“It Looks Much Like Abandoned Land”: Property and the Politics of Loyalty in Reconstruction Mississippi

In post-Civil War Mississippi, loyalty—the measuring of an individual's faithful allegiance to government—became something of a political currency, used by whites to secure the property of those who had lost their land or possessions. In countless local battles over property, white Mississippians attempted to minimize their past transgressions as former Confederates and claim a renewed spirit of Unionism, often with checkered results. Understanding the impact of this process focuses attention on the opportunities afforded African Americans to both proclaim their loyalty and claim property. African Americans learned how to make use of their new relationship with the federal state, leveraging their loyalty in return for federal protection and civic rights. Claiming their loyalty to the Union as both more profound and trustworthy when compared to that of former Confederates, African Americans used the politics of loyalty to make a bid for citizenship and possessions they believed were rightfully theirs.