What did the Surrender Mean to Free African Americans in Appomattox?
Charles Diuguid was a blacksmith whose shop was almost directly across the road from the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House. He seems to have been relatively prosperous and even had six enslaved people listed as his property in 1860. At first glance Mr. Diuguid may appear to be a typical local craftsman, but he was uncommon in several ways. Charles Diuguid was African American, one of about one hundred “Free Blacks” in Appomattox County at the time of the Civil War. Also, the enslaved people in his household were his wife and five children.
Why did Charles Diuguid choose not manumit his family? Most likely because of the unsettling truth that it was easier to protect them as enslaved people than if they were free. Simply put, there were more due process protections for property under Virginia law than there were for free African Americans. A free African American could be arrested by almost any white male and charged with a plethora of crimes that would result in the African American being sold into involuntary servitude. African Americans could not testify against whites, so there was little to no way to mount a defense if an African American, free or enslaved, was charged with a crime. Property, however, was protected much more stringently.
Diuguid, like many free blacks, personally experienced his lack of rights and citizenship under the Confederate system when he was involuntarily impressed twice as an uncompensated laborer for the Confederate Army, first in 1861, to help dig earthwork defenses in Northern Virginia, and again in 1864 to help construct defenses around the besieged city of Richmond. In testimony to the Federal Claims commission Diuguid clearly understood that free blacks did not have personal rights. He reported that when the local sheriff “recruited” him, “I would have to go and if I didn’t go, he would have cuffed me. I had no more rights than the slaves.”
Diuguid was in Appomattox on the morning of April 9th when the Confederate Army surrendered. His land was along the line the Confederates formed west of the village in their last attempt to break through the Union forces that had effectively surrounded them. No one in Charles Diuguid’s family left any record of their thoughts or observation about the surrender. The only record associated with them is the unsuccessful claim Diuguid filed to get compensation for livestock that Union soldiers took at the time of the surrender.
Diuguid and his family finally left Appomattox for Ohio in 1879. Their departure coincides with the beginning of a steady the drop of African American population in Virginia from a fairly consistent 40% in the 1850s through the 1870s to 20% by the 1970s. The motivation for the move seems to have been to seek greater economic and educational opportunity.
Directly after the Civil War the Freedmen’s Bureau attempted to set up schools for African Americans in Appomattox and across the south. Under the Virginia “Underwood Constitution” of 1870, public schools for all were mandated, but support for maintaining these schools was inconsistent in central Virginia. The official attendance records show low participation, especially for African Americans. By and large these schools failed due to a combination of local indifference, hostility, and sometimes even violence, as well as a lack of political and economic support. It is telling that when the Diuguids arrived in Ohio one of their first actions was to enroll all of their children into school.
The end of the institution of slavery may have given rise to hope for freedom, equality, and opportunity for men like Charles Diuguid and his family, but the advent of Jim Crow Laws and other forms of institutionalized segregation and discrimination meant that those hopes and dreams were unjustly deferred. Diuguid and his family had to struggle to create those opportunities for equality, first by exploiting loopholes in the Slave Codes to keep their family intact and then, after the war, through migration.
Written by Joe Servis, Teacher at Appomattox County High School
Sources:
Blacks in Virginia Demographic Trends in Historical Context; by Michele P. Claibourn
Transcripts: Southern Claims Commission Report for Charles Diugiud, July 1871
The History of Appomattox Schools 1870-1991. 2001; Appomattox County Retired Teachers Association
