On the 6th of December, 1876, President Grant in a message to Congress transmitted the evidence of these horrible crimes against the colored race, committed in the name and in the interest of the Democracy. They are not mere estimates nor conjectures, but the names of the persons murdered, maimed and whipped, and of the perpetrators of the crimes, the places where they occurred, and the revolting circumstances under which they were committed, are all set forth in detail. This shocking record embraces a period of eight years, from 1868 to 1876, inclusive, and covers ninety-eight pages of fine type, giving an average of about one victim to each line. We have not counted the list, but it is safe to say that it numbers over four thousand.
These crimes did not end in 1876 with the accession of the Democracy to control of the State administration. The witnesses examined by your committee gave numerous instances of like character which occurred in 1878. Madison Parish may serve as an illustration. This parish, which furnished perhaps the largest number of refugees to Kansas, had been exceptionally free from bull-dozing in former years. William Murrell, one of the witnesses called by the committee, states the reasons for the exodus from that parish as follows:
You have not read of any exodus yet as there will be from that section this summer, and the reason for it is that, for the first time since the war in Madison Parish last December, we had bull-dozing there. Armed bodies of men came into the parishnot people who lived in the parish, but men from Ouachita Parish and Richland Parish; and I can name the leader who commanded them. He was a gentleman by the name of Captain Tibbals, of Ouachita Parish, who lives in Monroe, who was noted in the celebrated massacre there in other times. His very name among the colored people is sufficient to intimidate them almost. He came with a crowd of men on the 28th of December into Madison Parish, when all was quiet and peaceable. There was no quarrel, no excitement. We had always elected our tickets in the parish, and we had put Democrats on the ticket in many cases to satisfy them. There were only 238 white voters and about 2,700 colored registered voters.
Mr. Murrell says that David Armstrong, who was president of third ward Republican club, a man who stood high in the community, and against whom no charge was made except that of being a Republican, made the remark:
"What right have these white men to come here from Morehouse Parish, and Richland Parish, and Franklin Parish to interfere with our election?" And some white men heard of it and got a squad by themselves and said, "We'll go down and give that nigger a whipping." So Sunday night, about ten o'clock, they went to his house to take him out and whip him. They saw him run out the back way and fired on him. One in the crowd cried out, "Don't kill him!" "It is too late, now," they said, "he's dead." The Carroll Conservative, a Democratic newspaper, published the whole thing; but the reason they did it was because we had one of their men on our ticket as judge, and they got sore about it, and we beat him. They killed Armstrong and took him three hundred yards to the river, in a sheet, threw him in the river, and left the sheet in the bushes.
Proceeding with the account of that transaction, Mr. Murrell swears that the colored people had heard that the bulldozers were coming from the surrounding parishes, and that he and others called on some of the leading Democrats in order to prevent it, but all in vain. He says:
We waited on Mr. Holmes, the clerk of the court, and we said to him, "Mr. Holmes, it is not necessary to do any bulldozing here; you have the counting machinery all in your hands, and we would rather be counted out than bulldozed; can't we arrange this thing? I made a proposition to him and said, "You know I am renominated on the Republican ticket, but I will get out of the way for any moderate Democrat you may name to save the State and district ticket. We will not vote for your State ticket; you cannot make the colored people vote the State ticket; but if you will let us have our State ticket we will give you the local offices." We offered them the clerk of the court, not the sheriff, and the two representatives. We told him we would not give them the senator, but the district judge and attorney. After this interview Holmes sent us to Dr. Askew, ex-chairman of the Democratic committee, and he said to me, "Now, Murrell, there is no use talking, I advise you to stand from under. When these men get in here we can't control them. We like you well enough and would not like to see you hurt. I will see you to-night at Mr. Holmes." We had an interview with Mr. Holmes and made this proposition, and Holmes asked me this question: "Murrell, you know damned well the niggers in this parish won't vote the Democratic ticketthere is no use to tell me you will give us the clerk of the court, you know the niggers won't do it. You can't trust the niggers in politics; all your eloquence and all the speeches you can make won't make these niggers vote this ticket or what you suggest, even if we was to accept it. No, by God, we are going to carry it. Why," said he, "there is more eloquence in double-barreled shot-guns to convince niggers than there is in forty Ciceros." I said to him, "Well, do you suppose the merchants and planters will back you up," and he said, "O, by God, they have got nothing to do with it. We have charge of it. We three men, the Democratic committee, have full power to work."
The result of this "work" was, as stated by the witness, and not disputed by any one before the committee, that in this parish, containing 2,700 registered Republican voters, and only 238 Democrats, the Democrats returned a majority of 2,300. The witness, who was a candidate on the Republican ticket, swears that not more than 360 votes were cast. Democratic shot-gun eloquence did its "work," as prophesied by Mr. Askew, ex-chairman of the Democratic committee, but it also served as a wonderful stimulus to migration from Madison Parish.
We cite this case for two reasons: First, because it has been said that the Negroes have not emigrated from bulldozed parishes; and, secondly, because it serves as an illustration of the many similar cases which were given to the committee.
We desire also to invite attention to the evidence of Henry Adams, a colored witness from Shreveport, La. Adams is a man of very remarkable energy and native ability. Scores of witnesses were summoned by the majority of the committee from Shreveport but none of them ventured to question his integrity or truthfulness. Though a common laborer, he has devoted much of his time in traveling through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, working his way and taking notes of the crimes committed against his race. His notes, written in terse and simple language, embraced the names of six hundred and eighty-three colored men who have been whipped, maimed or murdered within the last eight years, and his statement of these crimes covers thirty-five pages of closely printed matter in the report. We are sure no one can read it without a conviction of its truthfulness, and a feeling of horror at the barbarous details he relates. Adams is the man who has organized a colonization council, composed of laboring colored people, and rigidly excluding politicians, which numbers ninety-eight thousand who have enrolled themselves with a view to emigration from that country as early as possible. He details the character and the purpose of the organization and the efforts it has made to obtain relief and protection for its members. "First," he says, "we appealed to the President of the United States to help us out of our distress, to protect us in our rights and privileges. Next, we appealed to Congress for a territory to which we might go and live with our families. Failing in that," says he, "our other object was to ask for help to ship us all to Liberia, Africa, somewhere where we could live in peace and quiet. If that could not be done," he adds, "our idea was to appeal to other governments outside of the United States to help us to get away from the United States and go and live there under their flag." What a commentary upon our own boasted equality and freedom! Finding no relief in any direction, they finally resolved to emigrate to some of the Northern States. He says they had some hope of securing better treatment at home until 1877, when "we lost all hopes and determined to go anywhere on God's earth, we didn't care where; we said we was going if we had to run away and go into the woods." Perhaps we can best summarize the condition of affairs in Louisiana and the causes of the exodus from that State, as the Negroes themselves regarded them, by quoting a brief extract from the report of the business committee to the colored State convention held in New Orleans on the 21st of April, 1879: