Historical Romance of the American Negro

by Charles Henry Fowler

The documents in which these political murders have been recorded show that a perfect reign of terror existed all over the State in 1867, the year before the Presidential election. In the parish of St. Landry there was a massacre of colored people that began on the 28th of September in the following year, 1868, and lasted from three to six days, and during that time between three hundred and four hundred were killed. Thirteen captains were taken from the jail and shot, and a pile of twenty-five dead bodies were found burned in the woods. And what was the Democratic result in this parish of St. Landry? The registered Republican majority of 1,071 was completely wiped out, and when the general election for President came on a few weeks later, not a single vote was cast for Grant and Colfax, whilst Seymour and Blair received 4,787. What a spectacle was this for the whole civilized world to look upon only three years and a half after the fall of the Confederacy! All those murders were committed right here in free America!

In the parish of Bossier, there was just such another massacre between the 20th and 30th of September, 1868, and which lasted from three to four days, and during that time two hundred colored people were killed. The official register for Bossier parish for the year 1868 shows that the Republican voters numbered 1,938. But when the Presidential election came on, only one vote was cast! Such was the result of the shot-gun policy in Bossier parish.

During the month of October, 1868, the month before the election, over forty colored people were killed in the parish of Caddo. The Republican register shows that there were 2,894 votes, and yet when the election came on there was only one such vote cast out of all that number. And the same things happened all over the State.

During the months of September, October and November, the number of murders, maimings and whippings that took place for political reasons were a thousand. The names of Republican voters in twenty-eight parishes amounted to 47,923; but when the Presidential election came on a few weeks later, only 5,360 votes were cast for Grant and Colfax, whilst the Democratic gain, from the shot-gun policy, amounted to 42,563.

In nine of the parishes, where most of the murder and violence was carried on, only nineteen votes were cast for Gen. Grant, though there were 11,604 names on the Republican register. In other seven parishes where there were 7,253 names on the register, not one vote was cast for the Republican nominees at the subsequent election in November.

In the years that followed 1868, when political lawlessness was held in check, these same Republican parishes cast from 33,000 to 37,000 votes, which proved that terrorism was the rebel policy of 1868.

Thus things went on from 1868 to 1876, when the Democracy of Louisiana desired to carry the State for Tilden and Hendricks. The candidates for Republican President and Vice-President were Hayes and Wheeler; and everybody knew that colored men would not vote the Democratic ticket. The same murderous policy was again adopted as in 1868, and the results were much the same. On election day, in November, 1876, there were in Louisiana 92,996 registered white voters, and 115,310 colored voters, giving a majority of 22,314 votes that should have been cast for Hayes. It would be quite unnecessary to quote the "returns" from the different parishes of Louisiana. It would only be a repetition of 1868 over again. And after all was done it did not profit the Southern Democrats any, for it was proven that they had carried the parishes by violence; and therefore the parishes were not counted in the returns.

And Louisiana was not the only State where the thugs attempted to suppress voting by violence amongst the colored men. It was the self-same policy everywhere throughout the South, and as a rule colored men kept away from the polls, in fear of their lives.

Now, my dear reader, I have placed before you the reasons that led our oppressed people to rise up in the early spring of 1879, and search out for themselves new homes, where they could dwell in safety, and where they would not be robbed, oppressed and burned out, and even murdered on account of their political opinions. Colored men could never be expected to vote the Democratic ticket. Besides, were they not free? And had they not the right to vote as they pleased, even as others had? They never dreamed of terrorizing the whites because they would not vote the Republican ticket. It was a most remarkable thing that President Grant, the great war general, who had conquered the South, was unable to devise ways and means to protect the lives of colored men on election days. So far as I have ever heard there was not even a semblance of protection anywhere in those States where it was desired to carry the same for the Democratic nominees. Thus colored men were left unprotected in all their natural rights by the very Government itself that had passed the Constitutional Amendments. In fact they were left like sheep in the midst of wolves. They had been swindled and cheated in every way, as I have already shown. The Government now failed to protect their very lives, and therefore they began to turn their eyes to other regions where they could at least worship God, and sleep in their beds in safety. The shot-gun policy was now beginning to recoil on itself, for who can till the soil of the South like colored men?

The State of Kansas possessed many attractions for our oppressed and wronged people. All had often heard of the long struggle there between the border ruffians from the South, and the free soil men of the North, as to whether Kansas should be enslaved or free; and how at last it had been won by the Abolitionists as a free State. All had heard how the immortal John Brown (of glorious memory) had warred and fought in Kansas for the liberty of all people, and how in 1861 the struggle between slavery and liberty had been transferred from the soil of Kansas to the rebel lands of South Carolina. Thus Kansas had a name that charmed all hearts, and letters that were written at the time by those colored families already settled down there and flourishing, like the green bay-tree, among a good and just white population, gave glorious accounts of the new State in the West, and invited all others to come and settle down on its fertile lands who wished for peaceful homes.