CAUSE OF MANY RIOTS.
Between the years of 1865 and 1876 the severest tests were put to
the work of being done by Miss Schofield, to see whether it could be
made practical or not. By the courage with which she met and answered
them she established once and for always the truth that the progress
of light and reason can not be retarded long, no matter by whom and
for what purpose such an attempt might be undertaken. The outrageous
murders of Negroes by white men which went on almost daily following
the unwise policy of the government at Washington in putting them in
power in the South before many of them could scarcely read or write,
precipitated the greatest excitement throughout the country. These
outrages attracted the indignation of the North and martial law was
declared all over South Carolina. This was done to enforce the rights
of the peaceable, law-abiding whites, as well as the rights of that
class of Negroes. Of course, much blame for the haughty attitude of the
Negro and the declaration of martial law was laid at the door of Miss
Schofield, whose teaching it was generally believed by the ignorant
whites, was responsible for the deplorable state of affairs that
existed. The Northern press at the time carried over her signature many
accounts of the numerous brutalities happening in and around Aiken and
she was repeatedly called to account by the leading white people, all
assuming a threatening attitude that would have put to flight almost
any other woman. But Miss Schofield would meet her antagonists face to
face and dare them to harm even one hair of her head. She would remind
them that they were all chivalrous white gentlemen and could not under
their own pretences attack her and do her violence without surrendering
every right and claim which they might have upon knight erranty.
In a New York newspaper of the year 1876 she details one of the murders
typical of the Reconstruction period.
An old man, deaf, and dumb, who had never spoken a word or heard a
sound in all his seventy years of life sought protection and refuge in
the Schofield home. He had scarcely entered the house before an armed
body of men arrived and demanded that the old dumb man reveal the
hiding place of a certain negro whom the white people had decided it
was necessary to put to death for their own peace and security. As he
could neither hear nor talk, he answered the threatening attitude of
the crowd with unintelligent murmurs and gestures and pointed excitedly
at Miss Schofield. She explained the condition of the man and plead
earnestly with the mob for his life, but to no purpose. They engaged
him and stabbed him to death in her back yard as he undertook to escape.
The same number of this newspaper carries instances and gives dates
of other atrocities of a most depraved character. All this served
to stimulate the growing animosity between the whites, who regarded
the outrages being committed by them as absolutely essential to
the preservation of civilization, and the Northern immigrants or
carpet-baggers, who through the Negro vote were in power and held
all of the important offices of the County and State. Many of these
disgraced with shame for the time being the offices held for enriching
themselves and impoverishing the already impoverished and well-nigh
destitute country.
Martha Schofield’s activities in broad-casting stories of these hideous
outrages and appealing for the continuance of the reign of the military
authorities in South Carolina as the only means of making life at all
safe and possible under the circumstances, drew to her the contempt and
hatred of the white people, who of all the people on earth were best
suited by reason of their position and knowledge to assist her in her
work.
The suspicion and distrust she worked under of being in sympathy with
the unscrupulous and corrupt regime in complete control of local
affairs was manifestly a serious handicap. No one more clearly than
she realized the disastrous effect their corruption would have on her
school, her work and the colored people. She knew also that it meant
defeat, in the South at least, of the great party whose triumph in the
cause of freedom had made it possible for the first time in American
history to test the possibility of elevating a lowly and much abhorred
race. These influences weighed heavily upon her heart, and but for
the courage and sternness of her nature, which seemed never to be at
its best except when acutely vexed and infinitely tried, would have
resulted in her voluntarily withdrawing from the self-imposed task
almost in its beginning.
The author shall never forget but she will always remember and value
her most priceless treasure, the tender religious emotion which the
happenings of these times provoked. They were felt keenly at the
morning service of the Schofield Normal and Industrial Institute during
her first year at this institution. How fondly does she recall now as
if the voices of angels, whose voices of three decades ago as the whole
school would sing those comforting old plantation hymns, “Steal Away,
Steal Away to Jesus,” and “Love, Come a Twinkling Down.”
The joy, the emotion and inspiration which is felt at the moment of
writing these lines, over the probability of a similar joy in heaven,
in the heart of her who had the heroic courage and the splendid manhood
to risk her life in the unselfish and holy cause of implanting in the
Negro mind and soul that which is beautiful, noble and sentimental, is
unbounded.
The reflection that large numbers of her fellow-citizens now rejoice
with her, and the prediction that others who do not now do so will
later on, gives her likewise an even greater measure of the debt of
gratitude which all owe to the mother of the movement for the courage
to continue the work for the uplift of the Negro even at the peril of
her life.
The work of Miss Schofield was made doubly more perilous each day
by the misrule of the imported rulers of State. For these she had,
instead of sympathy, an unbridled contempt, and never failed to express
that contempt, whenever possible. But the white people would not
condescend to hear her talk, much less believe anything which she might
say. Besides their prediction that deplorable conditions would follow
the rule of any Yankee, no matter whether he was a Scott, a Moses, or a
Chamberlain, must not be discounted by the substitution of honest men
from the North. The more corrupt a Republican was the better he served
to prove the contention of the Southerners that only Democrats could be
safely trusted with power.
The dishonest, corrupt and unscrupulous officials in authority were
equally as energetic in protecting their offices from capture by
good men, by countenancing, if not actually encouraging, a spirit of
lawlessness. Governor Jenkins, the Republican Governor of Alabama, was
quoted as saying that he would like to have a few colored men killed
every week or so, in order to provide the semblance of truth for his
libels that the maintenance of the Radicals in power was the only
salvation of the colored people. His work and talk, typical of that
of others, served to frighten good men away and keep Jenkins and his
kind in authority. And all this time Martha Schofield and her little
band of Negroes, whom she was endeavoring to lead out of the depths
of darkness, despair and crime into the light of reason, courage, and
industry were daily praying for their enemies, for the deliverance of
men of all races from the fetters of greed, avarice and revenge, which
was responsible for the suffering and misery to be seen on every hand.
They were praying not only, they were working also, with all their
little might, that the things for which they prayed might come to pass.
This school, of all others which the author ever attended, preached, if
it preached anything at all, that God must never be expected to answer
prayers unsupported by works.
At one of the great political rallies held in Aiken by the Democratic
Party a few years before the succession of Hampton to the Governorship
one of the orators of the day said that the treasury of South Carolina
had been so gutted by the thieves in power that nothing was left to
steal except the power to stop the further enlightenment of the fool
‘nigger.’ He added also, that he wanted a change in the government in
order to make a South Carolina bond equally as good on the market as a
“nigger’s note.”
The legislatures of the Southern States authorized the increase of
the public debt from $87,000,000 to $300,000,000. They held the right
to declare martial law in every county whenever deemed advisable, to
arrest and try any person by court martial and had at their disposal
the right to raise regiments of soldiers, one of Negroes and one of
whites, to execute their several wills. Under these circumstances
it does seem that security of life, liberty and even the pursuit
of happiness and the accumulation of property should have gone on
undisturbed by anything which the aristocrats and poor whites might
have done, in opposition to the desideratum so devoutly wished for by
the authorities in power.
But history records that the authorities with unlimited power signally
failed in asserting any power at all; that the party in power with
unlimited means at its command for accomplishing great undertakings of
public enterprise accomplished only the complete demoralization of the
whole South, financially and morally.
After sitting a whole year the legislature of Alabama at the end of
its session passed a bill authorizing the endorsement of the State’s
credit, for the purpose of encouraging the development of railway
construction and transportation to the extent of $16,000 per mile. Only
one road was completed. Five were built a few miles and abandoned.
Through the issue of bonds for one purpose or another, as for instance,
the building of railroads organized and owned principally by the men
voting the bonds, the public treasury was fleeced to the limit.
This, combined with the stupidity, cowardliness and corruption of the
military authorities hastened on the hurried collapse of organized
government and substituted in its place a reign of terror and
lawlessness without a parallel in Southern history.
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