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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 2. Search the whole document.

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North Carolina (North Carolina, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
necessity for the protection which the Freedmen's Bureau would give became more and more apparent. Every report received from our agents bore evidences of troubles then existing and apprehended. The words of the assistant commissioner of North Carolina, Colonel Whittlesey, were significant. They found a veritable echo in the reports of other assistants and subassistants throughout the South. Writing from Raleigh, December 1st, he said: But it is evident all over the South that the colorhe testimony of negroes. But the agents now found another obstacle. Constables refused to serve subpoenas for such witnesses, and even when colored men did testify, the prejudice of jurymen gave little or no weight to their testimony. In North Carolina General Robinson, now in command, delayed the transfer of cases for trial to the civil courts, especially those where whites had committed fraud, injury, or violence upon persons of color. In July the governor wrote him: There now exists und
Alabama (Alabama, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
substantial equality before the law; yet the having a Bureau officer at hand to interpose as a friend had so far affected the actions of white citizens that acts of injustice and oppression were less numerous. Planters looked to Bureau officers to make their laborers reliable; and freedmen sought their aid also to obtain their wages. General Swayne, contrary to his first expectations, a little later found the Alabama legislators anything but fair and just. He said: The vagrant law of Alabama operates most iniquitously upon the freedmen. In terms, the law makes no distinction on account of color, but in practice the distinction is invariable. I am satisfied that the law would be annulled if fairly tested. I have taken up three classes under it by habeas corpus, but in every case the persons were discharged for informality in the commitment without reaching the merits of the case. So many grievances occurred that even Swayne, with whom the good governor sought to cooperate, w
Arkansas (Arkansas, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
, where he could reach their haunts, to suspend their base work of terrorism which they had undertaken among the freedmen and their teachers. General J. W. Sprague, most manly and fearless of men, in October of 1866 was no longer sanguine for Arkansas in the line of justice. The legislature did not grant the negroes their rights. He feared to give cases to State officers on account of their manifest prejudice and unfairness. He could not, he confessed, carry out his Bureau instructions witinctions were constantly made in all dealings with them. His chief troubles consisted in his efforts to protect them from violence; he entreated for more troops for those remoter districts where the greater number of outrages occurred. As in Arkansas, where the interests of the larger planters came in play, the Bureau agents became a help, a necessity. A lack of confidence existed between the planters and freedmen, until the assistant commissioner had successfully inaugurated a system of co
Maryland (Maryland, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
he general Government, to give new stimulus and a firmer tone to industrial and agricultural enterprises, and to impart strength to the hope of justice; a law less comprehensive and explicit would have been insufficient Under the new provisions Maryland and Kentucky were now embraced and assistant commissioners appointed. The freed people of those States had become an important consideration. Most of them were willing and anxious to labor; yet very many had required the protection of a powerfome of the work before the courts that year. General C. H. Howard, who had succeeded General Eaton in the District of Columbia and vicinity, found it next to impossible to get the courts to allow the testimony of colored witnesses anywhere in Maryland until the effect of the United States Civil Rights Law, recently enacted, which forbade such distinction, came into play. Upon a case of great outrage, committed by a white man upon a negro, where the Bureau agent brought the white man to trial
Louisiana (Louisiana, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
vances occurred that even Swayne, with whom the good governor sought to cooperate, was forced in several of the worst localities to reestablish Bureau courts. General Absalom Baird in his last message in September indicated a bad outlook for Louisiana. Brutal conduct in distant parishes remained uncorrected for want of military force. The perpetrators were lawless and irresponsible white men; they were the terror of both property holders and laborers. They were countenanced by the communiaw was to some extent having a good effect, restraining those who had hitherto been disposed to treat United States laws with contempt. Several magistrates were under arrest for violating its provisions. General Sheridan, following Baird in Louisiana, rather heightens the adverse picture: Homicides are frequent in some localities; sometimes they are investigated by a coroner's jury, which justifies the act and releases the perpetrator; in other instances, when the proof comes to the knowle
