![]() In 1866, African Americans marked the anniversary of the June 19 order as Emancipation Day. Texas newspapers had previously published news of the Emancipation Proclamation, but the state’s Confederate constitution prohibited freeing enslaved people, so the order was ignored until Granger arrived with a show of force, writes Afi-Odelia Scruggs in a separate story for the Washington Post. ![]() Plante tells the Post that the general likely felt compelled to issue the decree. 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. Juneteenth order discovered in the National Archives It is a day African Americans set aside to commemorate the end of slavery and the promise of freedom-expressed through music, food, and ceremony. Limited-Edition Juneteenth Collection Available NowĬelebrated by African Americans for generations through food and fellowship, Juneteenth embodies Black resilience, independence, and community. Per a statement, the decree will be digitized and added to the National Archives’ catalog. 3” had long been hidden in a book of formal orders housed at the archives. Emery on behalf of Granger, “General Orders No. Written in ornate cursive by a general’s aide and signed by Maj. This would have been done the day of,” says Trevor Plante, director of a textual records division at the archives, to the Post. The document is likely the earliest existing copy of the decree. Ahead of the 154th anniversary of this June 19 declaration-now widely recognized as Juneteenth, a second American Independence Day-historians at the National Archives have located the handwritten order itself, reports Michael Ruane for the Washington Post. When General Gordon Granger and his army of 2,000 soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to quell a remaining pocket of resistance, he issued a formal military order informing thousands of people of their newfound freedom. Lee surrendered and a full two-and-a-half years after the original proclamation was signed. But the institution of chattel slavery in the United States only came to an end in June 1865-two months after Confederate commander Robert E. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all enslaved individuals in rebel states free, on January 1, 1863.
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