A shocking thread about...historiography. Really.
Our story begins in 1901, when John Garner published his dissertation—what became for decades the standard history of #Reconstruction in #Mississippi—with adviser William A. Dunning at Columbia, the leading historian.
1/11
Our story begins in 1901, when John Garner published his dissertation—what became for decades the standard history of #Reconstruction in #Mississippi—with adviser William A. Dunning at Columbia, the leading historian.
1/11
Garner had to answer why in 1875 an armed insurrection overthrew the elected government of Mississippi under Gov. Adelbert Ames. He started with the carpetbagger stereotype: thieving yankees came to despoil the prostrate South. But he found that Ames didn't fit it.
2/11
2/11
A few facts. Mississippi had a Black majority. Ames was made provisional governor under Congressional Reconstruction. He named its first Black officeholders & oversaw a constitutional convention that enfranchised Black men—creating real "home rule," lifting federal control.
3/11
3/11
Mississippi soon elected Black legislators, officials, members of Congress—like John Lynch—& senators. The largely Black wing of the Republican party convinced Ames to enter politics, first as senator, then governor. He ran a good government. That takes us back to Garner.
4/11
4/11
Garner found no non-racist explanation for the insurrection of 1875. He couldn't blame Ames for corruption. So Garner said, "He did not know then that a superior race will not submit to the government of an inferior one." The problem, he wrote, was democracy.
5/11
5/11
Remember: Garner's account, based on interviews and archival research, written for a Ph.D. at Columbia University, became the standard account of Reconstruction in Mississippi. He justified an armed rebellion against elected government because Black people. It's that simple.
6/11
6/11
Untold numbers of Black leaders died in the bloodshed of 1875. Ames resigned, moved briefly to Minnesota, where former Confederate guerrilla Jesse James robbed a bank because Ames had invested in it. Ames, a Medal of Honor winner, walked up & encouraged a man who fired back.
7/11
7/11
Ames served in Cuba in 1898, became John D. Rockefeller's only friend, and had a great-grandson named George Plimpton. Some Black leaders survived, including Lynch, who wrote an invaluable account, which you can read here.
8/11
google.com/books/edition/…
8/11
google.com/books/edition/…
Another so-called carpetbagger who embraced Black politics—and did not enrich himself—was Albert T. Morgan. He wrote a vivid account of Reconstruction in Yazoo County, including the Democratic Party's insurrection of 1875. You can read it here.
9/11
google.com/books/edition/…
9/11
google.com/books/edition/…
Lynch's career remarkably went on. Morgan's life went into a tailspin. Ames prospered, but failed to set the record straight. You know who did OK? Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, architect of the insurrection. He became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
10/11
10/11
When faced with the reality of Reconstruction in one Black-majority state, John Garner couldn't fall into corruption stereotypes. The state wasn't ruled by Washington, but by the actual majority. So he went all-in on racism. It was conventional wisdom.
Don't bring it back.
11/11
Don't bring it back.
11/11
* James W. Garner, not John. We regret the error.
* Again, James Garner, not John. We regret repeating the error.
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