After the Civil War, there were various unsuccessful schemes to import European immigrants to the South. White employers hoped to fill labor shortages created when slaves were freed from bondage. Rather than pay blacks fair wages, they tried to replace them with Irish, Central European, and even Chinese immigrants.
The January 14, 1868 Montgomery Advertiser had an interesting article copied from the Richmond Times on an effort by former Confederate General Imboden to encourage immigration to Virginia. All you have to do is read the article to see why immigrants did not head South. It describes the immigrants as though they were, umm, slaves. Imboden “supplied orders for able-bodied men,” would “fill orders” for immigrants “of both sexes,” and “orders are coming in very rapidly.” Immigrants afforded “an opportunity every family to get rid of worthless negroes, and obtain good white laborers at little if any more cost,” opined the author.
The article notes that Imboden has secured “a booth at Castle Garden” in New York City for the recruitment of immigrants. Castle Garden is the small fort now referred to as The Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. At the time it was New York State’s immigrant reception station, a sort of Ellis Island of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
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