Martha Schofield, pioneer Negro educator / Historical and philosophical review of reconstruction period of South Carolina

by Matilda A. Evans

Without quoting the exact words of one of the members of the rioters who was the leader in the three great riots, the settled purpose of the whites was the seizure of the first opportunity that might be made by the Negroes to provoke a riot and demonstrate to the latter through blood-shed the utter hopelessness of the attempt of the Negro to rule and so rid South Carolina of the domination of Negro and carpet-bag government. For the approaching trial elaborate preparations had been made by the whites, including the employment of General M. C. Butler for the defense of Thomas Butler and Henry Getzen and the prosecution of Adams, and the calling together of all members of the Sweet Water Sabre Club, an organization of the leading white men of Edgefield and Aiken Counties for the destruction of the Negro regime locally and for use in overthrowing the State government and for the purpose of trampling under foot the laws passed by Congress, intended to give the Negro equal power with the white in the government of the State. Members of this club were not only instructed to attend the trial for the protection of the two young white men, but were ordered to be present to see to it that if no opportunity offered itself to provoke a riot, then they were to create one, anyhow. They were to go un-uniformed and armed with pistols only, but were to have their rifles near at hand and be ready at a moment’s notice to engage the blacks in deadly combat under their own vine and fig tree.

Emboldened by the apparent cowardliness of the Negroes to attack Getzen and Butler a few days before, members of the club expressed much fear that the Negroes would be bold enough to show resentment to any indignity which they might offer, and so would bring to naught the various plans and schemes previously formulated to engage them in battle. News of their presence in Hamburg and of their object had preceded their arrival, and the justice ordered the hearing postponed to a later day, when the orderly trial of the case could be assured by the protection of additional militia-men. The whites were quick to see the advantage which the Negroes would obtain by delay and promptly decided to begin the attack at once.

At about five o’clock in the afternoon, just as Adams and his company had assembled in their armory, General M. C. Butler sent the captain word that his militia with guns had shown that they were a menace to the peace and good order of the community and demanded of him the surrender of his guns, informing him at the same time that the whites were resolved to put an end to the political rule of the Negro and the carpet-bagger or die in the attempt that very day. With his prompt and peremptory refusal to surrender, Adams also sent defiance to the white men. This boldness somewhat dismayed the latter as they had with them five rifles only. The remainder of their armament consisted of pistols and shot-guns, making the effectiveness of the attacking party very inferior in the matter of weapons as in numbers. But this inefficiency was more than offset by the difference in training of the opposing parties, by the inheritance of many of the whites of thousands and thousands of years of skill in the use of the weapons of war, while the only training ever given the Negro had been one of fear. This had been his by inheritance just as the white race had inherited its contempt of fear. It is as natural for some of the Negroes to show cowardliness as it is for some of the whites to show bravery, and this difference in the qualities of the two races must remain relative in proportion to the intellectual and moral development of each race.

Besides, think who they were fighting—why, their old masters and their sons, whom some of the Negro soldiers no doubt, had risked their lives in previous emergencies to protect and defend from danger.

Could it be expected, under the circumstances, that their aim would prove unerring? Wasn’t it rather to be expected at the beginning that the shots which the poor, illiterate Negroes fired would fall wide of the mark, just as they did?

All admit now, even the intelligent Negro and the radical abolitionist, that the arming of the Negroes before first teaching them the use of weapons was a mistake, but this would apply with equal force to the ignorant, illiterate white race. ’Tis the condition of the mind that makes the body fit or unfit. The adder is not better than the eel, because of his painted skin, nor the blue-jay any better than the wren because of his fine plumage, as the Bard of Avon well expressed it when addressing good Kate and reminding her that she was none the worse because of her poor furniture and mean array, provided her mind and heart were perfect.

The Negro has arms and hands as strong as iron bands and with these he can punish into insensibility the men of almost any race; there are white men endowed with equally great physical powers who can, like the Negro, subdue others not so powerful in animal strength. Each of these types of men labor in the fields of arduous toil, neither having the time and, in most cases, lacking the intelligence to bathe and live a sanitary life, much less educate their poor brains. For this reason neither are the equal, either in war or in the every day intellectual occupations of life, of the men trained and dexterously skilled in the use of their muscles and brains. The psychological influence of the men of education over the ignorant and illiterate must not be overlooked neither in any attempt to account for the tremendous supremacy which the few exercise over the many.

At any rate, the superiority of the seventy members of the Sweet Water Sabre Club over the one hundred members of the Negro militia was amply demonstrated at Hamburg on July 8, 1876. It is possible that the Negroes, who could have destroyed the entire mob in a few minutes with their superior equipment, were aware of the reinforcements lying in wait at the beck and call of General Butler, and so retained their position in the armory as a means of protection against an attack by an overwhelmingly superior force. Certain it is, that from a vantage point of view the inside of the armory was no suitable place from which to shoot. The soldiers were compelled to shoot from below the windowsills, which elevated their guns, and so their bullets, except the one which killed Makie Meriwether, were spent in vain. At the sound of the first firing reinforcements for the whites began to pour into Hamburg by the hundreds, and no time was lost in obtaining a piece of artillery in Augusta and bringing it into action. Two shots from this destructive machine silenced the guns of the militia and the members of the company began to retire as secretly as possible, it being well understood by all that the whites would give nor ask any quarter in the orderly rules of warfare, as in the matter of capitulation and terms of surrender. The knowledge by every Negro at the beginning of this historic event that the battle meant death to everyone captured possibly unnerved every soldier and precipitated the demoralization following the advent of the solitary field piece of artillery. Out of the forty Negroes captured only a few belonged to the militia, the members of which the mob was determined to destroy that night, but as most of these had escaped, then it was decided to kill anybody in reparation for the death of young Meriwether. So a search of the homes of all Negroes and some of the whites was made, including that of a Jew named Louis Schiller, who was friendly with the Negroes and had through their votes, under the new order of things, obtained and held the office of County Auditor of Edgefield County before the creation of Aiken County. It was decreed that Schiller should be put to death, but he escaped with his life only by climbing through a trap door leading out on the roof and hiding himself behind a parapet on top of the house. All the while he was in hearing distance of the curses and execrations heaped upon his name and the avowed intention of the mob to hang him sooner or later.

Two, among the forty prisoners held under guard while the searching party worked, who knew that their capture meant their death, attempted to escape by jumping over a fence with their guards looking on and running as fast as their legs could carry them in hope of reaching a place of safety; but white men seemed to be everywhere, and although one of them, Jim Cook, the town marshall, did escape his guards he was shot to death by bullets from a shot-gun which tore in his head as he dashed through the crowds. The other had been killed by the guards having him in charge.

Cook was supremely hated by the entire white population of the County, more so, than other individuals of his race on account of his activity in the office of marshal, which the whites charged he used without provocation to humiliate and degrade them. Over his death there was the greatest rejoicing throughout the county among the whites.