History of Mathematics and the native people of Santa Cruz, Part 2: A formalism for numerical systems

In this blogpost, I will discuss a formalism for discussing how a given language treats numerics. Let me begin with a warning. This post is a slapdash, amateur attempt to summarize some essential material from linguistics. 

The goal of this post is to develop some language for discussing how numbers are treated the language spoken by the native people of Santa Cruz, California in the early 1800s. Recall that in the previous blogpost concluded with a brief look at the information available about the language spoken by native people living in Santa Cruz, California. The record was a short list of vocabulary words, eleven of which were words for numbers, that was recorded in 1878 (approximately three generations after contact with Europeans). 

A second source is an April 1860 article published in the California Farmer and Journal of Useful Science. The relevant portion is the vocabulary list displayed below.

Vocabulary list from the California Farmer and Journal of Useful Science
From the California Digital Newspaper Collection

How can we analyze a list like this? We could directly compare this list to other lists of numbers, but this ignores some important structure. Many of the numbers appear to be built out of others. The word for "thirteen" is "capan-üsh" which appears to be formed by appending "üsh" to the word for "three," which is "capan." The words for all of the teens appear to be formed in a similar manner.

This structure is similar to the structure of words for numerals in English. The English word for 21, "twenty-one" is given by concatenating the words "twenty" (for 20) and "one" (for 1). Furthermore, "twenty" is built by modifying "two" to "twen-" and then concatenating this with "-ty."

This type of recursive can be conveniently described using formal language theory. The idea is best introduced with an example. Consider the palindromes in the letters "x" and "y." We can generate all palindromes by starting with the symbol "S" (for "Start") and repeatedly applying the following rules under the "S" has been replaced by a and b:

S --> x

S --> y

S --> xSx

S --> ySy

The idea is formalized as follows. A formal language L is a subset of the set of words in a finite set ∑, called the alphabet. In example of palindromes, ∑={ x, y } and L = { x, y, xx, yy, xxx, xyx, yxy, yyy,...}.

We are interested in languages generated by repeatedly applying simple rules like "S --> x." Thus we define a formal grammar G for the alphabet to be a tuple consisting of (1) a finite set N called the non-terminal symbols that is disjoint from words in the alphabet ∑, (2) a finite set M called the terminal symbols that are elements of the alphabet ∑, (3) a distinguished non-terminal symbol S (for start), and a finite collect of production rules. A production rule is a function 

(words in N union ∑) (N)  (words in N union ∑)  -->  (words in N union ∑).

The language generated by G is the set of all words constructed by starting with the start symbol S and then repeatedly applying production rules until all non-terminal symbols have been removed.

A slightly more complicated example is the following: 

N = { SENTENCE, NOUN-PHRASE, VERB-PHRASE, VERB, DETERMINER, NOUN }

and  

∑  = { all valid English words }.

The distinguished non-terminal symbol is SENTENCE, and the production rules are:

SENTENCE --> NOUN-PHRASE VERB PHRASE

NOUN-PHRASE --> DETERMINER NOUN

VERB-PHRASE --> VERB

VERB-PHRASE --> VERB NOUN-PHRASE

as well as production rules involving terminal symbols

NOUN --> people

NOUN --> world

NOUN --> artwork

VERB --> earns

VERB --> gone

VERB --> came

DETERMINER  --> the

DETERMINER  --> a

 By repeatedly applying the production rules, we get:

SENTENCE

NOUN-PHRASE VERB-PHRASE

DETERMINER NOUN VERB-PHRASE

the NOUN VERB-PHRASE

the people VERB NOUN-PHRASE

the people had NOUN-PHRASE

the people had DETERMINER NOUN

the people had the NOUN

the people had the artwork

The idea is that a formal grammar can help  us understand how speaker create well-formed sentences. The formal grammar just handles the manner in which sentences are subdivided into phrases. The meaning of sentences are ignored. In the last example, we could also form then sentence "a world had the people" which seems nonsensical. The grammar that we have exhibited also produces sentences in which we do the subject and verb do not agree. An example of such a sentence is "the people earns artwork" (instead of the correct "the people earn artwork"). 

In general, it is difficult to construct a formal grammar that fully captures the sentences of a spoken language. Formal grammars work well for describing just the numerical system of a spoken language because the numerical system is much simpler and often strongly exhibits the type of recursive structure that formal grammar capture.

The two examples of formal grammars that we have looked at context-free grammar. These are grammar where each production rule has the form "Terminal Symbol --> word." The two formal grammars we displayed earlier were examples context-free grammar. An example of a grammar that is not contact free is:

A formal grammer
From Wikipedia

An example of a word in this language is "aabbcc" which can be produced as

S 

a S B C

a a B C B C

a a B C Z C 

a a B W Z C 

a a B W C C

a a B B C C 

a a b B C C

a a b b C C 

a a b b c C

a a b b c c 

This grammar generates the language L of words like "aaabbcc" which consist of the same number of the letters "a," "b," and "c," arranged in lexicographical order. The grammar fails to be content-free because the production rules involve more than one terminal symbol on the right-hand side. Consider the non-terminal symbol "C." The rules show that this can be replaced by "c" if it is preceded by a "b;" by "c" if it is preceded by a "c." Thus the production rules involving "C" depend on the context in which "C" appears. A now standard result in formal language theory (the pumping lemma) shows that the language generated by this grammar cannot be generated by any context-free grammar.

What about the languages of interest: the well-formed words for numbers in a spoken language such as English. We need to take some care in how we formulate this question. In all spoken languages that have been studied, only finitely many numbers can be described. In the list of Ohlone words that we studied at the beginning of this post, the largest number is 100. The website dictionary.com has words for all numbers smaller than 10^36 (a "Decillion" is  10^33") but no word for "10^36." 

We can describe the numbers in the Ohone language by writing down one production rule for each of the twenty-five words: 

S --> impeach

S --> uthin

S --> caphan

etc.

We can do the same thing in English only now we need to write down 10^36-1 rules. This method of describing  This is just an overly complicated way of writing down all the numbers. 

A more interesting context-free grammar for the numbers in English is given by production rules that are listed below as I.6 through I.17. 

The first part of a context-free grammar for numbers in English
From "Grammars for Number Names"

The first part of a context-free grammar for numbers in English
From "Grammars for Number Names"

This context-free grammar produces the words for numbers up to about 10^34. However, the grammar reflect some important features of the language. For example, the words "twenty," "thirty," ..., "ninety" all appear to be produced by combining the words "two," "three," ..., "nine" with the suffix "-ty." The words "thirteen," "fourteen," ..., "nineteen" are producing in a similar way using the suffix "-teen." This structure is not reflected in the formal grammar.

