Lynch Law in Georgia

I wanted to say “our ancestors were barbaric,” but the truth is that these kinds of atrocities are still occurring.

This book was written in 1899 and describes the various non-judicial murders of African-Americans accused of crimes that occurred in Georgia over a six-week period. The descriptions of the atrocities disgusted me with my shared humanity with the mobs who committed these evil acts, but they also raise questions.

The most atrocious of the murders involved a public burning of Sam Hose, who had killed his white employer. There was a dispute about a payment of wages, which may have resulted in the white employer threatening Hose with a gun and Hose flinging an axe at the employer, killing him. Eventually, a claim that Hose had assaulted the employer's wife entered the narrative. The local newspaper began to “predict” - or egg on - the burning of Hose when he was cancelled. Sure enough when Hose was captured, a mob burned him at “the stake,” actually a sapling, after torturing him by cutting off his ears. A newspaper article describes the scene:

“The stake bent under the strains of the Negro in his agony and his sufferings cannot be described, although he uttered not a sound. After his ears had been cut off he was asked about the crime, and then it was he made a full confession. At one juncture, before the flames had begun to get in their work well, the fastenings that held him to the stake broke and he fell forward partially out of the fire.
He writhed in agony and his sufferings can be imagined when it is said that several blood vessels burst during the contortions of his body. When he fell from the stake he was kicked back and the flames renewed. Then it was that the flames consumed his body and in a few minutes only a few bones and a small part of the body was all that was left of Sam Hose.”

The post-atrocity behavior of the crowd was equally disgusting:

“One of the most sickening sights of the day was the eagerness with which the people grabbed after souvenirs, and they almost fought over the ashes of the dead criminal. Large pieces of his flesh were carried away, and persons were seen walking through the streets carrying bones in their hands.
When all the larger bones, together with the flesh, had been carried away by the early comers, others scraped in the ashes, and for a great length of time a crowd was about the place scraping in the ashes. Not even the stake to which the Negro was tied to when burned was left, but it was promptly chopped down and carried away as the largest souvenir of the burning.”

This description puts me in mind of scenes from the French Revolution or the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

What possessed these people to act this way? We can say “racism,” but this behavior transcends racism, as was the case with the French Revolution and medieval attacks on heretics. Even today, we see this kind of barbarity directed against suspected witches in Africa and even against people who are owed debts.

The people of the time knew this was barbaric. In “As Easy as ABC,” Rudyard Kipling's steampunk science fiction polemic against democracy and mobs, the characters mention the statue of the “N* in Flames” which is unveiled once a year while the people sing “McDonough's Hymn.” I didn't understand the reference before reading this book from 1899, but Kipling was condemning mob mentality and the barbaric practice of burning African-Americans.

Doing a quick scan of the history, I was surprised to find how often “lynching” involved burning. Given the current obsession with nooses, I hadn't realized that burning occurred in a substantial number of lynchings. The Kipling reference suggests that it was burning that was associated with lynching at the beginning of the 20th century.

So, why burning?

Another feature was how often lynchings occurred when the person had been apprehended and was in police custody. The first lynching was a mass murder of seven African Americans in jail. In another, the mob had been persuaded to turn over an innocent man to the police for trial, but then hung him anyway.

I know that similar things happened to whites. The last lynching in California was of two whites who were in jail. The mob had to break into the jail to lynch them.

Again, why? Did people not trust the justice system?

Finally, the narrative doesn't fit a Manichean narrative where all whites are racist. Consider the case of Lige Strickland, who had allegedly been implicated by Hose, but was innocent. The author relates:

“Sunday night, about 8:30 o'clock, about fifteen men went to the plantation of Major Thomas and took Lige Strickland from the little cabin in the woods that he called home, leaving his wife and five children to wail and weep over the fate they knew was in store for the Negro. Their cries aroused Major Thomas, and that sturdy old gentleman of the antebellum type followed the lynchers in his buggy, accompanied by his son, W. M. Thomas, determined to save, if possible, the life of his plantation darky.”

The narrative continues:

“The Negro's life might have been ended then but for the arrival of Major Thomas, who leaped from his buggy and asked for a hearing. He asked the crowd to give the Negro a chance for his life here on the streets of Palmetto, and Major Thomas said he would speak in his defense. A short conference resulted in acquiescence to this, and Major Thomas spoke in, substance as follows:
“Gentlemen, this Negro is innocent. Hose said Lige had promised to give him $20 to kill Cranford, and I believe Lige has not had $20 since he has been on my place. This is a law-abiding Negro you are about to hang. He has never done any of you any harm, and now I want you to promise me that you will turn him over either to the bailiff of this town or to someone who is entitled to receipt for him, in order that he may be given a hearing on his case. I do not ask that you liberate him. Hold him and if the courts adjudge him guilty, hang; him.”

Several of the cases involve people pleading for the lives of the accused.

So, what was going on? Racism is too simple an answer; there was something deeper going on that needs to be ferreted out.