THE K. K. K. IN LOUISIANA.
Adventists--How they Practised on the Parasitical Blacks--A Little
Power is a Dangerous Thing--The Political Situation in '67--Whites
Refraining from Participation in Election Campaigns--The State
Press--The Order of K. K. K. in Louisiana--When the Government
Officials were first Notified of its Presence--The Feeling in Grant
Parish, a Shire Division of the State created for Political
Purposes--Riot Growing out of a Personal Difficulty--Blacks
Entrenched in the Court-House at Colfax--Besieged by a Force of from
Three Hundred to Four Hundred Men--Parley--Negroes Refuse to
Surrender--A Second Defiance--Building Fired--Massacre and
Termination of the Bloody Affair--Statistics of Losses in the
Fight--Who were Responsible--The White League or Camelias--Occupied
the K. K. K. Basis in Externals--New Orleans Riots--Their Effect on
the Returning Boards--Coushatta--K. K. K. in Texas--Border History
Uneventful--Texas Legislature Interferes.
In the States of Louisiana and South Carolina the war between the K.'s and
Loyal League waged fiercest, and was longest protracted, for here the
fires of political proscription were earliest lighted, and the boundaries
of party maintained with the greatest fortitude. In the former State, a
party of men, who were known in certain quarters by the derisive title of
"Adventists," had assumed to control its affairs, not so much in the
interest of, as by the use of, as a means, the negro element of its
population. Practising upon the credulity of this unenlightened class, it
is not too much to say that they effected their object; and for a period
of more than seven years around these central suns of the political
firmament the parasitical blacks fluttered. Governors, congressmen, and
legislators were created from this material without any reference whatever
to the legal attainments or other qualifications of the aspirants, and
with a view only to such class legislation as could be made available to
the negro rings, and destructive to the people's interests in that
quarter.
Placed in control of affairs, these men, having suffered under the
dispensation which the poet sought to describe in the words, "A little
learning is a dangerous thing, etc.," and suspecting, moreover, that his
meaning had not been fully brought out in that expressive stanza,
astonished even their followers with an example which said "a little power
is a dangerous thing." Legislating, mainly, with a view to continuance in
authority, and arbitrarily seizing the elective machinery of the State,
they had, independently of the League, under the existing conditions, an
unlimited lease of the State administration. Nor did they fail to realize
the advantages that came to them under the system of government which they
had adopted. Having found a precedent for the most pronounced
transgressions of a written law in the acts of their co-conspirators in
other States, and an excuse in the resistance which they inspired, they
proceeded to lengths of usurpation which those interested for the cause of
liberty on those shores viewed with surprise and dismay. The fullest use
was made of every prerogative, and in innumerable instances they were
subjected to that stretching process which has been commonly found so
destructive to the article.
So rapid was the transition from the war period to that of political
anarchy, which followed in obedience to these conditions, that as early as
the year 1867 the State was hopelessly committed to an ignorant and
unprincipled minority, and in every portion thereof the white masses
refrained from even attending the polls, so well assured were they that
the fair majorities which they could score would be displaced by the most
barefaced fictions. The opposition or conservative press, on the other
hand, never ceased to perform its whole duty, representing to the people
the true condition of affairs at the capital, the constant abuses of the
legislative functions, the enormous treasury shortages, judicial
tyrannies, etc., etc.; though, as was indicated by their course
subsequently, to the more intelligent of those whom were addressed, this
seemed but a citation of evils that were remediless; and where plans of
relief were suggested, of remedies that were placed hopelessly beyond
their reach. Even in the city of New Orleans, where these exhortations
were most frequently heard, the municipal elections not unoften went by
default to the minority representatives; and multitudes (who have since
testified their devotion to the cause of right), attracted by the
patronage of the winning power, while refusing to give them aid, tendered
them congratulations.
Others to whom these philippics came, and who in their country homes had
been subjected to the intolerable rigors of League politics, took the
appeals even more seriously than they were intended, and began that secret
warfare on the agents of oppression in their midst, which, however
effectual it may have proven in the end, must always be deprecated on the
ground of those inequalities of principle which it represented, and of
means it employed.
The first secret political organization enterprised against the Radical
power in Louisiana was unquestionably that edition of the K. K. K. which
we have been treating, and which proved so effective in disestablishing
the various isms of the party in other sections; but it is no less certain
that, at no advanced stage of its existence on Louisiana soil, it
underwent a very positive metempsychosis, and became, thereafter, the
White League, or White Camelias as sometimes addressed representatively.
But no matter by what appellative known, nor under what constitutional
emendations proceeding, the idea was nowhere more aggressively employed in
the work of uprooting the Radical succession, and rendering Southern
hospitality, as applicable to its agents, a thing of unmitigated terror.
For a year or more after its organization had been completed, little was
done apparently, but during this time the League in all its departments
had been subjected to a rigid espionage, and the communications of the
former with the transactions of government at the capital, established by
the same means.
A slight difficulty in one of the Northern parishes, growing out of an
election issue, was perhaps the first intimation conveyed to the Louisiana
State authorities that they were to encounter opposition of this
character. It, however, was local in its belongings, and though widely
published by the organs of the League at the North, was not deemed worthy
of attention by the State press. In Grant Parish, a new shire division of
the State, created with a view to political ends, the quarrel of the
factions assumed a serious shape at an early day, and here eventually
transpired one of the most fearful tragedies of this bloody epoch. A
remarkable feature of this affair was that it grew out of a purely
personal matter, if we may except the contrast of races involved. The
details of the private quarrel would of course be uninteresting, and the
bloody particulars which followed may be recited in a few words.
