Year: 1868

L
The recent difficulty in the parish OF St
Landry is one Of those events against wnicn
no foresight, on the part of the white people,
could have guarded, and which are the natural,
and seemingly inevitable consequences OF the
teachings of Radical emissaries. great ei-
fort will be made to show that the affair re-
suited from disposition on the part OF the
whites to Cypress and maltreat the negroes
and it will be published throughout the
North as another "rebel" outrage. Any rea-
soning man, however, must kno,o that policy,
if no higher motives, would restrain the
whites from precipitating collisions which
they are fully assured would be distorted to
their prejudice and to that of their friends at
the North. In New Orleans, in Louisiana.
throughout the South, they have borne with |
contumely and insult with plunder and
threats, until impartial persons have come to
regard them as insensible to oppression, and
deficient in even decent respect for their own
rights and dignity.


The facts in the st. Landry affair fully cor
roborate these views. They prove that the
white people made sincere and untiring efforts
to avert difficulties which they perceived to
be constantly impending. They saw all
around the symptoms of truculent and ag-
gressive spirit ON the part of the blacks, who
had been taught by their leaders to believe
that the whites were too few in number and
too depressed in spirit to resist assault This
belief had spread so generally among the ne
eroes that they were in the habit of assembling
ipfy
Washington and Opelousas in companies OF
hundreds at time, and exhibiting the most
insulting and aggressive spirit. Their threats
| to burn and plunder those towns, and to assert
| their supremacy over the white people were
loud and frequent, and were several times
made by excited speakers at public meetings.
| During all this time-and for several weeks
there were signs of disturbance-the white
people remained perfectly quiet and tried to
avert the danger by making an arrangement
with the Republican committee as to The
manner of conducting the pending political
canvass. On the 18th of September large
number of armed negroes entered the town
of Washington; but that occasion passed off
without collision, owing to the moderation
of the whites. Finally, on the 9th, the
dreaded disturbance came-originating in
personal difficulty between one Bentley,
Radical editor, and deputy sherif-an ex-
federal officer, who had been maligned in
Bentley's paper. Bentley, apparently
stimulated by vindictive feeling
against the white population, dis
patched emissaries into the country
calling on the negroes to assemble and attack
the town of Opelousas. The negroes responded
to ahis call in large numbers, leaving their
work and marching upon Opelousas under the
command of four different leaders. On learn
ing this fact a accommodating party was sent
out, its members were fired upon and one of
them was mortally wounded and five wound
ed. The white people of the town then issued
forth and soon succeeded in clearing the roads
of the armed parties infesting them, after
which they proceeded to disarm the negroes
ON the neighboring plantations. This work
was conducted with great celebrity and sue
cess. but, during its progress, some casualties
occurred in places where the searching par
ties met with resistance. The firm counten-
ance displayed by the whites soon disabused
the deluded negroes of the notions which
had been propagated among them by
their leaders, and they made haste
to abandon the contest 1t was inevitable
that, in the course of such an affair, some
lives should be lost, and natural that the loss
should fall chiefly on the negroes. As usual,
however, in such affairs, the details have been
grossly exaggerated. If fifty or hundred
whites had been killed the Republicans would
have exulted over it as victory for their
party as it is, they will still exult because
they think that they can make use OF the
event to arouse prejudice and resentment
against the Democratic party. The white
people of Louisiana, however, are perfectly


willing to rest their cause in the hands of all
impartial persons of their own race-conf-
dent that they canot be blamed for trying to
save white civilization from the tide OF
African barbarism which threatens to over
| whelm IL