Could the handling of this incident have been multipled a thousand times--could men have realized that mere accidents are fleeting but that principles are eternal--both races would have been spared years of agony, and our Southland would be a far different place to-day. The Negro was at the heart of the problem, but to that problem the South undoubtedly held the key. Of course the cry of "social equality" might have been raised; _anything_ might have been said to keep the right thing from being done. In this instance, as in many others, the final question was not what somebody else did, but how one himself could act most n.o.bly.
Unfortunately Lee"s method of approach was not to prevail. Pa.s.sion and prejudice and demagoguery were to have their day, and conservative and broadly patriotic men were to be made to follow leaders whom they could not possibly approve. Sixty years afterwards we still suffer from the KuKlux solution of the problem.
2. _Meeting the Problem_
The story of reconstruction has been many times told, and it is not our intention to tell that story again. We must content ourselves by touching upon some of the salient points in the discussion.
Even before the close of the war the National Government had undertaken to handle officially the thousands of Negroes who had crowded to the Federal lines and not less than a million of whom were in the spring of 1865 dependent upon the National Government for support. The Bureau of Refugee Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, created in connection with the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865, was to remain in existence throughout the war and for one year thereafter. Its powers were enlarged July 16, 1866, and its chief work did not end until January 1, 1869, its educational work continuing for a year and a half longer. The Freedmen"s Bureau was to have "the supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen." Of special importance was the provision in the creating act that gave the freedmen to understand that each male refugee was to be given forty acres with the guarantee of possession for three years.
Throughout the existence of the Bureau its chief commissioner was General O.O. Howard. While the princ.i.p.al officers were undoubtedly men of n.o.ble purpose, many of the minor officials were just as undoubtedly corrupt and self-seeking. In the winter of 1865-6 one-third of its aid was given to the white people of the South. For Negro pupils the Bureau established altogether 4,239 schools, and these had 9,307 teachers and 247,333 students. Its real achievement has been thus ably summed up: "The greatest success of the Freedmen"s Bureau lay in the planting of the free school among Negroes, and the idea of free elementary education among all cla.s.ses in the South.... For some fifteen million dollars, beside the sum spent before 1865, and the dole of benevolent societies, this bureau set going a system of free labor, established a beginning of peasant proprietorship, secured the recognition of black freedmen before courts of law, and founded the free common school in the South. On the other hand, it failed to begin the establishment of good will between ex-masters and freedmen, to guard its work wholly from paternalistic methods, which discouraged self-reliance, and to carry out to any considerable extent its implied promises to furnish the freedmen with land."[1] To this tale of its shortcomings must be added also the management of the Freedmen"s Bank, which "was morally and practically part of the Freedmen"s Bureau, although it had no legal connection with it." This inst.i.tution made a really remarkable start in the development of thrift among the Negroes, and its failure, involving the loss of the first savings of hundreds of ex-slaves, was as disastrous in its moral as in its immediate financial consequences.
[Footnote 1: DuBois: _The Souls of Black Folk_, 32-37.]
When the Freedmen"s Bureau came to an end, it turned its educational interests and some money over to the religious and benevolent societies which had cooperated with it, especially to the American Missionary a.s.sociation. This society had been organized before the Civil War on an interdenominational and strong anti-slavery basis; but with the withdrawal of general interest the body pa.s.sed in 1881 into the hands of the Congregational Church. Other prominent agencies were the American Baptist Home Mission Society (also the American Baptist Publication Society), the Freedmen"s Aid Society (representing the Northern Methodists), and the Presbyterian Board of Missions. Actual work was begun by the American Missionary a.s.sociation. In 1861 Lewis Tappan, treasurer of the organization, wrote to General Butler to ask just what aid could be given. The result of the correspondence was that on September 3 of this year Rev. L.C. Lockwood reached Hampton and on September 17 opened the first day school among the freedmen. This school was taught by Mrs. Mary S. Peake, a woman of the race who had had the advantage of a free mother, and whose devotion to the work was such that she soon died. However, she had helped to lay the foundations of Hampton Inst.i.tute. Soon there was a school at Norfolk, there were two at Newport News, and by January schools at Hilton Head and Beaufort, S.C. Then came the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, throwing wide open the door of the great need. Rev. John Eaton, army chaplain from Ohio, afterwards United States Commissioner of Education, was placed in charge of the instruction of the Negroes, and in one way or another by the close of the war probably as many as one million in the South had learned to read and write. The 83 missionaries and teachers of the a.s.sociation in 1863 increased to 250 in 1864. At the first day session of the school in Norfolk after the Proclamation there were 350 scholars, with 300 others in the evening.
