Christmas and New Year’s in the Time of Enslavement

Written by: Becca Williams, SBT Copywriter

Cover art depicts Harriet Tubman guiding her two brothers on a Christmas Eve escape.

I’ve often written about the ongoing debate of critical race theory and its implications for our understanding of how (not if) racism is baked into every one of our structures and institutions. I’ve written about the macro ways in which this happens, from the discrimination by the USDA and the Veteran’s Affairs Office and the micro, every day ways in which this happens, by detailing my own frustration with my lack of knowledge around Black history.  White supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy have shaped so many aspects of our lives. Our collective liberation comes in not only our awareness of it, but also in our active divestment from it.  Many of us know that the holidays, particularly Christmas and New Year’s, represents capitalism at its worst – monetizing love and quality time and making broad assumptions about the relationships people have with their families and loved ones.  Until recently, I hadn’t really thought critically about Christmas and New Year’s from any other perspective.  I have my own issues with it, particularly around the lack of nuance and grace given to those of us for whom this is an emotionally, mentally, spiritually, or physically daunting time.  But in my own whiteness, that thought process didn’t extend much beyond that, meaning I hadn’t thought about the holidays from a historical or intersectional lens.

This post is about Christmas and New Year’s in the time of enslavement.  There are so many complexities at play here from the expression of Black joy during the holidays to the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that enslavers manipulated the holidays to further their exploitative and abusive cause.  I believe that my own lack of awareness around the Christmas experience for enslaved folx speaks to the level of saturation of some of these narratives, particularly the myth of the benevolent enslavers providing gifts, food, and festivities for their labor force during the holiday.  This mythologizing of Christmas for enslaved folx as being a time when the experience of enslavement somehow became less of a concern most explicitly reinforces the tenets of the Lost Cause.  The Lost Cause posits that the Civil War was fought over state’s rights and not directly over enslavement.  It glorifies the Confederacy and paints a portrait of enslavers as kind, generous, and going above and beyond to ensure that enslaved folx had what they needed.  This effort has seeped into school textbooks, into Disney movies, and into our cultural imagination. 

(An 1837 illustration called "Plantation Frolic on Christmas Eve")

Christmas became a national holiday in 1870, a mere five years after the end of the Civil War.  It had, however, been acknowledged on plantations for many years prior.  Often, enslavers and other pro-enslavement folx told romanticized stories about themselves during the holidays.  As this article writes, “Southerners tried to create a national identity that was partly molded around Christmas.”  This looked a few different ways.  Most obviously was the way in which enslavers played up their generosity during the holidays, with many stories told about enslavers providing gifts, fresh meat, time off to rest, passes given so enslaved folx could visit their loved ones on other plantations, and the ability for enslaved folx to dine and party with them, for example, an invitation to the enslaver’s front porch to watch fireworks.  Take a moment to let all these acts of “benevolence” sink in. 

The “gifts” that enslavers provided were often the once annual allotment of shoes and clothing for enslaved Black folx, and the meat that was butchered on Christmas was likely the only fresh meat offered to enslaved folx that they didn’t have to hunt themselves.  The “time off to rest” typically lasted between one and eight days, and may have been the only time off that enslaved folx received all year.  And, it typically wasn’t “time off” in the way that we perceive it – while many of the crop harvesting had ended by that time, there were still myriad other things that enslaved folx were forced to do – feed animals, prepare for enslaver’s house guests, cook and serve food, etc.  And those passes?  It’s tough to imagine any type of benevolence stemming from allowing enslaved folx to see their families after their families had been cruelly separated and sold off for profit.  Lastly, it’s difficult to imagine the trauma responses activated by being told to sit on the front porch with the same people who daily terrorize you and your loved ones, and it’s difficult to imagine what might have happened if that invitation were to be declined.  There can be no benevolence in an environment so steeped in dehumanization, racial terror, and coercion.  Southerners saw that this myth around their holiday generosity often softened the reproach that they faced from Northern abolitionists, and this compelled them to throw more and more extravagant parties.  This strikes me as extremely disorienting, gaslighting, and abusive – to offer small bits of humanity under the auspice of maintaining control over the institution of enslavement.  I encourage you to take a moment to think about how this act of manipulation still shows up in different ways.

