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On the Use of the Word “Terrorism” to Describe Violence During Reconstruction: Anachronism?

   Published Date: July 19, 2020  3 Comments on On the Use of the Word “Terrorism” to Describe Violence During Reconstruction: Anachronism?

I am sometimes asked if my using the word “terrorism” to describe racial or political violence during the Reconstruction Era is anachronistic. It isn’t.

I have seen such violence described as “terrorism” often enough, and without any further explanation to believe that that those who wrote using that term fully expected their readers to know what it meant.

Here is an example from the “1869 Supplemental Report of the joint committee of the general assembly of Louisiana on the conduct of the late elections and the condition of peace and order in the state page iv”

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Here is an 1868 article from a New York newspaper which uses the word “terrorism” in its very title:

Commercial Advertiser
Friday, Nov 13, 1868
New York, NY
Page: 2

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Here is a Texas newspaper using the term:

Austin Republican
Tuesday, Dec 29, 1868
Austin, TX
Vol: I
Issue: 179
Page: 2

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terrorA2.JPG

Here is a Hartford newspaper using the term:

Connecticut Courant
Saturday, Sep 12, 1868
Hartford, CT

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An example from a Boston newspaper.
Boston Journal
Saturday, May 15, 1869
Boston, MA
Vol: XXXVI
Issue: 11202
Page:2

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Here, again, we see the term “terrorism” in the title of the article.
New York Tribune
Friday, Aug 14, 1868
New York, NY
Vol: XXVIII
Issue: 8533

terrorE.JPG

Here it is used by the leading Northern Democratic newspaper that denies the Republican charges of “terrorism.”
New York Herald
Tuesday, Nov 24, 1868
New York, NY
Vol: XXXIII
Issue: 329

terrorF.JPG

While I sometimes get accused of “presentism” by modern day supporters of the Reconstruction Klan for using the term terrorism to describe the massacres of Blacks perpetrated by that group during Reconstruction, it is safe to say that such killings were viewed and described as “terrorism” at the time. It is a denial of history to demand that the word not be used. People of that era used the word and so should we.
There has been a modern attempt to dehistoricize the history of racial atrocity in America, to bowdlerize how we tell the story of our past. We should not give in to this.
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Author: Patrick Young

3 thoughts on “On the Use of the Word “Terrorism” to Describe Violence During Reconstruction: Anachronism?”

  2. Early examples of terrorism and terrorist in English come from familiar names from the American revolutionary period, all making clear reference to the French Reign of Terror:

    And upon the latter occasion, when the party got possession of the Convention and began for a while to rule, and were about to reestablish terrorism and not royalty, the royalists shifted their ground in a moment and became very vociferous against popular commotions, and equally pathetic in support of the Convention and of the law, which a few hours before they disdained and endeavoured to subvert.
    — Thomas Jefferson, 23 June 1795

    In several parts of the South of France there are associations formed to assassinate the people denominated terrorists: that is the partizans of Robespierre’s dominion. The Convention have recently enacted a severe Law on this subject.
    — John Quincy Adams, 6 July 1795

    In this course the question universally propounded was who were terrorists, who were Jacobins, who were insurgents, anarchists &ca for all these terms were synonimous. Here the friends of the revolution were put upon the defensive, & the sword, not of justice, but of revenge, put in the hands of the royalists. You will readily conceive, that the imputation of terrorism was carried to the utmost extent whilst this state of things lasted.
    — James Madison, 29 October 1795

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/history-of-the-word-terrorism

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