On the third day there were 550 in the day school and 500 others in the evening. The school had to be divided, a part going to another church; the a.s.sistants increased in number, and soon the day attendance was 1,200. For such schools the houses on abandoned plantations were used, and even public buildings were called into commission. Afterwards arose the higher inst.i.tutions, Atlanta, Berea, Fisk, Talladega, Straight, with numerous secondary schools. Similarly the Baptists founded the colleges which, with some changes of name, have become Virginia Union, Hartshorn, Shaw, Benedict, Morehouse, Spelman, Jackson, and Bishop, with numerous affiliated inst.i.tutions. The Methodists began to operate Clark (in South Atlanta), Claflin, Rust, Wiley, and others; and the Presbyterians, having already founded Lincoln in 1854, now founded Biddle and several seminaries for young women; while the United Presbyterians founded Knoxville. In course of time the distinctively Negro denominations--the A.M.E., the A.M.E.Z., and the C.M.E. (which last represented a withdrawal from the Southern Methodists in 1870)--also helped in the work, and thus, in addition to Wilberforce in Ohio, arose such inst.i.tutions as Morris Brown University, Livingstone College, and Lane College. In 1867, moreover, the Federal Government crowned its work for the education of the Negro by the establishment at Washington of Howard University.
As these inst.i.tutions have grown they have naturally developed some differences or special emphasis. Hampton and Atlanta University are now independent; and Berea has had a peculiar history, legislation in Kentucky in 1903 restricting the privileges of the inst.i.tution to white students. Hampton, in the hands of General Armstrong, placed emphasis on the idea of industrial and practical education which has since become world-famous. In 1871 the Fisk Jubilee Singers began their memorable progress through America and Europe, meeting at first with scorn and sneers, but before long touching the heart of the world with their strange music. Their later success was as remarkable as their mission was unique. Meanwhile Spelman Seminary, in the record of her graduates who have gone as missionaries to Africa, has also developed a glorious tradition.
To those heroic men and women who represented this idea of education at its best, too much credit can not be given. Cravath at Fisk, Ware at Atlanta, Armstrong at Hampton, Graves at Morehouse, Tupper at Shaw, and Packard and Giles at Spelman, are names that should ever be recalled with thanksgiving. These people had no enviable task. They were ostracized and persecuted, and some of their co-workers even killed. It is true that their idea of education founded on the New England college was not very elastic; but their theory was that the young men and women whom they taught, before they were Negroes, were human beings. They had the key to the eternal verities, and time will more and more justify their position.
To the Freedmen"s Bureau the South objected because of the political activity of some of its officials. To the schools founded by missionary endeavor it objected primarily on the score of social equality. To both the provisional Southern governments of 1865 replied with the so-called Black Codes. The theory of these remarkable ordinances--most harsh in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana--was that even if the Negro was nominally free he was by no means able to take care of himself and needed the tutelage and oversight of the white man. Hence developed what was to be known as a system of "apprenticeship." South Carolina in her act of December 21, 1865, said, "A child, over the age of two years, born of a colored parent, may be bound by the father if he be living in the district, or in case of his death or absence from the district, by the mother, as an apprentice to any respectable white or colored person who is competent to make a contract; a male until he shall attain the age of twenty-one years, and a female until she shall attain the age of eighteen.... Males of the age of twelve years, and females of the age of ten years, shall sign the indenture of apprenticeship, and be bound thereby.... The master shall receive to his own use the profits of the labor of his apprentice." To this Mississippi added: "If any apprentice shall leave the employment of his or her master or mistress, said master or mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him or her before any justice of peace of the county, whose duty it shall be to remand said apprentice to the service of his or her master or mistress; and in the event of a refusal on the part of said apprentice so to return, then said justice shall commit said apprentice to the jail of said county," etc., etc. In general by such legislation the Negro was given the right to sue and be sued, to testify in court concerning Negroes, and to have marriage and the responsibility for children recognized. On the other hand, he could not serve on juries, could not serve in the militia, and could not vote or hold office. He was virtually forbidden to a.s.semble, and his freedom of movement was restricted. Within recent years the Black Codes have been more than once defended as an honest effort to meet a difficult situation, but the old slavery att.i.tude peered through them and gave the impression that those who framed them did not yet know that the old order had pa.s.sed away.
