The Opelousas Massacre

An item from a Saturday, September 24, 2005 post Freedom Calendar 09/24/05 - 10/01/05 "September 28, 1868, Democrats in Opelousas, Louisiana murder nearly 300 African-Americans who tried to prevent an assault against a Republican newspaper editor. " Drew the following comment from a self described "liberal" friend.

Jonathan Whittle-Utter said...

"democrats" murdered 300 African Americans? Who did what now? I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing out how members of a group have done terrible things, not in accord with that group's principles - but I think posting statements like this is destructive, and begs further detail. Slander and Geneneralization are two of the chief reasons we're in this God Awful bi-partisan mess to begin with. If you want to tell a story about some people who killed some African Americans, and make some meaningful observations about how that action is somehow related to the democratic party, actually take the time to do it. This kind of sound-bite doesn't help anyone.

Mon Sep 26, 12:49:19 AM

To these questions of who, what, where, when and why? we will add that which we can.

Very little of the incident beyond "This kind of sound-bite" is generally posted as evidenced by these representative of Google's 135 and Yahoo's 123 quoted sources.

1868, In Louisiana, 200-300 African Americans are killed in the "Opelousas Massacre."
pbs.org

28 1868 The Opelousas Massacre occurred in Louisiana in which an estimated 200 to 300 black Americans were killed louisiana101

- Massacre in Louisiana. The Opelousas Massacre occurred in Louisiana on September 28, in which an estimated 200 to 300 black Americans were killed. washington.edu

September 28, 1868 Opelousas Massacre at St Landry Parish Louisiana (200 African Americans killed) uh.edu

More to the WHAT, WHERE and WHEN, point this from The African American Registry® which is a 501(c) (3) non-profit education organization. Their Mailing address is P.O. Box 19441 Minneapolis, MN 55419 Fax: (612) 825-0598 Email Them at info@aaregistry.com. The African American Registry®Copyright 2005

September 28 *On this date in 1868, the Opelousas massacre occurred. That city in Louisiana, was the site of a massacre of local blacks by violent whites (many of them Confederate veterans and prominent citizens).

The slaughter started when three local whites beat up an eighteen year old man named Emerson Bentley, a white editor (and non-Louisianan) of the local Republican newspaper and a teacher with the Freedmen's Bureau. Reacting to Bentley's beating, local blacks came to his rescue. Twelve were arrested by the sheriff, taken from jail and hung that night.

In the next few days bands of armed whites scoured the countryside and killed blacks in what was described as a “Negro hunt” similar to one which had occurred outside of Shreveport, Louisiana, a short time before. It is estimated that two hundred blacks were killed in the fields and swamps surrounding Opelousas Louisiana.

* Reference: Slavery in America

As to a specific "WHO and WHY" we present the Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Louisiana Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, 1865 - 1869. National Archives Microfilm Publication M1027 Roll 34 "Miscellaneous Reports and Lists Relating to Murders and Outrages Mar. 1867 - Nov. 1868"

Synopsis of Murders Committed in Parish of St. Landry, September and October 1868, Parish of St. Landry

Under date of Sept. 16th information has been received that several freedmen who had located land in parish under the Homestead Act had been driven from their homes and one of them William Johnson had been killed by the Arcadians. The others were compelled to take refuge with their neighbors.

Regarding the riot which originated at Opelousas on the 28th of Sept. in which various and conflicting accounts of the casualties are reported,

The first reliable account of same states 2 white men and 20 or 30 Negroes were killed, more definite information afterwards received gave the following result, 2 whites killed, 19 blacks killed and wounded as follows, 2 whites and 2 Negroes seriously, and others slightly, that other Negroes are reported and may be killed in isolated places, but no positive evidence of the same----

Other estimates place these casualties at a much larger number and in some instances are reported as high as 2 or 3 hundred, but these highest figures are doubtless greatly exaggerated having their origin in the excited minds of personal imagination. From other parties residents of the parish is stated that 6 Indians had been killed by the people for refusing to join Democratic Clubs that Victor Dauphan, c, was killed in Washington on the night of October 1st, that a man "Republican" was killed in Opelousas on night of Monday October 19th, that a large number of Republicans have been killed in Grand Prairie since September 27th and that men had to be detailed from Washington to bury them.