An issue of races having been distinctly made, the two parties assembled
in force; the blacks, after some preliminary manoeuvring, entrenching
themselves in the court-house at Colfax, and bidding defiance to their
enemies. They were at once closely besieged by a force equalling, or
possibly barely exceeding, their own (three hundred to four hundred men),
and, after some parleying, an unconditional surrender demanded. This was
resisted on the expressed condition that the entrenched force, though in
the minority, were "able to defend themselves," and would do so at every
hazard. An irregular skirmish followed, pending which no advantage
resulted to the attacking party, and seeing which, the leaders of the
movement resolved on bolder measures: The blacks were again notified that
they must vacate their quarters, or submit to the torch, as the besiegers
were fully resolved upon dispossessing them of that stronghold. This they
seem to have regarded as a mere threat, impossible of execution, and
continued to throw out defiances and fire an occasional shot into the
enemy's ranks. The whites, on the other hand, unawed by their manner, and
fully decided to adopt this measure as a _dernier ressort_, sent forward
parties commissioned for the dangerous service. It is not known what
resistance, if any, was offered to this stratagem, but very soon the
building was in flames from pillar to turret, and the terrified blacks
rushing forth in mad haste, to encounter a fate scarcely less terrible
than that of being roasted in the flames. As they emerged from the burning
building, the attacking columns threw themselves on their flanks, and
poured volley after volley into their now fairly stampeded ranks. Scores
fell under the first deadly assault, and as they passed on in their flight
they were intercepted or overtaken by their infuriated pursuers, the
massacre continuing a full hour after the terrified rout had begun to
issue from the building.
The statistics of the loss on either side in this engagement have never
been given with accuracy, and there is good reason to believe that many of
the approximations that have gone to the world have embodied intentional
errors. From those who were participating in the affair, and represented
the hostile factions in about equal proportion, we obtain the following
estimate of their respective losses: Blacks killed, ninety; wounded,
twenty-five. Whites killed, five; wounded, three. In the skirmish but few
of the whites wore masks, and this affair has generally been regarded the
fruit of a popular uprising, and not strictly chargeable to any secret
organization, or body of men banded together for political purposes. It
occurred, moreover, at a time when partisan feeling in that section had
reached a strong ebb, and men were incensed against each other as they
rarely become in the light of such incentives. That the Klan was
officially represented in the affair was generally conceded.
It was about this time, or a little previously, that the famous White
League came into existence, occupying the K. K. K. basis as to politics,
and in all essentials of its organization formulated upon the same model.
This society assumed the duty of regulating the political affairs of the
State, and that it succeeded to some extent in purifying the constitutions
of the Returning Boards, those monster instrumentalities of fraud
belonging to the Radical elective system here, there can be no doubt. It
was, however, open to many objections, and on equitable grounds must have
been defeated by the same testimony that in some instances was made
available against the Klan. It was responsible for the New Orleans riots
of December 1874, in which hundreds of lives were sacrificed, and which
subjected the party which it assumed to represent to a manifest loss of
influence. The Kellogg, or Radical faction, however, received severe
punishment at their hands, and made many valuable concessions under the
election issues, from which the troubles grew; and it was in this affair,
likewise, that the Returning Boards, above mentioned, were made to feel
their power, and "by the same sign" induced to amend their ways. A bloody
affair at Coushatta, in the Red River country, followed in the succeeding
year; but as the transactions of this body are not strictly within the
purview of the present work, we refrain from a statement of the
particulars.
The Klan, finding its services no longer available here, in obedience to
its nomadic instincts crossed the Texas border, and for a year or two
following [Davis, Radical, being at that time Governor], assisted in the
administration of Texas affairs. But while it proved a factor of no mean
consequence in almost every political measure which agitated the Border
mind, and numerous local raids were reported by the State journals, its
frontier history was made up of unimportant details, whose want of
adaptation to the plan of this volume must be our excuse for omitting
them. The following statute, referring to the subject, was enacted by the
Texas Legislature of contemporaneous date:
_Unlawfully appearing in disguise as Ku-Klux, White Camelias, and
other Deviltry, punished._
ART. 6508. [1.] The penal code for the State of Texas shall be
amended as follows, by inserting after Act 363 the following: [363]
_a_ If the purpose of the unlawful assembly be to alarm and frighten
any person, or persons, by appearing in disguise, so that the real
persons so acting and assembling can not be readily known, and by
using language or gestures calculated to produce in such person or
persons the fear of bodily harm, all persons engaged therein shall be
punished by fine not less than one hundred, nor more than one
thousand dollars each; and if such unlawful assembly shall take place
at any time of the night--that is, between sunset and sunrise--the
fine shall be doubled; and if three or more persons are found
together disguised and armed with deadly weapons, the same shall be
_prima facie_ evidence of the guilty purpose of such persons, as
above described; and if any other unlawful assembly, mentioned in
this chapter, consist in whole or in part of persons disguised and
armed with deadly weapons, the fine to be assessed upon each person
so offending shall be double the penalty hereinbefore described.