Colfax massacre

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The Colfax Massacre occurred on April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana. An armed white militia (including members of the white supremacist organizations the White League and the Ku Klux Klan) attacked African American members of the local area who had sought safety at the Colfax courthouse. A Black-led contingent of Louisiana's state militia was guarding the courthouse.

The ostensible cause of the massacre was a contested local election, which set the stage for the violent attack. The massacre would become a turning point in the violent dismantling of Louisiana's post-Civil War Reconstruction government, which had seen a brief period of political empowerment for African Americans in the state and across the South.

Prosecutions of perpetrators led to a key Supreme Court case, United States v. Cruikshank. In this 1875 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that protections offered former slaves by the Fourteenth Amendment against racial violence did not apply to actions of individuals, but only to actions of state governments. The Enforcement Act could not be used to protect them against groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

"The bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era, the Colfax massacre taught many lessons, including the lengths to which some opponents of Reconstruction would go to regain their accustomed authority. Among blacks, the incident was long remembered as proof that in any large confrontation, they stood at a fatal disadvantage. "The organization against them is too strong. ..." Louisiana black teacher and legislator John G. Lewis later remarked. "They attempted (armed self-defense) in Colfax. The result was that on Easter Sunday of 1873, when the sun went down that night, it went down on the corpses of two hundred and eighty negroes." (p. 437 Foner Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 and KKK Hearings, 46th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Report 693 and Joe G. Taylor, Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877 (Baton Rouge, 1974), p. 268-70.)

Contents 1 Background 2 Massacre 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Background

In the wake of four years of Republican rule in Louisiana, the results of the November 1872 elections were disputed. Both sides claimed victory. During the last weeks of his term, Governor Henry C. Warmoth recognized the Conservative Democrat candidate for governor, John McEnery, as the victor against Republican Senator William P. Kellogg. Warmoth was subsequently impeached in a bribery scandal stemming from his actions in the 1872 election.

In the Colfax area Columbus C. Nash ran for parish sheriff as a Fusionist. Alphonse Cazabat, Nash's attorney, ran for local judge. James Hadnot, a Democrat and Knights of the White Camelia leader, ran for parish recorder. The Republican candidates were R.C. Register (an African-American) for sheriff and Daniel Shaw (a white man) for judge.

While the governor's election was being reviewed, the rival claimants McEnery and Kellogg certified the candidates from their own parties for the sheriff and judge positions in Colfax, with McEnery certified his slate in December 1872, before the scheduled inauguration. In January 1873, Fusionist candidates Nash, Cazabat, and Hadnot entered the Colfax courthouse and took office.

With support from the Federal government, however, Republican William Kellogg eventually assumed control as governor. R.C. Register, Daniel Shaw, and William Ward (a Union Army veteran and State militia leader) then led an African American contingent of the State militia to occupy the courthouse. After whites murdered an African American man on April 5, local black citizens converged on the courthouse for safety.

Local whites responded immediately. They began to mobilize around rumors that local blacks had initiated a "reign of terror" and were roaming the countryside with the intent to "exterminate" all white people they found. Rumors were spiced with purported threats from African Americans claiming they would seek violent revenge and attack local white women.

One rumor persisted as local lore, although its veracity has been disputed. It suggested that on April 1 1873, a group of blacks sacked the home of attorney William Rutland. He had pleaded unsuccessfully with Governor Kellogg for support to end the standoff. Nobody was hurt in this purported incident, which allegedly included dumping the body of Rutland's dead daughter (who had recently drowned) out of her casket.

The people most in danger were African Americans. During the first days of April, stories began to spread of whites' marching towards the Colfax courthouse and hassling blacks in the surrounding countryside. As these stories spread, black people left their homes and converged on the courthouse for safety.

On April 5, J.R. Payne, a special deputy from a nearby community, attempted to negotiate a peace with Ward and the others. Because word had reached Ward that a black farmer was shot dead while innocently mending his fence, Ward decided that negotiations would be impossible. He returned to the courthouse and prepared for confrontation.

[edit] Massacre

The fighting began shortly after noon on April 13. Nash, who was elected to sherriff on the Fusionist ticket, led more than 300 armed white men to the courthouse. He began by ordering those in the courthouse to leave. When that failed, Nash gave the women and children camped outside the courthouse thirty minutes to clear out. After they left, the shooting began. The fighting continued for several hours with few casualties. Nash eventually managed to maneuver a cannon behind the building, which put even more pressure on the defenders and caused some to panic.

About sixty defenders ran into nearby woods and the river. Nash sent men after the fleeing blacks, and his militia killed most of the blacks on the spot. Later on, Nash's besiegers convinced an elderly black captive to sneak into the courthouse and set it on fire. The defenders then displayed white flags: one made from a shirt, the other from a page of a book. The shooting stopped.

Nash's group approached and called for the defenders to throw down their weapons and come outside. According to reports of some whites, the Fusionist delegation's leader James Hadnot was shot and wounded by someone from the courthouse. More credible reports, however, suggest that Hadnot was shot from behind by an overexcited member of his own force.

There is no disagreement on the results. The blacks were massacred. Unarmed men trying to hide in the courthouse were butchered. Those who attempted to flee were hunted down and killed. Some bodies were hidden or dumped into the Red River. Many of the recovered bodies had been mutilated.

About fifty blacks survived the afternoon's killings and were taken prisoner. The prisoners were told they were going to be taken to a local jail, but they were murdered later that night. Only one man, Benjamin Brimm, survived. He was shot in the head but lived and managed to crawl away unnoticed. He later served as one of the government's chief witnesses against those who were indicted for the massacre.

The next day police and Federal troops arrived from New Orleans. They calculated the death toll at 105, though an exact number will never be known because many of the bodies were buried or hidden. As noted above, legislator John Lewis said 280 African Americans had been killed. Many of the men responsible for the deaths fled or hid. Various government forces spent weeks trying to round them up. In the end, only nine men were arrested. They were charged with the murder of only one man. Among those arrested was William J. Cruikshank. His name as one of the ringleaders was used to name the case which the US government's prosecuted under the Enforcement Act of 1870.

This was one of the worst occurrences in a reign of violence of whites against freedmen in the Southern states during Reconstruction.

[edit] References

• Foner, Eric, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988) 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
• Goldman, Robert M., Reconstruction & Black Suffrage: Losing the Vote in Reese & Cruikshank, University Press of Kansas (2001).
• KKK Hearings, 46th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Report 693.
• Lemann, Nicholas, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2006).
• Taylor, Joe G., Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877 (Baton Rouge, 1974), p. 268-70.)

[edit] External links

• The Colfax Massacre on PBS
• Report on Colfax Riot, 1875, from the Congressional Record