"A free colored man named Jordan opened, by permission of the commandant of the post at Columbia, Tenn., a school for the blacks. The school went on smoothly till Monday, the 11th instant, when two soldiers of the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry went into the school, and broke it up, but the teacher, being so advised, resumed his labor the next day. But, on the 14th, Messrs. Datty, Porter, White, and others, including soldiers of the Eighth Tennessee, the party headed by White the city constable, proceeded to the classroom, seized the teacher, and brought him under guard to the courthouse, where he received a mock trial. When asked for his authority for teaching a school, Mr. Jordan replied, that Lieut-Col. Brown and Mayor Sawyer... One of the men went out, but was absent for only a moment, when he came in, stating that Major Sawyer could not be found; whereupon Mr. Andrews ordered that the teacher be given twenty-five lashes. And they were administered, the man receiving the scourge like a martyr, telling his persecutors that he was willing to suffer for the right; and that Christ had received the same punishment for the same purpose; and he thought, if he could teach the children to read the Bible so they might learn of heaven, he was doing a good work. To this, a soldier of the Eighth Tennessee said, 'If you want to go to heaven you must pray: you can't get there by teaching the niggers. We can't go to school, and I'll be damned if niggers shall.'
"Volumes might be written, recounting the shameful outrages committed at the South since the surrender of Lee. Not satisfied with murders of an individual character, the Southerners have, of late, gone into it more extensively. The first of these took place at Memphis, Tenn., May 4, 1866. A correspondent of Hon. W. D. Kelley, of Philadelphia, said--
'I have been an eyewitness to such sights as should cause the age in which we live to blush. Negro men have been shot down in cold blood on the streets; barbers at their chairs and in their own shops; draymen on their drays, while attempting to earn an honest living; hotel-waiters, while in the discharge of their duties; hackmen, while driving female teachers of negro children to their schools; laborers, while handling cotton on the wharves &c. All the negro school houses, and all the negro churches, and many of the houses of the negroes have been burned, this too, under the immediate auspices of the city police and the mayor: in fact, most of these outrages were committed by the police themselves, -- all Irish and all rebels and mostly drunk. This is not the half: I have no heart to recount the outrages I have seen. The most prominent citizens stand on the streets, and see negroes hunted down and shot, and laugh at it as a good joke. Attempts have been made to fire every government building, and fires have been set to many of the abodes, and business-places of Union people.
'There is no doubt but that there is a secret organization sworn to purge the city of all Northern men who are not rebels, all negro teachers, all Yankee enterprise, and return the city to the good ole days of Southern rule and chivalry.'"
P.348-350, "Ill Treatment of Colored People," THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION, by William Wells Brown (1867)
Friday, April 18, 2014
THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION...EXCERPT
"A free colored man named Jordan opened, by permission of the commandant of the post at Columbia, Tenn., a school for the blacks. The school went on smoothly till Monday, the 11th instant, when two soldiers of the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry went into the school, and broke it up, but the teacher, being so advised, resumed his labor the next day. But, on the 14th, Messrs. Datty, Porter, White, and others, including soldiers of the Eighth Tennessee, the party headed by White the city constable, proceeded to the classroom, seized the teacher, and brought him under guard to the courthouse, where he received a mock trial. When asked for his authority for teaching a school, Mr. Jordan replied, that Lieut-Col. Brown and Mayor Sawyer... One of the men went out, but was absent for only a moment, when he came in, stating that Major Sawyer could not be found; whereupon Mr. Andrews ordered that the teacher be given twenty-five lashes. And they were administered, the man receiving the scourge like a martyr, telling his persecutors that he was willing to suffer for the right; and that Christ had received the same punishment for the same purpose; and he thought, if he could teach the children to read the Bible so they might learn of heaven, he was doing a good work. To this, a soldier of the Eighth Tennessee said, 'If you want to go to heaven you must pray: you can't get there by teaching the niggers. We can't go to school, and I'll be damned if niggers shall.'
"Volumes might be written, recounting the shameful outrages committed at the South since the surrender of Lee. Not satisfied with murders of an individual character, the Southerners have, of late, gone into it more extensively. The first of these took place at Memphis, Tenn., May 4, 1866. A correspondent of Hon. W. D. Kelley, of Philadelphia, said--
'I have been an eyewitness to such sights as should cause the age in which we live to blush. Negro men have been shot down in cold blood on the streets; barbers at their chairs and in their own shops; draymen on their drays, while attempting to earn an honest living; hotel-waiters, while in the discharge of their duties; hackmen, while driving female teachers of negro children to their schools; laborers, while handling cotton on the wharves &c. All the negro school houses, and all the negro churches, and many of the houses of the negroes have been burned, this too, under the immediate auspices of the city police and the mayor: in fact, most of these outrages were committed by the police themselves, -- all Irish and all rebels and mostly drunk. This is not the half: I have no heart to recount the outrages I have seen. The most prominent citizens stand on the streets, and see negroes hunted down and shot, and laugh at it as a good joke. Attempts have been made to fire every government building, and fires have been set to many of the abodes, and business-places of Union people.
'There is no doubt but that there is a secret organization sworn to purge the city of all Northern men who are not rebels, all negro teachers, all Yankee enterprise, and return the city to the good ole days of Southern rule and chivalry.'"
P.348-350, "Ill Treatment of Colored People," THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION, by William Wells Brown (1867)