The linguist James R. Hurford proposed a more sophisticated model of how numbers are expressed in a language. He splits the process of forming a word for a number into two pieces: the formation of the semantic component (the value being expressed) and the phonological component (the word you say). Both are constructed from a formal grammar that Hurford calls the "phrase structure rules." The formal grammar is displayed below. (The symbol "/" represents the abstract number "1." A sequence of the symbols "/" represents the abstract number obtained by counting how often "/" appears. For example, "///" represents the abstract number "3.")

Hurford's phrase structure rules for English
From The Linguistic Theory of Numerals

(The brackets "{" and "}" indicated that one of the bracketed symbols must be chosen. A pair of parentheses indicates that the symbol can optionally be included.)

The language produced by this formal grammar is not very interesting. It is just all non-empty strings in the terminal symbol "/." However, we get interesting information by keeping track of how a word in the language is generated. This is usually encoded by a binary tree in a natural way. Consider the derivation:

NUMBER 

/ NUMBER

/ PHRASE 

/ NUMBER M

/ / NUMBER M

/ / / M

/ / / / / / / / / / / / /

Here's a crudely drawn picture of the phrase structure tree:

A phrase structure tree

The tree should be interpreted as follows. The value of each node is determined recursively as follows. The value of a leaf is just the number of "/" marks. Thus, reading from left to right, the leaves in the above example have values "1," "1," "1," and "10." Each node labeled "NUMBER" has value equal to the sum of the values of the nodes directly below it (its "immediate constituents"). The value of a node labeled "Phrase" is the product of the values of the nodes directly below it. Finally, the value of a node labeled "M" is equal to value of the second immediate constituent raised to the power of the first immediate constituent. (If there is only one immediate constituent, the node has value equal to "10."

In the above example, the only node labeled "M" has value "10," and the only node labeled "Phrase" has value "20." Working our way up to the root, we see that the root has value "21." This is the semantic component. 

Hurford then has a separate (and more complicated) set of rules for using the phrase structure tree to produce the phonological component (i.e. the word that you say). These are more complicated, so I will omit them for now. One important fact is that there are, in general, many phrase structure trees for the same number. For example, both the example we just looked at and the example below have semantic component equal to "21." The rules produce for the first tree the word "one and twenty" and "twenty-one" for the second tree. Most English speakers would say that the second word is correct while the first phrase is incorrect (or at least old-fashioned).

Another example of a phrase structure tree

One issue that I am completely glossing over is why Hurford's formalism for describing the linguistic theory of numerals is correct or reasonable. In fact, in his book, Hurford recognizes that other linguists have proposed alternative theories, and the evidence for/against any particular theory was limited at the time he was writing. 

For my purposes, what's most useful is that his formalism will help us understand how numbers are expressed in languages, especially how to compare and contrast different languages.

History of Mathematics and the native people of Santa Cruz, Part 1: An orientation

A painting of the Santa Cruz church mission
From Wikipedia

In commemoration of National American Indian Heritage Month, this blogpost will explore how to study study American Indians in the history of mathematics. I will focus on the native peoples of California, since I teach at at UC school. Much of the following post is cobbled together from my reading of Stephen Chrisomalis's article "Th cognitive and cultural foundations of numbers" in the book The Oxford Handbook of the History of Mathematics. 

Doing a history of mathematics for American Indians is a major challenge as traditional methods of historical inquiry are of limited use. In its most familiar form, the history of mathematics focuses on the narrative history of how intellectual ideas were developed by individuals working within a western intellectual environment. Consider the titles of two award-winning books: Euler: The Master of Us All and Leonhard Euler: Mathematical Genius in the Enlightenment. As the titles suggest, they are biographies of the eighteenth century mathematician Leonard Euler, and they focus on presenting Euler's mathematical work to a modern audience with the goal of impressing upon readers the transformative impact of Euler's scholarly work (he was a genius who "mastered us all"). While Euler lived more than two hundred years ago, he lived a life that was not that different from the life of a typical modern-day math professor. Following an education in Switzerland that culminated in a dissertation accepted at the University of Basel, Euler worked at European scientific academies. He published prolifically in academic journals, so a modern researcher has a wealth of writings to draw on. Important personal papers were also preserved, so the authors are able to humanize Euler's mathematical work by placing it within a broader narrative of his life (the best known story is perhaps that Euler lost his eyesight yet continued to remain remarkably prolific, publishing an average of one mathematical paper each week.)

The type of history represented by Euler: The Master of Us All and Leonhard Euler: Mathematical Genius in the Enlightenment is basically impossible for the indigenous peoples of California. The type of written records needed to produce a detailed historical biography of any individual, mathematician or otherwise, simply do not exist. Indigenous people were also largely excluded from academia until relatively recently, so we can't trace their mathematical activities in scholarly journals.

We can, however, make progress in answering important questions if we change our focus. In this post, I will focus on how to extract historical information from linguistic data. While we can't use this to craft narratives of individuals, much less make a case for their "mathematical genius," we can answer important and interesting questions. 

Perhaps the most interesting question is, "Could native peoples count?" That is, was the practice a European introduction or did native people develop their own counting methods? This question has been debated for over a century. Influential early ideas were set out in a 1863 paper, "On the Numerals as Evidence of the Progress of Civilization," by John Crawfurd. Crawfurd, a British colonial administrator and a member of the Ethnological Society of London, argued in that linguistic information about numbers could be used to assess how "civilized" a given people were. 

Crawfurd asserts that the ability to express and calculate with numbers is a difficult, abstract skill. Following ideas surrounding Darwinism, Crawford takes for granted that the "different races of the human family" are progressing towards "civilization" A measure of how far a given "race" has "progressed," he argues, is how their language can be used to express numbers. More "civilized" people speak languages that allow for the expression of larger numbers. Explaining their languages, Crawfurd finds that the languages spoken by aboriginal Australians only include words for numbers up to four, while the Chinese language allows for the expression of numbers up to the range of a thousand million. Consequently, he concludes that the Chinese are more civilized than aboriginal Australians. This belief was widely by European scholars, so it would have been seen at the time as validation of Crawfurd's argument.

Anyone who has taken an introductory class in anthropology in the last one hundred years should be able to dismantle Crawfurd's paper. The theory that all cultures are progressing towards the same way of organizing society, towards "civilization," is regarded as a misapplication of the ideas of Darwin. The rejection has been so complete that I almost feel like I am arguing with a straw man in discussing it. Around the late nineteenth century, scholars largely associated with Franz Boas collected evidence to support the idea that a more useful (and less racist) conceptual framework is to replace the biologically based notion of different "races" with a concept of "culture" that is socially determined. The Boas school agreed that a culture changes by an evolutionary process, but this process consisted of responses to circumstances specific to the culture rather than a unified "progression" towards "civilization."

Nevertheless, Crawfurd's idea of deriving information about mathematical practices through a comparative study is an attractive one. Crawfurd's paper includes an appendix of number words for over fifty different languages, and a study of it clearly demonstrates intriguing and suggestive similarities and differences. (Many languages appear to express numbers using "base 10" as in English, but others appear to use a different base, and some seem to use a whole different way of reckoning.)

