The Baddest, Bravest Black Man You’ve Never Heard Of
In 1834, Mississippi was a hell hole of degradation. It was a state that heavily relied on enslaved labor, with a significant population of enslaved Black people. The institution of slavery was deeply entrenched in Mississippi’s economy and society, shaping the lives of both enslaved individuals and white residents.
Slavery was brutal and harsh throughout the United States, but conditions for slaves were often worse in Mississippi compared to Upper South states like Virginia and North Carolina.
Slaves who were sold from the Upper South to Mississippi were also forcibly separated from their families and communities, which was an additional traumatic experience. Indeed, for the enslaved, few fates were worse than being "sold down the river,” a phrase that, from its very inception, meant not just a betrayal, but a betrayal that leads to a significantly worse situation.
Nobody wanted to be enslaved in Mississippi.
In the first place, Mississippi had a climate and geography that was ideal for large-scale plantations, especially those producing cotton, sugar, and rice. These were labor-intensive crops that required long, strenuous hours of work, often under very harsh conditions.
Secondly, Black people in Mississippi during this time were subject to oppressive conditions. Enslaved people faced grueling labor on plantations, working in agriculture, primarily cultivating cotton and other crops that formed the backbone of the state’s economy. Black Americans endured physical abuse, severe punishment, neglect, malnutrition, extremely long working hours, and, generally, lived in deplorable living conditions. Families were often torn apart, as they could be sold or separated at the whim of their white enslavers.
Slaves were denied basic rights and freedoms, treated as property, and had no legal status or autonomy.
The state’s legal system supported and protected the interests of slaveholders, ensuring that the institution of slavery remained intact.
Despite the unimaginable hardships they faced, enslaved Black people in Mississippi demonstrated resilience, maintaining cultural practices, traditions, and community bonds.
They often relied on oral traditions to pass down stories, knowledge, and resistance strategies from one generation to the next.
This is the environment into which Charles Caldwell was born and lived his whole life.
His birth year is believed to be 1831, though precise details about his early life remain unknown.
Born into slavery, Caldwell later became a skilled blacksmith in Clinton, a small town near Jackson, Mississippi. As a result of his craftsmanship, Caldwell enjoyed relatively more autonomy compared to other plantation slaves, earning him significant respect within the community.
After the Civil War, his status allowed him to venture into politics.
In 1868, Caldwell was one of sixteen black Republicans who actively participated in the Mississippi Constitutional Convention.
However, the proposed constitution they crafted was ultimately rejected in a statewide referendum.
Despite this setback, Caldwell's involvement in politics marked a pivotal moment for his journey from a life of slavery to one of influence and participation in shaping Mississippi's political landscape.
In 1870 , he was elected to the Mississippi state senate. He served in the Senate for five years and during this time he became known as a staunch radical Republican, voting for both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as well as additional measures to bring racial equality to the state.
Caldwell’s primary focus during his time in office was resisting a wave of anti-Republican and anti-black violence, which spread through Mississippi as anti-Reconstruction Democrats were determined to reclaim the state legislature.
It is estimated that between 1870 and 1875, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations killed several hundred black men and women, as well as some white Republicans.
Despite the violence, Caldwell believed in the political process and in 1875 invited a prominent Democratic speaker to open a major Republican party rally before the election.
Mississippi started allowing Freedmen to vote in 1867, setting the stage for the 1875 election to further integrate black men into the state's political landscape.
The Mississippi Republican Party scheduled political rallies on September 4 at Utica, Clinton in Hinds County, and Vernon in neighboring Madison County, anticipating the November 2 polls.
Clinton, just under ten miles west of Jackson, the state capital, saw black Republican families congregate at Moss Hill, a former plantation ruined by Union forces during the 1863 Vicksburg Campaign.
Attendance varied from estimates of 1,500 to 2,500, mostly Freedmen and their kin, enjoying a day of picnicking and political discourse.
Around 75 white attendees were present, including 18 armed, intoxicated White Liners—essentially the Democratic Party's paramilitary branch of ex-Confederate soldiers and their kin in Mississippi.
Anticipating racial tensions, Republican Governor Adelbert Ames was supposed to address the crowd, but instead, Captain H. T. Fisher, a former Union officer and local Republican newspaper editor, took his place.