Meanwhile the South was in a state of panic, and the provisional governor of Mississippi asked of President Johnson permission to organize the local militia. The request was granted and the patrols immediately began to show their hostility to Northern people and the freedmen. In the spring of 1866 there was a serious race riot in Memphis. On July 30, while some Negroes were marching to a political convention in New Orleans, they became engaged in brawls with the white spectators. Shots were exchanged; the police, a.s.sisted by the spectators, undertook to arrest the Negroes; the Negroes took refuge in the convention hall; and their pursuers stormed the building and shot down without mercy the Negroes and their white supporters. Altogether not less than forty were killed and not less than one hundred wounded; but not more than a dozen men were killed on the side of the police and the white citizens. General Sheridan, who was in command at New Orleans, characterized the affair as "an absolute ma.s.sacre ... a murder which the mayor and police of the city perpetrated without the shadow of a necessity."
In the face of such events and tendencies, and influenced to some extent by a careful and illuminating but much criticized report of Carl Schurz, Congress, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, proceeded to pa.s.s legislation designed to protect the freedmen and to guarantee to the country the fruits of the war. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution formally abolishing slavery was pa.s.sed December 18, 1865.
In the following March Congress pa.s.sed over the President"s veto the first Civil Rights Bill, guaranteeing to the freedmen all the ordinary rights of citizenship, and it was about the same time that it enlarged the powers of the Freedmen"s Bureau. The Fourteenth Amendment (July 28, 1868) denied to the states the power to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; and the Fifteenth Amendment (March 30, 1870) sought to protect the Negro by giving to him the right of suffrage instead of military protection. In 1875 was pa.s.sed the second Civil Rights act, designed to give Negroes equality of treatment in theaters, railway cars, hotels, etc.; but this the Supreme Court declared unconst.i.tutional in 1883.
As a result of this legislation the Negro was placed in positions of responsibility; within the next few years the race sent two senators and thirteen representatives to Congress, and in some of the state legislatures, as in South Carolina, Negroes were decidedly in the majority. The attainments of some of these men were undoubtedly remarkable; the two United States senators, Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both from Mississippi, were of unquestioned intelligence and ability, and Robert B. Elliott, one of the representatives from South Carolina, attracted unusual attention by his speech in reply to Alexander Stephens on the const.i.tutionality of the Civil Rights bill. At the same time among the Negro legislators there was also considerable ignorance, and there set in an era of extravagance and corruption from which the "carpet-baggers" and the "scalawags" rather than the Negroes themselves reaped the benefit. Accordingly within recent years it has become more and more the fashion to lament the ills of the period, and no representative American historian can now write of reconstruction without a tone of apology. A few points, however, are to be observed.
In the first place the ignorance was by no means so vast as has been supposed. Within the four years from 1861 to 1865, thanks to the army schools and missionary agencies, not less than half a million Negroes in the South had learned to read and write. Furthermore, the suffrage was not immediately given to the emanc.i.p.ated Negroes; this was the last rather than the first step in reconstruction. The provisional legislatures formed at the close of the war were composed of white men only; but the experiment failed because of the short-sighted laws that were enacted. If the fruit of the Civil War was not to be lost, if all the sacrifice was not to prove in vain, it became necessary for Congress to see that the overthrow of slavery was final and complete. By the Fourteenth Amendment the Negro was invested with the ordinary rights and dignity of a citizen of the United States. He was not enfranchised, but he could no longer be made the victim of state laws designed merely to keep him in servile subjection. If the Southern states had accepted this amendment, they might undoubtedly have reentered the Union without further conditions. They refused to do so; they refused to help the National Government in any way whatsoever in its effort to guarantee to the Negro the rights of manhood. Achilles sulked in his tent, and whenever he sulks the world moves on--without him. The alternative finally presented to Congress, if it was not to make an absolute surrender, was either to hold the South indefinitely under military subjection or to place the ballot in the hands of the Negro. The former course was impossible; the latter was chosen, and the Union was really restored--was really saved--by the force of the ballot in the hands of black men.
