May 22, 1867 is the traditional anniversary of the founding of the The Knights of the White Camellia by, among others, Confederate Colonel Alcibiades DeBlanc. While people today tend to lump all white terrorists of the Reconstruction Era together as the Ku Klux Klan, in fact there were many different manifestations of white solidarity expressed through acts of political and racial violence. Even in the 1860s, the cultural impact of the Ku Klux Klan was so great that non-Klan organizations might announce that they had “Ku Kluxed” an African American or a white Republican.
Jean Maximilien Alcibiades Derneville DeBlanc (Alcibiades DeBlanc) was born in 1821. He was a lawyer who served in the pre-war Louisiana legislature. In 1861 he was a delegate to the state Secession Convention. He was a slaveowner and large landowner and an advoate of Secession.
During the Civil War, DeBlanc organized the Attakapas Guards, Company C, Eighth Regiment, and was commissioned as a major. He rose to colonel but he was badly wounded at Gettysburg. After the war he became a judge during the period of Presidential Reconstruction and organized the “White Man’s or Caucasian Club” in Franklin, La.
Post-Reconstruction, white terrorism was often portrayed by Southern elites as the work of marginal men in rural communites. Modern examinations of these terrorist groups often show them being led by middle-class professionals and wealthy former slave-owners.
Working with Daniel Dennett of Franklin, managing editor of the Planter’s Banner, DeBlanc spread the idea of militant resistance to African American suffrage and Military Reconstruction under the March, 1867 Reconstruction Acts.
According to the Louisiana Bar Association, “In May 1873, DeBlanc led an insurrection in St. Martin Parish to protest Governor William Pitt Kellogg’s government.” He reportedly assembled 600 armed men in this effort. Here is coverage of the white paramilitary leader in 1873:
History and Personnel of Col. Alcibiades DeBlanc, Commanding Citizen Troops at St. Martinsville Fight
Date: Wednesday, May 7, 1873
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Page: 4
After Reconstruction, DeBlanc served as a member of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1877 to 1880. Apparently spreading terror among blacks could be more effectively done through the law than through the firebrand.
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