One can modify Crawfurd's underlying theoretical ideas so that they work within the modern framework of cultural evolution. For many cultures where the number system is well-document, the system appears to originate in the bureaucratic needs of the governing class of an agricultural society: the king wants to collect a portion of each farmer's crops as a tax, so his administrators need a methods to record things he wants to collect. In response, the administrators develop words for expressing the large numbers they need to record, and these words disseminate broadly through the society over time as different people interact with the administrators.

Despite the passage of over one hundred years, the validity of this idea continues to be debated. Is counting an abstract skill that had to be invented? Or is it a hardwired skill, similar to or even a part of Chomsky's universal grammar in linguistics? Chomsky himself is in the first camp. He argues that numerical facility is an invented/developed skill: it is separate from linguistic facility and could not have developed by natural selection. An obvious challenge to this school of thought is the empirical fact that people of all cultures seem to not only possess some facility with numbers but there are also striking commonalities in how numbers are expressed. The word for "ten" plays often plays a distinguished role, for example. Those who argue that counting is an invented skill explain this as a by-product of how things like human physiology impact the manner in which people count. The number "ten" is significant because people commonly count using their ten fingers.

Work in neurology and psychology provides a stronger challenge to the idea that counting is not a hardwired skill. Other animals have been shown to have some facility with numbers. A study of lionesses showed that they can distinguish between small numbers such as five and three. Other studies have shown that human infants can similarly distinguish between small quantities. 

A productive framing of the issue is, what aspects of numerical facility are hardwired? Nobody would argue that humans are hardwired to understand complex numbers. Many of my calculus students, even very mathematically talented ones, are unable to grasp the concept. Much less clear is whether humans are hardwired to understand that the successor principle, that an infinite sequence of numbers can be generated by starting with small numbers like one, two, and three and then repeatedly "adding one." 

The social processes driving the development of number systems has also been questioned. While, in cultures like ancient Mesopotamia, the early development was driven by the needs of a bureaucratic state is also challenged, but one can debate whether this is a widespread phenomenon. We can only document the early development of numbers for a handful of cultures, so perhaps the apparent significance of the bureaucratic state is an illusion created by the nature of the evidence that's available to us. One can point to other cultural practices that create a need to develop a number system. Large numbers hold a special significance in some religions (think about calculating the age of the Earth using information from the Bible) and are a natural object of intellectual interest (many young children get excited about naming "the biggest number").

Certainly, I am not going to resolve these issues, but they held direct attention to important aspects when trying to use linguistic evidence to say something about the history of mathematics. In any case, the first matter is the bread-and-butter issue of simply documenting in a careful way how a given language expresses numbers. For many native languages, this is no simple matter.

Consider the native people who lived in the area around the modern city of Santa Cruz. There are no records of their languages until the late 1700s when they encountered the Spanish. The first Spanish the native people interacted with were Catholic priests who had come to convert people to Catholicism. Many Indians were moved to church missions, sometimes forcibly, and were encouraged to learn Spanish and adopt other European cultural practices. Moreover, relations were often tense as some native people were forcibly moved to the mission, and many lived under harsh conditions that included performing difficult manual labor for the mission. In the mid-1800s, the Catholic missions were secularized, and most of the native people began living and working on large sheep and cattle ranches ("Ranchos") owned by Spanish immigrants. 

Over the course of the 1800s, many native languages went "extinct" (although there are important ongoing language revitalization efforts). The information that we have about these languages is often information recorded by people with no linguistic training and little sensitivity to native culture (the Catholic priests who ran the missions, for example). Moreover, they were collecting information from speakers who had been in contact with Spanish and English speakers for decades.

One valuable source I have found for information about the language spoken by Indians living on the Santa Cruz mission is vocabularies that were collected by the French scholar Alphonse Pinart in 1878. The available records are lists of words collected from four different people: a woman who grew up on the mission in Soledad, a woman living on the Santa Cruz mission, a man living in the town of Aptos, and a man living in Carmel. 

Location of the interviews with speakers of Ohlone speakers
From Google Maps

The numerals recorded by Pinart are displayed below. The first column is an English word, and the second is the corresponding word in Spanish. The remaining four columns record the words used by the people Pinart interviewed. ("Costanoan" is the term the Spanish used to referred to the people living around modern Santa Cruz. The modern term is "Ohlone.") You'll see that no information from second speaker was recorded, and there are significant differences in the words the other speaker used. Taking into account differences in pronunciations, the numbers for 1, 2, 3, and 4 appear to be similar, but others words seem largely unrelated. This could reflect differences in regional dialect. While speakers are separated by less than seventy miles, at least two of the speakers grew up on different church missions. In a number of accounts, residents remarked on the diversity of native languages, with people on each ranch and mission speaking their own dialect. 

Despite the limitations of the data, we can make some significant deductions. The first speaker appears to count using a base ten system. The word for twenty, "utcihk matumn" is formed by modifying the word for ten, "matussu," to "matumn" and then prepending the word "utchihk" which appears to be a modification of the word for two, "utci."

The words used by the fourth speaker are even more intriguing. The word for "six" is created by joining the word "xali" to "sakken," and then the next two numbers are created by replacing "xali" with ucumai (perhaps a modification of the word for two, "uthis"?)  and then with kapxami (a modification of "kappes" or "three"?) This suggests that the fourth speaker is counting numbers using base 5.

The use of base 5 is more than a curiosity. In both Spanish and English, speakers count in base 10, so the fourth speaker's manner of counting can't be an adoption from Europe. Rather, it suggests that the native people had developed ways of counting prior to contact with Europeans. 

The fourth speaker also told his interviewer how to count small quantities of coins (reales or Spanish silver coins and pesos) in his language. It appears that the words for numbers undergo slight modifications when used in references to coins. For example, the word for two, "uthis," is modified to "utis" when used in references to reales. Of course, in reaching this conclusion, we're dependent on accuracy of the speaker's pronunciation and the researcher's transcription. The differences could, perhaps, be simple transcription errors.

We could try to investigate the language in greater depth by looking for additional records of the language or by using comparative methods. Before we get carried away, we should try to develop a more robust framework for describing and analyzing the manner in which a given language expresses numericals. I will do that in a subsequent blogpost. 

John McCulla: A name better forgotten?

The approximate location of McCulla's farm is shown in red
From Library of Congress

John McCulla (or McCullough) was a central figure in efforts to reconstruct Chesterfield County during the years after the Civil War. He was a particular figure of hatred for regional conservatives, but he is largely absent from historical accounts of Reconstruction in South Carolina. In this post, we will take a look at who he was and what he did.

McCulla was born in Ireland around 1840. He moved to the United States around the end of the Civil War, when he was in his twenties. (Accounts differ as to whether he arrived in 1864 or in 1866.) I have been unable to find any records about McCulla prior to 1868, so it is unclear why he left Ireland, although there was nothing unusual about it. Ireland saw a huge level of emigration as people tried to flee the famine and poverty that had been devastating the country for decades.

