The publication by Thomas Dixon of a sketch of the origin, organization, dissolution, and ritual of the Ku Klux Klan, or the Invisible Empire, in the San Antonio Daily Express, of September 4, 1905, brings vividly to the recollection of people who lived in Texas during the period from 1867 up to 1870 the reconstruction legislation of the Federal Congress, which for a time handed over the people of the several Confederate States to Negro rule and domination, with all of its humiliation and attendant horrors. The effect of this legislation was to disarm and disfranchise the Confederate white man, and place the ignorant Negro, the rapacious carpetbagger, and the camp-follower, in control of the government of each of the several Confederate States, and these, too often, under the thin disguise of law, proceeded at once to organize a saturnalia of robbery and crime that threatened to pauperize the people of the Confederate States, disrupt all social order, and destroy the just end and aim of government. What could be more repugnant to the instincts of an intelligent Southern man than to be ruled, robbed, and insulted by his former slave? It was during this troublesome period that the Ku Klux Klan was an important factor in many, if not all, of the late Confederate States.
That the humiliation, pauperizing, and ruin of the people of the South was the aim of many of the fanatic leaders of the North, who forced through Congress the reconstruction legislation, there can be no doubt; and though they failed in their purpose, it was not for the want of a desire to succeed. As evidence of this may be cited the actual introduction into Congress by Thaddeus Stevens of a bill confiscating the property of the Confederate people. It is well known that the Negro had been promised, as his share of the spoils, forty acres of land and a mule. Though Congress balked at the actual confiscation, it authorized the Freedman's Bureau, with its numerous agents scattered in every neighborhood of the South, and sent out an army of 35,000 soldiers, whose business it was to uphold the Bureau and the lawless and arbitrary acts and decree of its agents, and to maintain the supremacy and domination of the Negro over the Southern white man; while the camp-follower and the active carpetbagger organized the Negroes into camps of the Loyal League, firing their zeal by the promise of forty acres of land and a mule, and by inflammatory appeals to their ignorance and cupidity, instilling into their minds a hatred of the Confederate white man and a desire for revenge against him.
The great wrong done the people of the South by the reconstruction legislation was the result of passion aroused by the inflammatory appeals of Northern fanatics, predicated, to a great extent, on the assassination of Lincoln. It was not the result of calm and deliberate purpose, nor of a wicked and cruel heart. It had been loudly proclaimed in the North, and the people generally believed, that the Confederate high officials instigated Lincoln's murder, and that the Confederate people approved it. This stirred the minds of the Northern people into such a frenzy of passion that they did not hesitate, at the time, to indorse the most drastic and unjust legislation for the humiliation and punishment of the Confederate people. In the murder of Lincoln the Confederate people lost their best and most powerful Northern friend; and no one now pretends to believe that the Confederate officials instigated his murder, or that the people of the South approved it.
Such were the conditions that surrounded the people of the Confederate States, and seemed to afford them no loophole of escape. They were beaten, broken, and depressed, with no hope of relief. They had no cloud by day, nor pillar of fire by night, to show them the way; but, dark as the prospect was, deliverance came in an unexpected manner, and this deliverance emphasizes and illustrates the fact that Divine Providence interferes in the affairs of men and nations, and that “He moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”
The Ku Klux Klan, or the Invisible Empire, was the madcap fancy of schoolboys in Pulaski, Tennessee. Gotten up in boyish sport, in older hands it proved to be the fulcrum on which the lever worked that freed the Confederate people, and tore from the hands of the fanatics the fruit they expected to gather from the reconstruction legislation, towit: the domination of the Confederate States by the Negro, the humiliation and pauperizing of the Southern whites, and the erection of their territory into solid black Republican satrapies.
