One of the largest campaigns of racial violence ever unleashed in the United States was during the months up to the Election of 1876 in which Rutherford B. Hayes was the Republican standard bearer and Samuel Tilden was the Democratic nominee. Terrorist groups like the White League, the Red Shirts, and the Ku Klux Klan. While there is little evidence tying Tilden into these groups, several Democratic candidates and activists were cooperating with these authors of violence.
These groups used violence to stop Black men from voting, a right that was less than a decade old. As Democratic activists had proven in Mississippi in 1875, even though Blacks exceeded whites in the state’s population, white terrorism could keep Blacks from exercising their franchise.
One incident that was recurring in Republican cartoons was the Hamburg Massacre. On July 4, 1876 many towns held parades because that day was the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence. A dispute happened when two white supremacists ordered the Black militia men performing their exercises to step aside. Red Shirts came into Hamburg later and captured the Blacks, executing six of them. Harper’s Weekly published a cartoon with Democratic slogans on a wall and the six dead Black men scattered in front of it.
George Colt, a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, published a cartoon on September 2, 1876 in which he took Samuel Tilden’s letter of acceptance to the Democratic Party in which he said that Rutherford Hayes’s campaign was based on “financial mysticism” and that Hayes engaged in “political sophistry.” What Tilden did not mention in his letter was the terrorism going on in the South.
Tilden’s acceptance letter is covering up the Hamburg Massacre carried out in early July by Wade Hampton’s Red Shirts in South Carolina. Six Black militia men were executed by the white supremacist militants. You can see the dead Blacks under the letter of acceptance, and in the background is a Black man being lynched which is obscured by the letter.
Harper’s also focused on the reaction of Blacks to the Hamburg Massacre. On October 28, 1876 Harper’s Weekly published a cartoon by Thomas Nast where he mocks the Democratic slogan “We Want Change.” His cartoon shows a Black man who the cartoon says “He Wants A Change Too”
The wall behind the Black man is covered with slogans of the campaign. The Black man has picked up the gun and he looks willing to use it to stop further attacks. On the right side, you can see the terrible toll that the white supremacist have left.
A close examination shows you that a school house has been burned and that the victims are students.
The Harper’s Weekly issue from October 21, 1876 shows how “Free Elections” were being held in the South. The cartoon from A.B. Frost shows how a Black man as “free as air.” is being threatened with execution unless he votes for the Democratic ticket.
On the left side is reprinted the claims of Democratic leaders that Blacks are “free as air” while also printing a threat from a leading white supremacist newspaper in Tennessee.
At the bottom of the cartoon are the words of the Black man’s tormenters. The African American must say he is free or “I’ll blow your Black head off.”
On August 12, 1876, Harper’s published this cartoon Declaration of Equality Justice. “Five More Wanted.” calling for the capture of the terrorists who participated in the Hamburg Massacre. The woman is the living representation of Justice. She is pointing at the scales of justice. The scale on the right has six Black men who were executed. On the left the other scale has one white body, man who was killed when he attacked the Blacks. Justice wants five more members of the white supremacist assassins to be tried and executed. The immigrant artist who drew this Thomas Nast.
On the side of Justice are the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The column has broadsides posted that refer to the anti-Black violence. They have the names of terrorist groups like the K.K.K., the White Liners, and the White League. One broadside tells the story of the Hamburg Massacre “Negroes Shot in Cold Blood” it says.
“In Self-Defense” is a famous political cartoon published in Harper’s Weekly on October 28, 1876, drawn by artist A. B. Frost. It show the white supremacist standing over a Black child who he has killed. In his right hand is a smoking gun. In his left hand, a knife. Even though children could not vote, Black students, their teachers, and their school buildings were particular targets of white violence.
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