Houses, Yards, and Other Domestic Domains
Houses, Yards, and Other Domestic Domains
This chapter illustrates how the years of Reconstruction saw extensive campaigns of vigilante terror, making it one of the most violent eras in U.S. history. Bands of white men roamed the rural areas of the South, attacking African Americans in their homes. From groups known as “bushwhackers” or “jayhawkers” during the war, to local vigilante gangs of returned Confederate soldiers just after southern surrender, to men in costume claiming membership in the Ku Klux Klan during congressional Reconstruction, intrusions in the night by companies of hostile white men were experienced by many and feared by most former slaves. Although freedpeople made distinctions between these groups, they also labeled them all “night riders” and perceived in all of them conspiracies of terror with similar overall practices, objectives, and effects.
Keywords: Reconstruction, vigilante terror, African Americans, bushwhackers, jayhawkers, Ku Klux Klan
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