The Negro, in his native African wilds, was the subject of the grossest superstition; and, notwithstanding his long contact with the Southern white man, he has lost little or none of the superstitious belief of his African ancestor. He feels conscious that the earth, the air, and the water are peopled with invisible spirits, some of which are malignant and harmful, and some of which are friendly and kind; but that all of them exercise a deep and mysterious influence over his life and being he does not doubt. He further believes that those spirits or beings manifest and make themselves visible to human ken by assuming the shape and form of a dead man or woman, a dog, or cat, or some other animal; or that they enter into and take possession of some man or woman, usually of some old and toothless hag, and transform them into witches, voodoos and sorcerers. In this way, if malignant and unfriendly, they bring disease, death, disfigurement, and bad luck upon a man or woman, sickness and death to stock, blight and failure of crops; if of a kind and friendly nature, they bring health and strength, good crops, and good luck.
The paraphernalia of the Ku Klux Klan was of such nature as to fill the superstitious soul of the Negro with the most abject fear and terror. He fully believed that they were visitors from the under world, come to call him to judgment for his desertion and cruel treatment of his old master and his master's family, and that swift destruction would follow unless he repented and made amends.
These silent night riders, or walkers, of the Invisible Empire, were enveloped in long robes or gowns of various colors, and ample dimensions, which fully concealed the person. Some of them wore hideous masks, and some of them had false heads supported by a rod, which, when rested on the ground, placed the head in proper position. This false head was made by hollowing out a gourd or pumpkin. By raising the rod on which the false head rested, it would apparently stretch the neck, which was surrounded by the gown, arranged to lengthen out, presenting to the beholder a man some twelve or fourteen feet high. The false head was so arranged on the rod that it could be detached and made to hang down and dangle on the breast, presenting the appearance of a man with his head cut off and carried loosely on his breast. The false head had holes cut for eyes, and a mouth cut so as to display enormous teeth. The inside of the head was arranged to hold a candle or taper, which could be lighted when desired; and when lighted showed to the beholder a head with eyes of fire and red-hot teeth; indicating that the man had just arrived from the dominion of his Satanic Majesty.
The riders of the Invisible Empire knew how to impress the Negro and to utilize to the fullest extent his superstitious belief. Often in the night, when passing a Negro cabin, they would halt, and one of them would call upon a headless trunk and say: “Bill, where war you killed?” “Well,” Bill would say, “I was killed at Gaines's Mill.” “What you come here for?” “Well, I cum here to see about my folks, and see how the Niggers ar behavin'.” “When ar you agwine back to yer grave?” “When dese crazy Niggers gets out of de Loyal League, and de Freedman's Bureau, its agents, and de thieving carpetbaggers is run outen de country.” “Hello, Sambo, fotch me a bucket of water! I hain't had a drop since I was buried, and I'm mighty dry.” When the bucket was brought, it was eagerly seized, and without stopping the headless soldier drained from the bucket the last drop and called for more. The water passed unobserved to the ground under his gown.
The dress, the silent and mysterious maneuvers of the Klan, the fact that no one knew where they came from or where they went to, made such an awesome and fearful impression upon the mind of the superstitious Negro, threatened him with such awful portents, and seemed to him so big with danger, that the promise of the forty acres of land and the mule became stale and uninteresting; the Loyal League lost its charms; he turned a deaf ear to the Siren song of the carpetbagger and camp-follower; ceased to rely on the Freedman's Bureau and its thieving agents; and gave his allegiance once more to his old master and the Confederate white man and aided these in routing the official thieves and vampires that were, under the forms of law, destroying and pauperizing the people of the Confederate States.
The deliverance of the people of the Confederate States from Negro rule and dominion, considering the manner and means of its accomplishment, reads more like a fairy tale than sober reality. It stands without a parallel in the history of any nation or people. It was not accomplished by bloodshed or violence, but in a great measure by the silent, mysterious, and visible manifestations of the Ku Klux Klan, which appeared to the ignorant and superstitious Negroes as the messenger of a supernatural, irresistible force, opposition to which would be to encounter the awful power of the spirits that people the earth, air, and water; and from such an encounter they shrank, as they would from a visible hand to hand conflict with Old Satan himself.
The writer has no knowledge that the Ku Klux Klan of which General Nathan Forest was the chief, under the title of the Grand Wizard, included Texas in its organization. He only knows that there was one Klan organized, which was done in a local and independent way, having no official connection with any other Klan. Doubtless other Klans of the kind were organized in other counties in Texas, as the people of all of the Confederate States had speedily come to realize the efficiency of this organization to impress, control, and regulate the Negro.
