828

CARPETBAGGER RULE RESULTS IN RIOTING

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CARPETBAGGER RULE RESULTS IN RIOTING
<b>828. CARPETBAGGER RULE RESULTS IN RIOTING </b>An extremely rare group of three documents chronicling a series of horrific events in Marianna, Jackson County, Florida during which whites and blacks indiscriminately murdered one another during 1869 as a result of the Federal government interfering in local politics. At the end of the war military rule gripped the South and in late 1865, former Union officer Charles Hamilton was appointed to head of the Northern district of Florida's Freedmen's Bureau. After his placement, Hamilton appointed two former Union officers, a certain W.J. Purman as head of the Jackson County office and John D. Dickinson as Justice of the Peace for Marianna, Florida. Tensions between black and whites grew as the bureau implemented its plans to reconstruct the South and by February 1869, Purman was severely wounded and a friend killed after the two were ambushed on their way home from a minstrel show. In response to the attack, an armed mob of African-Americans assembled to ransack Marianna, but tempers cooled and all remained quiet until a group of blacks were assaulted on their way to a picnic. The attack left two of the picnickers dead and prompted random murders. The first document, entitled: "<i>Memoranda of Occurrences relating to the assassinations in Jackson, County</i>", 10pp. legal folio, [Marianna], October 1869, gives an eyewitness account of what Dickinson saw and heard at the start of these bloody massacres, in very small part: "<i>...Sept. 28, 1869...Wyatt Young, Calvin Rogers...and about 23 women and children went from Marianna to Robinson Spring to attend a picnic...they were fired upon from the roadside with about 15 shots, Wyatt Young and Stewart Livingston were killed...29th as Columbus Sullivan and George Cox were hauling a load of cotton someone fired a load of shot at them, hitting Sullivan in the face and arm...Maggie McClellan [was shot in front of the hotel]...went to the hotel and found a guard there and they had three negroes in charge...one of them [a prisoner] asked me if he could be released...no one seemed to be willing to communicate with me...I saw...others all armed with guns moving...towards the park...Calvin was the guilty one...his men...ranged themselves about [me] with their guns at a ready...I went up town...and found everything in wild excitement. The young men were drunk...an evident arraignment...to let the wild boys kill Calvin...Casualties to date...Whites killed Maggie McClellan...Colored killed Wyatt Young, Stewart Livingston, Oscar Granbury...and one man unknown on Bryan's plantation...morning of the 13th...wrote to governor...recommended [?] of Election and discussed martial law business...Oct 23...Bell's house shot into...Lucy Griffin attacked three times on the street...troops arrived Oct. 26...Ely and Calhoun told Richard Pooser and other Negroes that they had got to vote...or they would make them...the Robinson Negroes would learn now that it was not best to aid in assisting a White Man...Charles Ely told "Mose" that a crowd had determined to kill the Nichols Girl [in retaliation for the murder of McClellan] Oct. 29th...Coker...d__d Hamilton, Purman [the agent shot in February], Lowe, and I and any man that would take an office to "Out lick" those fellows...</i>". Also included is a 3pp. legal folio, Oct. 5, 1869 [Marianna], a court document in which Samuel Fleishman [a noted Unionist and an active member of the Republican party] attests before Dickinson that he was told to get out of town and that threats were made against his life. Dickinson took Fleishman's statement, but apparently was powerless to do anything about the complaints. Eventually, Fleishman was escorted to the state line by angry citizens and warned not to return, but turned up dead days later after not heeding the warning. Blame for the incident was placed on Purman and Hamilton by Florida Gov. Reed, but the killing spree did not end until a year after the two men left the county in 1870. Lastly, is an A.L.S. "<i>Hamilton</i>" 4pp. 4to., Washington, Dec. 2, 1870, to Dickinson concerning their time in Marianna, in part: "<i>...A letter comes to me as a welcome, but almost lost vice from the land of dreams...it touches a day in my memory and a cord in my heart that awakens me as if from slumber and I can't determine whether the emotion partakes more of pleasant or unpleasant...there is a people there whom I love...I think of Fleishman, that...noble, valuable friend, whom I loved with an almost holy affection. I think of all the good friends who comforted me a stranger in a strange land...what feelings the name `Marianna' excites within me...I had put your name in as one of the corporators in the American Oceanic Steam Ship Co...Adams' ought to make you deputy...Jenkins promised me to send a deputy collector to reside with you in Marianna...</i>". Three truly great pieces of Reconstruction history showing the racial tensions created over-forced political and social rule. It should be noted that Dickinson was murdered by the angry white population of Marianna in 1871, himself a victim of the whole unfortunate affair. Some negligible stains and soiling, else very good.
<b>$250-350</b>