[1180] Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1181] Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 31; N. Y. News, Sept. 3, 1865 (Selma correspondent).
[1182] In one case the agent in Montgomery sent to Troy, fifty-two miles distant, and arrested a landlord who refused to rent a house to a negro. The negro told the Bureau agent that he was being evicted.
[1183] There were several plantations near Montgomery, Selma, Mobile, and Huntsville where negroes were thus collected.
[1184] In Montgomery, the Rev. C. W. Buckley, a “hard-shell” preacher, looked after negro contracts. A negro was not allowed to make his own contract, but it must be drawn up before Buckley. When a negro broke his contract, Buckley always decided in his favor, and avowed that he would sooner believe a negro than a white man. His delight was to keep a white man waiting for a long time while he talked to the negro, turning his back to and paying no attention to the white caller. He preached to the negroes several times a week, not sermons, but political harangues. The audience was composed chiefly of negro women, who, if they had work, would leave it to attend the meetings. They would not disclose what Buckley said to them, and when questioned would reply, “It’s a secret, and we can’t tell it to white folks.” Buckley advocated confiscation, but Swayne, who had more common sense, frowned upon such theological doctrines.
[1185] Barker, a carriage-maker at Livingston, was arrested and confined in prison for some time, and finally was released without trial. He was told that a negro servant had preferred charges against him, and later denied having done so. Such occurrences were common. Ku Klux Rept. Ala. Test., pp. 357, 371, 390, 475, 487, 1132; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 27, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Swayne’s Reports, Dec., 1865, and Jan., 1866.
[1186] Selma Times, April 11, 1866. Busteed was a much-disliked carpet-bag Federal judge. Mr. Burns survived the Busting, and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1901.
[1187] The Bureau courts continued to act even after the state was readmitted to the Union. In 1868, two constables arrested a negro charged with house-burning in Tuscumbia. Col. D. C. Rugg, the Bureau agent at Huntsville, raised a force of forty negroes and came to the rescue of the negro criminal. “If you attempt to put that negro on the train,” he said, “blood will be spilled. I am acting under the orders of the military department.” The officers were trying to take him to Tuscumbia for trial. Rugg thought the Bureau should try him, and said, “These men [the negroes] are not going to let you take the prisoner away, and blood will be shed if you attempt it.” N. Y. World, Oct. 23, 1868; Tuscaloosa Times.
[1188] Probably more. Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1866.
[1189] Bureau Reports, 1865-1869.