It has been held that the Negro was primarily to blame for the corruption of the day. Here again it is well to recall the tendencies of the period. The decade succeeding the war was throughout the country one of unparalleled political corruption. The Tweed ring, the Credit Mobilier, and the "salary grab" were only some of the more outstanding signs of the times. In the South the Negroes were not the real leaders in corruption; they simply followed the men who they supposed were their friends. Surely in the face of such facts as these it is not just to fix upon a people groping to the light the peculiar odium of the corruption that followed in the wake of the war.
And we shall have to leave it to those better informed than we to say to just what extent city and state politics in the South have been cleaned up since the Negro ceased to be a factor. Many of the const.i.tutions framed by the reconstruction governments were really excellent models, and the fact that they were overthrown seems to indicate that some other spoilsmen were abroad. Take North Carolina, for example. In this state in 1868 the reconstruction government by its new const.i.tution introduced the township system so favorably known in the North and West. When in 1875 the South regained control, with all the corruption it found as excellent a form of republican state government as was to be found in any state in the Union. "Every provision which any state enjoyed for the protection of public society from its bad members and bad impulses was either provided or easily procurable under the Const.i.tution of the state."[1] Yet within a year, in order to annul the power of their opponents in every county in the state, the new party so amended the Const.i.tution as to take away from every county the power of self-government and centralize everything in the legislature. Now was realized an extent of power over elections and election returns so great that no party could wholly clear itself of the idea of corrupt intentions.
[Footnote 1: George W. Cable: _The Southern Struggle for Pure Government_: An Address. Boston, 1890, included in _The Negro Question_, New York, 1890.]
At the heart of the whole question of course was race. As a matter of fact much work of genuine statesmanship was accomplished or attempted by the reconstruction governments. For one thing the idea of common school education for all people was now for the first time fully impressed upon the South. The Charleston _News and Courier_ of July 11, 1876, formally granted that in the administration of Governor Chamberlain of South Carolina the abuse of the pardoning power had been corrected; the character of the officers appointed by the Executive had improved; the floating indebtedness of the state had been provided for in such a way that the rejection of fraudulent claims was a.s.sured and that valid claims were scaled one-half; the tax laws had been so amended as to secure substantial equality in the a.s.sessment of property; taxes had been reduced to eleven mills on the dollar; the contingent fund of the executive department had been reduced at a saving in two years of $101,200; legislative expenses had also been reduced so as to save in two years $350,000; legislative contingent expenses had also been handled so as to save $355,000; and the public printing reduced from $300,000 to $50,000 a year. There were, undoubtedly, at first, many corrupt officials, white and black. Before they were through, however, after only a few years of experimenting, the reconstruction governments began to show signs of being quite able to handle the situation; and it seems to have been primarily the fear on the part of the white South _that they might not fail_ that prompted the determination to regain power at whatever cost. Just how this was done we are now to see.
3. _Reaction: The KuKlux Klan_
Even before the Civil War a secret organization, the Knights of the Golden Circle, had been formed to advance Southern interests. After the war there were various organizations--Men of Justice, Home Guards, Pale Faces, White Brotherhood, White Boys, Council of Safety, etc., and, with headquarters at New Orleans, the thoroughly organized Knights of the White Camelia. All of these had for their general aim the restoration of power to the white men of the South, which aim they endeavored to accomplish by regulating the conduct of the Negroes and their leaders in the Republican organization, the Union League, especially by playing upon the fears and superst.i.tions of the Negroes. In general, especially in the Southeast, everything else was surpa.s.sed or superseded by the KuKlux Klan, which originated in Tennessee in the fall of 1865 as an a.s.sociation of young men for amus.e.m.e.nt, but which soon developed into a union for the purpose of whipping, banishing, terrorizing, and murdering Negroes and Northern white men who encouraged them in the exercise of their political rights. No Republican, no member of the Union League, and no G.A.R. man could become a member. The costume of the Klan was especially designed to strike terror in the uneducated Negroes.
