Louisiana Voice

THE LOUISIANA COURTHOUSE IN A GRAVEYARD

(The Aftermath of the Colfax Massacre)

By guest columnist Charles “Chick” Moore

In the aftermath of the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved people, Louisiana entered a period of political turmoil and violence, particularly surrounding elections and the right of formerly enslaved Black citizens to vote. The election of 1872 was marked by fraud, intimidation, and violence throughout the state.

In Grant Parish, with Colfax as the parish seat, both the Republican and Democratic (Fusionist) parties claimed victory in the local election for parish offices, including sheriff and district judge. The Republican Party supported suffrage and civil rights for formerly enslaved people. The Democrats sought a return to white supremacy and the prewar social order to the extent possible.

At the center of the dispute stood the parish courthouse, the center of governmental power in the parish. Initially occupied by Democrats, the courthouse was later taken by Republicans, who relied upon judicial rulings recognizing their claim to office. Democrats then organized plans to seize the courthouse by force, but word of the planned attack spread.

Under Louisiana law, the district judge instructed the sheriff to form a militia to protect the courthouse and public records from seizure. That militia was composed predominantly of Black men.

When Democrats learned that the courthouse was being defended, calls went out to surrounding parishes for armed assistance. By Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, a heavily armed white force had gathered outside Colfax. Anticipating attack, the defenders had dug a crescent-shaped trench from which they would to fight to defend the courthouse.

The attack began around noon. Initially there was a standoff, but the defenders were eventually forced to abandon their position when a small cannon was positioned so that it could fire directly into the trench. The courthouse—a repurposed plantation stable with brick walls and a cypress shingle roof—was then set on fire.

Later during the day, those captured, their hands tied behind their back, were executed, some of whom were told to stand close to each other so one bullet would result in two kills.

Governor William Kellogg, having learned of the developing crisis, dispatched a contingent of the Louisiana National Guard to Colfax. The troops arrived two days too late.

The official report of the National Guard described the courthouse grounds as strewn with the bodies of dead Black men. Orders were given to bury many of the bodies in the defensive trench dug around the courthouse. The report stated that fifty-four Black men were buried there.  Other reports have the number higher.

Only three white men were reported killed. Estimates of Black deaths ranged from approximately eighty to as many as one hundred fifty, the latter figure appearing on a Louisiana historical marker erected in 1951.

The killings were acts of racial and political terror intended both as punishment and as a warning. Black citizens were killed for exercising civil rights newly guaranteed after the Civil War, most importantly the right to vote and participate in government. The massacre became one of the defining events of Reconstruction-era violence in the South.

From the beginning, however, the presence of bodies buried in and around the courthouse square appears to have troubled the community.

In 1878, the Colfax Chronicle urged that the remains be removed because “they are at present in the way, besides being subjected to indignity and abuse that no one approves.” The suggestion was ignored.

After the original courthouse burned, court was temporarily held in mercantile buildings pending construction of a replacement courthouse. During construction of the new courthouse in 1878, the Chronicle reported that a skull and several bones were unearthed. The newspaper observed that “it looks bad to have these ghastly relics exhibited now and then,” referring to “that grinning cranium with a round bullet hole bored clear through it.”

The discoveries continued for generations.

On April 22, 1899, the Colfax Chronicle, in an article entitled “Only a Negro’s Bones,” reported that workmen digging a hole had uncovered the skull and bones of “one of the negroes killed in the Colfax riot 26 years ago.” The article stated:

“At once an idle and gaping crowd gathered, and several little boys exhibited ghoulish glee digging and scratching out the grim remains for inspection. True, it was only a negro’s bones, but common decency prompts that they be covered out of sight, and humanity dictates that the children should not be allowed to play the role of jackal and grave digger.”

The excavation was associated with construction of an artesian well in the courthouse square. Because the water was mixed with natural gas, the well later became known as the “Famous Burning Well of Colfax,” a local tourist attraction even featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

In 1902 another courthouse was constructed on the same site. In 1923, while workers were digging a ditch and repairing curbing near the courthouse square, another skeleton was unearthed. In 1927, during installation of water pipes, additional human remains were discovered and sent to Louisiana State University.

The discoveries continued even into modern times.

In 1965, while an addition to the present courthouse was under construction, workers excavating the foundation for the addition

unearthed bones that were collected by a twelve-year-old boy and later given to LSU. The Colfax Chronicle later described the reaction of the workers:

“The discovery [of bones] was so emotional, so much so that workers refused to continue digging. Human bones were human bones, and as far as the workers were concerned, they were laying the new courthouse’s foundation in a cemetery. And technically, they were.”

To this day, the burial site of the Black victims remains unmarked at the courthouse. Nothing on the courthouse grounds acknowledges either their deaths or their burial there.

The memory of the white dead, however, has long been preserved.

When the burial site of the man who fired the cannon at the courthouse reportedly fell into disrepair, the Grant Parish Police Jury voted to move his remains to the public cemetery and place a headstone and white picket fence around the grave.

Near the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre, the Police Jury funded approximately forty percent of the cost of a twelve-foot white marble obelisk dedicated to the “three heroes … who fell in the Colfax Riot fighting for White Supremacy.”

For many years, the courthouse square also contained a Louisiana historical marker referring to the event as the “Colfax Riot.” The marker stated:

“On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 negroes were slain. This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South.”

That marker was removed in 2021 after criticism from historians and others because it described the massacre as a “riot” and endorsed white supremacist interpretations of Reconstruction history. It has not been replaced. No marker identifies the burial ground beneath and around the courthouse.

Ironically, however, a historical marker was placed commemorating the now dead “Burning Well of Colfax.”

In recent years, Rev. Avery Hamilton, the great-grandson of the first Black man killed in the massacre, and Dean Woods, a descendant of one of the white participants, worked together to create a memorial honoring the victims. Their memorial stands not at the courthouse itself, but near the Kansas City Southern railroad right-of-way, removed from the courthouse grounds. Information regarding the memorial may be found at The Colfax Memorial.

More recently, the continued use of the courthouse as the seat of the 35^th Judicial District Court has raised a modern legal issue.

Louisiana law requires that a parish provide a building for the sitting of the district court, but the statute further requires that the building be “suitable” for that purpose. The question has therefore been raised whether a courthouse constructed in and around an unmarked mass grave resulting from racial violence is a “suitable” place for the administration of justice.

The massacre occurred more than 150 years ago, and present generations bear no responsibility for the acts committed in 1873. We are responsible, however, for how we respond to the continuing aftermath of those events and for the effect that the present condition of the courthouse grounds may have upon public confidence in the judicial system.

Courts derive their authority not merely from law, but from public trust in the fairness, impartiality, and integrity of the judicial process. It is axiomatic that justice must not only be fair and impartial but must also appear to be fair and impartial.

That principle raises a difficult but important question for Louisiana today: whether a court can properly administer justice while sitting in an unmarked mass grave created by one of the bloodiest acts of racial and political violence in American history.

Charles R. Moore