory compensation and job security. 14

The Roaring Twenties came to a crashing halt with the Great Depression. Seeking ways to alleviate the massive unemployment, President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal advisers sought ways to put people back to work and to increase purchasing power. Among the alphabet soup of federal agencies created during the New Deal were the Civilian Conservation Corps (RG 35), the Work Projects Administration (RG 69), the National Youth Administration (RG 119), and the National Recovery Administration (RG 9). The Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration was headed by the noted educator and African American leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. The Records of the Women's Bureau (RG 86), founded in 1920, and the Records of the Bureau of Employment Security (RG 183) also provide researchers with extensive coverage of labor issues and African Americans. These records span the depression, World War II, and postwar eras.

Another agency created during the Great Depression was the United States Housing Authority, established in the Department of Interior by the U.S. Housing Act of 1937. The act authorized a system of loans, grants, and subsidies to assist local housing authorities develop low-rent housing projects. Local Housing Authority boards from across the nation sent in reports detailing their progress toward setting aside a portion of the public housing construction work for African Americans. The portion was to be based on the size of the black population in a particular locale. Included among these twenty thousand pages of records are a number of letters from local labor unions providing information concerning black laborers in skilled and nonskilled positions or attempting to explain the lack thereof. 15 The Housing Administration generally observed local racial customs, and neither the administration nor the Housing Authority proposed, advocated, or supported legislation to specifically assist blacks.

New Dealers sought to institute the collective bargaining process by guaranteeing labor the right to organize and to designate representatives for collective bargaining purposes under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Board. 16 African American leaders were disappointed that the Wagner Act of 1935 did not contain prohibitions against union race discrimination. In 1930 no more than 50,000 out of 1,500,000 black workers engaged in transportation, extraction of minerals, or manufacturing were members of any trade union. Furthermore, the AFL remained a conservative organization. A large number of member unions did not permit African Americans to join their ranks, and the AFL leadership showed little apparent interest in organizing black and white laborers in mass-production industries. 17

The organization in 1935 of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which sought to organize industrial workers regardless of race or ethnic background, contributed to an alleviation of the historic conflict between African Americans and trade unions. Thousands of African American workers joined unions, and much of this growth is documented in the Records of the National Labor Relations Board (RG 25, approximately 5,140 cubic feet). 18 These records include formal and informal case files as well as transcripts of hearings and exhibit files.

Protective labor legislation of the 1930s, such as the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, did not extend to agricultural workers, although 31.8 percent of the African American population in 1940 was employed in agriculture (40.4 percent in the South). A 1945 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of American agricultural unionism noted that "labor unionism in agriculture has been a rather anomalous and transitory development in the American economy. It has been composed of literally hundreds of organizations that were sporadic, scattered, and short lived." 19 The reasons why most labor unions failed in the 1930s were "the same reasons that made them vulnerable to agitation and strikes . . . [T]heir extreme mobility, the high seasonality of their work, and the low wage rates all combined to make unionization among them costly." 20

Agricultural workers were further hampered in their efforts at unionization because of their low social status and political impotence, public perception of the traditional family farm, and agriculture laborers who had more "solicitude of their employers" than industrial workers had. 21 The survey noted that the "more obvious hardships which periodically led to conflict were mitigated to some degree by appropriate Government action" including the work performed by the Farm Security Administration (RG 96). 22 Although one piece of New Deal legislation, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), adversely affected agricultural workers, it contributed to the rise of a remarkable agricultural labor union: the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU). 23

The STFU was founded in 1934 in eastern Arkansas, an area of large cotton plantations worked by sharecroppers and owned in many cases by absentee owner-investors. Immediately after World War I, the collapse of cotton prices led to strained landlord-tenant relations as planters sought to shift some losses to tenants by manipulating accounts and, in some cases, outright fraud. A group of African Americans organized the Progressive Farmers and Householders Union to protect themselves against exploitation and "advanc[e] the intellectual, material, moral, spiritual, and financial interests of the Negro race." The union was destroyed in the "Elaine Massacre" of 1919 in Phillips County, Arkansas, when white law enforcement officials and vigilantes from neighboring counties and states attacked union officials and members, killing up to one hundred African Americans. 24

Economic conditions for the sharecroppers of eastern Arkansas did improve slightly during the 1920s, but with the depression of the 1930s, conditions were again ripe for agricultural labor revolt. Sharecroppers were faced with declining earnings, increased farm mechanization, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which worked against their interests.

One way the AAA sought to raise the income of farmers was through a series of allotments and subsidies prescribing the amount of land that could be placed in production and paying farmers not to farm additional land. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which administered the act, worked with local AAA committees. In Arkansas, these committees were dominated by white plantation owners. These owners often used the local committees to circumscribe the common law rights of tenants and sharecroppers, did not pay sharecroppers their fair share of government compensation payments, and altered the sharecroppers' status to wage hands to disqualify them from receiving government payments. 25

The STFU, ostensibly inspired by Socialist Norman Thomas and founded by Henry L. Mitchell and Henry Clay East in Tyronza, Arkansas, was an interracial union from its very beginning. Posing a direct challenge to the established order in Arkansas, in two years the union boasted twenty-five thousand members, which included former Ku Klux Klansmen as well as survivors of the "Elaine Massacre," and by the end of 1936 claimed thirty-one thousand members in seven states. 26

With the assistance and support of individuals such as Secretary of the NAACP Walter White, Norman Thomas, and A. Phillip Randolph, and through the strategic use of strikes and public demonstrations under the leadership of Harry L. Mitchell, the STFU was able to directly alleviate some of the oppressive living and working conditions of its members. Perhaps more important, however, was the attention it focused on the living and working conditions of tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Due to the efforts of the STFU, Franklin Roosevelt established the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy soon after his 1936 reelection. The efforts of this committee helped lay the foundations for the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, which established the Farm Security Administration and the Resettlement Administration, agencies that developed programs to assist migrant workers and authorized low-interest loans to farm tenants, sharecroppers, and farm laborers. 27

By World War II, however, the STFU's day had passed. Mechanism within the cotton industry continued to increase, decreasing the need for tenant farmers. Approaching war clouds at the end of the 1930s shifted the focus of the U.S. government from domestic problems toward a more international outlook. Although the STFU was never fully integrated (most of its locals were all black or all white), it did leave an indelible mark upon the United States and symbolized for many what labor could accomplish if racial identity could be ignored. 28

The improvement in the status of African American workers in American society on the eve of World War II should not be overstated. The 1940s would be a decade, however, when African Americans would achieve their greatest economic gains, in terms of real advances and in relation to whites, since the Civil War.

