Eye for an Eye: The Role of Armed Resistance ... - Freedom Archives

of newly emancipated Blacks, the First South Carolina Volunteers, captured and
occupied Jacksonville, Florida.' In 1863, newly trained Black troops exhibited
valor and demonstrated their worth as combatants in engagements with Confeder-
ates at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi . Despite "little experience," Black soldiers
were "most gallant," in the words of Union General Ulysses Grant . Due to their
value to the Union's cause, Grant made Black soldiers a significant part of his
Mississippi Valley campaign .u
While Black troops played a crucial role in the cause of saving the Union,
their motivation in this conflict was to win their liberation and eliminate chattel
slavery. The American Civil War represented the opportunity people of African
descent in the United States had been praying for to obtain freedom . To the
emancipated African, the acquisition of arms and participation in the conflict was
equated with respect for their humanity and elimination of their status as inferior
beings . The use of armed force to win liberation by Black Union soldiers fit into
Fanon's paradigm on violence in anti-colonial struggle . Fanon argued, " . . .violence
is a cleansing force . It frees the native of his inferiority complex and from despair
and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect."' Sergeant
Prince Rivers of the First South Carolina Volunteers reflected this sentiment in an
1863 address to a Philadelphia audience . Speaking on the significance of arming
the emancipated Africans, Rivers stated:
Now we sogers are men . . .men de first time in our lives . Now we
can look our old masters in de face . They used to sell and whip us,
and we did not dare and say one word. Now we ain't afraid, if they
meet us, to run the bayonet through them.'