Ever wonder what happened in Texas the year of the first Juneteenth (June 19, 1865)? I did, and have been researching and writing a play set during that time. Spoiler alert: shit got ugly.
According to a report by the Texas constitutional convention, white Texans killed almost 400 black people between 1865 and 1868. Reports by the Freedmen’s Bureau (established by Congress to provide food, housing, medical aid, establish schools and offer legal assistance to freed slaves/”Freedmen”) offers a glimpse of the chaos following emancipation. Records relating to “murders and outrages” include:
On the arrival of the first U. S. Troops in Houston (34th Iowa Infty.) a colored man named William, an enlisted cook in “K” Co. who walked uptown in advance of the troops, was murdered in the streets by a white man named Cotton.
Date on or about the middle of June 1865.James Murphy (white) shot and killed a Freedman named Boston McDaniel on the road from Crockett to Huntsville. Reported cause. The Freedman did not take off his hat to Murphy when he passed him.
Done October 1865. Houston Co.Freedman Oliver was killed in Montgomery Co. by Maj. Uzzel and Dr. McQueen who got into a quarrel with him because he had gone to Houston to report Maj. Uzzel’s father for non-payment of wages. They beat him with sticks and as he was running away from them fired several shots at him one taking effect.
Done about the 1st of Dec 1865.On the 26th of July 1865 W. S. Spencer inflicted several severe blows with the iron butt end of a heavy whip on the head of a mulatto woman named Adelaide, cutting to the bone. The said W. S. Spencer then in company with C. C. Millican then tied her hands together pulled her clothes over her hips, bucked her and gave her about two hundred lashes with a heavy leather strap, supposed to be a trace. One of the parties claimed that Adelaide had made an insulting noise when his wife passed. This case was reported by Joel Spencer an old citizen of Brazonia Co. who formerly owned Adelaide and who is the father-in-law of one of the perpetrators of this outrage.
After weeks of protests and outrage across the country, it isn’t news at this point to say that – 155 years later – we have yet to reach the denouement of post-emancipation violence and terror.