Still later advices from reliable authority state that a freedman was found murdered 3 miles from Opelousas on the 20 Oct. 20th and reports are current of freedmen killed in various portions of the parish.

Unsigned Source: freedmensbureau.com ©Copyright 2000 Christine's Genealogy Websites

This we hope will answer to WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHY as well as any question of "slander".

As to "Geneneralization" and "related" we offer this abbreviated (size and time constraints)list from the first six months of the aforementioned item from a Saturday, September 24, 2005 post Freedom Calendar 09/24/05 - 10/01/05 for context.

January 5, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt nominates African-American physician William D. Crum as Collector of Customs, over racist objections from Senate Democrats

January 8, 1867, Republicans override Democrat President Andrew Johnson’s veto of law granting voting rights to African-Americans in D.C.

January 10, 1878, U.S. Senator Aaron Sargent (R-CA) introduces Susan B. Anthony amendment for women’s suffrage; Democrat-controlled Senate defeated it 4 times before election of Republican House and Senate guaranteed its approval in 1919

January 15, 1901, Republican Booker T. Washington protests Alabama Democratic Party’s refusal to permit voting by African-Americans

January 17, 1874, Armed Democrats seize Texas state government, ending Republican efforts to racially integrate government

January 18, 1815, Birth of Republican Gov. Richard Yates (R-IL), who prevented Democrat-controlled legislature from withdrawing state troops from the Union Army

January 19, 1818, Birth of anti-slavery activist Alvan Bovay, who organized first meeting of Republican Party in 1854, to oppose Democrats’ pro-slavery policies

January 26, 1922, House passes bill authored by U.S. Rep. Leonidas Dyer (R-MO) making lynching a federal crime; Senate Democrats block it with filibuster

January 31, 1865, 13th Amendment banning slavery passed by U.S. House with unanimous Republican support, intense Democrat opposition

February 2, 1856, After leaving Democratic Party because of its pro-slavery policies, U.S. Rep. Nathaniel Banks (R-MA) becomes first Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

February 3, 1870, After passing House with 98% Republican support and 97% Democrat opposition, Republicans’ 15th Amendment is ratified, granting vote to all Americans regardless of race

February 4, 1959, President Eisenhower informs Republican leaders of his plan to introduce 1960 Civil Rights Act, despite staunch opposition from many Democrats.

February 5, 1866, U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) introduces legislation, successfully opposed by Democrat President Andrew Johnson, to implement “40 acres and a mule” relief by distributing land to former slaves

February 8, 1894, Democrat Congress and Democrat President Grover Cleveland join to repeal Republicans’ Enforcement Act, which had enabled African-Americans to vote

February 22, 1856, First national meeting of the Republican Party, in Pittsburgh, to coordinate opposition to Democrats’ pro-slavery policies

March 6, 1857, Republican Supreme Court Justice John McLean issues strenuous dissent from decision by 7 Democrats in infamous Dred Scott case that African-Americans had no rights “which any white man was bound to respect”

March 7, 1965, Police under the command of Democrat Governor George Wallace attack African-Americans demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, AL

March 12, 1956, Ninety-seven Democrats in Congress condemn Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and pledge to continue segregation

March 14, 1920, Death of U.S. Senator Henry Blair (R-NH); his bill to aid public schools in the South passed three times in Republican-controlled Senate, but was repeatedly blocked by Democrat Speaker of the House

March 20, 1854, Opponents of Democrats’ pro-slavery policies meet in Ripon, Wisconsin to establish the Republican Party

March 21, 1965, Republican federal judge Frank Johnson authorizes Martin Luther King’s protest march from Selma to Montgomery, overruling Democrat Governor George Wallace

March 27, 1856, First meeting of Republican National Committee in Washington, DC to oppose Democrats’ pro-slavery policies.

April 3, 1944, U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Texas Democratic Party’s “whites only” primary election system

April 8, 1865, 13th Amendment banning slavery passed by U.S. Senate with 100% Republican support, 63% Democrat opposition

April 9, 1866, Republican Congress overrides Democrat President Johnson’s veto; Civil Rights Act of 1866, conferring rights of citizenship on African-Americans, becomes law.

