Not in My Backyard: Puritan Morality versus Puritan Mercantilism and Its Impact on HBCUs

Abstract

In the antebellum period, as well as during the Civil War, Northern Whites used Southern slavery as proof of their moral and economic superiority over Southern Whites. As tensions between the North and South grew, Northern and Southern Whites adopted disparate racial identities in response to their differing perspectives on the morality of slavery, and the economic realities of agricultural slavery versus industrialization, to justify disunion. Southern Whites labeled Northern Whites as “Puritans” overcome with religious fanaticism and greedy mercantilism. After the Civil War, Southerners believed that the stereotypes about Northerners held true, as during Reconstruction, religious Northern abolitionists sent teachers and money southward in an effort to educate free Blacks. However, this benevolence toward the former slaves was not without its disturbing side. While these missionaries believed that former slaves were persons deserving of freedom, they also believed that slavery corrupted their character, and therefore, post-bellum, they needed to “save” Blacks from their moral “savagery” (Watson, 2008). The Northern White educators believed that education served as the primary method to eradicate the moral deficiency of the former slaves and to help Blacks obtain the knowledge that would allow them to fully enter White “civilized” society.