• Nicolas Barreyre on postbellum US

Nicolas Barreyre proposes a fresh understanding of the Reconstruction Period in the US (1865 – 1877), following the Civil War (1861 – 1865). The aim of his research, which he published in a book called L’or et la liberté; une histoire spatiale des Etats-Unis après la guerre de Sécession, is to get rid of the traditional — and sometimes over simplified — divides which are usually used by historians to make sense of this troubled era.
The Reconstruction followed a traumatic and bloody war between Northern states, known as the Union, led by Abraham Lincoln and Southern states, called the Confederate states, which decided to secede from the rest of the country.
The main issues of this Civil War were the abolition of slavery and a vivid determination from Northern States to implement a strong federal state as well as a sense of citizenship, whereas Southerners were deeply committed to the defence of states’ rights and sovereignty. One of the main goals of the postbellum amendments – 13th, 14th and 15th – was to reach a utopian racial equality by changing Black men’s status and giving them the same rights as their fellow White citizens. Thanks to the Civil War amendments, slaves – males at least – were freed (1865) and became American citizens (1868) and were granted the right to vote (1870).
The main claim usually made about the Civil war is that it started over the issue of slavery, opposing abolitionist Republican Northern States to Southern states, whose economy was largely based on the economy of slavery. Hence the necessity to develop industry to help Southern agriculture recover from the war and thus trigger off a thriving economic revolution in both areas.
Nicolas Barreyre’s work is based on the idea that the construction of democracy and the building an American nation after the war cannot be understood if one considers the racial factor only. Indeed, he believes that this idea cannot be dissociated from sectionalism, which is a cultural issue as well as a political and economic one.
Barreyre thus questions the nature of power and the political games surrounding the Reconstruction project, taking into account economic and geographical factors, which seem essential to understand the course of development of the country at the time.
Nicolas Barreyre underlines the clear divide between Republicans and Democrats, mostly on economic issues, their constant competitiveness but also the compromises that had to be made, to avoid the explosion of the fragile balance which was in progress at the time. To that extent, it was important for the political leaders to try and mobilize people under the banner of common values – such as liberty, human rights, etc. – which they could share, even regardless of the conflicts between the two main parties.
Nicolas Barreyre thus emphasises the fact that the economic policies launched at the time had a huge impact on the political shaping of the country. As an example, since the US was going through hard economic times after four years of war, currency matters became a central issue. It led to debates about whether gold or bank notes should be used as currency, questioning people’s habits and preferences, since gold used to be considered the only trustworthy value. This controversy about currency actually crystallised people’s apprehensions regarding the project of nation building.
Appart from the economic aspect which is directly connected to Reconstruction, the research presented by Nicolas Barreyre highlights the geographical factor and the issue of sectionalism, which remained after the war. The geographic divide has to be taken into account for the understanding of politics, since it is proved to have had a real impact on the decision makings which shaped the country. As a matter of fact, Northern and and Southern states both had very distinct visions of what they wanted the Union to be, even after the abolition of slavery by the 13th amendment in 1865.
Nicolas Barreyre’s study thus allows another interpretation of Reconstruction, not merely based on the racial issues, but on spatial and economic aspects, which challenged the country’s building process and undoubtedly influenced the course of history, regarding the choices which were made to fulfil the ideal of a nation as a whole.

• "Lynchings, labour and cotton in the US South," Cornelius Christian

Cornelius Christian, an economics PhD student from Oxford University, presented a paper on the potential connections that can be made between the percentage of lynchings during the postbellum area and the economic situation of the market, and chose to study whether these factors still have an effect today. This surprising hypothesis was made by Christian following his assumption that lynchings have long-term effects on the labor market and thus have consequences on contemporary outcomes. Indeed, he believes that even in a context of civil rights claims, the racist incidents of the 1960s were closely interrelated to the memory of past lynchings during the Jim Crow laws.
His study is based on economic data and figures, which is quite unusual for such issues still considered sensitive today.
Cornelius Christian’s research tends to demonstrate that lynching had several effects, which can be directly related to the cotton market. Indeed, Christian states that lynchings were more important in counties where the cotton market was developed – in the South for instance – and according to the statistics he used, he tends to demonstrate that the more cotton is produced, the more lynchings have been practised. As a matter of fact, it appears that most lynched people were Afro-Americans, since their situation was closely intertwined with the fluctuations of the cotton market and the cost of labour.
But it does not seem to be only about the lynching of Black people, but more about the lynching of people considered as “outsiders” at the time. They could be white, Mexicans or immigrants in general as long as they do not fit the common ideal of how society should be overlooked and controlled.
According to Christian, the lynchings reached an even higher scale after the Bureau of Freedmen was established by the American government, whose purpose was to help former slaves integrate and make their way into society. The boom in the number of lynchings was seen as the Southern states as a “vengence” against the Northern states who, with this policy, deprived them from their main labour force. This Bureau of Freedmen was active during the Reconstruction period. At the time, the situation was quite tense between people since serious divides were caused by ethnic, political and economic issues. At that time, lynchings became usual, as the country was going through harsh economic times and the competition between workers and immigrants was surely exacerbated.
Modern segregation was in fact triggered off by a failure in the Reconstruction process which aimed at acknowledging a racial equality between Blacks and Whites in the United States.
So what are the contemporary outcomes of lynchings observed by Cornelius Christian? First of all, according to Christian, although there are no significant figures predicting that Blacks and Whites are still being considered appart within today’s society, it seems that contemporary labour market implications and racial split have their roots in the postbellum era. He also highlights the channel of persistance between the violent events which occurred during the Reconstruction period (intimidation from the Ku Klux Klan, church burnings, attempts to dissuade Black people from voting, etc.) and the events of the 1960s during which communities and different ethnic groups directly confronted one another, which led to a whole range of intimidation towards Black population especially in Southern states. This attempt to bridge the racial gap between Black and White people thanks to family policy, education, employment or housing during the Civil Rights era has not yet shown significant results.
Cornelius Christian’s study is quite surprising, since it has no real sociological or historical perspective. Indeed, it seems quite unusual to discuss the sensitive topic of lynching in such a practical way, using mostly graphs, data and mathematical formulas. This research does not claim to be anything but an economic understanding of the postbellum era, drawing unexpected parallels with today’s labour market’s situation. Although it is not really easy to concur with such statements, Christian’s work is undoubtedly audacious and it could eventually lead to a more realistic approach of affirmative action in the United States, adding more sociological data to this disconcerting economic questionning.