Black Participation in the Civil War as a Revolution

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that slave participation in the US Civil War approximated a social revolution. Although Du Bois’ argued that black participation in the Civil War as “the largest and most successful slave revolt”, he did not provide a theoretical rationale to explain what motivated this slave revolution. Building on Du Bois’ arguments, I attempt to demonstrate how slave culture provided an institutional basis for black resistance through slave religion, which was the hub of the coordinating networks of slave neighborhoods and their often “hydra-like” extensions in protean associations ranging from the network of plantation preachers, coachmen, and hired out slaves; clandestine communication network of slaves; as well as the Underground Railroad. Each of these networks was either rooted in or facilitated by individuals or incipient institutions of slave religion and/or the early black Church. To be sure, slave religion could motivate resignation or rebellion; but when employed by rebel leaders it could serve as the central mechanism for coordinating and justifying black insurgency; and this allowed the participants of the major US slave revolts to utilize “slave culture” in revolutionary ways. What resulted was a template for black insurgency culminating in the black rebellion of the Civil War: a black cultural revolution. This blueprint for black revolution - or black cultural revolution -prefigured - though rarely actual informed - 20th century black revolutionary activity in black America.