Today in World History : Juneteenth -June 19th 1865

   

On January 1st 1863 President Lincoln In The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed the purpose of the Confiscation Act passed a year earlier by the US Congress authorizing the seizure of Confederate Property including enslaved people. His exact words were "

"I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons."

This proclamation brought freedom to millions of enslaved people in the US (Confederate). But some people are still enslaved in the Union states because of the loophole in the Emancipation Act of 1863. In 1864 The US Senate closed the loophole by the 13th Amendment by prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude in all states, Confederate and Union.

On June 19 1865 General Gordon Granger arrived Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the Federal government, standing on the balcony he read the content of " General Order No. 3". The Order stated :

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, ‘all slaves are free.’ This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

By 1865 there were about 250,000 people enslaved in Texas alone.