Note: 19th Century articles in this post include racist terms to insult African Americans and persons of mixed-race ancestry.
I recently described President Andrew Johnson as guided by the ideology of White Supremacy. Several readers objected, saying that the term “White Supremacy” is a modern creation and inapplicable to people or politics of the 19th Century. I won’t get into the question of whether modern terms can be used to describe historic phenomena (of course they can), but I do want to note that the phrase “white supremacy” was used all of the time during the Reconstruction Era. A review of its use in newspapers of the period shows its contemporary usage, as well as the attitudes and actions the term describes.
The phrase “white supremacy” appears to have been used frequently in white-owned Southern newspapers opposed to Reconstruction. It is used unapologetically and often to dispute Northern writers calling for multiracial democracy. Writers would often say that they supported white supremacy and opposed “mongrel democracy” or “black rule.”
In this example from the Augusta Georgia Chronicle, the author is writing against a New York Times article advocating reform of Georgia under a multiracial government. In the second paragraph of the Chronicle article the author calls instead for rule by white supremacy.
Augusta Chronicle
Sunday, Aug 16, 1874
Augusta, GA
Page:2
Here is the New York Post reprinting the Masthead credo of the Missouri Daily Caucasian, which declared its adherence to the doctrine of White Supremacy.
Evening Post
Friday, Jul 12, 1872
New York, NY
Vol:71
Page:2
Here you can see the term as it appeared in every issue of the the Weekly Caucasian.
Weekly Caucasian
Saturday, Dec 06, 1873
Lexington, MO
Vol:8
Page:2
Use of the term white supremacy was not restricted to the United States. Here the Toronto Globe writes about Ku Klux Klan killings in the South and deploys the term. This is a reprint of the article from a Texas newspaper.
Flake’s Bulletin
Friday, May 08, 1868
Galveston, TX
Vol:III
Issue:275
Page:8
Boston Journal
Friday, May 22, 1868
Boston, MA
Vol:XXXV
Issue:10894
Page:1
White Supremacy could be used as a selling point for a political organization, like this one in Frederick, Maryland. The Conservatives proclaimed that “All in favor of White Supremacy, are invited to attend…”
Here the same newspaper warns “young men” about to vote for the first time not to vote for the Republicans because white supremacy will ultimately be restored and those who join a party that includes Blacks will be stigmatized.
Maryland Union
Thursday, Oct 06, 1870
Frederick, MD
Page:2
Our next example comes from a pro-Reconstruction newspaper from the south denouncing organizations like the Ku Klux Klan for embracing white supremacy.
Alabama State Journal
Sunday, Oct 25, 1874
Montgomery, AL
Page:2
In a New York Times article from 1867 the author wrote that the Georgia Conservative Convention refused to recognize the outcome of the Civil War and that one of its speakers insisted that “the great principle that underlies the foundation of this government-that this is a White Man’s government. Rouse! rally and fight on this issue.” The Times editor writes ruefully that in spite of the passage of the Federal civil rights acts,
New York Times
Dec. 10, 1867
The term White Supremacy was often used as part of a call to action. Here is an example of the phrase being used in a call to organize White Men’s Clubs in Alabama.
Sometimes I hear from readers supportive of the Lost Cause that the term white supremacy is meaningless because “back then everyone was a white supremacist.” However, it is clear from usage at the time that the two sides viewed people as either supporters or opponents of white supremacy. Southern white conservatives not only claimed the title of supporters of white supremacy, they also derogated their opponents as supporters of “negro supremacy” or “mongrel rule.” While many Radical Republicans held racially prejudiced views, they could still claim to be opponents of white supremacy by supporting civil rights and multi-racial democracy.
Conservatives and Democrats openly campaigned as supporters of “The White Man’s Party” and Republicans as the defenders of “rights for all.”
We see that in this use of the term “White Supremacy” a Georgia newspaper decrying those white men who voted for the “black and tan ticket.” The term “black and tan” was used to attack the Republicans as not racially pure. Here the newspaper describes the white man voting for the Republicans as a traitor to white supremacy and a supporter of “negro supremacy.” White supremacists could only see a racial future in which either blacks or whites ruled. Here, racial equality is depicted as dragging white women “down to the level of the negro women, and their children made the associates, on terms of forced equality, with negro children.”
Daily Constitutionalist
Thursday, Oct 31, 1867
Augusta, GA
Vol:24
Issue:267
Page:3
Not only was the term white supremacy commonly used during the Reconstruction Era to describe opposition to multiracial government and civil rights, newspapers knew that their readers understood the term so well that a number of headlines I saw in Southern white-owned papers used the phrase as the entire headline on stories calling for the subjugation of African Americans by whites. Here is an example of a headline from the Mobile Register in a article which the paper claims that Northerners were beginning to support the restoration of white supremacy.
Mobile Register
Thursday, Jun 02, 1870
Mobile, AL
Vol:III
Issue:105
Page:2
Here is another example.
Augusta Chronicle
Saturday, Aug 08, 1874
Augusta, GA
Page:2
The phrase was used before the Civil War as well, though not nearly as frequently. More commonly used was the phrase “Supremacy of the White race” or a variation of that. However, in this 1856 article from a Richmond paper we see a call to preserve white supremacy in the South by resisting the “Abolitionist’s mandate to fraternize” with “an inferior race.” We see the elements of modern white supremacy in the article. Whites are not to intermarry with Blacks because it will “debase your blood,” and racial equality means to “degrade your social and political status to the level of an inferior race.”
Richmond Enquirer
Friday, Aug 01, 1856
Richmond, VA
Vol: 53
Page:5
The use of the term “white supremacy” was widespread. I have seen it in articles published in newspapers from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, to the Carolinas, Virginia, Alabama, Texas, and Missouri. I think that it was used in papers in virtually every state in the “reunited” Union. It was used by Conservatives and Democrats who proudly claimed to support white supremacy, as well as by Radicals to describe what they opposed. It was used in rural newspapers as well as in those in large urban centers.
Editors obviously assumed that their readers knew the phase since they typically used it without any explanation of its meaning. It could be used by Radicals to damn their opponents or by Redeemers as a rallying cry to restore white control over Black people.
My occasional use of the term white supremacy is not an anachronistic imposition of modern ideas on the past. People of the Reconstruction Era knew what it was and used it in their newspapers. Many wrote that they longed for the day when white supremacy would be the law of the land, when only whites could vote or hold office.
Those history writers who never use the phrase are either ignorant of the primary sources or purposely trying to obscure the motives of the opponents of Reconstruction.
This is a great resource – your selection of uses of “white supremacy” is wide-ranging and not sectional, and your annotations really help to place the clippings in relative context.
In other words, “Absolutely not” is the answer. 🙂
Still I think differences remain between current and 19th century usage. For example, was Lincoln (circa 1864-5) a white supremacist? Is the XIII Amend a document that perpetrates white supremacy? In the context of the news clippings, they would not be: Certainly Guiny would not think so. Yet, I’m pretty sure that Kendi and others who shape racial equity discourse would consider Lincoln, still a racist until his death by today’s terms, a White Supremacist. Similarly, the XIII through its criminal exception clause, a white supremacist document.