Letter About Ku Klux Klan Terror, 1871
Letter About Ku Klux Klan Terror, 1871*
State of Mississippi. Monroe County. March 30, 1871
My beloved Sister:
I will endeavor to answer to answer your joyfully received letter.
Mr Bill Webb's wife died week before last, she had been sick a
month. They had two doctors waiting on her. I was very sorry to hear of her death, for I
thought a great deal of her.
I must tell you something about the Ku Klux, they are raging on
the other side of the River. They have whipped several white men, whipped and killed
several Negroes. They whipped Colonel Huggins, the Superintendent of the free schools
nearly to death, and everybody rejoiced when they heard it, for everybody hated him. He
squandered the public money, buying pianofortes, organs, sofas, and furniture for the
Negro School house in Aberdeen. The people are taxed beyond endurance. The Ku Klux gave
him seventy lashes, and then gave him ten days to leave the country. he left and went to
Jackson. There was a Regiment of Militia came into Aberdeen Friday. They are sent here to
put down the Ku Klux. Huggins has come back with the Militia, but I wouldn't give a straw
for his life, for he will be killed.
It is the opinion of most everybody there will be war. the
yankees coming here will make the Negroes more insolent. With Country full of yankees,
things are going too far, for the free whites of the South are determined not to put up
with it.
A Negro can kill a white man, take it in Court, get a Negro jury,
clear him and then turn him loose, things can't go on this way. We are in a most peculiar
situation.
Give my love to all the Connections and write soon.
Yours
Jennie
Mrs Webb was the wife of William J. Webb, who owned and operated the City Hotel on
the site of the Plainview Hotel, on the Block North of the Monroe County Courthouse,
Aberdeen, Mississippi. The Shaw Family patronized this Hotel.
Colonel Huggins left Aberdeen in the night and went back North.
* The spelling and punctuation are as they were in the original.
NB. Clearly, the author didn't want Negroes educated and, thus, applauded Klan
terrorist violence.