Loose-flowing sleeves, hoods in which were apertures for the eyes, nose, and mouth trimmed with red material, horns made of cotton-stuff standing out on the front and sides, high cardboard hats covered with white cloth decorated with stars or pictures of animals, long tongues of red flannel, were all used as occasion demanded. The KuKlux Klan finally extended over the whole South and greatly increased its operations on the cessation of martial law in 1870. As it worked generally at night, with its members in disguise, it was difficult for a grand jury to get evidence on which to frame a bill, and almost impossible to get a jury that would return a verdict for the state. Repeated measures against the order were of little effect until an act of 1870 extended the jurisdiction of the United States courts to all KuKlux cases. Even then for some time the organization continued active.
Naturally there were serious clashes before government was restored to the white South, especially as the KuKlux Klan grew bolder. At Colfax, Grant Parish, Louisiana, in April, 1873, there was a pitched battle in which several white men and more than fifty Negroes were killed; and violence increased as the "red shirt" campaign of 1876 approached.
In connection with the events of this fateful year, and with reference to South Carolina, where the Negro seemed most solidly in power, we recall one episode, that of the Hamburg Ma.s.sacre. We desire to give this as fully as possible in all its incidents, because we know of nothing that better ill.u.s.trates the temper of the times, and because a most important matter is regularly ignored or minimized by historians.[1]
[Footnote 1: Fleming, in his latest and most mature account of reconstruction, _The Sequel of Appomattox_, has not one word to say about the matter. Dunning, in _Reconstruction Political and Economic_ (306), speaks as follows: "July 6, 1876, an armed collision between whites and blacks at Hamburg, Aiken County, resulted in the usual slaughter of the blacks. Whether the original cause of the trouble was the insolence and threats of a Negro militia company, or the aggressiveness and violence of some young white men, was much discussed throughout the state, and, indeed, the country at large. Chamberlain took frankly and strongly the ground that the whites were at fault."
Such a statement we believe simply does not do justice to the facts.
The account given herewith is based upon the report of the matter in a letter published in a Washington paper and submitted in connection with the debate in the United States House of Representatives, July 15th and 18th, 1876, on the Ma.s.sacre of Six Colored Citizens at Hamburg, S.C., July 4, 1876; and on "An Address to the People of the United States, adopted at a Conference of Colored Citizens, held at Columbia, S.C., July 20th and 21st, 1876" (Republican Printing Co., Columbia, S.C., 1876). The Address, a doc.u.ment most important for the Negro"s side of the story, was signed by no less than sixty representative men, among them R.B. Elliott, R.H. Gleaves, F.L. Cardozo, D.A. Straker, T. McC.
Stewart, and H.N. Bouey.]
In South Carolina an act providing for the enrollment of the male citizens of the state, who were by the terms of the said act made subject to the performance of militia duty, was pa.s.sed by the General a.s.sembly and approved by the Governor March 16, 1869. By virtue of this act Negro citizens were regularly enrolled as a part of the National Guard of the State of South Carolina, and as the white men, with very few exceptions, failed or refused to become a part of the said force, the active militia was composed almost wholly of Negro men. The County of Edgefield, of which Hamburg was a part, was one of the military districts of the state under the apportionment of the Adjutant-General, one regiment being allotted to the district. One company of this regiment was in Hamburg. In 1876 it had recently been reorganized with Doc Adams as captain, Lewis Cartledge as first lieutenant, and A.T.
Attaway as second lieutenant. The ranks were recruited to the requisite number of men, to whom arms and equipment were duly issued.
