Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
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former planter ruling class, and, in fact, to cement rela- Scabs were beaten and taken prisoner, and even the local<br />
tions with all classes of settlers. They openly offered police were overpowered by the armed strikers. But the<br />
themselves as allies of the planters in return for settler ac- Afrikan U.S. Congressman Robert Smalls led the state<br />
ceptance of the new neo-colony. But in vain.<br />
militia in and pacified the angry workers, ending the strike.<br />
In Mississippi when the armed planter takeover drowned<br />
The Reconstruction politicians hoped for a the 1876 elections in a sea of blood, Afrikan U.S. Conbourgeois<br />
democratic reconcilation, wherein the Northern gressman John Lynch (who had just lost his seat through<br />
industrialists, they and even the former slave-masters vote fraud at gunpoint) reminded everyone to remain loyal<br />
could all harmoniously unite to prosper off the labor of the to the Empire:<br />
Afrikan proletariat. Beverly Nash, one of the Afrikan<br />
leaders in the South Carolina legislature, told his people: "You certainly cannot expect.. .to resort to mob<br />
"We recognize the Southern white man as the true friend law and brute force, or to use what may be milder<br />
of the black man ... It is not our desire to be a discordant language, inaugurate a revolution. MY opinion is that<br />
element in the community, or to unite the poor against the revolution is not the remedy to be applied in such cases.<br />
rich ... The white man has the land, the black man has the Our System of government is supposed to be one of law<br />
labor, and labor is worth nothing without capital." Nash and order ... there is patriotism enough in this country and<br />
promised the banned ex-Confederates that he would fight sufficient love of justice and fair play in the hearts of the<br />
to not only get their voting rights restored, but to get "our American people ..."<br />
first men" (the former Confederate leaders) back in their<br />
customary places in Congress and the judges' bench. This In 1876-77, the final accommodation between<br />
desire to be accepted by the planter elite was far too com- Northern Capital and the Southern planters was reached in<br />
mon. Henry Turner, the "most prominent" Afrikan the "Hayes-Tilden deal". The South promised to accept<br />
politician in Georgia, opposed seizing tax-delinquent the dominance of the Northern bourgeoisie over the entire<br />
planter estates and campaigned to free Jefferson Davis Empire, and to permit the Republican candidate Rutherfrom<br />
prison!<br />
ford B. Hayes to succeed Grant in the U.S Presidency. In<br />
return, the Northern bourgeoibie agreed tu let the planters<br />
But Reconstruction fell, its foundations eroded have regional hegemony over the South, and to withdraw<br />
away by the ever-growing mass terror against the Afrikan the last of the occupying Union troops so that the Klan<br />
population by settler reaction. It was militarily overthrown could take care of Afrikans as they wished. While the<br />
by the secret planter para-military groups of the Ku Klux guarded remnants of Reconstruction held out here and<br />
Klan, White Caps, White Cross, White Legion and so on. there for some years (Afrikan Congressmen were elected<br />
In town after town, county and parish one after another, from the South until 1895), the critical year of 1877 markthen<br />
in state after state, Reconstruction was broken in ed their conclusive defeat.<br />
bloody killings.<br />
During these fateful years, when the central<br />
During the 1868 elections in Louisiana, for exam- political issue in the Empire was the war in the Afrikan colple,<br />
some 2,000 Afrikans were thought to have been killed ony, the white labor movement lined up on the side of the<br />
or wounded, with many more forced to flee. In Shreveport KKK terror - and against the Afrikan masses. Even the<br />
a gang of Italian fishermen and market venders called neo-colonial society of Black Reconstruction was hated by<br />
"The Innocents" roamed the streets for ten days before white labor, since it involved giving Afrikans at least an<br />
the elections, literally killing every Afrikan they could outward form of democratic rights and government<br />
find. Some 297 Afrikans were murdered in New Orleans. power. Even nee-colonialism was too good for Afrikans in<br />
In Bossier Parish "One hundred and twenty corpses were the opinion of white labor.<br />
found in the woods or were taken out of the Red River<br />
after a 'Negro' hunt ..." Although it took ten years for Some may consider it unusual that white workers<br />
Reconstruction to be finally defeated (and another twenty opposed Black Reconstruction; particularly since Black<br />
years before its advances were all erased), the guerrilla war Reconstruction not only bent over backwards to treat the<br />
between planter and Afrikan forces was disastrously one- entire white community, from planters to Poor whites,<br />
sided. The war could only have had one end, since with great respect, but introduced social reforms which<br />
Afrikans were disarmed militarily and politically. gave a real boost upwards to poor whites. Poor whites<br />
were able to send their children to the new public schools,<br />
By 1874 only four states-Mississippi, Louisiana, and for the first time in much of the South they were able<br />
South Carolina, and Florida-still remained in the hands to vote and hold minor public offices (during the "Slave<br />
of Reconstruction. The end was in sight. Secret con- Power" reign stiff property qualifications barred many<br />
ferences of the planter leadership mapped out the final whites from having political rights). These gifts failed to<br />
drive to tear out the heart of Black Reconstruction, and to win the gratitude of poor whites.<br />
begin the long, hundred-year night of absolute, terroristic<br />
rule. The White League was organized as the armed united Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw that the<br />
front of the KKK and all the other planter organizations. "mean whites" (as they called them) of the South were<br />
Within months it had 40,000 members. The white violence hopeless politically. They felt that nothing could be done<br />
intensified.<br />
with them but to render them powerless until they died out<br />
of old age. This was not a unique observation. Wendell<br />
Even at this late date the Afrikan petit-bourgeois Phillips, the great Radical abolitionist, bluntly pleaded in<br />
leaders of Reconstruction remained true to their loyalty 1870: "Now is the time.. .to guarantee the South against<br />
to the Empire. In 1876 there was a militant strike wave the possible domination or the anger of the white race. We<br />
among the Afrikan plantation laborers in South Carolina. 41 adhere to our opinion that nothing, or not much, except