Respectful and Respected

Respectful and Respected

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Jefferson Davis believed it was his Christian duty to treat blacks with respect. Cooper discusses Davis's treatment of blacks and their response to that treatment:

Without question he respected individual blacks and in turn received their respect. His dealings with his slave James Pemberton and with Ben Montgomery as both a slave and a freedman illustrate such a relationship. Inviting Davis to attend the Colored State Fair in Vicksburg in 1886, Montgomery's son Isaiah said he knew Davis would have an interest "in any Enterprise tending to the welfare and development of the Colored people of Mississippi." "We would be highly pleased to have you here," Isaiah Montgomery asserted, and he closed "with best wishes for your continued preservation."48

When Davis had to leave his plantation suddenly in order to go to Montgomery to assume duties as the Confederate president, "He made a touching farewell speech to his quickly assembled slaves, who responded with expressions of devotion. . . ."49

The year before Davis died, he received a letter from one of his former slaves, James H. Jones, who had since become a Republican and had had a successful career in the intervening fifteen years. Jones told Davis, "I have always been as warmly attached to you as when I was your body servant."50 Jones went on to say that he always defended Davis from "any attack of malicious or envious people." Another one of Davis's former slaves, Robert Brown, fiercely defended Davis after the war. In one instance, Brown was traveling with Mrs. Davis and the children on a ship headed to New York, when a Northern man approached one of the Davis children and began to attack Davis's character. Brown became so angry that he punched the man. The captain of the ship was called, and when he heard the full story of the incident, he said Brown's action was justified and demanded an apology from the Northerner.51

Davis treated blacks with respect, and many blacks knew it. During a trip through the western part of the Confederacy, Davis got off his train at Griswoldville, Georgia, in order to meet with a group of slaves who had gathered in the hope of seeing him. These men worked at a local pistol factory and had come to the train station because they wanted to meet Davis. Informed of the gathering, Davis got off the train and circulated among the group, shaking each hand and speaking to each man individually.52 When Davis returned to Richmond, Virginia, after the war, he was not only cheered by whites but also by blacks. One observer noted that Davis was "greatly touched" by the sympathy shown to him by the blacks in the crowd. In fact, some blacks climbed up on his carriage, shook and kissed his hand, and called out "God bless Mars Davis."53