The advance of African Americans in American industry during World War II was the result of the nation's wartime emergency need for workers and soldiers. In 1943 the National War Labor Board issued an order abolishing pay differentials based on race, pointing out, "America needs the Negro . . . the Negro is necessary for winning the war."

Early in 1941, A. Philip Randolph announced the creation of a March on Washington Committee, promising that unless President Roosevelt issued an executive order ending racial discrimination in hiring by unions and employers and eliminating segregation in the armed forces, ten thousand Americans would march through Washington demanding an end to segregation. The number of threatened marchers grew from 10,000 to 50,000, and then to 100,000. Despite the entreaties of Roosevelt and his intermediaries, Randolph made it clear that nothing less than a presidential executive order would stop the march. Roosevelt gave in and issued Executive Order 8802. 29

After asserting that national unity was being impaired by discrimination, the executive order declared it to be the "duty of employers and of labor organizations to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin." All federal agencies concerned with defense production were ordered to administer such programs without discrimination, and all defense contracts were to include a provision "obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin." Executive Order 8802 also established the Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC).

The Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice (RG 228) document its activities from June 25, 1941, to June 28, 1946. The committee formulated and interpreted policies to combat racial and religious discrimination in employment; received, investigated, and adjusted complaints of such discrimination; and assisted government agencies, employers, and labor unions with the problems of discrimination. The committee handled fourteen thousand complaints of discrimination from all regions of the country, 80 percent of which were filed by African Americans.

Executive Order 8802 was Roosevelt's compromise with Randolph, and as such it had some inherent weaknesses. For instance, the executive order did not mention military segregation. Nor could the FEPC require compliance with its decisions and directives. To obtain compliance, it depended on its own powers of persuasion or the prestige of other government agencies concerned with manpower and labor relations.

Despite its weaknesses, the FEPC had some notable successes. Its own investigations and directives against discriminating corporations, unions, and government agencies helped to increase the African American presence in the nation's defense industry from 3 to 8 percent. For the first time, the federal government admitted that blacks suffered from discrimination and that government had a responsibility to remedy it.

The National War Labor Board for World War II was established in the Office for Emergency Management by an executive order of January 12, 1942. The board was to act as the final arbiter of wartime labor disputes and to pass on adjustments in certain wages and salaries. There are approximately 3,187 linear feet of record material in Record Group 202, of which approximately 2,486 feet is case file material. Among those records are dispute case files, accompanying transcripts, and transcripts of executive sessions of the National Defense Mediation Board (1941-1942), the predecessor agency to the World War II NWLB; the board's headquarters dispute case files and transcripts; a complete set of case files from the twelve regional NWLB offices; and case files for some of the board's commissions and panels on industries.

At least ten cases in these files concern racial discrimination. Moreover, the number of individual files from all regions of the United States, and the presence of records of special commissions on industries in which blacks were particularly concentrated (for instance, shipbuilding and meatpacking), suggests that the records of the National War Labor Board may well be an underused source of information on African American workers during World War II. 30

Other record groups of interest to researchers of the World War II period include the General Records of the Department of Justice (RG 60), which contain files concerning the Fair Labor Standards and Civil Rights; the Records of the Office of Labor of the War Food Administration (RG 224), which contain extensive information concerning African American farm laborers and migrants; the Records of the Federal Maritime Commission (RG 178), which contain information concerning labor and discrimination in the shipbuilding industry; the Records of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (RG 100), formerly the Bureau of Standards; the Records of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions (RG 155), which contain information on black workers in the tobacco, paper, lumber, and other industries; and military record groups such as the Records of the Army Staff (RG 319) and the Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs (RG 165). 31

Black labor unionism became part of a wider campaign for civil rights after World War II. After the merger of the CIO and the AFL in 1955, it seemed that the AFL had placed a conservative pall over the entire organization, dividing white and black unionists. It was also the era of the civil rights movement, and black union officials such as Ed Nixon and A. Philip Randolph were among the leaders during the Montgomery bus boycott and the 1963 March on Washington. African Americans were to continue to press their demands for justice within unions in the 1960s and 1970s through internal union organizations such as the Ad Hoc Committee of Steel Workers and the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement. Confronting continued union and corporate discrimination, African American civil right groups sought redress through a number of court cases under Title VII, Equal Employment Opportunity, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

A number of record groups document the intersection of the civil rights and labor movements. General Records of the Department of Labor (RG 174) include numerous files of concern to African Americans and the civil rights movement among the records its secretaries, 1953-1976. Records of Temporary Committees, Commissions, and Boards (RG 220) include the records of the President's Committee on Migratory Labor, the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, and the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Records of Agencies for Economic Opportunity and Legal Services (RG 381), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (RG 403), and the Commission on Civil Rights (RG 453), as well as the Records of the United States District Courts (RG 21), the Records of the U.S. Court of Appeals (RG), and the U.S. Supreme Court (RG 267) present a number of opportunities for the student of African American and trade labor relations.

There are, no doubt, opportunities that this paper overlooks. The scholar with the Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States in hand can find many more. Finding aids, such as Debra Newman's Black History: A Guide to the Civilian Records in the National Archives and her compilation of Selected Documents Pertaining to Black Workers Among the Records of the Department of Labor and Its Component Bureaus, 1902-1969, as well as Tab Lewis's essay "Labor History Sources in the National Archives" ( Labor History, volume 31, numbers 1-2 [Winter-Spring 1990]: 98-104) will be of great assistance to the researcher.
Notes
5. U.S. Senate, 41st Cong., 3d sess., S. Misc. Doc. 25, serial 1442.

9. Based on the author's previous estimates of 180,000 Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Files, and multiplied by 5% (.05) to 10% (.10).

15. Labor Records, boxes 1-20, Records of the Intergroup Relations Branch, 1936-1963, RG 196, NA.

18. James S. Olson, "Race, Class and Progress: Black Leadership and Industrial Unionism, 1936-1945," in Black Labor in America, pp. 153-164; and Sumner M. Rosen, "The C.I.O. Era, 1935-1955," in The Negro and the American Labor Movement, ed. Julius Jacobson (1968), pp. 188-208. For a different view of African American-CIO Relations see Richard Thomas, "Blacks and the C.I.O.," in Working for Democracy.

