WATCH NIGHT ON THE PLANTATIONS

Image: Watch Meeting—Dec. 31st 1862,
"Waiting for the Hour" is an 1863 painting by William Tolman Carlton.
It depicts enslaved Black men, women, and children gathered in a cabin, eagerly awaiting the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The original is lost, but a possible study hangs in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom. A Black person in the doorway holds a U.S. flag draped over their arms.
The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison praised the painting as "admirable" in a letter to Lincoln, noting that abolitionist donors in Boston had contributed over five hundred dollars to present it as a gift to him.
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Before December 31, 1862, New Year's Eve was called "Watch Night", and New Yea's Day was referred to as “Heartbreak Day,” according to Valdosta State University history professor Dr. David Williams in his book, “A People’s History of the Civil War.” because, New Year’s Day was often the day when slaveholders sold slaves and or "rented" them out. It was when families, parents and children, siblings, husbands and wives, were separated.

The enslaved people would gather on New Year’s Eve knowing that may be the last time many families had the opportunity to be together. For the enslaved Black people, it was not a joyous time to celebrate the new year's arrival as was the case for White people in America.

We know from a recorded account from the section entitled, THE SLAVES' NEW YEAR'S DAY.,
from the book, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Written by Herself: Harriet A. (Ann) Jacobs, 1813-1897" that on the plantation she was held on in Edenton, NC that the enslaved people gathered on December 31, with anxious feelings of the New Year's Day coming, because that was the day that many of the enslaved Black people would be sold and or rented out. It was the day in which families were torn apart in order for the slave master to increase his profit.

Watch Night took on a different meaning beginning with Dec. 31, 1862, as the enslaved Black people on plantations gathered to await word from Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which would free the enslaved Black people, and was to go into effect Jan. 1, 1863.

For those that had gotten word about President Lincoln and the Emaciation Proclamation, The day before the proclamation was signed was called by many 'Freedom's Eve.'

In many cases, the few Black churches that existed and their congregations were joined by white abolitionists throughout both the North and South as they awaited well into New Year’s Day in 1863 for word that Lincoln had signed the Proclamation into law.
Joy and celebration greeted Lincoln’s words in many African American churches and on plantations that did receive word.

“I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States,” the Proclamation read, “and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be, free.”

In the decades since the end of chattel slavery by President Lincoln sighing the Emancipation Proclamation on December 31, 1862, Watch Night has evolved into an evening that honors the lives of the enslaved Black people, celebrates family and fellowship, and encourages a time to reflect on one's past year with prayers, praise and hope for a good and better year coming. .

One recorded "waiting" on December 31, 1862 by the enslaved Black people is this one:

Boston Abolitionists Await Emancipation Proclamation

"On this day, New Year's Eve 1862, William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the abolitionist paper The Liberator, delayed printing the latest edition as he waited for news from Washington. At midnight, his son and daughter joined Black worshipers in hopeful prayer at the AME Church on Beacon Hill. The next day, thousands of abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall and the Tremont Temple in Boston, hoping they would have cause to celebrate. At dusk, the wire finally came from Washington: President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation."
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