Take a look at the below excerpt, written by South Carolinian lawyer and enslaver in his 1843 defense of slavery, and think about the level of brutal, intentional, and crafted disillusionment embodied by so many at the time:

“We allow our adult slaves or laborers a peck of corn or a bushel of sweet potatoes, each, per week, and each child under a certain age, half the quantity—giving them salt and meat, or salt fish occasionally. . . . In addition to all this, each slave is allowed a portion of ground to till for his own use and profit, on which he cultivates vegetables, Indian corn, rice, potatoes, and ground nuts [peanuts], &c., one or more, as he may choose; with the privilege also of raising poultry, and selling them and their eggs for his own benefit. The game of the woods, and the fish of the river, or pond, are theirs also. . . . Never, too, was there a more musical, dance-loving, merry making people; their Christmas sports, at which season they have holydays, or saturnalia, of three days’ duration, shew [sic] them, as indeed does their whole course of existence, to enjoy animal life to the highest possible degree, and to stand in no need of that devilish sympathy of the abolitionists, which would sow discontent, strife and misery, in their now happy and peaceful, if not Eden-like lot.”          [5]

This narrative – even as many enslavers themselves wrote in their diaries about resenting the fact that they felt compelled to give enslaved folx time off during Christmas – is still alive and well.  The United Daughters of the Confederacy would offer warm appraisals for enslaved folx’s experience of Christmas, and authors during this time would often devote whole chapters to this false benevolence. (One branch of the United Daughters of the Confederacy just had their annual Christmas luncheon, actually.) Even after the Civil War, stories were told about formerly enslaved folx caring so much about their enslavers that they would swing by their former forced labor camp on Christmas, bearing gifts. I’m not saying this never happened; I am saying we can’t look at those acts alone without understanding the depth of dehumanization that accompanies it.  We also can’t look at that depth of dehumanization as the only way to characterize enslaved Black Americans.

There was joy on Christmas, for sure.  There were festivities, time off, feasts, and passes given that enabled Black families the chance at a once annual reunion.  There were signs of resistance – through joy, rest, enjoyment – in the face of great turmoil and heartache.  Because of the passes given and the time off allotted, Christmas was also a time where many enslaved folx escaped.  Enslavers were often not paying attention to who was where, thus giving escaped enslaved folx a few days of a head start.  There are a few famous stories of escaped enslaved folx leaving plantations at this time.  On Christmas Eve in 1853, Harriet Tubman helped her two brothers flee their plantation in Cambridge, Maryland after receiving word that their enslaver planned on selling her brothers after the holiday.  Three years later, Tubman returned for her parents.  There is still a Christmas Eve walk that happens on Thompson Farm, the plantation, retracing the first few miles of their escape.  Henry Bibb, author of Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, escaped on Christmas Day in 1837 by paddling across the river from Kentucky to Ohio.  Jarm Logue escaped enslavement on Christmas Eve on his enslaver’s horse, and made it to New York, where he learned to read and write, became a respected minister, and opened many schools for Black youth.  Enslavers quickly came to see Christmastime as a time of anxiety and panic around enslaved folx escaping and potentially plotting an insurrection against them, and so while this was a time for many to escape, it also became a time of racial terror, executions, and vigilante-ism for other enslaved folx as the panic reached a dangerous fever pitch.

called “Hiring” or “Heartbreak” day, New Year’s Day was a common day for enslavers to tear apart family units by selling off enslaved folx to other plantations.  In 1842, a formerly enslaved man, Lewis Clark, wrote, “Of all the days in the year, the slaves dread New Year’s Day the worst of any”.  Many enslaved folx were “rented out” on one year contracts to other plantations, with the contract period typically ending on January 1^st, enabling them to return to their original plantation only to worry about being sold off to another right away.  There was often a lot of praying and hoping that families and friends could stay together in the New Year. This hope lasted well after the treaty to end the Transatlantic Slave Trade, enacted on January 1^st, 1808, because, as I wrote about in this post, the domestic slave trade flourished in the ensuing years.  In 1862, a custom began as enslaved folx and abolitionists prayed through the night, waiting for Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation into effect.  This became known as Watch Night, and is still practiced in some communities.

I encourage you this holiday season to reflect on this history, with the understanding that while our society is certainly different today, the wounds of this history run deep and continue to be opened anew. I don’t expect this to put a damper on your celebrations, but please allow it to provide a more truthful, honest, and realistic look into this holiday, and perhaps let it channel your thoughts to the similarities between the perceived benevolence of enslavers during the holidays and our own perceptions about our niceness and charitable acts.  This is the perfect time of year to renew your commitment toward becoming actively antiracist. 

Happy Holidays!

Additional Resources

Check out this powerful correspondence between Jarm Logue (see above) and his former enslaver’s wife.  She writes him a threatening letter, asking him to pay her back for the losses his absence has incurred, and he writes a scathing response.  As you read, consider Wanda’s Profiles of White Womanhood. 

Christmastime was also a time of revolution and escape for enslaved folx in the Caribbean and in South America.  Read more here about the Jamaican Baptist War, also known as the Christmas Rebellion.