On Tuesday, July 4, the militia company a.s.sembled for drill and while thus engaged paraded through one of the least frequented streets of the town. This street was unusually wide, but while marching four abreast the men were interrupted by a horse and buggy driven _into their ranks_ by Thomas Butler and Henry Getzen, white men who resided about two miles from the town. At the time of this interference the company was occupying a s.p.a.ce covering a width of not more than eight feet, so that on either side there was abundant room for vehicles. At the interruption Captain Adams commanded a halt and, stepping to the head of his column, said, "Mr. Getzen, I did not think that you would treat me this way; I would not so act towards you." To this Getzen replied with curses, and after a few more remarks on either side, Adams, in order to avoid further trouble, commanded his men to break ranks and permit the buggy to pa.s.s through. The company was then marched to the drill rooms and dismissed.
On Wednesday, July 5, Robert J. Butler, father of Thomas Butler and father-in-law of Getzen, appeared before P.R. Rivers, colored trial justice, and made complaint that the militia company had on the previous day obstructed one of the public streets of Hamburg and prevented his son and son-in-law from pa.s.sing through. Rivers accordingly issued a summons for the officers to appear the next day, July 6. When Adams and his two lieutenants appeared on Thursday, they found present Robert J.
Butler and several other white men heavily armed with revolvers. On the calling of the case it was announced that the defendants were present and that Henry Sparnick, a member of the circuit bar of the county, had been retained to represent them. Butler angrily protested against such representation and demanded that the hearing be postponed until he could procure counsel from the city of Augusta; whereupon Adams and his lieutenants, after consultation with their attorney, who informed them that there were no legal grounds on which the case could be decided against them, waived their const.i.tutional right to be represented by counsel and consented to go to trial. On this basis the case was opened and proceeded with for some time, when on account of some disturbance its progress was arrested, and it was adjourned for further hearing on the following Sat.u.r.day, July 8, at four o"clock in the afternoon.
On Sat.u.r.day, between two and three o"clock, General M.C. Butler, of Edgefield, formerly an officer in the Confederate army, arrived in Hamburg, and he was followed by mounted men in squads of ten or fifteen until the number was more than two hundred, the last to arrive being Colonel A.P. Butler at the head of threescore men. Immediately after his arrival General Butler sent for Attorney Sparnick, who was charged with the request to Rivers and the officers of the militia company to confer with him at once. There was more pa.s.sing of messengers back and forth, and it was at length deemed best for the men to confer with Butler. To this two of the officers objected on the ground that the whole plan was nothing more than a plot for their a.s.sa.s.sination. They sent to ask if General Butler would meet them without the presence of his armed force.
He replied Yes, but before arrangements could be made for the interview another messenger came to say that the hour for the trial had arrived, that General Butler was at the court, and that he requested the presence of the trial justice, Rivers. Rivers proceeded to court alone and found Butler there waiting for him. He was about to proceed with the case when Butler asked for more time, which request was granted. He went away and never returned to the court. Instead he went to the council chamber, being surrounded now by greater and greater numbers of armed men, and he sent a committee to the officers asking that they come to the council chamber to see him. The men again declined for the same reason as before. Butler now sent an ultimatum demanding that the officers apologize for what took place on July 4 and that they surrender to him their arms, threatening that if the surrender was not made at once he would take their guns and officers by force. Adams and his men now awoke to a full sense of their danger, and they asked Rivers, who was not only trial justice but also Major General of the division of the militia to which they belonged, if he demanded their arms of them. Rivers replied that he did not. Thereupon the officers refused the request of Butler on the ground that he had no legal right to demand their arms or to receive them if surrendered. At this point Butler let it be known that he demanded the surrender of the arms within half an hour and that if he did not receive them he would "lay the d---- town in ashes." Asked in an interview whether, if his terms were complied with, he would guarantee protection to the people of the town he answered that he did not know and that that would depend altogether upon how they behaved themselves.
Butler now went with a companion to Augusta, returning in about thirty minutes. A committee called upon him as soon as he got back. He had only to say that he demanded the arms immediately. Asked if he would accept the boxing up of the arms and the sending of them to the Governor, he said, "D---- the Governor. I am not here to consult him, but am here as Colonel Butler, and this won"t stop until after November." Asked again if he would guarantee general protection if the arms were surrendered, he said, "I guarantee nothing."
