Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-11-29

A New Orleans dispatch says the negro ref
ugees from East Feliciana parish furnish a
living definition OF " bull-dozing :" Sc One old
man, Ezekiel Bittles, has arrived His back
is a mass of bloody welts. lie received
these on the Saturday night preceding the
election, because he refused to join demo
cratic club. The old mar was taken 10 the
woods half mile from his home by sew
eral men, and, as he calls it, was bulldozed
with cowhides.. The clerk Of the Superyis-
ors of Registration in that parish was killed
last week-a plain political murder. He
was shot from the bushes while on the pub
lie highway. James DE Gray. probably the
last white Republican who has had the cour-
age to remain in East Feliciana parish dur
ing the election excitement, was shot in the
forehead last week. Some of these colored
refugees have issued an address to the coun-
try. 1t is touching in its pathos and startling
in its facts
An APPEAL TO THE North FOR PROTECTION.
10 he people of The United Stgies.-We, the
colored people, are but a simple folk, plain and
unlettered, but We hope we shall he understood.
The government clothed us with the various du-
ties of American citizenship, among which was
the right 10 vote, which fact has incensed the
Southern democrats against rs that they murder
our people and outrage their families after such
beastly modes that we dare not relate them, even
/ in our unlet,ered manner. We are unable to cope
with the white man without that moral aid which
J the Northern people have studiously withheld
| from US since the war. Most Of us have been
slaves. The terror inspired by the white slave
driver from our infancy up has made Us fear the
white men. The use Of firearms was denied u,
until after the war Our numerical strength
counts for naught against the regularly organized
armed and drilled White League democracy o
the state Their murders are more gentlemanls
and humane than the other outmges, some o
which must he nameess, which they have and ar'
at this day nhcting upon our people Tn,
whipping of colored Republicans who know how
to read and write has been carried to sucl
an excess that the recital of the onormitcs woulC
scarce be believed OF the sgners OF this appea
two have been whipped for refusing to vote thu
democratic ticket at this Presidential election
one of these, stripped naked and whipped is GOV
cred with welts and gashes from his head to hi
heels and escaped from his fiendish tormentor
through United States military escort. Tn
other was taken from his cabin on the night be
fore the Presidential election, at midnight an'
stripped and whipped by a dozen or more whit
men, each taking turns as they became tired
sometimes three or four whipping at time, unit
his finger nails and two fingers we're whipped OFF
lie was then left fanting and alone upon tn
ground. Next morning the same democrati
bull-dozers marched him 10 the polls, the vic
tim so stiff and sore that every movement Of tn
body, in endeavoring to drag its slow length along
caused the most excruciatng agony, and the
compelled him to put in the balot-box demo
cratic Tilden ticket with the bleeding stumps o
fingers their generous chiyalry had yet left him
These outrages were not committed by insight
cant democrats, but their leader is a practcin
, physician In the parish, and his assisting bul
dozers are sons in what they cali the first fam
lies. Thousands of colored people have been sui
Jected to these outrages at every election, for a
tempting 10 exercise the right of fleemen in III
state OF Louisiana. 1t seems as II the governmeI
and the people of the North had turned deaf ea
( upon us and forgotten u.s. We do not ask brea
or money we ask security in the exercise Of OF
rights as American freemen"