Kristen Layne Anderson - Abolitionizing Missouri German Immigrants and Racial Ideology in Nineteenth-Century America

ABOLITIONIZING MISSOURI

Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World
R. J. M. Blackett and James Brewer Stewart, Series Editors

GERMAN IMMIGRANTS
AND
RACIAL IDEOLOGY
IN
NINETEENTH-CENTURY
AMERICA

KRISTEN LAYNE
ANDERSON

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BATON ROUGE

Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright 2016 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing

Designer: Michelle A. Neustrom
Typeface: Whitman
Printer and binder: Maple Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Kristen Layne, 1979
Abolitionizing Missouri : German immigrants and racial ideology in nineteenth-century America / Kristen Layne Anderson.
pages cm. (Antislavery, abolition, and the Atlantic world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-6196-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8071-6198-2 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8071-6197-5 (epub) ISBN 978-0-8071-6199-9 (mobi)
1. German AmericansMissouriHistory19th century. 2. Antislavery movementsMissouriHistory19th century. 3. AbolitionistsMissouriHistory. 4. MissouriRace relations. I. Title.
F475.G3A53 2016
305.8009778dc23

2015035213

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Slavery Must Persist Among Us for Many Years Yet
Slavery and German Immigrants, 18481854

Abolitionizing Kansas and Missouri
German Attitudes Toward Slavery, 18541860

At the Point of Dutchmens Bayonets
The Early Years of the Civil War

Fr Einheit und Freiheit
The Politics of Emancipation

The Perfect Equalization of Blacks and Whites
The Transition to Freedom

Equal Justice to All, Without Regard to Color
The Debate over Black Suffrage

THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN completed without the assistance of many people and organizations. I am grateful to the faculty and students at the University of Iowa who provided feedback on earlier versions of this study and who helped me to grow as a scholar. My advisor, Shel Stromquist, was everything a graduate student could hope for in a mentor, giving generously of his time, tirelessly reading multiple drafts in the face of competing obligations, and proffering cogent advice on this project and all aspects of my career. My second reader, Leslie Schwalm, was similarly generous with her time and expertise, providing invaluable comments that greatly improved both this book and my skills as a historian. I also want to thank the other members of my committeeGlenn Penny, Douglas Baynton, and Kathleen Diffleyfor their useful suggestions for further revision, as well as Malcolm Rohrbough, for his commentary on an earlier version of this project. My colleagues at Webster University have provided a supportive environment for completing the book, and I am grateful for their assistance and encouragement. Finally, the reviewers for Louisiana State University Press also provided valuable feedback that has made this a stronger book. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own.

As with any work of historical scholarship, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the librarians and archivists who helped me with my research. The staff of the Missouri History Museum Archives in St. Louis and the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection in St. Louis and Columbia cheerfully handled massive photocopying requests, and their vast knowledge of their respective fields was of invaluable assistance. The staff of the special collections, genealogy, and media services departments of the St. Louis Public Library and the St. Louis County Library were also extremely helpful in my never-ending search for newspapers and microfilm. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the librarians at Webster Universitys Emerson Library for their assistance with a seemingly endless succession of interlibrary loans as I revised the manuscript.

My research trips to St. Louis were made possible by support from the University of Iowa, in the form of a Presidential Fellowship, a University of Iowa Student Government research grant, and an Elizabeth Bennett Ink Fellowship from the Department of History. The State Historical Society of Missouri also provided financial assistance through a grant from the Richard S. Brownlee Fund.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my family and friends for their support. They provided useful distractions when I most needed them and showed great patience with my decision to devote so much time to the drawn-out process that is historical scholarship. My husband David, whom I had not yet met when I began this project but had the great fortune to meet before I finished it, has been unfailingly supportive. To him and to all my friends and family, I owe more thanks than can be given here.

ABOLITIONIZING MISSOURI

WHEN THE MISSOURI CONSTITUTIONAL Convention approved an ordinance abolishing slavery within the state on January 11, 1865, the African American and German American populations of the state rejoiced. Both groups had actively fought for the abolition of slavery during the Civil War, urging the federal government to make emancipation a war aim and to enroll African American men in the military. Once emancipation had become a reality in Missouri, both groups held public celebrations of the event. At one such celebration, Arnold Krekel, a prominent Missouri German who had fought long and hard for the abolition of slavery in the state, remarked on the unique relationship between German immigrants and African Americans. He argued that Germans had always been staunch opponents of slavery because of all the whites in the United States, whether immigrant or native born, they alone were unaffected by racial prejudice against African Americans.

What Krekel claimed to be true in 1865 had not always been the case. Only fifteen years earlier, St. Louis Germans had demonstrated little opposition to slavery, with the German-language press publishing advertisements for slave sales and reports about fugitive slave hunts in a manner similar to that used by the English-language press. While few Germans in Missouri were slaveholders, at least a few considered purchasing or hiring enslaved people. Some Germans also demonstrated many of the same racial prejudices that slaveholders used to justify the institution, including the belief that African Americans were inferior to whites and might actually be better off enslaved.

Nor did the supposedly amicable relationship between African Americans and German Americans continue long after emancipation. The most radical Germans in St. Louis continued to push for equal rights for African Americans, including the right of African American men to vote. Most Germans, however, rejected the idea of equal citizenship rights for African Americans, particularly black suffrage. When Missouri voted on a referendum to enfranchise black men in 1868, most Germans rejected the measure, demonstrating that just three years after Krekel praised their lack of prejudice in supporting emancipation, they were not only still prejudiced against African Americans but were basing their political decisions on racial ideology.

Krekels argument that Germans were nearly universally opposed to slavery has been widely accepted, however, likely because it does contain a certain amount of truth. For Germans like Krekel, the moral imperative that led them to support emancipation also necessitated the extension of equal rights to African Americans once slavery was gone.