All the while scores of mounted men were about the streets. Such members of the militia company as were in town and their friends to the number of thirty-eight repaired to their armory--a large brick building about two hundred yards from the river--and barricaded themselves for protection. Firing upon the armory was begun by the mounted men, and after half an hour there were occasional shots from within. After a while the men in the building heard an order to bring cannon from Augusta, and they began to leave the building from the rear, concealing themselves as well as they could in a cornfield. The cannon was brought and discharged three or four times, those firing it not knowing that the building had been evacuated. When they realized their mistake they made a general search through lots and yards for the members of the company and finally captured twenty-seven of them, after two had been killed.
The men, none of whom now had arms, were marched to a place near the railroad station, where the sergeant of the company was ordered to call the roll. Allan T. Attaway, whose name was first, was called out and shot in cold blood. Twelve men fired upon him and he was killed instantly. The men whose names were second, third, and fourth on the list were called out and treated likewise. The fifth man made a dash for liberty and escaped with a slight wound in the leg. All the others were then required to hold up their right hands and swear that they would never bear arms against the white people or give in court any testimony whatsoever regarding the occurrence. They were then marched off two by two and dispersed, but stray shots were fired after them as they went away. In another portion of the town the chief of police, James Cook, was taken from his home and brutally murdered. A marshal of the town was shot through the body and mortally wounded. One of the men killed was found with his tongue cut out. The members of Butler"s party finally entered the homes of most of the prominent Negroes in the town, smashed the furniture, tore books to pieces, and cut pictures from their frames, all amid the most heartrending distress on the part of the women and children. That night the town was desolate, for all who could do so fled to Aiken or Columbia.
Upon all of which our only comment is that while such a process might seem for a time to give the white man power, it makes no progress whatever toward the ultimate solution of the problem.
4. _Counter-Reaction: The Negro Exodus_
The Negro Exodus of 1879 was partially considered in connection with our study of Liberia; but a few facts are in place here.
After the withdrawal of Federal troops conditions in the South were changed so much that, especially in South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, the state of affairs was no longer tolerable.
Between 1866 and 1879 more than three thousand Negroes were summarily killed.[1] The race began to feel that a new slavery in the horrible form of peonage was approaching, and that the disposition of the men in power was to reduce the laborer to the minimum of advantages as a free man and to none at all as a citizen. The fear, which soon developed into a panic, rose especially in consequence of the work of political mobs in 1874 and 1875, and it soon developed organization. About this the outstanding fact was that the political leaders of the last few years were regularly distrusted and ignored, the movement being secret in its origin and committed either to the plantation laborers themselves or their direct representatives. In North Carolina circulars about Nebraska were distributed. In Tennessee Benjamin ("Pap") Singleton began about 1869 to induce Negroes to go to Kansas, and he really founded two colonies with a total of 7432 Negroes from his state, paying of his own money over $600 for circulars. In Louisiana alone 70,000 names were taken of those who wished to better their condition by removal; and by 1878 98,000 persons in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas were ready to go elsewhere. A convention to consider the whole matter of migration was held in Nashville in 1879. At this the politician managed to put in an appearance and there was much wordy discussion. At the same time much of the difference of opinion was honest; the meeting was on the whole constructive; and it expressed itself as favorable to "reasonable migration." Already, however, thousands of Negroes were leaving their homes in the South and going in greatest numbers to Kansas, Missouri, and Indiana. Within twenty months Kansas alone received in this way an addition to her population of 40,000 persons.
Many of these people arrived at their destination practically penniless and without prospect of immediate employment; but help was afforded by relief agencies in the North, and they themselves showed remarkable st.u.r.diness in adapting themselves to the new conditions.
[Footnote 1: Emmett J. Scott: Negro Migration during the War (in Preliminary Economic Studies of the War--Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Division of Economics and History). Oxford University Press, American Branch, New York, 1920.]