McCulla had moved to South Carolina by 1868, and he quickly found a place within the state's newly empowered Republican Party. Following the ratification of a new state constitution that enfranchised freed slaves, McCulla was appointed treasurer for Chesterfield County by Republican governor Robert K. Scott. This position granted him considerable powers as it made him responsible for collecting taxes and disbursing state funds. 

McCulla likely secured his gubernatorial appointment through connections with Chesterfield's state senator, R. J. Donaldson. Both were incorporators for a Chesterfield land development company, the South Carolina Improvement and Trust Company, and the two worked closely together after Donaldson was elected to office.

McCulla purchased land for himself in fall 1868. He bought a two-hundred and twenty-nine acre plot from William K. Edgeworth, a member of a local planter family. The plot was located near the Hornsboro post office, where Thompson's Creek meets Store House Creek. A little over a year later (on January 6, 1870), he bought an adjacent two hundred and three acre plot in a sheriff's sale following the death of the owner (Alexander McMillan). These purchases provide further evidence of McCulla's relation with Donaldson and his supporters. The lands bounded land owned by the Challenge Mining Company which was run by Donaldson's supporters. 

McCulla used the land he purchased for farming. He did not have a family, so he was reliant on sharecropping and hired labor. Most of the people he employed were former slaves. As a farmer, McCulla practiced a mixture of cotton growing and subsistence farming that was typical for the region. 

The fact that McCulla was able to purchase so much land raises suspicions. He spent over $3,500 only a few years after he had immigrated from a poverty-stricken Ireland. He soon fell under suspicion for corruption and dishonesty. The biggest cause for anger was the allegation that he was "shaving" funds for himself when fulfilling money orders as treasurer.

The way in which McCulla was alleged to have enriched himself is demonstrated by an incident involving the state-funded Poor House. A women, Mrs. Williams, maintained a Poor House for paupers, and she was to receive five dollars per month for each pauper who was boarding with her. In the summer of 1870, the County Commissioners issued a money order to her. McCulla was present when this was done, and he explained that he did not have the funds to fulfill the order. When one of the commissioners, G. W. Duvall, said this was unacceptable, McCulla told Mrs. Williams that she should go to Cheraw and present the order to Mr. Donaldson. This was unusual because Donaldson was then Chesterfield's state senator and had no responsibility for distributing state funds.

Mrs. Williams did as McCulla suggested. However, upon arriving at Donaldson's office, she met with his clerk who only offered to provide her with half of the funds she was suppose to receive. This presented her with a dilemma as the money offered  was not enough to provide for the paupers under her care. While debating what to do, she happened to encounter G. W. Duvall on the street. He advised her to see if a merchant would take the money order for payment, but none would. Finally, having exhausted other options, Mrs. Williams accepted the funding that Donaldson's clerk was willing to offer. She was given less than half of the money she was due. The week after, Duvall became upset when he examined McCulla's records and found that it was falsely recorded that Mrs. Williams  falsely had received the full amount she was due.

Conservative leaders charged that the treatment of Mrs. Williams was representative of how McCulla performed the duties of his office. Milly Chapman, W. L. Mangum, and Ellenor Horn all reported similar experiences. 

Efforts to hold McCulla accountable for misuse of office began to gain momentum in September 1870. Each quarter, the county grand jury issued a presentment which provided them with a forum in which to criticize public officials. That term, the grand jury criticized McCulla and two other public officials. He was criticized for not exhibiting his books to the grand jury, and the circuit judge (James M. Rutland) responded by ordering that his office be searched and he be required to show cause at the next term of court why they should not be primally prosecuted for dereliction of duty.

The criticism McCulla received suggests that the criticism was not purely political. The circuit judge was a moderate Republican, and the grand jury included several Black men (including Oliver Hanna, Lisbon Timmons, Load Miller, and Malcolm McFarlan). 

The month after the presentment was issued was the month that the election was held. This was an important event. It was the second election for legislative offices that was held under the new state constitution, and it presented conservatives with their first opportunities to remove the Republicans from county government. 

Much was at stake for McCulla. With his personal ties to state senator Donaldson, he had a powerful defender, but Donaldson was up for reelection in October. If Donaldson was defeated by a conservative candidate, then both he and McCulla would not only lose political power, but they would also be facing the wraith of newly empowered conservatives. In fact, Donaldson was running against G. W. Duvall, the very man who had been been frustrated in his efforts to get McCulla to fulfill a money order for the county poor house.

McCulla and other supporters of Donaldson went to extreme efforts to see that Donaldson and other Republicans in the county were reelected. Conservatives alleged that McCulla and others engaged in election fraud. Election managers had given the ballot boxes to McCulla (who had no formal role in managing the election) to bring to Chesterfield Courthouse for counting. However, before he did so, he met with Senator Donaldson's brother-in-law (Alfred T. Peete) who replaced valid ballots for conservative candidates with fraudulent ones. 

A little over a week after the election (on October 31), the son of G. W. Duvall (Henry P.) swore a complaint against McCulla, Donaldson, and two others. McCulla was charged with conspiracy to alter the ballots and polls list for the precincts of Oro and Old Store. Based on the complaint, the trial justice Frank H. Eaton ordered their arrests. The fact that Eaton issued orders for arrests is a sign that the charges were serious. Eaton was a Union veteran from Maine and no friend of South Carolina conservatives like G. W. Duvall. 

McCulla was released on bond on a few days after his arrest was ordered. However, his fortunes continued to decline. A few weeks after his arrest (on November 22), the conservatives candidates arrived at the statehouse and were sworn in as the elected legislative representatives for Chesterfield County. McCulla's patron, R. J. Donaldson, had been removed from power, and his office was now held by the father of the man who had requested McCulla's arrest, G. W. Duvall.

Unlike Donaldson, McCulla did not lose his position as county treasurer in the October election because his position was appointed, not elected. Nevertheless, his position was in danger. Governor Scott, the man who had originally appointed McCulla, had been reelected, but he could be expected to remake his political appointments in response to the political changes demonstrated by the election.

Removing McCulla from office seems to have been a priority in Chesterfield. In February 1871, Duvall, now Chesterfield's state senator, wrote the governor a long letter asking that McCulla be removed from office and detailing at length his reasons for the request. Not only did Duvall repeat the complaints that McCulla was engaging in financial misconduct, but he also complained that he was "frequently drunk and unfit to attend to business." The governor finally removed McCulla from office in March.

McCulla's legal problems were becoming even more serious during this time. He was subject to a second bench warrant in January. The solicitor had issued a warrant after the grand jury issued a presentment reporting that McCulla had been overcharging for services. (He reportedly was charging five per cent on all monies received and on all funds passing through his office.)

