Looking Back: Christmas for African Americans During the Civil War

By: Leah Jenkins, Assistant Researcher

The Antebellum Period and the Civil War introduced and cemented numerous contemporary American traditions, including gift-giving, decorating and carol singing. Beginning in the 1830s, several southern slaveholding states adopted Christmas as a state holiday. African Americans were not exempt from the holiday cheer, as Christmas rewarded the group with relaxation, gifts and an opportunity for resistance. Christmastime marked the end of the planting season and allowed enslaved people to enjoy a few days of rest before the next season began. For slave masters, Christmas meant dominance, paternalism and power.

Common items like shoes, clothing and money were withheld throughout the year to be “gifted” for the holiday. Gifts from masters to enslaved individuals tethered the two in a parental bond, creating and enforcing childlike dependency. The beginning of the Civil War in 1861 heavily curtailed the gift-giving process, and as a result, Christmas became more modest than patriotic and strategic. A gift unforeseen by slave masters was the opportunity for enslaved peoples to escape. Many enslaved took advantage of their time off or ability to visit family and attempted to escape from their captors. Christmas would not become a national holiday until five years after the end of the Civil War.

References:

• https://www.history.com/news/christmas-slavery-american-south

• https://www.history.com/news/civil-war-christmas