Part 12 (1/2)
There have come under my notice, officially, twelve cases in which I am morally certain (the trials have not been had yet) that negroes were killed by whites. In a majority of cases the provocation consisted in the negroes trying to come to town, or to return to the plantation after having been sent away. These cases are in part as follows:
Wilson H. Gordon, convicted by military commission of having shot and drowned a negro, May 14, 1865.
Samuel Smiley, charged with having shot one negro and wounded another, acquitted on proof of an alibi. It is certain, however, that one negro was shot and another wounded, as stated. Trial occurred in June.
Three negroes were killed in the southern part of Dallas county; it is supposed by the Vaughn family. I tried twice to arrest them, but they escaped into the woods.
Mr. Alexander, Perry county, shot a negro for being around his quarters at a late hour. He went into his house with a gun and claimed to have shot the negro accidentally. The fact is, the negro is dead.
Mr. Dermott, Perry county, started with a negro to Selma, having a rope around the negro's neck. He was seen dragging him in that way, but returned home before he could have reached Selma. He did not report at Selma, and the negro has never since been heard of. The neighbors declare their belief that the negro was killed by him. This was about the 10th of July.
Mr. Higginbotham, and Threadgill, charged with killing a negro in Wilc.o.x county, whose body was found in the woods, came to my notice the first week of August.
A negro was killed on Mr. Brown's place, about nine miles from Selma, on the 20th of August. Nothing further is known of it. Mr. Brown himself reported.
A negro was killed in the calaboose of the city of Selma, by being beaten with a heavy club; also, by being tied up by the thumbs, clear of the floor, for three hours, and by further gross abuse, lasting more than a week, until he died.
I can further state, that within the limits of my official observation crime is rampant; that life is insecure as well as property; that the country is filled with desperadoes and banditti who rob and plunder on every side, and that the county is emphatically in a condition of anarchy.
The cases of crime above enumerated, I am convinced, are but a small part of those that have actually been perpetrated.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J.P. HOUSTON, _Major 5th Minnesota, and Provost Marshal U.S. forces at Selma, Alabama_.
Major General CARL SCHURZ.
No. 22.
FREEDMEN'S BUREAU,
_Mobile, September_ 9, 1865.
Sir: In compliance with your request I have the honor to report the state of affairs as connected with the freedmen in this city and the counties of Was.h.i.+ngton, Monroe, Clark, Choctaw and Baldwin.
The civil authorities in this city have accepted General Swayne's order No. 7, (herewith enclosed,) but the spirit of the order is not complied with, and complaints of injustice and criminal partiality in the mayor's court have been frequently made at this office, and particularly when Mr.
Morton presides there is no justice rendered to the freedmen. Little or no business is done before other magistrates, as the colored people are aware, from experience, that their oath is a mere farce and their testimony against a white man has no weight; consequently all complaints of the colored people come before this bureau.
I have by special order of General Swayne designated one of the justices of the peace, Mr. T. Starr, who adjudicates cases of debt, and in matters where both parties are of color he has so far given satisfaction, but the prejudice so universal against colored people here is already beginning to affect his decisions.
The civil police department of this city is decidedly hostile to color, and the daily acts of persecution in this city are manifest in the number of arrests and false imprisonment made where no shadow of criminality exists, while gangs of idle rebel soldiers and other dissolute rowdies insult, rob, and a.s.sault the helpless freedmen with impunity.
All hopes of equity and justice through the civil organization of this city is barred; prejudice and a vindictive hatred to color is universal here; it increases intensely, and the only capacity in which the negro will be tolerated is that of slave.
The fever of excitement, distrust, and animosity, is kept alive by incendiary and lying reports in the papers, and false representations of rebel detectives. The alarm is constantly abroad that the negroes are going to rise; this is utterly without foundation. The freedmen will not rise, though docile and submissive to every abuse that is heaped upon them in this city. If they are ragged and dirty, they are spurned as outcasts; if genteel and respectable, they are insulted as presumptive; if intelligent, they are incendiary; and their humble wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d is construed as a designing plot to rise against the citizens who oppress them.
It is evident that General Swayne's good intentions are nugatory from the want of faith on the part of those to whom he intrusted his order.
These men have been recipients of office for years. Old a.s.sociations, customs and prejudices, the pressure of public opinion, and the undying hostility to federal innovation, all conspire gainst impartiality to color. Such is the state of affairs in this city.