The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-03
THE TRAGEDIES AT YAZ00.
Little Doubt that the Trouble Was Pur-
pOsely Caused by Whites
The Assassination of Dixon by Barksdale-
Free Speech an Obsolete Privilege
An Investigation Demanded.
rauoo Letter in Chicago Tribune.

Yazoo Letter in Chicago Tribune.
The recent bloody deeds here have struck with
horror the whole country. That state of things
exists here bordering upon savagery is apparent
to every one. Colored men, like bleeding stays,
have turned their oppressors and rended
them White men, turned to fiendish brutes,
have glutted themselves with deeds that make
the blood run cold. The accounts which have so
far been permitted to reach the public are evil
evenly so garbled and untruthful that no Gre
dence whatever is to be placed in them. When
a community places restriction upon all news,
and suffers no dispatches to go forth only such
as are supervised by committee of citizens"
it is time for the public to withhold its judgment
Gntil impartial facts can be known.
Christmas eve at about O'clock terrible af
Tray took place, resulting in the killing of three
white men and the wounding of two Others and
the killing was done by colored men, who have
since been shot or hanged by the Infatuated mob
in the most cold blooded and fiendsh manner. To
persons who are unfamiliar with the state of af
fairs that has existed in Yazoo City since July,
1875 it might appear that these colored men
were murderers and have suffered just retribu-
ton, but it strikes one quite differently who is
conversant with Yazoo City history for. eight
years past.
It is evident that the Posevs and their friends
were the aggressors, and that they brought
about their own destruction. 1t would seem
that some fancied offense given by John
James colored to of the Poseys Some of
the accounts say that fre-cracker thrown
down in front of Posey by James. whereupon
Posey got into an alteration with James which
was the commencement Of the trouble Am
other account says that two colored men were
fighting in a saloon and that Posey undertook
to have them arrested, and this started the
difficulty; but all accounts agree that no shoot
ing occurred until some time later John Po-
sey then went off assembled his friends, and re
turned armed to the scene of the difficulty.
That the white men who were killed and prob
ably many others who were not killed sought the
difficulty with the negroes is shown by the fact
that the Poseys and their friends returned to
the butcher-shop. This shows clearly enough
who provoked the difficulty, and what party was
acting strictly the defensive. The negroes
evidently apprehended attack and prepared for
it. Negroes in Yazoo City do not carry guns,
and do not use them except when driven to the
wall. Since the bloody scenes of 1879 every
white man has been armed against the colored
For a colered man to shoot a white man.
or even to insult one to court certain and
speedy death, and every black man has well
known it. The men who fired on the Poseys
and their associates Christnaseve knew as well
that their own lives would pay the penalty we
know it now. Why then, did they thus offer up
their lives, REGARDLESS of consequences It can
be accounted for on no other ground than
derner resort The colored people of
Yazoo City and Yazoo county have suffered such
long list of atrocities and expressions that they
at last turned on their oppressors and resisted.
few leaders among the people that there
was intended to be a repetition of 1879 and 1879,
and determined to defend themselves. They
knew that their people were singled out for some
outrageous attack that very night 1t is quite
likely that the Poseys and their gang went back
TO the butcher-shOp to take John James out to
~ hang him. Hangings OF this sort have been
1.,e& ,-I+
Many colored man has been hanged or whipped
there because lie has happened to dsplease
white man and for no offense whatever Hang
ing and whipping have been the short cuts to
law and order in YazoO for many years.
Where negroes were concerned these things have
been every day occurrences. and they have been
frequent enough to keep up wholesome state of
white supremacy and negro subjugation.
LEAF FROM HISTORY.
In August, 1875, a Republican meeting was
held in Yazoo City for the purpose of opening
the canvass of that year for legislative officers
and congressman. For some years the county
had been under Republican control and had
been, as no one could deny well and honestly
governed There was no particular occasion for
riot and. bloodshed. and peace and prosperity
should have been permitted to reign But race
hatred and Democratic malice opened here the
shotgun policy. A gang of armed rulians in
truded themselves into the peaceable and unsus-
pecting Republican meeting. AT given signal
pistols were drawn by these ruffians, who COM
menced firing indscriminately into the assem-
blage. Several unoffending and unarmed per
sons were ruthlessly shot down. The meeting
was afterward broken up, and universal dismay
ensued. As if by magic several hun
bred white men in Yazoo City
were under arms. The city was in
the hands of a mob which drove out all the law
fully constituted officials and assumed complete
control. During that campaign a gang of ban
ditti took possession of the county and rode
night and day, with ropes adjusted to their sad
dies, significant of their purposes. They not
only committed murder, but robbery and every
other crime. They took 81 600 from one of their
Victims which he implored them to send to his
mother and sister in Ohio, but which was APP
propriated as Democratic campaign fund.
From those days to the present the colored
people of Yazoo county have groaned under the
heel of intolerabe oppression. Their rights,
political and personal, as human beings and
American citizens, have been ruthlessly denied
them. The white man has dominated Yazoo
and the glorious Democratic flag as the Yazoo
Herald telegraphed the day Dixon was assassi-
mated has foated triumphantly. Yazoo has
been dubbed the banner Democratic county of
Mississippi. Whenever a congressional district
needed to be assured to the Democracy Yazoo
county has been tackled onto it. Yazoo is good
for one, two or three thousand Democratic ma
jority just in proportion to the necessity of the
case. In an emergency they could count it six
thousand majority; for they were only limited
by the total voting population, and even this
was no great drawback.
For one brief period only did little light
CLEAN in upon the unhappy colored people of
Yazoo, and that went out into utter darkness
and deeper gloom. In 1879 Henry Dixon, who
in 1875, had been the chief oppressor of the ne
groes, and who called the ''bravest of the
brave" for his bloody services became disguised
with the miserable tyranny which he had been
the chief instrument in setting up. He told the
colored men that he had been guilty of great
wrongs against them, but he was sorry for it,
nenuced himself an independent candidate for
Sheriff and appealed to the colored
people and Independent white voters to support
him Strange to say the colored men of Yazoo