When the court next met (in May), the grand jury indicted McCulla on the charge of failing to turn over his treasurer's books, and he was accused of "outrageously oppressing the people" by charging tax penalties beyond what was allowed by law. The last accusation led to yet another bench warrant was issued. 

McCulla finally faced a jury trial in January 1872, a full year after legal proceedings had begun. The trial had been delayed because the judge had not appeared for the previous term of court (held in September). The jury found him guilty on two counts: one for failing to turn over the treasurer's books and one for exercising the office of treasurer after his removal. McCulla was also indicted on official misconduct. There is no record of that third charge being dropped, but this was likely the case as the court journal show that he later repaid the government for the excessive charges he made.

I have not been able to find any record of the sentence that McCulla received, and whatever it was, it seems that he did not serve it. McCulla appealed to the state Supreme Court, and in May 1874, the court struck off the charge.

While McCulla was facing charges for his conduct as treasurer, he was also facing charges for election fraud. The records of what happened with these second set of charges is unclear. The court journal records that the grand jury returned no bill again him and the other men charged during the September 1872 term of court. The indictment paper, signed by the jury foreman, also states that the jury returned no bill. However, indictment records also include a handwritten document, signed by the solicitor, stating that the jury swore on their oath that McCulla and the others had committed the crimes they were accused of. Yet a third outcome was reported by the press: they reported in October that the solicitor had decided not to pursue matters further (i.e. he entered a "nol. pos." against Donaldson and his supporter John McCulla). 

The dates on the legal documents raise further questions about what exactly took place. The dates on both the indictment paper and handwritten document have been changed. On the handwritten document, the months "May" and "January" were written and then stricken out and the word January written a second time. Similarly, the year was changed from 1871 to 1872. None of these dates are the dates recorded in the court journal. The dates on the indictment paper are similar. The document is dated to January 1871, but the months "January" and May" were written and then stricken out.

Ultimately, the long-term legal consequences for McCulla seem to have been minimal. Not only does it seem that he avoided jail time, but he was even appointed to serve as an election manager in 1874, only a few years after he was indicted for election misconduct. One possible explanation is that all involved parties felt it was best to avoid further deliberation on the matter and simply move on. The need to prosecute McCulla and others in Donaldson's circle was diminished as county Republicans had largely been removed from power in the 1870 election. Moreover, close scrutiny of the election was likely to raise awkward questions for conservative politicians. In the months following the election, conservatives were accused of having engaged in voter suppression and of being involved in the murder of the Republican, Robert Melton, one of the witnesses set to testify in defense of McCulla and others. 

In his correspondence with the governor over the treasury appointment, G. W. Duvall explicitly spoke to the need to reduce political tensions. He wrote that he had made a recommendation regarding the appointment in the belief that it would "end the war between the two factions." He also appears to hint at the potential for further violence. After expressing anger at efforts by a Republican to secure the appointment, Duvall wrote that "[a]ll [is] quiet in this county," with the implication that the state of affairs would change if a poor appointment was made.

After Donaldson was voted out of office, most of Donaldson's supporters left Chesterfield. Donaldson's brother-in-law, who had also been indicted for election misconduct, moved to Spartanburg and found work as a music teacher and later as a dentist. Donaldson himself moved to Columbia for a few years and then ran a rice plantation near Georgetown that he purchased. McCulla, however, remained in Chesterfield County.

McCulla seems to have left political life by the mid-1870s, and certainly his political prospects were minimal by this time as the county government was firmly in the hands of his conservative enemies. He seems to have focused on his farm in Mount Croghan township. In 1880, a census taker recorded that he employed over one hundred Black farmers, making his farm one of the largest operations in the region. .  

McCulla appears to have financially supported himself for the remainder of the nineteenth century by renting land to Black sharecroppers. He never had a family, and he certainly could not have performed all the labor that was needed on a farm by himself. I can't find a record of his death, but he was still living in Mount Croghan in 1910, when he was in his seventy years old. By this time, it appears he had largely retired. He sold most of his land in the 1900s. Some of the land was purchased by Archibald Wade Hursey who built a mill, Hursey's mill, on the land. 

Approximate location of Hursey's Mill indicated in red
Image from Google Maps

Despite the anger that had been directed at him during Reconstruction, McCulla seems to have quickly faded from public memory. In a 1949 newspaper article, an older resident, Tom Turner, was interviewed about the history of the area. Turner recalled Reconstruction as some of the "darkest days," and mentions McCulla by name (although it was printed as "McCullough"). However, he only says that McCulla was a "Yankee" who was involved with a New York-based land development company and oversaw a 2,800 acre plot of land that was rented to Black tenant farmers. No mention is made of election fraud or the misuse of the treasurer's office. In the interview, Turner remarked that many names associated with Reconstruction, "that luckless era," are "better forgotten," and the same attitude appears to apply to McCulla's actions.

The area around McCulla's farm
From South Caroliniana Library

Sources

1. The daily phoenix. [volume], November 05, 1868, Image 2

2. The Charleston daily news. [volume], March 24, 1871, Image 3

3. The daily phoenix. [volume], May 05, 1874, Image 2

4. The daily phoenix. [volume], April 06, 1871, Image 2

September Grand Jury

1. W. A. Mulloy (b. 1815). White farmer and merchant in Chesterfield C. H. 

2. Lewis Ganey (b. 1846). White farmer in Chesterfield township.

3. Thomas Britt

4. J. H. Williams (b. 1810). A white miller in Alligator township

5. D. B. Douglas (b. 1848) A white farmer in Cole Hill township.

6. O[ilver] Hanna (b. 1832) A Black farmer in Chesterfield township.

7. T[homas] D. Spencer (b. 1840). A white farmer in Chesterfield township.

8. T[homas] M. Kirkley (b. 1835). White constable in Jefferson township. Born in North Carolina. 

9. J. W. Watson (b. 1838). A white farmer in Cole Hill township. 

10. S[amuel] Wilkinson (b. 1844) A white farmer in Cole Hill township.

11. Lisbon Timmons (b. 1827). A Black farmer in Mt. Croghan township. 

12. S. Hegmen?

13. L[oad] Miller (b. 1839). A Black farmer in Jefferson township.

14. D. McLean

15. M[alcolm] McFarlan (b. abt. 1846). A Black farmer in Cole Hill township. 23

16. E. Lowry. 

17. J[ohn] H. Lowry (b. abt. 1831): White man living in Mt. Croghan township.

18. W. Miller

Emancipation in Spartanburg: Lot Farrow meets the Union army

How did freedom come to enslaved people living in the village of Spartanburg? Unlike other parts of the Confederacy, freedom only came at the very end of the war. Spartanburg County was never the site of significant fighting, and Union troops only arrived in summer 1865. 

An unusually intimate look at the experience of enslaved people that summer is offered by testimony collected by the South Claims Commission. The Claims Commission was formed to provide financial compensation to individuals who had provided supplies to the Union army. Submitted claims were carefully vetted. Claimants had to not only describe the supplies that had been taken, but they also had to demonstrate that they had remained loyal to the Union.

