Essay On The Colfax Massacre

Improved Essays
The Colfax Massacre was a profound event in history, and as of today, it remains the single most bloodiest act of violence during the reconstruction era. The Colfax Massacre was an event of discrimination and prejudice that caused the death of many innocent people for an unjustifiable reason. The tension between African Americans and white Americans had never been more profound. White supremacists fired against the African Americans and killed many of them. Even after their surrender, the African Americans were shot and killed on the spot or put into prisons, which they later died in. This event had a powerful impact on the nation, both present, and future.

To understand why there were white supremacists, it needs to be understood what happened
…show more content…
Many lives were lost, and the attackers were not punished for their crimes. Apart from this, the event really sheds light on how the fight for equality wouldn’t be easy. People thought that after the civil war, making Africans equal to Americans would be easy, but the reality is that it wasn’t. This event also made us realize that the government has to play a major role in any change that would take place, regarding equality. The Colfax Massacre is an example of how there was racial injustice in the government, and that if the case of the Colfax massacre was regarded as an equal case, meaning the Africans and Americans were seen as equals, the court judging of this case would have been really simple. Since they claimed that the white militia was practicing its rights of freedom to assemble and bear arms, the killers were released. This case was known as United states vs. Cruikshank.

The Colfax massacre was an important and profound event in history. This event remains one of the bloodiest in all of the reconstruction era. The Colfax Massacre was not important just due to the unjust killing of innocent people, but also for the unfair trial that resulted in an unfair judgment. Which let three murderers free, when they killed so many people. Justice was not

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The battle of Charleston included the Kingdom of Great Britain and North America's 13 colonies. This took place in Charleston, South Carolina, Wednesday, March 29, 1780. The British raised revenue by taxing the colonies. Later on May 12 the Battle of Charleston happened and British captured Charleston. Also on Sept. 3 the Americans found out that American G. Benedict Arnold’s a traitor, this was part of the reason Charleston was more enraged.…

    • 124 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kansas-Nebraska Act/Bleeding Kansas The Kansas-Nebraska Act which is also known as the “bleeding Kansas” took place in 1854-1861. The Kansas- Nebraska act was introduced in 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska act repeals the Missouri compromise’s use of latitude as a boundary between free and slave states. The latitude dividing line is called the 3630.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Colfax, Louisiana was more of a settlement than a town. On Easter of 1873, the Colfax Massacre occurred. A group of armed, white Democrats attacked the freedmen killing many, making this massacre…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1866, one year following the civil war, Memphis broke out suddenly and dramatically with a three-day outbreak of racial violence. This included the whites rioting through neighborhoods that consisted of black people. Forty-six freed people were murdered by the moment the fires destroying black churches and schools had been put out. Congress was irate at the fact white opposition in the conquered South initiated what was called the Radical Reconstruction. This was a policy put in place to safeguard the freedom of the region’s blacks.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The murder of Emmitt Till which shocked the south and sparked the civil rights movement. My name is Amaury Arredondo and I'm going to talk about the murder of Emmet Till. Emmet Till was a 14 year old boy from Chicago, Illinois. He was born on July 15,1941.It all happened on a sunny afternoon in August 28,1955. Emmett Till was reportedly flirting with a white cashier of a store.…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever heard about the slave sued his owner’s widow for his freedom? Well, the decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford is considered to be one of the most influential in legal history because the Supreme Court decided that the slaves are not defined as citizens of the United States, thus influencing their ability to sue in federal courts and this case eventually raised questions about slavery which led to the civil war. Dred Scott was a man who was once an African-American slave. He was sold in Missouri as a slave to an army surgeon, Dr. John Emerson, they later moved and lived in free states; Illinois and Wisconsin. Then, they moved back to Missouri, which is a slave state, but John Emerson passed away in 1846, so it is time he should become free.…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Boston Massacre. Beverly, MA: Applewood Books, 2006. “The Boston Massacre Trials: An Account.” Accessed 05, 2001. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/bostonmassacre/bostonmassacre.html.…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 10 Works Cited
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Boston Massacre was one of them. It was caused by the presence of British soldiers. “…Demonstration of the destructive consequences of quartering troops among citizens in the time of Peace”. When the Quartering Act was put in place it let the British Soldiers stay at colonist’s houses. The colonists did not want them there and expressed themselves through the Declaration and Resolves of the first continental congress, along many other issues.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (Proposal) The most significant war in the nation’s history was the American Civil War. The Civil War guided The United States to get better equality and grant the freedom deserved to the African American. The United States began to relieve itself from the long catastrophe of slavery during the four years of the American Civil War.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Reconstruction was one of the biggest failures in United States History. It was supposed to be one of the most important things to happen to the country after the Civil War, but due to the lack of good leadership, and difficulty of a good compromise between the Democrats and the Republicans, it became a lost cause. The failure of Reconstruction definitely did affect the recently freed African Americans and Republicans. The Civil War was one of the most important events in United States History.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Imagine fighting for a great cause, not only for your country but for your own race! African Americans fought for both the Confederates and the Union. Some of these African Americans were former slaves, others were African Americans who wanted to abolish (or get rid of) slavery. Over 180,000 African Americans served in the Civil War. Many however, were not recognized after the war ended.…

    • 1654 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bull Run Thesis

    • 1433 Words
    • 6 Pages

    A rich man 's war, and a poor man 's fight.” The Civil War The Civil War was the bloodiest war ever fought by Americans, and against fellow Americans. Several horrific battles highlighted America’s most gruesome history such as the Battles of Antietam and Gettysburg which drastically raised the body count due to the desperate battle plans and attacks carried out by hundreds to thousands of men sent to their deaths on suicide runs.…

    • 1433 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Confederate’s fort at Vicksburg, Mississippi, was essential to the South, as it served as a key vantage point for them over the North. However, if the Union besieged this fort, the North would have control over the lower Mississippi River, which would split the South in half, cutting off the western half of the Confederacy from Virginia. With such an extreme advantage being given to the prevailing side, and the other a great defeat, the Battle of Vicksburg marks the true turning point of the Civil War. Once, while talking about Vicksburg, President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis referred to it as “the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together”, just to stress how important this stronghold was.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Was the Boston massacre really a massacre? Or was it something else? Consider if the soldiers were justified or not in firing into the crowd? Did they have sufficient cause to fire into the crowd? Before we answer these questions, we need to know what set the stage for this bloodshed or as history calls it “Boston Massacre.”…

    • 1083 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These cases are very important in the American History. Plessy v. Ferguson In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court favored Ferguson,…

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays