United States History Student Edition

C An Anonymous Broadside

One way that white Southerners exerted control over formerly enslaved African Americans was by fear and intimidation. This broadside, or flyer, was posted in Tennessee in 1866. In a letter to a superior about the broadside, an Army officer noted that certain whites had “read [the broadside] to the colored people living about, at the same time notifying them that they had ‘been appointed to see the rules enforced’, and that they intended to do it.”

PRIMARY SOURCE: BROADSIDE

squat to reside somewhere without permission looking up a sap lin [sapling] hanged from a tree

EXAMINE THE SOURCE 1. Identifying What does the broadside say about African American children? 2. Interpreting What specific language does the author of the broadside use to intimidate African Americans?

Reconstruction 493 PHOTO: The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo; TEXT: Lt Chas B. Brady to Bvt Lt Col A. L. Hough, 29 Jan. 1867, enclosing “I AM COMMITTEE,” [late 1866 or Jan. 1867], B-10 1867, Letters Received, series 4720, Department of the Tennessee, U.S. Army Continental Commands, Record Group 393 Pt. 1, National Archives. In Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867. Series 3: Vol. 2. Land and Labor, 1866-1867. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.