The aftermath of the Civil War dramatically accelerated the process of cultural osmosis. In the same way that Northern entrepreneurs (carpetbaggers) flooded the Reconstruction South seeking business opportunities, tens of thousands of Black Yankees left homes and careers and also migrated to the defeated South. They built the schools, printed the newspapers, and opened the businesses that taught the newly freed to flourish as Americans.68 Joel Williamson particularly distinguishes between Northern Black Yankees and Southern former slaves, especially among former Union soldiers:
The channels though which mulatto leadership moved from the North to the lower South are clearly visible. Many of the migrants, women as well as men, came as teachers sponsored by a dozen or so benevolent societies, arriving in the still turbulent wake of Union armies. Others came to organize relief for the refugees…. Still others… came south as religious missionaries… Some came south as business or professional people seeking opportunity on this… special black frontier. Finally, thousands came as soldiers [Black Yankees in regiments that served in the South], and when the war was over, many of [their] young men remained there or returned after a stay of some months in the North to complete their education.69
Culture clash made for bumpy times for some of the volunteers. Slave religious services were characterized by the ring-shout ceremony. In a ring-shout, as Daniel Payne had noticed,70 the outdoor congregation shuffles, dances, claps, and sings as they circle the preacher, loudly responding to his or her every utterance. Although the ring-shout is ostensibly Christian, the old Yoruba orixas Exu, Ogun, Xango, Oxossi often make an appearance by taking possession of a dancer, especially in the Sea Islands and in Louisiana bayous.71 Black Yankees, in contrast, were staid Methodist Episcopalians. Slave music had exceedingly simple melodies and harmony was unknown, but the music gloried in dazzling rhythmic syncopation. Black Yankee music was characterized by the subtle and changing harmonies of Anglican hymns and a steady British beat.72
Many AME ministers sent south insisted on an educated ministry, undercutting the authority of self-taught slave-born preachers, and demanded more sedate services than new freedmen were used to. “The old people were not anxious to see innovations introduced in religious worship,” one wrote home, telling how a Black Yankee preacher was mocked as a “Presbyterian” by his new flock.73 Nevertheless, the overall attitude of the Black Yankees reflected solidarity with their charges. New England Black Yankee teacher Virginia C. Greene wrote home, “I class myself with the freedmen. Though I have never known servitude they are in fact my people.”74 Some of the southbound migrants even married white southern Republicans during Congressional Reconstruction. Carrie Highgate, a Black Yankee schoolteacher from New York married White Mississippi state senator Albert T. Morgan.75
mann who brith y’all nikkas
mulatto identification bs
