Still the Arena for Civil War: German Texan Unionists, Radical Republicans, and Reconstruction Violence

Chair

Kenneth Howell, Ph.D.

Blinn College

Presenter

James Kearney, Ph.D.

University of Texas (RET)

The Washington County Scandal of 1886

The “Washington County scandal of 1886” refers to a violently contested local election in Washington County, Texas, in which Democratic leaders used intimidation, ballot interference, and lynching to solidify white Democratic control and suppress the Black–German coalition that had kept Republicans in power for many years. During the election, armed white men raided Black-majority polling places in the southeastern part of the county, confiscating ballot boxes and tally sheets and thereby nullifying many Black votes. During one of these confrontations, a white man, Dewees Bolton, was killed near the Flewellen polling place; eight Black men were arrested for his death. On December 2, 1886, after the election, a mob seized three of the jailed Black prisoners from the Brenham jail, took them to Sandy Creek, and lynched them without trial; the remaining prisoners were later released on bail and never tried. To underscore the German role in this story, which has been largely ignored in the literature, the Republican coalition fielded an all-German slate for county offices in the 1886 election, including Carl Schuetze, who was also the editor and owner of the local German-language newspaper, Die Texas Staats-Zeitung. As candidate for county judge, as a strident and courageous voice against the campaign of intimidation and terror directed against Blacks and Germans in the county, and as the man who brought federal suit against the perpetrators of these outrages—a suit that led to a congressional investigation of national significance—Schuetze stands as a central figure in the story. After the election, Schuetze narrowly escaped assassination and, in the face of continuing threats and constant public harassment, eventually closed his newspaper and left the county, as did several of the other German candidates. There is also another German dimension to the story. The United States District Attorney for the Western District of Texas at the time was Rudolph Kleberg, brother of Richard Kleberg of King Ranch fame and son of Robert Justus Kleberg, for whom a county is named and who founded the first German colony in Texas at Cat Spring in 1835. Although a Confederate veteran and lifelong Democrat, Rudolph Kleberg considered it his duty to uphold the rule of law and to bring charges, including murder charges, against the ringleaders of the campaign of terror directed at Blacks and Germans. He did this knowing full well that they would be acquitted, as in fact occurred in a sensational trial held in Austin the following year, and he himself then became the object of a campaign of vitriolic hatred by his fellow Democrats, yet he placed the rule of law above partisan politics and never backpedaled or apologized for his actions. This whole affair had national significance. Although the congressional investigation clearly exposed the outrages that had been committed and established that an election had been stolen, the federal government—under the first Democratic administration since the Civil War—ultimately decided not to enforce the Civil Rights laws in the South. It can be argued, therefore, that this case marked the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow and segregation throughout the South.

Presenter

Nicholas Roland, Ph.D.

The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School

Violence in the Hill Country: Unionism on Texas’s Western Frontier

In the nineteenth century, Texas’s advancing western frontier was the site of one of America’s longest conflicts between white settlers and native peoples. It was also the setting for a vicious civil war amidst the nationwide bloodshed of 1861–1865. The Texas Hill Country functioned as a kind of borderland within the larger borderland of Texas itself, a vast and fluid area where, during the Civil War, the slaveholding South and the nominally free-labor West collided. Unionist sentiment was notably strong in the area we today call the Hill Country, both among German immigrant communities and Anglo pioneer settlements. This paper will explain Unionism on a portion of Texas’s western frontier as well as the outbreak of political violence in the region between 1862 and 1864. It will also briefly explain the reasons behind the relative absence of political violence from 1865 through Reconstruction and the process of reconciliation and remembrance. This presentation will set the stage for further discussions of Reconstruction era politics and political violence.

Presenter

John W. Gorman, Ph.D.

Prairie View A&M University

Into the Fire: An Examination of Reconstruction Violence in Texas, 1865-1868

At the end of the Civil War, there were approximately 400,000 slaves in Texas. The great majority resided on the rich plantations situated on the Sabine, Neches, Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado rivers. Freedmen who lived in these areas faced tremendous hardships as they attempted to cope with their changed political and economic status. This paper examines the issue of race and violence in Texas during Reconstruction and finds that violence related to economic and social issues was relatively constant throughout the period, but at the times when political issues threatened the status quo, violence inflicted upon the freedmen in Texas spiked significantly. In areas of the State with a substantial German population, acts of violence directed towards the freedmen was suppressed. Violence in Texas was influenced by multiple factors, including economic factors, politics, and racial prejudice. Texans possessed a wild and an independent spirit and were fiercely opposed to Reconstruction. The result was that the freedmen living in Texas faced unparalleled challenges as they transitioned to freedom. This paper examines the intersection of race, violence, and politics, detailing the often-horrific consequences of freedom.