Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-12-07
OUR BASHI-BAZOUKS.


The civilized people of this country
can have no surplus of sympathies left
over for the victims of the Bashi- Ba-
zouk atrycities, for they have a paral-
lei TO all these at home. Indeed, the
practice of murder, torture and every
cruelty in the South, to deprive men of
the elective franchise, is so common,
and has been so long continued, that
the humane sensiDilities of the North
ern people will become blunted by cruel
custom.
The Sheriff of Ouschita Parish, Lou
isiara, was shot ON the street, in open
day, by number of mounted men, be-
cause he persisted in organizing the
Republican voters in the face of Demo-
cratic threats.
These mounted bands rode through
the country, putting to the colored peo-
pie the alternative of voting the Demo-
cratic ticket or death. Henry Young,
colored hero, told them he was Re-
publican and would continue so.
rhereupon DIR. Young, John Baker,
Henry Collins, ami Mr.. Tidwell,
were deputized to kill him. They did
it in his own house, in the presence of
! his wife and bate. His wife remon-
strated, and they stabbed her with her
infant in her arIis, 50 that she died
next day. They took the babe from
her arms and dashed its brains out in
the presence of the dying father and
! mother.
On an adjoining planta:ien colored
man refused to be converted by them.
They took him out of his house, laid
him at length on Il log, and took turns
whipping him, and when they had ex-
hau5ted themselves at this exercise,
they told him he was now a Democrat,
and would have to vote the Democratic
ticket.
On election morning Benjamin
Jones, constable of the parish, and a
Republican, was stopped on the road to
the polling place, the ballOt.bOx taken
from him, himself shot twice in the
head, wounded twice I'm the leg, and
his'a arm broken.
Then the gang drove to the planta-
tions, aud drove the colored people to
polls, and made them vote the Tilden
ticket, under terror of instant death.
This was the peaceful Democratic elec-
tion in Louisiana. The same means
are used now tO~make the colored peo-
pie sign blank atfidavits that they vot-
ed for Filden. And they who 60 to
New Orleans to testify to these atroci-
ties can never return.
Ezekiel Glover, a cOlOred man about
thirty years old, renting piece of land
at East Feliciana, told his experience.
John Norwood came to his house aud
drew him out on pretence Of friendship
aud very particular business. Then u
Confederate guard rushed upon him
from concealment. They demanded il
he would vote the Democratic ticket.
He told lhem he was Republican
than they gave him his choice of 800
lashes or to be hung. They bound him
to beech tree, stripped him, and five
or six whipped him at time till he
tainted. They said be was playing
possom, and continually whipping him
while he tainted and came to. They
drove back his wife who tried to follow
him. The man from whom he rented
his land was party to this cruelty,
and said bull.dozing was one of the
greitest things ever invented.
They told him he had better not tell
of the whipping or he would see trou-
bic. When they left him they said it
was to "go and kill them other Repub-
licans whom they named" He left
home that night to warn these men.
Next day he went clandestinely to
where the United States soldiers were.
The Captain talked Of taking his affi-
davit, aud the Lieutenant told him
they would kill him if he gave it. He
came down the river with the soldiers.
He said he could not return, and his
crop would be lost, and that he did not
vote at all. ~ 7'ri q
Aaron Mckenzie, q colored Republi-
can living In the same parish, said he
/, attended Democratic meeting, and
was ordered to join the Club, which he