22. Ibid. The records of the Farm Security Administration are part of the Records of the Farmers Home Administration, RG 96, NA.

25. Jerold S. Auerbach, "Southern Tenant Farmers: Socialist Critics of the New Deal," Labor History 7 (Winter 1966): 4-5; Melvyn Stokes and Rick Halpern, introduction to Race and Class in the American South Since 1890 (1994), pp. xii-xiii; Jamieson, Labor Unionism in American Agriculture, pp. 305-306.

31. See the Preliminary Inventory to the Records of the U.S. Maritime Commission, entry 90, Labor Relations, which contains some information on African American labor in shipyards. Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs (RG 165), Records of the Office of Intelligence (G-2), 1917-1949, and Records of the Army Staff (RG 319), Records of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Intelligence, 1939-1955, will contain an extensive amount of information concerning African Americans and Labor.

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African Americans and the American Labor Movement

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Federal Records and African American History (Summer 1997, Vol. 29, No. 2) The records of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) have been, and will remain, indispensable to the study of African American labor history. Thirty NARA record groups (approximately 19,711 cubic feet of documentary material) document the activities of federal agencies whose core missions pertained to labor and labor management relations.

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In the 1900's, conflict arose surrounding housing for African Americans and the white community. The white community formed organizations telling real estate agents not to sell or rent homes to blacks. A leader of this movement declared that the districts that were currently white needed to remain white.

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1790: Naturalization Act- limitations were put in place to exclude other races from becoming citizens
Miner's Tax: everyone who did not intend to become a U.S citizen had to pay $3 a month
1854: Court- Chinese were banned from providing evidence against white people in court
Chinese Exclusion Act: excluded Chinese coming into the U.S for 10 years (was renewed in 1892, then 1902, and then set indefinitely)
Interracial Marriage: marriage between a white person and someone of another race was banned in the state of California

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Fungus broke out attacking potatoes causing the Great Famine.

The Irish migrated to England to work ad were profiting from the sale of England's beef but were being pushed away and sent the common people back to be huddled in huts, sharing a single bed made of straw while living on a diet of potatoes.

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He set up a black union called "The American Unity Labor Union" which was supposed to be promoting African American interest, but he was actually being secretly paid by whites to pit black workers whites. This plan worked because when a white union called "Stockyards Labor Council" offered for blacks to come and work with them, they refused.

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Gee Hee arrived in the Washington territory in 1862, where he worked on a lumber mill. Soon after, he got his wife a job in the U.S working in the mill's cookhouse. In 1875, Chin Lee was born; he was believed to be the first Chinese-American born in Washington.

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Texas - Many Anglos broke Mexican laws bringing slaves into Tejas and essentially colonizing it. This led to conflict, The Alamo, and a violent war in retaliation for Mexico for wanting to protect their land and culture.
California - While California was taken without much violence, war raged in the Southwest. After immense pressure from US soldiers, including civilian murder and rape, Mexico eventually sold the remaining disputed territories, leaving it less than half the size it once was.
Civil Strikes - Mexicans and Mexican Americans would take up lawsuits over their being stripped of their land in court, often losing, due to stacked Anglo courts, or incurring such steep fees that they would have to sell off their land anyway.
Gold Mines - As the gold rush struck the Southwest, taxes and violence were imposed on non-whites, leaving them with little to no profit while Anglos would aggressively push them out of their territory.
Labor Strikes - After being stripped of their land and resources and pigeonholed into lower class physical labor roles, Mexicans and Mexican Americans worked together with other groups, particularly Japanese and Japanese Americans, to fight for better wages and benefits, namely in mining and agriculture.

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Marriage rates declined. Thousands of women were shut out of Ireland's economy.
Women who did not have dowries could move to America in hopes of finding a husband.

Women's rights were very slim causing them to want to move elsewhere where they had more of an opportunity.
Women came over to find jobs, especially as maids.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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This is a good depiction of what the Americans did to take away land from Mexico. 

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More than half of Irish immigrants were women. By 1867 Irish women outnumbered Irish men in New York City. 117,000 to 87,000.

Crispins were workers in the union called the Knights of St. Crispin. This group quickly became the country's largest labor organization. This group demanded higher pay and workday of only eight hours.

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Around 1866, workers (White and Chinese) were working on the Central Pacific Railroad. Whites began to complain about the amount of Chinese workers there were and complained to their superintendent, Charles Crocker. Crocker said he would be forced to fire Whites and hire more Chinese if they could not get along. When the Chinese went to Crocker and complained about getting the same wage as Whites, Crocker sent them to the mountains and cut off their supply. This only lasted one week until they came back with no wage change. The railroad was completed in 1869 and was thought to the "Chinese Achievement."

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The Great Depression Effects on the Black Community

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The Great Depression Effects on the Black Community

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During the Great Depression, the blacks were the first to be fired when times got tough. It left them unable to afford basic necessities such as groceries and housing. Federal aid programs were put in place to help support them, but it led to a crisis which debated the future of black Americans.

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What HAPPENED To African Americans During The Great Depression? - #onemichistory

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By 1890, Irish captured most of the Democratic Party organizations in Northern cities.

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Women did not originally come to America because their husbands were supposed to only come work temporarily. Chinese tradition and culture limited the possibilities of migration for these women. They were to be obedient to their fathers, husbands, and sons. In 1852, there were roughly 12,000 Chinese in America, with SEVEN of them being women. Many women who did come to the U.S were forced to serve as prostitutes. Some became addicted to opium and died from abuse of disease. Women had to pay their way out of prostitution.

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We made a connection with our chapter "Flight from Ireland" to the concept called "Fight or Flight" in the Hammond text. The Irish immigrants were not receiving fair treatment from their home country so they had to make a choice to fight for a better life for a better life for themselves. The instant decision to immigrant to different places was a result of them having to fight for the life that they wanted and dreamed of.

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Hammond talks about mental schemas, referring to the way a culture continues to view their beliefs, even when geography changes. We can see this in relation to the Chinese in California, with women in particular. Women were to be obedient to the men in their life and this carried with them from China to America.

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Japanese Americans: A Hole in the Constitution

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Japanese Americans: A Hole in the Constitution

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Fear derived from the Pearl Harbor attack (Dec. 7, 1941) led to widespread racism and suspicion of Japanese Americans by other U.S. Citizens. While the U.S. was fighting Japan, Germany, and Italy, the U.S. government - led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and backed by Lt. General John L. DeWitt- deemed citizens of Japanese descent were the biggest threat.