Within Spartanburg County, two claims were submitted, one by the widow Jemima F. Harvey. As part of her claim, Lot Farrow, a man formerly enslaved by her husband, testified about his experience at the end of the Civil War. Lot provided testimony to the Claims Commission in October 1872 (roughly seven years after he had been emancipated). He was interviewed by a claims officer, Theodore W. Parmele. Parmele was a white Union veteran from New York City, so he was someone who was sympathetic to enslaved people but also had little experience interacting with them.

Lot's testimony was offered to help the federal government assess the value of the supplies taken by Union troops and determine whether his enslaver, Milo A. Harvey, had remained loyal to the Union. In the course of offering this information, Lot gave a detailed description of events in Spartanburg upon the arrival of Union troops.

Spartanburg Village before the War

"I was born a slave in the state of South Carolina" is how Lot Farrow introduced himself to Theodore W. Parmele. Lot was in his mid-forties. For a number of years, he had been enslaved by Jemima F. Harvey's husband Milo. Lot worked for Milo as a driver and a teamster. Milo had great need for these skills as he ran a livery stable and delivered mail for the federal government. 

Both Lot and Milo lived in Spartanburg, then a small village of one thousand-some people, approximately a third of whom were enslaved. The village was home to the county courthouse and a regular market, so it served as a regional center for the county which was a rural area largely populated by small farmers. Milo had moved to Spartanburg from Pennsylvania long before the war broke out. By 1860, he had achieved considerable financial success. He employed at least four stage coach drivers and owned a private home on the north side of Spartanburg's Main Street. While Milo clearly participated in slavery, it is unclear how many people he enslaved. The 1860 census records him as having enslaved two enslaved women, but this must be incomplete as he also enslaved Lot during this period. Milo reported to the census that his personal estate was valued at $10,000, likely the value of his stable together with the people he enslaved. All in all, Milo maintained a very comfortable lifestyle for his family, although he was not a member of the South Carolina elite as he did not run a plantation.

Lot's experience with slavery was different from most slaves in South Carolina. While many slaves were bound to a plantation or a small farm, Lot regularly traveled throughout northwestern South Carolina, helping his enslaver deliver the mail. Living in Spartanburg, he had an unusually broad social network as he was in regular contact with both white people and Black people enslaved by his neighbors.

Lot likely had a family in the antebellum, although there is no direct evidence on this matter. The 1880 census records Lot as living with his wife, Adaline, and their three children. All of the children were born before Emancipation, so Adaline and Lot likely started living together before the war, although any relationship would have been informal as the law did not recognize "slave marriages."

Lot and other people who knew Milo said that he was a Confederate albeit not an enthusiastic one. Milo opposed secession, but when the Civil War broke out, he "went with his state." However, he was pessimistic of the south's prospects and felt the war was bad for both sides.  Lot, unfortunately, did not offer his opinions regarding the Confederacy, and he likely kept those closely guarded.

The only member of Milo's household who served in the Confederate army was Milo's brother, John. He enlisted at the very beginning of the war, on day after Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter. His service was undistinguished. He fell ill and was discharged from the army that September. For most of the war, life continued one as before. Milo, with help from Lot, continued to run his stable and deliver the mail, although his employer had become the Confederate government.

Until the very end of the war, Spartanburg village was far away from battlefields. The village's population swelled  as people from places like Charleston moved there seeking refuge. Most residents experienced the war indirectly though the arrival of refugees, the absence of the many young men who were serving the army, the rampant inflation (especially inflated food prices), and the collapse of the cotton market. No Union troops came near the village, but residents traveling through rural areas needed to be concerned about running into Confederate deserters, escaped Union soldiers, or common criminals who were taking advantage of the breakdown in civil order.

Lot Farrow meets the Union Army

On April 30, 1865, several weeks after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army, Union troops came to Spartanburg. The Confederacy had collapsed as a military force, but many members of the Confederate government – including President Jefferson Davis – remained at large. President Davis was believed to be traveling through South Carolina, and two cavalry brigades were sent to the state from North Carolina in pursuit of Davis and other fugitive members of the Confederate government.

One brigade of Union cavalry, led by Brevet Brigadier-General William J. Palmer, arrived in Spartanburg on the evening of the 30th. No effort was made to resist them, and they were greeted by one citizen who simply asked that they respect private property. The Union troops were evidently impressed by both the village and the conduct of its residents. One solider wrote in his journal that Spartanburg was a "pretty town" that had "many fine residences" and was a "center of wealth." He remarked that residents appeared to have accepted the defeat of the Confederacy and were eager to move on in their lives. The troops remained in good order, and there were no reports of looting or pillaging. One company (Company G, commanded by Joseph R. Lonabaugh) was stationed in the village, while the rest continued their search for fugitive Confederate officials.

It is unclear exactly when Lot first met with Union troops. Lot could not remember the month or year that he encountered Union soldiers, but he recalled that it was on a Sunday around 2 pm. Another man who was present, Hugh Holt, recalled that the event occurred in early May. The first Sunday in May was on May 7, more than a week after the troops first arrived in the town. More likely is that Hugh was mistaken, and the troops came to the stable on the 30th (which was a Sunday).

Whenever the event occurred, it began with a group of an estimated twenty mounted Union soldiers arriving at the stable around 2 p.m. while Lot was working there. Present with Lot was a white man, Richard Arnold, who boarded his horses at the stable. 

The Union soldiers were led by two officers, and when they arrived at the stable, they asked for "Lot." After Lot made his presence known, they asked him where the horses were, and he told them that they were in their stalls in the stable. Lot recognized the officers as men he had met a month earlier. They had come to Spartanburg disguised as Confederate troops from Tennessee and asked him about the stable and other matters. Evidently, they had been scouting out future sources of supply for the Union army. 

The officers were friendly with Lot and acknowledged that they had met him a month earlier in disguise. The officers had brought their troops there to requisition supplies. The cavalry unit's horses were "badly used up," and they needed fresh horses as replacement. 

The Union men proceeded to take their horses from stable. Lot sent word to his enslaver, Milo, and asked what should be done. Milo responded by saying that, "he could not help it." While the men were taking the horses, Hugh Holt, a white man who was employed by Milo, showed up, but he did nothing but watch the proceedings.

In addition to the horses and a pair of mules, Milo had stored a large amount of fodder for horses as well as food provisions in the stable. After the horses were taken away, the soldiers began taking the provisions. Lot and Richard Arnold went to a Union headquarters that had been established near the Courthouse to lodge protests. Lot was simply told that the soldiers needed the provisions more than he did. Lot was unable to hear what Richard Arnold said, but the soldiers not only left his horses alone, they even posted a guard to keep others from taking them. Mr. Arnold had been loyal to the Union (a rarity in South Carolina), so presumably, he had convinced the Union officers that he should be allowed to keep his horses as a reward for his loyalty. 