April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signs bill abolishing slavery in District of Columbia; in Congress, 99% of Republicans vote yes, 83% of Democrats vote no

April 20, 1871, Republican Congress enacts the Ku Klux Klan Act, outlawing Democratic Party-affiliated terrorist groups which oppressed African-Americans

May 2, 1963, Republicans condemn Democrat sheriff of Birmingham, AL for arresting over 2,000 African-American schoolchildren marching for their civil rights

May 6, 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower signs Republicans’ Civil Rights Act of 1960, overcoming 125-hour, around-the-clock filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats

May 9, 2001, President George W. Bush nominates Miguel Estrada to be first Hispanic to serve on U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit; Democrats in Senate successfully filibuster nomination.

May 10, 1866, U.S. House passes Republicans’ 14th Amendment guaranteeing due process and equal protection of the laws to all citizens; 100% of Democrats vote no

May 12, 1850, Birth of U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA), whose 1890 Federal Elections Bill enforcing African-American voting rights passed House on party-line vote but was defeated in Senate by a Democrat filibuster

May 21, 1919, Republican House passes constitutional amendment granting women the vote with 85% of Republicans in favor, but only 54% of Democrats; in Senate, 80% of Republicans would vote yes, but almost half of Democrats no.

May 22, 1856, For denouncing Democrats’ pro-slavery policy, Republican U.S. Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) is beaten nearly to death on floor of Senate by U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks (D-SC).

May 29, 1902, Virginia Democrats implement new state constitution, condemned by Republicans as illegal, reducing African-American voter registration by 86%.

May 30, 1854, Democrat President Franklin Pierce signs Democrats’ Kansas-Nebraska Act, expanding slavery into U.S. territories; opponents unite to form the Republican Party.

June 1, 1963, Democrat Governor George Wallace announces defiance of court order issued by Republican federal judge Frank Johnson to integrate University of Alabama.

June 8, 1866, U.S. Senate passes Republicans’ 14th Amendment guaranteeing due process and equal protection of the law to all citizens; 94% of Republicans vote yes and 100% of Democrats vote no.

June 10, 1964 Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) criticizes Democrat filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act, calls on Democrats to stop opposing racial equality.

June 12, 1929, First Lady Lou Hoover invites wife of U.S. Rep. Oscar De Priest (R-IL), an African-American, to tea at the White House, sparking protests by Democrats across the country.

June 22, 1870, Republican Congress creates U.S. Department of Justice, to safeguard the civil rights of African-Americans against Democrats in the South.

June 26, 1857, Abraham Lincoln declares Republican position that slavery is “cruelly wrong,” while Democrats “cultivate and excite hatred” for blacks.

Do we believe that the average rank and file member or the democratic party of today is racist? NO.

Do we believe that some race-baiting democratic leaders of today are? Rep. Charles Rangel, comparison of President Bush to the late Theophilus "Bull" Connor, the Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner who came to symbolize Southern racism in the 1960s. The Reverend Al Sharpton, "Clearly Bush has become that, especially after Katrina,"

Rev. Sharpton said. "We've gone from fire hoses to levees." Senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus and of New York's congressional delegation, Mr. Owens, "Bull Connor didn't even pretend that he cared about African- Americans,"

Mr. Owens said. "You have to give it to George Bush for being even more diabolical." "With his faith-based initiatives," Mr. Owens added, "he made it appear that he cared about black Americans. Katrina has exposed that as a big lie." As a result, Mr. Rangel "is on the right track," Mr. Owens said. "This is worse than Bull Connor," he added.

A Democrat who represents Brooklyn on New York's City Council, Charles Barron, concurred with that sentiment. "I think that's an insult to Connor," he said of Mr. Rangel's statement. "George Bush is worse, because he has more power and he's more destructive to our people than Bull Connor will ever be." For example, Mr. Barron said, "A KKK without power is not as bad as a George Bush with power."

"To be a racist in the richest, most powerful country in the world is lethal," Mr. Barron added. "Look what he's doing to communities of color all over the world," the council member said of Mr. Bush. "He's a lethal racist."

"What he did in New Orleans -- I mean, that's worse than what Bull Connor did in his entire career as a racist in the South," Mr. Barron said. "Look at these neighborhoods before Katrina hit. Bush made that community what it is. Katrina did the rest, in partnership with Bush, to deliver the final blow."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean remains mum.

Tell that to Lt. General Russell L. Honoré Charlie, Al, Major and Howard

more at Opelousas Massacre and republicans or democrats and Politics or News and Charles Rangel or african american and civil rights