History proper, or academic history, means archival (primary source) research served with context drawn from existing historiography (historical writing) and new interpretations offered by the researcher/writer.
I draw on my own archival research for this column, but sometimes draw entirely from the academic work of others in order to retell a story that needs to be retold in the public prints; the hope is always that at least a few people will go look up any given book or article I mention.
But this column is not academic history. It's a series of short fact-bound essays meant to draw readers into creative engagement with the past that's all around us. Because whether it takes the form of restoring old window sills, doing your own archival research, or being aware when you pass by a spot where your ancestors farmed or ran a store, creative engagement with the past is as life-giving as gardening.
It's as invigorating as hunting bison on horseback, or a good session of yoga. It shores us up against boredom and ennui and defends us against the same old peddlers selling the same patent medicines under new and ever-more-official-sounding names. It's good to know you've seen something before and you like it; better yet to know you've seen something before and must be on guard against it.
This column is meant to be easy to read. That's not to say I'm running it through an AI language program to lower the lexicality score; I'm not. I mean that I try to stay away from jargon, away from politically correct verbal contortions, and away from Hegel and Marx and the Whig interpretation of history, which holds that we are on a forward march, that mankind is making progress.
I would like for the column to be pleasant. I start out looking for stories connected to things in Arkansas that I like: small towns, old cemeteries, walkable neighborhoods, restored wetlands, native plants, ground renewed by compost and biochar, and almost any structure built from 1829 (the Jacob Wolf house) to about 1940.
But the stories are not always pleasant; it's impossible, for example, to get to the bright spots of African American history in Arkansas without dwelling on some of the disappointments and outright horrors of the first years of freedom.
Last week I mentioned the reports of Major William G. Sargent, who was appointed Superintendent of Freedmen for Arkansas in November 1863. Sargent arrived at Helena in January 1864 and at Little Rock in March 1864.
In his letter of July 1, 1864, to his superior Col. John Eaton, Sargent compiled reports (including his own observations) from Helena, Mississippi River Islands 63 and 76, White River Island, DeValls Bluff, Fort Smith, Van Buren, Pine Bluff, and Little Rock.
Sargent had not heard from superintendents at Jacksonport or Des Arc, he noted, "although quite a number of Freed-people have found their way to DeValls Bluff and been shipped ... to Little Rock where they are cared for and their services made available."
At Fort Smith, the "dependent and unemployed ... have also been removed to Little Rock," and in Van Buren there were "none depended on Government at this point."
In her 1942 study of federal experiments with free labor on abandoned plantations in Arkansas, Maude Carmichael found that by "cropping season" in 1864, there were 11,363 freedmen under contracts (as laborers or as lessees), only 963 of whom were receiving rations from the federal government. A handful of Black lessees around Helena made fine profits in 1864.
Sargent was able to report in July 1864 that the Orphan Asylum at Helena had become a "fixed fact." "Friend" Elkanah Beard had returned (presumably from Indiana, where he was from) with "Mr. Clack and wife and two female assistants" (presumably also Quakers), and they "went immediately at work caring for these unfortunate beings, 50 of whom are now washed, housed, and comfortably cared for and clad, and are being taught in the Elementary branches of a common School education."
Elsewhere at Helena, however, education had been interrupted "by the sickness of both Teachers and Scholars."
"More teachers," Sargent writes, "are needed here to teach colored soldiers and to labor with Freedmen on plantations." At White River Island, "we need two faithful teachers at this point." At DeValls Bluff, "the school under charge of Rev'd Robert Shields has been discontinued and will not be re-opened this fall until the sickly season is over."
In Little Rock, two large schools had been "in operation," but had closed, "the teachers going north until the malarious season is over."
"The teaching is a gratuity to the children," Sargent writes, "as charitable benevolent societies at the north pay the teachers, furnish books, and Government provides rations and quarters."
Sargent reserved the most praise for Pine Bluff: "The neat rows of houses, the cleanly appearance of the streets, the tidiness of the people, the regularity of labor in the fields, at the 'Gin,' the blacksmith and the shoe shops all give indications of order, energy and direction."
Education had not been neglected, and "the children give evidence of discipline and attention." He noted that, if able to withstand the threat of guerillas, the camp at Pine Bluff might produce 800 bales of cotton.
So there were some hopeful signs for those who Sargent called "these people so long defrauded, and so much abused."