Taking the provisions took all day. There was much to carry off. Stored in the stable were 1,500 pounds of bacon and one-hundred bushels of corn, among other goods. Lot helped the soldiers load several horse wagons with corn, and the soldiers enlisted the help of "colored people" (likely people enslaved by neighbors) and had them carry provisions for them. The soldiers rewarded them by giving them some of the bacon they had requisitioned. 

The soldiers only finished taking provisions at 10 o'clock p.m. Lot remained at the stable all night. Union soldiers remained in the village. Their presence caused anxiety among residents. Many saw had their horses taken, and some had their watches stolen, but the troops remained in good order, and there was none of the pillaging or looting that was reported in other parts of the south. After more two days in Spartanburg, the Union soldiers continued south in pursuit of Confederate leaders.

Freedom comes to Lot Farrow?

In principle, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed Lot from bondage and directed the army to preserve his rights as a freeman. In practice, life for Lot continued as it did before. None of the soliders encouraged him to leave his enslaver. When the army left Spartanburg, a number of newly freed slaves joined them, but Lot was not among them.

Freedom likely came to Lot during the summer. On June 5, a Union officer issued a proclamation that all slaves were now free. However, enslavers were free to ignore as the proclamation went unenforced. The proclamation was reissued in mid-August, and Union soldiers were stationed in the village on a long-term basis. At this point, everyone began to recognize that the practice of slavery had come to an end. 

The transition to freedom appears to have gone relatively smoothly for Lot. He continued work Milo but now as a paid employee. Compared to many, Lot and Milo had an easier time adjusting to the new labor situation as Milo had long employed free laborers at his stable, and Lot simply joined their ranks.

Lot achieved enough financial success that has able to purchase his own property in 1869,  only four years after Emancipation. He lived with his family in a two acre plot on "Rutherford St." He and his wife were also able to preserve their family despite the incredible pressures put on them by enslavement and the disruption of Emancipation. Unexpectedly eloquent testimony to the warm relations in the Farrow family is found an 1882 deed in which Lot granted parts of his property to his wife and children. He said the land was given in exchange for "the sum of one dollar" and "the natural love and affection which I bear to my said wife and daughter[s]."

D. Wyatt Aiken Letters: A murder at Hodges' Depot

Col. D. Wyatt Aiken, a leading conservative in Abbeville County, was arrested for suspected involvement in the killing of Republican politician B. F. Randolph. Col Aiken had not been present at the killing, but he had given public speeches condemning Randolph in violent language, and only two days before the killing, he had personally threatened him.

The following letters provide an unusually close look at the incident from Col. Aiken's perspective. The two letters that follow are among those held by the South Caroliniana Library as part of the David Wyatt Aiken Papers collection.

The first letter, dated November 11, 1868, is a letter that Col. Aiken wrote to his daughter, Ella Gaillard, while in jail in Columbia on charges of being an accessory to the murder of Senator Randolph. Ella, aged fifteen at the time of the letter, was the oldest of Col. Aiken's children.

The letter reveals much about the conservative response to the murder of Randolph. Col. Aiken received an outpouring of support: conservative allies offered to not only pay his bail, but they also helped make his time in prison more pleasant by bringing him bedding and food. Aiken mentioned by name "Wm. McMaster," "Mr. Sloan," and "Col. Haskell."

All three men were prominent conservative lawyer / politicians who had served Confederacy: "Wm. McMaster" was likely Col. Fitz William McMaster, "Col. Haskell" Alexander Cheves Haskell, and "Mr. Sloan" John Trimmier Sloan. (Both John T. Sr. and Jr. were active in politics, so it could have been a reference to either of them.) F. W. McMaster would go on to provide the legal defense for a prominent conservative leader during 1871 Ku Klux Klan criminal trial.

Col. Aiken also received support from less prominent conservatives. The unnamed jailer was a former Confederate solider, and he went out of his way to treat the colonel with kindness. While South Carolina conservatives complained loudly about being unjustly crushed by a tyrannical Republican government, Col. Aiken appeared to have been treated very generously by the criminal justice system.

Columbia [unreadable]

Nov 11 68

My Dear Daughter,

When I left here the other day I hoped to be able either to meet you on your way down, or at any rate at the Depot in Col. [i.e. "in the city of Columbia"]. But I had no control of my time here, nor have I yet. On my arrival here I was put in a carriage, and taken directly to a magistrate's office, and though allowed an interview with my lawyer, I was sent to jail. The Constable, who ordered my arrest, seeing the universal sympathy that was manifested for me, went with me to the jail and ordered the comfortable quarters for me. A friend sent me a lounge, Wm. McMaster bed, Mr. Sloan my excellent meals, and all the acquaintances I had in Col. called to see me, each proffering to go on my bond to any amount and to bail me out of jail. there was no judge before whom I could appear in Col. except Judge Hoge, + I declined having anything to do with him for you remember, he was the man that I lectured so severely that day at Hodges Depot. So Wm. McMaster, my lawyer, sent to Lexington for Judge Boozer, who did not reach here until late last night. And as the Attorney General, who is to represent the State against me, was not here but in Charleston, he had to be telegraphed for and this evening at 5 O'Clock set by the judge as the hour for my appearance before him. As soon as the the result is known will note it on this letter and mail it to you + you must read  + send to Aunt Ellen. This letter is [as] you may file away to be read long in the future as an epistle written to you by your father when in jail. Only think of it, yesterday as the Greenville train rolled into the depot I looked through the bars of my grated window + wondered if my daughter was in that train, and knew how sad would be her happy heart if she knew where her imprisoned father stood looking for + thinking of her. I hope, however, to get out of this prison this evening. Except for the first hour or two I have not feel that I was in close confinement though when the first grating of the heavy bar + turning of the iron lock that closed my cast iron door, was heard, my very pores oozed a cold sweat that made me feel miserable. After the sheriff + constable left the house, however, the jailor came came up to see who I was + when he found out that I had been a Col. in the Brigade [i.e. a colonel in a Confederate army brigade] in which he fought, he said "Col. I'll push to the door + you may ordered it locked if you wish." He has been very kind to me and says, he knows me too well to keep me as he would an ordinary prisoner. Everybody has been so kind to me. One man, whom I only knew by name, sent me word he would secure my bond for $100,000 if necessary. Another told Col Haskell to tell me he was envious of me. Poor mother doesn't know that father is in jail, or she would go crazy. I told Joel to write her + not mention it + told him not to let you girls show it. I have not seen him to learn whether you really went down. I suppose you did. I will write you again from home + am afraid it will be a lecture, for I intended giving both you + Mattie. Kiss Mattie for me. Study hard both of you. Third regards to Dr. + Wm. For + Love to Uncle Joe + family

Yours affectionately,

Father

The other letter is a January 15, 1869 letter written to Col. Aiken. While the letter-writer signed his name, I can't read the signature, but he appears to be a local conservative politician. He was writing a few months after Randolph's murder, and this was evidently a time when Aiken's alleged involvement in Randolph's murder was coming under increased scrutiny. The letter-writer was writing to express sympathy and share what he remembered of Col's Aiken's actions. 