About 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were arrested and forcibly held in internment camps.

American-born men could escape the internment camps by enlisting, something many did willingly, serving with valor and earning many decorations. None of this saved them from racism and derision from the American people when they returned home after the war. Many never recovered their homes, possessions, or livelihoods.

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Ugly History: Japanese American incarceration camps - Densho

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African Americans: Racism in the Armed Forces

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African Americans: Racism in the Armed Forces

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The U.S. armed forces remained segregated for the entirety of WWII. The 900,000 Black men and women who served were forced into completing the jobs their White counterparts didn’t want, with little thanks, and even less protection.

Back home, more and more Black men and women were entering the workforce as well, in more labor and defense jobs than ever. Those who did faced racism and hate crimes.

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The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC), a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. Trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, they flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Their impressive performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces.

Segregation in the Armed Forces

During the 1920s and '30s, the exploits of record-setting pilots like Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart had captivated the nation, and thousands of young men and women clamored to follow in their footsteps.

But young African Americans who aspired to become pilots met with significant obstacles, starting with the widespread (racist) belief that black people could not learn to fly or operate sophisticated aircraft.

In 1938, with Europe teetering on the brink of another great war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced he would expand the civilian pilot training program in the United States.

At the time, racial segregation remained the rule in the U.S. armed forces-as well as much of the country. Much of the military establishment (particularly in the South) believed black soldiers were inferior to whites, and performed relatively poorly in combat.

But as the AAC began ramping up its training program, black newspapers like the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier joined civil rights groups like the NAACP in arguing that black Americans be included.

Tuskegee Experiment

In September 1940, Roosevelt's White House responded to such lobbying campaigns by announcing that the AAC would soon begin training black pilots.

For the training site, the War Department chose the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, then under construction. Home to the prestigious Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, it was located in the heart of the Jim Crow South.

The program's trainees, nearly all of them college graduates or undergraduates, came from all over the country. In addition to some 1,000 pilots, the Tuskegee program trained nearly 14,000 navigators, bombardiers, instructors, aircraft and engine mechanics, control tower operators and other maintenance and support staff.

Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

Among the 13 members of the first class of aviation cadets in 1941 was Benjamin O. Davis Jr., a graduate of West Point and the son of Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, one of two black officers (other than chaplains) in the entire U.S. military.

The "Tuskegee Experiment" took a great leap forward in April 1941 thanks to a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt to the airfield. Charles "Chief" Anderson, then the chief flight instructor in the program, took the first lady on an aerial tour, and photos and film of that flight helped publicize the program.

Tuskegee Airmen in World War II

In April 1942, the Tuskegee-trained 99th Pursuit Squadron deployed to North Africa, which the Allies had occupied.

In North Africa and then Sicily, they flew missions in second-hand P-40 planes, which were slower and more difficult to maneuver than their German counterparts. After the commander of the 99th's assigned fighter group complained about the squadron's performance, Davis had to defend his men before a War Department committee.

Rather than being shipped home, the 99th was moved to Italy, where they served alongside the white pilots of the 79th Fighter Group. In early 1944, pilots from the 99th shot down 12 German fighters in two days, going some distance toward proving themselves in combat.

In February 1944, the 100th, 301st and 302nd fighter squadrons arrived in Italy; together with the 99th, these squadrons of black pilots and other personnel made up the new 332nd Fighter Group.

After this transfer, the pilots of the 332nd began flying P-51 Mustangs to escort the heavy bombers of the 15th Air Force during raids deep into enemy territory. The tails of their planes were painted red for identification purposes, earning them the enduring nickname "Red Tails."

Though these were the best-known of the Tuskegee Airmen, black aviators also served on bomber crews in the 477th Bombardment Group, formed in 1944.

A popular myth arose during the war-and persisted afterwards-that in more than 200 escort missions, the Tuskegee Airmen had never lost a bomber. The truth wasn't uncovered until years later, when a detailed analysis found that enemy aircraft shot down at least 25 bombers they escorted.

Nonetheless, that was a much better success rate than other escort groups of the 15th Air Force, which lost an average of 46 bombers.

Tuskegee Airmen Legacy

By the time the 332nd flew its last combat mission on April 26, 1945, two weeks before the German surrender, the Tuskegee Airmen had flown more than 15,000 individual sorties over two years in combat.

They had destroyed or damaged 36 German planes in the air and 237 on the ground, as well as nearly 1,000 rail cars and transport vehicles and a German destroyer. In all, 66 Tuskegee-trained aviators were killed in action during World War II, while another 32 were captured as POWs after being shot down.

Armed Forces Integrated

After their brave service, the Tuskegee Airmen returned home to a country where they continued to face systematic racism and prejudice.

But they did represent an important step forward in preparing the nation for the racial integration of the military, which began with President Harry Truman who issued Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces and mandating equality of opportunity and treatment on July 26, 1948.

A number of the original Tuskegee Airmen would go on to longer careers in the military, including Davis, who would become the first black general in the new U.S. Air Force; George S. "Spanky" Roberts, who became the first black commander of a racially integrated Air Force unit before retiring as a colonel; and Daniel "Chappie" James Jr., who would become the nation's first black four-star general in 1975.

More than 300 of the original Tuskegee Airmen were on hand to receive the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W. Bush in 2007.

Two years later, the surviving Tuskegee-trained pilots and support crew were invited to attend the inauguration of the nation's first African-American president, Barack Obama, who once wrote that his "career in public service was made possible by the path heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen trail-blazed."

Sources

Todd Moye, Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II ( New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Who Were They? Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum.
Daniel Haulman, "Nine Myths About the Tuskegee Airmen," Tuskegee.edu.
Katherine Q. Seelye, "Inauguration is a Culmination for Black Airmen, New York Times, December 9, 2008.

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The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC), a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. Trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, they flew more than 15,000 individual missions in Europe and North Africa during World War II.

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Chinese Americans: An Explosion of Patriotism

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Chinese Americans: An Explosion of Patriotism

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“One soldier recalled, ‘In the 1940s for the first time Chinese were accepted by Americans as being friends, because at that time, Chinese and Americans were fighting against the Japanese and the Germans and the Nazis. Therefore, all of a sudden, we became part of an American Dream.’” (p. 282)

Many Chinese Americans were thrilled to fight and serve in the Armed Forces, and serve at home in labor and defense jobs.

Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act during this time, instead setting an immigration quota, and allowing many to become naturalized citizens.

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When the United States entered World War II, about 29,000 persons of Chinese ancestry were living in Hawaii and another 78,000 on the mainland. By war's end, over 13,000 were serving in all branches of the Army Ground Forces and Army Air Forces.

About one quarter of all Chinese-American soldiers served with the Army Air Forces. In 1943 the Army Air Forces organized some support units for the China-Burma-India theater, including the 14th Air Service Group, composed predominantly of Chinese-American personnel. Other Chinese-Americans trained as pilots and aircrew and fought in Europe and the Pacific. However, most were assigned to regular ground units.

An estimated 40 percent of Chinese-American soldiers were not native-born citizens. After Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, many took advantage of their military service to become naturalized.

One Chinese-American received the Distinguished Service Cross, Capt. Francis B. Wai. He was born in Hawaii, where his father was Chinese and his mother Native Hawaiian. After graduating from the Punahou School in Honolulu and the University of California at Los Angeles, Wai enlisted in the Hawaii National Guard and was called to active duty in 1940. He earned his commission through officers candidate school in 1941 and was assigned to the 34th Infantry, part of the 24th Infantry Division. On October 20, 1944, his unit landed at Leyte in the Philippines. He was killed in action while leading soldiers off the beach against accurate and concentrated enemy fire.

For further information, see the following:

Lim, Christina M., and Sheldon H. Lim. In the Shadow of the Tiger: The 407th Air Service Squadron, Fourteenth Air Force, World War II. Privately published, 1993.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston, 1989.

Wong, Scott K. "War Comes to Chinatown: Social Transformation and the Chinese of California." The Way We Really Were: The Golden State in the Second Great War. Ed. by Roger W. Lotchin. Urbana, Ill., 2000. Pp. 164-86.

Prepared 16 May 2000
by James C. McNaughton
Command Historian
Defense Language Institute
Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey

This award was later upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

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When the United States entered World War II, about 29,000 persons of Chinese ancestry were living in Hawaii and another 78,000 on the mainland. By war's end, over 13,000 were serving in all branches of the Army Ground Forces and Army Air Forces. About one quarter of all Chinese-American soldiers served with the Army Air Forces.

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Many Mexican Americans joined the defense industry over the course of the war, with many Mexican American women becoming riveters and working assembly lines with the men off overseas.

500,000 Mexican Americans enlisted during the war, a number Takaki refers to as a sign of their patriotism.

Braceros by the thousands entered the country form Mexico to work as farm labor, a program headed by the U.S. government to meet the needs of the country.

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If you ask people to name the victorious Allied Powers in World War II, Mexico isn't usually a name that comes to mind. But after declaring war against the Axis in mid-1942, Mexico did contribute to the Allied victory in important ways. Despite long standing tensions with the United States, Mexico would become a valuable ally to its northern neighbor, ramping up its industrial production and contributing vital resources to the Allied war effort.

In addition, thousands of Mexican nationals living in the United States registered for military service during World War II. Mexico's own elite air squadron, known as the Aztec Eagles, flew dozens of missions alongside the U.S. Air Force during the liberation of the Philippines in 1945.

On the home front, hundreds of thousands of farm workers crossed the border to work for U.S. agricultural companies as part of the Bracero Program, which would outlast the war by nearly two decades and have a lasting impact on the relations between the two North American nations.

Mexico's Path to a Declaration of War

As the first rumblings of another great war stirred in Europe in the 1930s, Mexico and the United States seemed like unlikely allies. In 1938, Mexico's reformist president, Lázaro Cárdenas, nationalized the country's oil industry, which angered powerful U.S. oil companies.

"The late 1930s was a time of increasing tensions between Mexico and the United States on the diplomatic front, largely tied to the nationalization of oil," says Monica Rankin, associate professor of history at University of Texas-Dallas and the author of México, la patria: Propaganda and Production During World War II. Plus, many Mexicans still resented the United States for the loss of 55 percent of Mexico's territory after the U.S.-Mexican War (known in Mexico as the North American Invasion).

But as the war in Europe began to disrupt trade routes around the world, Mexico and other Latin American countries found themselves in economic peril. "Over those years as World War II is heating up," Rankin explains, "the United States is slowly stepping in and replacing Europe in places where Latin America really relied on European markets for trade."

Then came Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which brought the war to the Western Hemisphere for the first time. Mexico cut diplomatic ties with Japan on December 9, 1941; it broke with Germany and Italy by December 11. In January 1942, at the Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Rio Janeiro, Brazil, Mexico's delegation argued forcefully that all the nations of the Western Hemisphere must band together in mutual cooperation and defense.

That May, German U-boats sank two Mexican oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. Germany refused to apologize or compensate Mexico, and on June 1, 1942, President Manuel Ávila Camacho issued a formal declaration of war against the Axis Powers. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull celebrated Mexico's entry into the war on the Allied side as "further evidence that the free nations of the world will never submit to the heel of Axis aggression."

The Aztec Eagles & Mexico's Military Role in WWII

For the Mexican people, participation in World War II would come to signify a continuation of the spirit that had animated their own revolution. "Over the couple of decades after the [Mexican] Revolution took place, the common narrative became that it ousted a dictator," Rankin says. "The association of the totalitarian push in Europe with the authoritarianism that the Mexican Revolution overturned is a natural association for people."

Though the government passed the Compulsory Military Service Law in August 1942, Ávila Camacho made it clear that Mexico's war participation would be limited to economic and material assistance. But over time, Rankin says, the Mexican president wanted a greater role in wartime strategy (and post-war peace negotiations), and decided military participation would be the best way to achieve this.

The result was Squadron 201, better known as the Aztec Eagles, which left for intensive training in the United States in July 1944. "The squadron is hand-selected by the president and his military advisers," Rankin says. "The son of one of Mexico's revolutionary heroes is one of the members of the squadron. This is the best, the brightest, the most brave that Mexico has to offer."

The Aztec Eagles ( including 33 pilots and more than 270 support personnel) arrived in Manila Bay in the Philippines on April 30, 1945. Over the next few months, they flew 795 combat sorties and logged almost 2,000 hours of flying time, including conducting bombing missions over Luzon and Formosa and providing support for U.S. airmen. Seven pilots from Squadron 201 died in the conflict; the surviving members returned to a heroes' welcome in Mexico after Japan's surrender. The squadron played an important symbolic role, inspiring national and cultural pride among Mexicans at home and helping to keep them invested in the war effort.