Emphasizing open discussion and educating new voters about elections, Republican leaders from Hinds County invited the local Democratic Party to send a speaker. Democratic state senate candidate Amos R. Johnston spoke for an hour without disruption.
However, when Fisher took the stand, White Liners from Raymond heckled him.
Republican organizers, including state Senator Charles Caldwell, pleaded for peace. However, the afternoon's events quickly spiraled into violence. Eugene Welborne, another rally organizer, recounted the White Liners drawing weapons and aiming at the crowd.
He likened the sudden burst of gunfire to a downpour, resulting in three white and at least five black deaths, including two children.
However, the September 4 violence was only a precursor to the impending racial massacre. Fueled by baseless rumors of an African American plot against the town, Clinton's mayor called for backup. Hundreds of White Liners arrived in Clinton by train, their ranks increasing to several hundred by dusk.
Welborne recounted the brutal hunting of black men by the White Liners, akin to shooting birds. Sarah Dickey, an Ohioan white educator who moved to Mississippi to teach Black American women and children, penned a letter to President Grant recounting the harrowing scene, emphasizing that the true extent of the Clinton massacre was untold.
While no additional white Democrats were killed post-September 4, the African American death toll was estimated to be between 35 and 50, with many black victims remaining nameless. (William P. Haffa, a white Republican from Pennsylvania running for re-election as a peace justice, was also lynched.)
Regardless of numerous pleas for federal aid by Governor Ames, Welborne, Dickey, and others, President Grant declared on September 13 that he was weary of the South's annual autumnal disturbances, leading to a policy of non-intervention in Mississippi and the former Confederacy.
This event became known as the Clinton Riot.
Yet, the year's end of 1875 did not conclude the reign of terror in Clinton, despite the high number of victims in September.
Caldwell’s involvement in arranging the event and advocating for Black rights placed him in the crosshairs of the vicious, racist ruffians who constantly tormented black citizens who only wanted to exercise their political freedoms.
On December 25, 1875, Caldwell went into the town of Clinton to learn about his nephew who had been threatened earlier that day.
After dinner, he returned to Clinton. This time an acquaintance of his, Buck Cabell, invited Caldwell to drink a toast in celebration of Christmas.
Caldwell did not want to go—-preferring to go home to celebrate Christmas with his wife—-but his friend was so insistent that he relented.
It was a fateful miscalculation.
The two men went to the basement of Chilton's Store on the northeast corner of Leake and Jefferson Streets. While they stood in the basement, they touched their glasses, apparently a signal for the assassins.
Caldwell was shot in the head as he stood with his back to the window.
His last request was granted.
He was carried out into the street, so that all could see he was defiant.
Despite his injuries,, Caldwel gathered itself together, stood up, straightened his clothes.
Then, he looked directly at the assassins and told them not to forget that they were killing a brave man.
And that when he was dead, be mindful of the fact that he was not a docile man.
At that instant, some forty shots rang out, delivering the fatal blow.
His younger brother, Samuel, who had nothing to do with politics was also killed.
Later, racist ruffians burst into Caldwell’s home where his wife had laid out the bodies of the two brothers and raised a ruckus, turning the bodies out of the coffin and cursing them.
Such as cowards do, these men couldn’t stand up to Caldwell in life, so they could only do so when he could no longer defend himself.
No one was ever punished for the crime.
Charles Caldwell and other local Southern leaders represented perhaps better than anyone else the opportunities that existed under Reconstruction for freedpeople to develop a potent and responsible class of leaders.
Senator Charles Caldwell stared down murderous, racist thugs with courage and grit. That so many influential black people met the same end as Caldwell illuminates the violence on which Democratic power ultimately rests.
Sources
Aptheker, Herbert. “Mississippi Reconstruction and the Negro Leader Charles Caldwell.” Science & Society 11, no. 4 (Fall 1947): 340-371.
Boutwell Report. 44th Cong., 1st Sess., Mississippi in 1875, Vols. I and II.
Campbell, Will D. Robert G. Clark’s Journey to the House: A Black Politician’s Story. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003.
Foner, Eric. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2005.
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Harris, William C. The Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1979.
Howell, Walter. Town and Gown: The Saga of Clinton and Mississippi College. Saline, Michigan: McNaughton & Gunn, 2014.
Oshinsky, David M. “Worse Than Slavery”: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.