Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, January 1995 Page: 28
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
Eason and Granville Norman served as appointees by Governor Davis on the three-man
board that heard appeals concerning voter registration in Colorado County. African
Americans began to participate in the justice system beginning in 1870 by serving on
the grand jury and trial juries for each session of the district court. They did not have
representation in proportion to their numbers in the population, but the presence of even
four or five blacks with the Germans and southern whites was a step forward.83
Socially, Colorado County's freedmen showed strength in two important
areas-the family and education-during Reconstruction. In 1880, nuclear families
composed of a husband, wife, and children made up three-quarters (73 percent) of all
black households in the county. Like former slaves across Texas, members of these fami-
lies wanted education and did what they could to take advantage of the schools provided
by the Freedmen's Bureau during the late 1860s and the state during the early 1870s.
Efforts to educate blacks were plagued by indifference or opposition on the part of many
whites, lack of money by the families of would-be students, and the need for children
to work rather than go to classes. Nevertheless, many received some education, and as
late as 1880, 41 percent of black families with children aged six to sixteen had at least
one of those children attending school.84
As would be expected, freedmen depended overwhelmingly on agricultural
occupations throughout the Reconstruction era. A little more than one-third of household
heads (38 percent) reported farming as their occupation in 1880, and about the same
proportion (37 percent) worked as farm laborers. Of those who called themselves
farmers and appeared on the agricultural census, nearly half (47 percent) were
sharecroppers, and more than a quarter (29 percent) rented land for cash. Most of these
non-landowners at least had livestock of their own, especially horses or mules. The
remaining 24 percent of farmers owned the land that they worked-averaging about
sixty-five acres each. They produced corn and cotton and virtually all owned livestock.85
From one perspective, then, Colorado County blacks lived in destitution in 1880 with
only a minority able to call themselves farmers and an even smaller group actually owning
land. It should be remembered, however, that most had emerged from slavery fifteen
years earlier with virtually no property and had received no assistance in acquiring any.
Indeed, one observer in 1870 commented that freedmen could not buy land even if they
had the means because whites would not sell to them, preferring to rent instead.
Emigration was not an option either, the observer went on, because "they have no
transportation, next a great many have a few hoggs & cattle & cant very well move them;
again a great many of them are afraid to go away from the neighborhood where they have
always lived."86 Under these circumstances the ownership of property by even a minority
should be considered significant progress.
83 Election Registers, 1870-1880; Ninth Census [1870], Schedule 1; Tenth Census [1880],
Schedule 1; District Court Minutes Book D, p. 303, Book F, p. 250, Book G, p. 1; Colorado Citizen, October
8, 1874, February 4, June 10, July 15, October 7, 1875.
84 Demographic information on the black population of Colorado County in 1880 was drawn from
a random sample of 250 African-American households from the Tenth Census [1880], Schedule 1.
85 Information on the occupations and agricultural production of the random sample of 250 black
households from the census of 1880 was drawn from Tenth Census [1880], Schedule 1 and Schedule 2-
Production of Agriculture.
86 S. T. Burney to E. J. Davis, June 22, 1870, Governors' Papers: EJD.
28
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, January 1995, periodical, January 1995; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151393/m1/28/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.