Mexico also allowed the U.S. military to register and conscript Mexican nationals living in the United States during the war. According to one estimate, around 15,000 Mexican nationals served in the U.S. military during World War II, many of whom may have been motivated by the offer to apply for U.S. citizenship in return for their service. Of these, some 1,492 are believed to have been killed, imprisoned, injured or disappeared.

Lasting Impact of World War II: The Bracero Program & the "Mexican Miracle"

In 1942, the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to recruit more than 300,000 Mexicans to work low-paying agricultural jobs in the United States, many of which had been left empty as Americans went off to war or took on more highly skilled positions in armaments factories.

By the time the Bracero Program (from brazo, the Spanish word for arm) ended in 1964, some 4.6 million labor contracts had been signed, with many braceros returning on multiple contracts to work agricultural jobs in more than 25 states. Despite heated opposition to the Bracero Program from critics in both countries, it would lay the foundation for continued U.S. reliance on migrant laborers from Mexico and other Latin American nations to fill low-paying jobs in agriculture and many other industries.

Perhaps the most important lasting consequence of Mexico's participation in World War II was the impact it had on the Mexican economy. During the war, Mexico provided more strategic resources to the United States than any other Latin American nation, including vital minerals such as copper, zinc, mercury, cadmium, graphite and lead. To do this, it underwent a period of industrial and economic development during and after the conflict that became known as the "Mexican Miracle."

With aid from its northern neighbor, Mexico's national income nearly tripled between 1940 and 1946, and its economy grew at an average rate of 6 percent per year between 1940 and 1970. According to Rankin, the roots of this miraculous growth were grounded firmly in Mexico's participation in World War II.

"Mexico got a lot of aid from the United States to develop industries that were vital in helping to support the war, and those industries stayed once the war was over," she says. "There's a lot of infrastructure development and creation of industry that becomes a fundamental part of Mexico's economic growth in the second half of the 20th century that has its roots in World War II."

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The Surprising Role Mexico Played in World War II

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If you ask people to name the victorious Allied Powers in World War II, Mexico isn't usually a name that comes to mind. But after declaring war against the Axis in mid-1942, Mexico did contribute to the Allied victory in important ways.

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Native Americans: Why Fight the White Man's War?

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Native Americans: Why Fight the White Man's War?

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Despite long-held tensions between Natives and the American government, many Native Americans - specifically, the Navajo people - enlisted to fight in the war. The main reasons for enlistment here appeared to be patriotism, pride, and poverty.

The Navajo language is a particularly difficult one, with unheard sounds and complex verb tenses known (generally) only to those raised speaking it. Because of its complexity, the Navajo language was prized during the war as an ‘unbreakable code’, which led to the work of the Navajo Code Talkers.

Despite their tremendous contributions to the war effort, most Native men returned home to continued poverty and difficult relations with the government.

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The Navajo code talkers were U.S. Marines who created and used a code to keep military secrets during World War II. The code talkers played a key role in the United States'...

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With tensions brewing overseas, Jewish Americans were forced to decide how to respond at home. Unfortunately, a majority of American citizens - including some Jewish Americans at the time - decided not to relax the immigration policies of the time. Though this was before we became aware of the brewing plans for genocide, this had dire consequences for many Jewish refugees fleeing Germany. One such ship, the St. Louis, was turned away from American shores, and many of its passengers later died in Auschwitz and other death camps.

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Jewish Americans in World War II | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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American Jews supported the war effort while many anxiously awaited news of their families under Nazi rule in Europe.

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Anti-Japanese sentiment after Hiroshima led to the common sentiment of the Japanese being a subhuman, bestial people, shown strongly in visual propaganda. The president towards the end of the war, President Truman, appeared to share this sentiment in his journals. Truman is the one who authorized the dropping of the only two atomic bombs ever used in warfare, following the denial of unconditional surrender from Japan. These bombings are generally referred to as what ended the war, and hundreds of thousands of people were instantly killed in their blasts, with consequences that held for generations.

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Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Causes, Impact & Lives Lost

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On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, immediately killing 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.

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The 1890's: The end of the frontier (1891)

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Frederick Jackson Turner: Wrote a thesis called "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"

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Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, was the site of two conflicts between Native Americans and representatives of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Army and, later, the FBI. An 1890 massacre left some 150 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux tribe. In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest conditions on the reservation.

Ghost Dance and Sitting Bull

Throughout 1890, the U.S. government was worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs.

Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians. On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief, whom they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge in South Dakota.

Did you know? Nearly half of the Sioux killed at the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre were women and children.

Wounded Knee Massacre

On December 29, the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it's unclear from which side.

A brutal massacre followed, in which an estimated 150 Indians were killed. (Some historians put this number at twice as high.) Nearly half of them were women and children. The U.S. cavalry lost 25 men.

The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle-the Army troops involved were later rewarded with Medals of Honor-but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it's unlikely that Big Foot's band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment's defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.

Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was one of the last major confrontations in the Indian Wars, America's deadly series of wars against the Plains Indians and other Native Americans.

American Indian Movement

The American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968 in an effort to stop police harassment of Indians in the Minneapolis area. Borrowing some tactics from the Vietnam war protests of the era, AIM soon gained national notoriety for its flamboyant demonstrations. However, many mainstream Indian leaders denounced the youth-dominated group as too radical.

In 1972, a faction of AIM members led by Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier sought to close the divide by making alliances with traditional tribal elders on reservations. They had their greatest success on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, after a group of young white men murdered a Sioux man named Yellow Thunder.

Although Yellow Thunder's attackers received only six-year prison sentences, this was widely seen as a victory by the local Sioux accustomed to unfair treatment by the often racist judicial system. AIM's highly visible publicity campaign on the case was given considerable credit for the verdict, winning the organization a great deal of respect on the reservation.

Wounded Knee Siege

AIM's growing prestige and influence, however, threatened the conservative Sioux tribal chairman, Dick Wilson. When Wilson learned of a planned AIM protest against his administration at Pine Ridge, he retreated to tribal headquarters where he was under the protection of federal marshals and Bureau of Indian Affairs police.

Rather than confront the police in Pine Ridge, some 200 AIM members and their supporters decided to occupy the symbolically significant hamlet of Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre. Wilson, with the backing of the federal government, responded by besieging Wounded Knee.

