newspapers and some books of travel[31:2] revealed but two possible cases of lynching of Negroes in the South during the War: A Mr. Harris, Uchee, Alabama, was murdered by six of his Negroes, whereupon:
“The citizens of the county about ninety in number, after consultation, determined upon the immediate execution of the murderers.”[31:3]
The other case was in Mississippi: Some Negroes were hung, seemingly, for trying to get on a steamboat in order to escape from slavery.[31:4] The Liberator[31:5] mentions two instances of Negroes being lynched in New York in 1863: A negro in jail at Newburg, on suspicion of rape, was taken out by a mob “who pounded him almost to death and then hung him on a tree until he was finished.” Two were also lynched in the City of New York, one of whom, it seems, was roasted alive.
In no place was there any mention of any Negroes being lynched for rape in the South during the War. Indeed, it is often said that during the
Civil War when the white men were nearly all away from home, leaving the white women almost at the mercy of the slaves, no Negro was guilty of a criminal outrage against them.[32:6] It may be true. Viewed in the light of the sporadic occurrence of the crime under the restraining influence of slavery before the War, and of its quite frequent occurrence sometime after, it is both remarkable and suggestive.
It may truly be regarded as evidence not only of the generally fair treatment that, according to unprejudiced travelers, they were receiving in slavery, as well as a tribute to their fidelity, but it also makes it obvious that the Negro and the Southern white man might have continued in harmony mutually advantageous after the War, had both been free from outside influences.
Almost immediately after the War, however, the South began to “swarm” with harebrained preachers and teachers from the North, ostensibly to elevate the Negro; as a rule, though, they served no better purpose than to aid in setting the Negro against his former master. For, it seems, they cared not what became of the white man so they secured the “salvation” of the Negro, entirely ignoring that saying of Scripture which is to the effect that those who fail to serve first their
own house or people have denied the faith and are worse than infidels.[33:7]
Such a condition of affairs was promoted by Congress, who, at about the close of the War established the so-called “Freedmen’s Bureau,” and shortly after passed the Civil Rights bill, both of which tended to cause friction between the two races. However, as compared with that of a few years later, the trouble does not appear to have been very serious notwithstanding exaggerated accounts which were reported to Northern papers. In most parts of the South and at most times for something like two years after the War, there was comparative quiet and safety.
The crimes of the Negroes during these years were for the most part of a trifling kind,—petty thievery and robbery. However, it is true they committed crimes of a very serious nature, also. Notwithstanding, the law was generally allowed to have its way. Harriett Martineau observes in one of her books that nothing struck her more than the patience of the slave-owners of the South with their slaves. Even during the first years after the War a patient and even indulgent spirit was often manifested by the leading whites toward the Negroes as to their shortcomings and sometimes it extended to their serious crimes.