Many of the stories that the Negroes told were pathetic.[1] Sometimes boats would not take them on, and they suffered from long exposure on the river banks. Sometimes, while they were thus waiting, agents of their own people employed by the planters tried to induce them to remain. Frequently they were clubbed or whipped. Said one: "I saw nine put in one pile, that had been killed, and the colored people had to bury them; eight others were found killed in the woods.... It is done this way: they arrest them for breach of contract and carry them to jail. Their money is taken from them by the jailer and it is not returned when they are let go." Said another: "If a colored man stays away from the polls and does not vote, they spot him and make him vote.
If he votes their way, they treat him no better in business. They hire the colored people to vote, and then take their pay away. I know a man to whom they gave a cow and a calf for voting their ticket. After election they came and told him that if he kept the cow he must pay for it; and they took the cow and calf away." Another: "One man shook his fist in my face and said, "D---- you, sir, you are my property." He said that I owed him. He could not show it and then said, "You sha"n"t go anyhow." All we want is a living chance." Another: "There is a general talk among the whites and colored people that Jeff Davis will run for president of the Southern states, and the colored people are afraid they will be made slaves again. They are already trying to prevent them from going from one plantation to another without a pa.s.s." Another: "The deputy sheriff came and took away from me a pair of mules. He had a constable and twenty-five men with guns to back him." Another: "Last year, after settling with my landlord, my share was four bales of cotton. I shipped it to Richardson and May, 38 and 40 Perdido Street, New Orleans, through W.E. Ringo & Co., merchants, at Mound Landing, Miss. I lived four miles back of this landing. I received from Ringo a ticket showing that my cotton was sold at nine and three-eighths cents, but I could never get a settlement. He kept putting me off by saying that the bill of lading had not come. Those bales averaged over four hundred pounds. I did not owe him over twenty-five dollars. A man may work there from Monday morning to Sat.u.r.day night, and be as economical as he pleases, and he will come out in debt. I am a close man, and I work hard. I want to be honest in getting through the world. I came away and left a crop of corn and cotton growing up. I left it because I did not want to work twelve months for nothing. I have been trying it for fifteen years, thinking every year that it would get better, and it gets worse." Said still another: "I learned about Kansas from the newspapers that I got hold of. They were Southern papers. I got a map, and found out where Kansas was; and I got a History of the United States, and read about it."
[Footnote 1: See _Negro Exodus_ (Report of Colonel Frank H. Fletcher).]
Query: Was it genuine statesmanship that permitted these people to feel that they must leave the South?
5. _A Postscript on the War and Reconstruction_
Of all of the stories of these epoch-making years we have chosen one--an idyl of a woman with an alabaster box, of one who had a clear conception of the human problem presented and who gave her life in the endeavor to meet it.
In the fall of 1862 a young woman who was destined to be a great missionary entered the Seminary at Rockford, Illinois. There was little to distinguish her from the other students except that she was very plainly dressed and seemed forced to spend most of her spare time at work. Yes, there was one other difference. She was older than most of the girls--already thirty, and rich in experience. When not yet fifteen she had taught a country school in Pennsylvania. At twenty she was considered capable of managing an unusually turbulent crowd of boys and girls. When she was twenty-seven her father died, leaving upon her very largely the care of her mother. At twenty-eight she already looked back upon fourteen years as a teacher, upon some work for Christ incidentally accomplished, but also upon a fading youth of wasted hopes and unfulfilled desires.
Then came a great decision--not the first, not the last, but one of the most important that marked her long career. Her education was by no means complete, and, at whatever cost, she would go to school. That she had no money, that her clothes were shabby, that her mother needed her, made no difference; now or never she would realize her ambition. She would do anything, however menial, if it was honest and would give her food while she continued her studies. For one long day she walked the streets of Belvidere looking for a home. Could any one use a young woman who wanted to work for her board? Always the same reply. Nightfall brought her to a farmhouse in the suburbs of the town. She timidly knocked on the door. "No, we do not need any one," said the woman who greeted her, "but wait until I see my husband." The man of the house was very unwilling, but decided to give shelter for the night. The next morning he thought differently about the matter, and a few days afterwards the young woman entered school. The work was hard; fires had to be made, breakfasts on cold mornings had to be prepared, and sometimes the washing was heavy. Naturally the time for lessons was frequently cut short or extended far into the night. But the woman of the house was kind, and her daughter a helpful fellow-student.