In the village of Centreville, Leon county, Texas, the Negroes had become impudent, and were constantly prowling around the houses of the whites at night, to the great annoyance and alarm of the white women and children. Under these circumstances, and in view of the threatening aspect of the Negroes, especially a few of the leading ones in the town, it was deemed necessary by the whites, for the safety of their families, that something should be done to regulate the Negroes and curb their insolence.
The papers of the day contained descriptions of the dress and manner of operation of the Ku Klux Klan, so some eight or ten of the white citizens of the town got together and proceeded to prepare the regalia of the Klan along the lines of this description.
There were in the town two Negroes who seemed to be leaders in encouraging impudence towards the whites and in the night prowling. It was concluded to try the effect of the Klan in full regalia on these two Negroes first. So, one night, having first ascertained that each one would visit a certain place, and knowing the road they would travel, the Klan waylaid them. When the first Negro got into the midst of the surrounding Klan, they arose. The Negro saw some men twelve or fourteen feet high, with fiery eyes and red-hot teeth, some with their heads dangling on their breasts, and some with hideous masks. As soon as he discovered these phantoms, he uttered an unearthly yell and broke for his cabin, screaming at every jump, until he reached his own gate, where he fell in a state of perfect collapse.
The second Negro, instead of fleeing, fell down where he stood, and with maniac screams called on the Lord for mercy in one breath, and in the next on the good Devil. He was so fearfully scared that it appeared that he would die on the spot; and the members of the Klan slipped off their regalia and rushed to his aid. With dashes of cold water and assurances of protection, after a time they brought him round sufficiently to be able to be conveyed to his employer's house; but so terribly was he demoralized that his employer was obliged to let him stay the remainder of the night in the room where he and his wife slept. Sometime afterwards the writer questioned this Darkey as to what it was he saw that scared him so badly that night. He said, “the Lord only knows what they were. I seed a lot of ghosts that looked like they was about twenty foot high; some with fiery eyes and teeth, some with their heads off and dangling on their breasts; and I saw the old Devil himself come sailing down through the air, and he lit right on top of me, and den I didn't know no more.” I said to him, “Now, you know you didn't see the Devil.” “Shore, I did; he was as black as your old dog Imp, and looked like him. Didn't see no Devil? Didn't I smell de brimstone, see his head, horns, tail, fiery eyes, and teeth?” Well, the dog Imp was one of the party, and when the Negro fell down and commenced to scream, the dog ran to him and commenced to bark loudly.
This experience settled Negro impudence and night prowling in the town. The news flew broadcast over the county that “de Klux had cum,” and a quiet, humble, scared demeanor at once took possession of the colored population, and no more trouble was experienced. The regalia of the Klan was deposited between the ceiling and roof of an old stone house in Centreville, where it probably could now be found, unless it has fallen to decay and dust from the tooth of time.
The Ku Klux Klan, or the Invisible Empire, was a phenomenal and unique organization, and so far as the writer knows, history discloses nothing like it. Conceived in fun, without any thought of benefiting a sorely-beaten and oppressed people, it became the chief instrument that achieved the political independence of the Confederate people of the South; and, out of the slough of humiliation and poverty, brought back to them their ancient freedom and pride of birth, and an era of unexampled material prosperity.
While General Forest, as the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire, perhaps, did not exercise any official jurisdiction over Texas, yet, the beneficial results of the workings of the Empire in the other Confederate States wielded a powerful influence in Texas in aiding her people to rid themselves from Negro rule and domination.
Considering the results achieved by the Ku Klux Klan for the Southern people, it deserves a prominent place in the history of the troublesome period of reconstruction, and explains, to a great extent, what would otherwise seem to be the miraculous deliverance of the Confederate people from the dangers and troubles that threatened to destroy them.
How to cite:
Wood, W. D., "THE KU KLUX KLAN ", Volume 009, Number 4, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 262 - 268. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v009/n4/article_2.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 18:16:21 CST 2008]