During the 71 days of the siege, which began on February 27, 1973, federal officers and AIM members exchanged gunfire almost nightly. Hundreds of arrests were made, and two Native Americans were killed and a federal marshal was permanently paralyzed by a bullet wound.

The leaders of AIM finally surrendered on May 8 after a negotiated settlement was reached. In a subsequent trial, the judge ordered their acquittal because of evidence that the FBI had manipulated key witnesses. AIM emerged victorious and succeeded in shining a national spotlight on the problems of modern Native Americans.

Trouble Continues at Pine Ridge

The troubles at Wounded Knee, however, were not over after the siege. A virtual civil war broke out between the opposing Indian factions on the Pine Ridge reservation, and a series of beatings, shootings and murders left more than 100 Indians dead. When two FBI agents were killed in a 1975 gunfight, the agency raided the reservation and arrested AIM leader Leonard Peltier for the crime.

The FBI crackdown coupled with AIM's own excesses ended its influence at Pine Ridge. In 1977, Peltier was convicted of killing the two FBI agents and sentenced to life in prison. To this day, Peltier's supporters continue to maintain his innocence and seek a presidential pardon for him.

And in 2021, members of the U.S. Congress petitioned President Joe Biden to revoke the Medals of Honor soldiers received for their participation in the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre.

HISTORY Vault: Native American History

Sources

Disaster at Wounded Knee. Library of Congress.
What really happened at Wounded Knee, the site of a historic massacre. National Geographic.
Warren, Merkley, Kahele Lead Bicameral Letter Urging Biden to Rescind Medals of Honor Awarded to Soldiers who Perpetrated Wounded Knee Massacre. Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senate.
Wounded Knee Massacre. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Wounded Knee: Massacre, Memorial & Battle - HISTORY

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Wounded Knee in South Dakota was the site of an 1890 Indian massacre by U.S. Army troops, and a deadly 1973 occupation by Native American activists.

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The country’s youngest Civil War General led this biggest expedition West. His fancy parade was the precursor for what happened two years later... It was perhaps the grandest military display of the 1800s. 1,200 men. 110 wagons. Nearly 1,000 head of cattle and two months’ worth of supplies and food.…

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Francis A. Walker encouraged that the Indians be placed on reservations.
"The long term goal...was to help the Native American people assimilate" (Takaki).
"A program of education and work would turn the former wanderers into settled laborers" (Takaki).
"...be prepared to enter civilized society" (Takaki).

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"The Dawes Act reversed Walker's Peace Policy"(Takaki).

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In the Badlands area, members of the Oglala Lakota tribe had to contend with the Dawes Act -- how could they advocate for their rightful land? How could they fight the pressure to assimilate?
NPS Photo

How did the Dawes Act affect Native Americans?

If they accepted the allotment divisions, the Dawes Act designated 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land to the head of each Native American family. These acreages were comparable to those promised by the Homestead Act, but there were important differences between the two acts. Tribes already controlled the land that was being returned to them at a fraction of the acreage, Native Americans were not accustomed to a life of standardized ranching and agriculture, and the lands allotted to them were often unsuitable for farming.

In order to receive their allotment, Native Americans were required to enroll with the Office of Indian Affairs, now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). By enrolling, the individual registered themselves with the office and their name went on the "Dawes rolls," which assisted government agencies in determining whether or not that individual was eligible to receive their allotment.

Although Native Americans controlled about 150 million acres of land before the Dawes Act, they lost the majority of it due to these allotment divisions and selling of surplus. When tribes were paid for their land, they were underpaid. In addition to scant payment, Native Americans were not used to spending money and quickly spent most of what they received. Many were left with little land and little money. Inheritance also became an issue for many Native Americans who enrolled to receive land from the Dawes Act. When young children received allotments, some did not know how to farm because they had spent their youth in boarding schools. When there were multiple inheritors, the size of the plots was too small to divide among children and still be suitable for farming.

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The Dawes Act (U.S. National Park Service)

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If they accepted the allotment divisions, the Dawes Act designated 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land to the head of each Native American family. These acreages were comparable to those promised by the Homestead Act, but there were important differences between the two acts.

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The Navajo Indians thrived on the livestock that they owned.
Their herds were decreased and their way of life was forever altered because of the Indian Reorganization Act by John Collier/ also influenced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1934).

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Senator Henry Dawes believed that in order for Native Americans to be civilized, the tribal system had to be destroyed. "Owning communal land led to savage habits and laziness" (174).

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Long before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, as more explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various stages, from cooperation to indignation to revolt.

After siding with the French in numerous battles during the French and Indian War and eventually being forcibly removed from their homes under Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act, Native American populations were diminished in size and territory by the end of the 19th century.

Below are events that shaped Native Americans' tumultuous history following the arrival of foreign settlers.

April 1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon lands on continental North America in Florida and makes contact with Native Americans.

February 1521: Ponce de Leon departs on another voyage to Florida from San Juan to start a colony. Months after landing, Ponce de Leon is attacked by local Native Americans and fatally wounded.

May 1539: Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto lands in Florida to conquer the region. He explores the South under the guidance of Native Americans who had been captured along the way.

October 1540: De Soto and the Spaniards plan to rendezvous with ships in Alabama when they're attacked by Native Americans. Hundreds of Native Americans are killed in the ensuing battle.

C. 1595: Pocahontas is born, daughter of Chief Powhatan.

1607: Pocahontas' brother kidnaps Captain John Smith from the Jamestown colony. Smith later writes that after being threatened by Chief Powhatan, he was saved by Pocahontas. This scenario is debated by historians.

1613: Pocahontas is captured by Captain Samuel Argall in the first Anglo-Powhatan War. While captive, she learns to speak English, converts to Christianity and is given the name "Rebecca."

1622: The Powhatan Confederacy nearly wipes out Jamestown colony.

1680: A revolt of Pueblo Native Americans in New Mexico threatens Spanish rule over New Mexico.

1754: The French and Indian War begins, pitting the two groups against English settlements in the North.

May 15, 1756: The Seven Years' War between the British and the French begins, with Native American alliances aiding the French.

1785: The Treaty of Hopewell is signed in Georgia, protecting Cherokee Native Americans in the United States and sectioning off their land.

1788/89: Sacagawea is born.

1791: The Treaty of Holston is signed, in which the Cherokee give up all their land outside of the borders previously established.

April 7, 1805: Sacagawea, along with her baby and husband Toussaint Charbonneau, join Lewis and Clark on their voyage.

November 1811: U.S. forces attack Native American War Chief Tecumseh and his younger brother Lalawethika. Their community at the juncture of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers is destroyed.

June 18, 1812: President James Madison signs a declaration of war against Britain, beginning the war between U.S. forces and the British, French and Native Americans over independence and territory expansion.

March 27, 1814: Andrew Jackson, along with U.S. forces and Native American allies attack Creek Indians who opposed American expansion and encroachment of their territory in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The Creeks cede more than 20 million acres of land after their loss.

May 28, 1830: President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, which gives plots of land west of the Mississippi River to Native American tribes in exchange for land that is taken from them.

1851: Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act, creating the Indian reservation system. Native Americans aren't allowed to leave their reservations without permission.

October 1860: A group of Apache Native Americans attack and kidnap a white American, resulting in the U.S. military falsely accusing the Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, Cochise. Cochise and the Apache increase raids on white Americans for a decade afterwards.

November 29, 1864: 650 Colorado volunteer forces attack Cheyenne and Arapaho encampments along Sand Creek, killing and mutilating more than 150 American Indians during what would become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

November 27, 1868: General George Armstrong Custer leads an early morning attack on Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle, destroying the village and killing more than 100 people, including many women and children and Black Kettle himself.

1873: Crazy Horse encounters General Custer for the first time.

1874: Gold discovered in South Dakota 's Black Hills drives U.S. troops to ignore a treaty and invade the territory.

June 25, 1876: In the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as " Custer's Last Stand," Lieutenant Colonel George Custer's troops fight Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, along Little Bighorn River. Custer and his troops are defeated and killed, increasing tensions between Native Americans and white Americans.

October 6, 1879: The first students attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, the country's first off-reservation boarding school. The school, created by Civil War veteran Richard Henry Pratt, is designed to assimilate Native American students.

December 15, 1890: Sitting Bull is killed during a confrontation with Indian police in Grand River, South Dakota.

December 29, 1890: U.S. Armed Forces surround Ghost Dancers led by Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, demanding the surrender of their weapons. An estimated 150 Native Americans are killed in the Wounded Knee Massacre, along with 25 men with the U.S. cavalry.

January 29, 1907: Charles Curtis becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.

June 2, 1924: U.S. Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the territorial limits of the country. Previously, citizenship had been limited, depending on what percentage Native American ancestry a person had, whether they were veterans, or, if they were women, whether they were married to a U.S. citizen.

May 1942: Members of the Navajo Nation develop a code to transmit messages and radio messages for the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Eventually hundreds of code talkers from multiple Native American tribes serve in the U.S. Marines during the war.

July 1968: Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt found the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis, along with Bellecourt's brother Vernon and Banks' friend George Mitchell. Originally an urban-focused movement formed in response to police brutality and racial profiling, AIM grows rapidly in the 1970s to become the driving force behind the Indigenous civil rights movement.

November 20, 1969: A group of San Francisco Bay-area Native Americans, calling themselves "Indians of All Tribes," journey to Alcatraz Island, declaring their intention to use the island for an Indian school, cultural center and museum. Referencing Europeans' colonization of North America, they claim Alcatraz is theirs "by right of discovery." On June 11, 1971 armed federal marshals descend on the island and remove the last of its Indian residents.

August 29, 1970: A group of Native Americans, led by the San Francisco-based United Native Americans, ascend 3,000 feet to the top of Mount Rushmore and set up camp to protest the broken Treaty of Fort Laramie.

November 26, 1970: On Thanksgiving Day, AIM members seize a replica of the Mayflower in Boston Harbor, declaring the holiday a National Day of Mourning.

June 6, 1971: A group of Native Americans, led by AIM, occupy Mount Rushmore to demand the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie be honored. Twenty Native Americans-nine men and 11 women-are eventually arrested.

February 27, 1973: The Wounded Knee Occupation begins as some 200 Oglala Lakota (also referred to as Oglala Sioux) and AIM members seize and occupy the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The occupation lasts for 71 days, during which time two Sioux men are shot to death by federal agents and several more are wounded.

January 4, 1975: Congress passes the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which reverses the termination policy of previous decades when American Indian tribes were disbanded, their land sold and "relocations" forced Indians off reservations and into urban centers. The 1975 act provides recognition and funds to Indian tribes.

July 15, 1978: A transcontinental trek for Native American justice, called the " Longest Walk," sets off from Alcatraz Island, California. By the time marchers reach Washington, D.C. they number 30,000.

August 11, 1978: The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is passed, granting Native Americans the right to use certain lands and controlled substances for religious ceremonies.

October 11, 1980: President Jimmy Carter signs the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. The act grants Indian tribes, including the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Penobscot, $81.5 million for land taken from them more than 150 years ago.

July 13, 2020: The Washington National Football League franchise announces it is dropping its name, the "Redskins," as well as its Indian head logo. The move is in response to decades of criticism that they are offensive to Native Americans. The team is eventually renamed the Commanders.

July 23, 2021: In response to criticisms, Cleveland's Major League Baseball team announces they are changing their name to the Guardians and are dropping their previous name, the Indians.

Fact Check

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As explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various stages, from cooperation to indignation to revolt.

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In 1889, Wovoka of the Paiute tribe emerged from the shores of Pyramid Lake in Nevada. He called on Natives to perform the Ghost Dance where the dance would bring the return of Native ways, the restoration of the buffalo, and regain control of former lands.

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When reading about Native Americans and comparing to the Hammond text, implicit bias and sociopolitical context come into play. When reading about the mistreatment of Native Americans, there were social, economic and political domains placed against them. Natives were murdered through battles, had the homes taken away with laws and acts, and were deemed "wild and crazy" (Takaki, 169) because they were performing the Ghost Dance. With implicit bias, reformers and government officials wanted Natives to assimilate because Natives were different than the people in government office. If reformers and government officials did not implicit bias, then more Natives could be around and would not have had there homes taken.

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-"Dead and wounded women and children and little babies were scattered all along there where they had been trying to run away [Black Elk said after the Massacre at Wounded Knew] (Takaki, 170).
-"By 1933, the Native American peoples of the United States had lost 60 percent of the 138 million acres they had owned at the time of the Dawes Act. The policy of allotment had been turning the [Natives] into a landless people" (Takaki, 176-177).