You People From Foreign States
I want you people from foreign states to know that we are celebrating Juneteenth today.
Ashton Villa today
Although Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was signed on September 22, 1862, word did not get to Texas until June 18th of the following year when General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston to take possession of the State of Texas for the union.
The following day, June 19th, General Granger stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa and read aloud —
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 personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
June 18th and 19th became Juneteenth. It is cause for much celebration in Texas.
Happy Juneteenth!
Almost 9 months passed before the slaves in Texas found out that they weren’t slaves any longer. I wonder what took so long to get down here.
1Thanks for the history lesson. It’s something I had never heard. Such a monumental occasion, only took 9 months to gestate, but worth waiting for. Freedom came late, but it finally did come.
2When I think of the gridlock in our government today, I am utterly amazed that this was accomplished. Thank God for Lincoln, the abolitionists and the brave soldiers who made this happen.
I guess they didn’t have internet in their shacks.
3It’s referred to as the ” ‘teenth”.
4I wonder what took so long to get down here.
Uh… the Confederate Army?
5Texas has always been sloooow
6A day of praise and good food, families and prayers.
7richmx2, ITYM the Union Army. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the states of the Confederacy, not to the slave states that had stayed with the Union. It actually didn’t take effect until January 1, 1863; Lincoln had given the rebelling states until then to return.
Probably the Texas slaves had heard about it much earlier, but it had no impact for them until the Union Army occupied Texas. Its immediate impact was to undercut support for the CSA in Europe, where slavery was outlawed. The fact that Lincoln had not until then acted to end slavery gave them cover to continue trading with the South.
8Origuy is correct. Almost from the first shots of the war, enslaved persons in the South understood that a Union victory would, or at least might, brings abut widespread emancipation. The Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1, 1863, affirmed that and made the end of slavery a formal war aim for the Union.
But as a practical matter, emancipation required actual, physical occupation of Confederate territory by Union forces to make it happen. Galveston surrendered to the Union navy in early June 1865, but it wasn’t until General Granger’s arrival and issuing of General Order No. 3, on June 19, that it became official.
Two additional minor points. First, the connection of Ashton Villa to Juneteenth is traditional, but lacking in historical documentation, the emancipation statue on the grounds notwithstanding. Second, the first emancipation anniversary celebration by Freedmen in Galveston was a parade and assembly on January 1, 1866, three years after the issuance of the EP. It was the following June that the first Juneteenth celebration was held, a tradition that continues to this day.
Backgrounder on Juneteenth and Galveston:
http://deadconfederates.com/2013/06/19/juneteenth-history-and-tradition-3/
Dissenting Voices on a National Juneteenth bservance:
9http://deadconfederates.com/2013/06/20/hari-jones-drops-the-hammer-on-national-observance-of-juneteenth/
Wait. You’ve documented every Senator and Rep in Texas as being from the Planet Loon, and you’re called the OTHER states foreign?
10So now, southern conservatives are calling it The Northern Aggression instead of the Civil War. It’s clear we’re still fighting for those civil rights and the Voting Rights Act should not only be retained, but enlarged to cover all states.
11Maryelle, you’re more correct than you may know. The phrase “War of Northern Aggression” was cooked up in the 1950s by segregationists to give an historical precedent to the campaign of “massive resistance” against civil rights laws and court rulings at the federal level. It’s a phrase that was actually created to oppose things like the Voting Rights Act.
12Thanks for this posting
~~as an “old coot” who doesn’t celebrate as I did in my youth it amazing that even in Arizona we had “Juneteenth”
Have to note JJ LUV your site/insights
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