Legacies of Social Transformation in U.S. "Contraband" Camps

• In Event: Revolutions and Statebuilding: Transforming Political and Social Institutions

Abstract

What are the foundations of enduring social transformation? A wave of new research has identified that key events and institutions fundamentally and enduringly shape the social landscape in ways that persist for decades if not centuries. But we know little about the micro-level foundations of how social change unfolds and then endures over the long-term. In this paper, we argue that social change is best conceptualized as the routinization of a set of new behaviors and social interactions. Such behaviors endure by reproducing them to later generations and through local institutions which either adapt to these behaviors or are created to reinforce these behaviors. We test our argument by focusing on “contraband” encampments during the U.S. Civil War. Because the placement and location of “contraband” encampments was orthogonal to wartime processes and exogenous to pre-existing local conditions, we can isolate the causal effect of human behavioral change on social transformation and measure the long-term effects thereof. We contend that “contraband” encampments provided former enslaved persons greater protection from Confederates and racist Redemptionist southern violence which enabled former enslaved persons to routinize and institutionalize behaviors that would undergird a new social order. These behaviors were repeated and reproduced across generations and local institutions reinforced these behaviors. As a result, counties with contraband encampments are more likely to have better health outcomes for Black persons in these counties, higher rates of voting among Black persons in these counties, and produce more Black politicians than similar counties without a “contraband” encampment. Marshaling new subnational quantitative data and archival material to assess causal mechanisms, we find support for our arguments.

Authors

• Megan A. Stewart, University of Michigan

• Karin Kitchens, Virginia Tech