Virginia (Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
sed by the same officer. To this he gladly assented. It was early done in Virginia. General Alfred H. Terry, the new department commander, became also the assistant commissioner for that State. He took his predecessor in the Bureau, Colonel Brown, on his staff and so operated all Bureau work through him, and soon that arrangement prevailed throughout other departments. Next, I worked to make each military subdivision coincident with the Bureau subdistrict. Terry's department, the State of Virginia, was divided into eight subdistricts with an officer in charge of each. Then I carefully instructed subordinates that, touching all subjects of a military character, the agents were to be under the direction of State department commanders. The Bureau officer acted in the same manner as an officer of engineers building a fort might do, reporting on all matters of construction directly to the chief of engineers at Washington, but at the same time being the engineer officer on the sta
Tennessee (Tennessee, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
er men who had been faithful and fearless in the discharge of their delicate and dangerous duties, gave rise to increased anxiety everywhere and seemed to necessitate an increase of military force. General Clinton B. Fisk had good results in Tennessee in 1866. The State legislature took liberal action in matters of vagrancy, or apprenticing and contracts which affected the freedmen; they modified the old laws to conform to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution and to the Civil-Rightsde all feelings of prejudice, in order that the State laws might be administered in such a manner as not to compel a return to military courts. We all believed then that greater security for the life and property of the freed people existed in Tennessee than in any other of the late Confederate States. Kentucky had meanwhile been full of trouble. The regulators had been for some time committing horrible outrages in the southeastern districts. Old laws and old customs like flogging prevail
Grenada (Mississippi, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
zed by the war, should give vent to the evil within them by committing outrages. On the other side it can surprise no one that the freedmen should be somewhat unsettled, inclined to avoid labor to which all their lives had been devoted under stern compulsion, and that they should misapprehend their rights and duties. The deliberate murder April 30th of that year of a worthy officer, Lieutenant J. B. Blanding, Twenty-first Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, while walking on the street at Grenada, Miss., and attempts upon the lives of other men who had been faithful and fearless in the discharge of their delicate and dangerous duties, gave rise to increased anxiety everywhere and seemed to necessitate an increase of military force. General Clinton B. Fisk had good results in Tennessee in 1866. The State legislature took liberal action in matters of vagrancy, or apprenticing and contracts which affected the freedmen; they modified the old laws to conform to the Thirteenth Amendment o
Jamaica, L. I. (New York, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
of North Carolina, Colonel Whittlesey, were significant. They found a veritable echo in the reports of other assistants and subassistants throughout the South. Writing from Raleigh, December 1st, he said: But it is evident all over the South that the colored race cannot be safely left in the hands of the late masters or the Southern people. Just as sure as that is done, such oppressive laws will be enacted that the blacks will be driven to desperation and the scenes lately witnessed in Jamaica will be reinacted in many sections of our own country. He gave instances of outrages committed against loyal people because of their loyalty. This was done in places where the military had been withdrawn. A young man was threatened and stoned because he had opened a nigger school. Whittlesey added: I do hope that Congress will grasp the whole subject and show itself master of the situation. No legislation for the freedmen should be allowed — it is not consistent with the republican f
Illinois (Illinois, United States) (search for this): chapter 2.18
qual rights to whites and blacks; impose the same taxes, the same duties, the same penalties for crime, and then execute the laws with simple justice; and the result will be peace, safety, and prosperity. . . . But the white people in this State are not yet ready to treat black men justly. Therefore, the Federal Government ought to retain control. Our military force ought to be increased and not reduced. Early in this, the last session of the thirty-ninth Congress, Senator Trumbull of Illinois, instead of simply sending for me as would have been customary, kindly came to my office and studied the operations of the Bureau. I was then striving to carry out the existing law, and realized how essential to the interests of the freedmen it was to extend the time of its operation. It was indeed important for the sake of humanity that that continued operation should obtain, not only in the cotton, but in the border States. I further believed and desired that the recent slaves should a
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