Two things are notable about this letter. First, it shows that Col. Aiken and the anonymous letter-writer (and presumably many other conservatives) show no remorse for Randolph's murder or the the own violent rhetoric in the months proceeding the killing. Second, the letter supports the theory that Col. Aiken's involvement in the killing was limited to violent public rhetoric. The letter 

Abbeville S. C. Jan 15 '69

Dear Col: 

Yours of 13th inst. was read today and I hasten to reply.

I well remember the occasion to which you refer and much that you said. You spoke of Randolph as having visited Greenville for the purpose of counteracting the effect of the democratic mass meeting which had lately been held there, and supposed that he would follow for a similar purpose in the wake of the one which you were then addressing – that his mission was of the most incendiary character, tending to array the black man against the white man and thus leading to bloodshed – that in so doing he would deserve death as a public [warning], and you felt addressing that if he came into your neighborhood preaching such sentiment he would get what he deserved, a piece of ground six feet by three. The foregoing is the substance of the allusion made by you to Randolph as I remember it. Of course I understood it as everybody else did, spoken in the heat of a political campaign and I have no more idea that the saying had any more to do with the killing of Randolph than the remarks of any other speaker upon the occasion.

I have seen Whipper bill. It is atrocious, as is also the vindictive persecution of which you have been made the subject. 

Be addressed of my sympathy and hope of your speedy + swift deliverance.

Yours Truly, 

Sources

1. [Letter; 15 Jan. (18)69, Abbeville, S.C., to 'Dear Col.' (David Wyatt Aiken Aiken, David Wyatt (1828-1887)], Folder 9. South Carolinians Library. 

2. [Letter to Ella Gaillard Aiken regarding jail], Aiken, David Wyatt (1828-1887) Folder 9. South Caroliniana Library.

Who murdered B. F. Randolph?

Who murdered South Carolina Senator B. F. Randolph? William K. Tolbert, Joshua Logan, and John West Talbert were the murderers. There is no serious question of this. Tolbert confessed to the shooting, and implicated the other two. His testimony was supported by four additional witnesses, two of whom had witnessed then shooting themselves. 

But naming the killers is only a first step in understanding the crime. The shooters were clearly not acting on their own. They were part of a large crowd that had gathered as the Hodges Depot train station to watch Randolph die. What brought William K. Tolbert, Joshua Logan, and John West Talbert to the train station? Why did they commit the crime? How were they connected with conservative political leaders? In this blogpost, we'll try to answer these questions and then look at the longterm impact of the killing.

Bringing the assassins to justice

The answers we have to question, "Who killed B F Randolph?" were generated by efforts by state officials, so let's begin by looking at how the legal system responded to the killing.

Holding the perpetrators responsible presented an immense challenge to South Carolina's criminal justice system. Up until a few month before the murder, the civilian courts were suspended, and the legal system was run by the army. While the courts were now open, nobody was entirely sure about what they were suppose to do as a recent revision to the state constitution had reorganized the legal system. 

In the case of Randolph's murder, the greatest difficulty was the practical matter of bringing the perpetrators to court. The state's law enforcement was minimal. There was nothing like a modern police force. Typically, law enforcement in Abbeville County was handled by the county sheriff. A South Carolina sheriff did not have a large staff and instead would deputize volunteers when he needed additional manpower. In the case of political violence like the killing of Randolph, a major problem was often that the sheriff had no interest in apprehending the perpetrators. The sheriff was elected and lived in the community, so he was often a representative of white conservatives. This appeared to have been the case in Abbeville. The sheriff was Henry S. Cason, a white man who had worked as a merchant in Abbeville before the Civil War. Records about Cason are scarce, but he appears to have been a conservative. In any case, the sheriff appears to have made no effort to apprehend Randolph's murderers.

The other instrument for law enforcement was the chief constable. The chief constable, John H. Hubbard, had been appointed by the governor, so he was fully supportive of stopping political violence against Republicans. Statewide, he oversaw twenty-four constables, six of which were assigned to Abbeville County. In their efforts to hold Randolph's assassins accountable, they arrested two conservative leaders who were suspected of having plotting the assassination. This was one of the few instances were political leaders were arrested for suspected involvement with political violence. 

The first person arrested was Col. D. Wyatt Aiken. Col. Aiken was planter and a leading figure in county conservative politics. He had declared in a speech that Senator Randolph should be given "four feet by six" (i.e. a coffin) if he comes to Abbeville County. This was one of several violent public denunciations he had made, and only two days before the murder, he had even threatened Randolph in person.

At the request of the chief constable, a magistrate (Solomon) issued an arrest warrant for Col. Aiken on a charge of accessory to murder. On November 9  (approximately a month after the assassination), a posse of two deputies and three Union soldiers arrested him and brought him to Columbia. Col. Aiken spent a day or two in jail and then was released on bond. After his release, Aiken published a public letter to the governor expressing harsh criticism over his treatment. He claimed he was "feloniously incarcerated" and accused the governor of tyranny, comparing him to the French king Louis XIV ("proclaim 'I AM THE STATE'"). The chief constable he called a "hiring." Most remarkably, he warned that the governor was risking further violence. He closed the letter with a warning that, if the governor persisted in his "scheme of tyranny," then he predicted that it would "redound with serious consequences upon the heads of higher officers than the chief constable, you will not charge me with 'being accessory before the fact,' for the exasperated consequence upon such cruelty is widespread and not confined to a single race." This statement seems to be a long-winded and indirect way of threatening that the governor with violence if he persisted in his law enforcement efforts, a shocking statement of make when when several politicians had  been assassinated.

A second arrest was made on December 24. That morning, the chief constable and five or six of his deputies arrested J. Fletcher Hodges. He was a member of a prominent family (his father George W. Hodges was the founder and namesake of Hodges' Depot), and although he was not a leading figure in county politics like Col. Aiken, he certainly had potential. The evidence against Hodges was stronger than that against Col. Aiken. While Aiken had not been present at the train station when Randolph was killed,  multiple witnesses had not only seen Hodges there, but they had even testified that he had mocked Randolph's corpse. Moreover, one witness testified that, the night before the murder, he had heard Hodges talking about how Randolph was going to be murdered at the train station. Despite this, the results were the same. After less than a week in jail, Hodges was released on bail. Neither Col. Aiken nor Hodges faced further legal consequences after they were released, and conservative leaders had some success in making their arrests into a cause célèbre.

A big break in the case occurred in January 1869. That month the chief constable arrested one of the accused triggermen: William J. Tolbert. His arrest was reported on January 11. The details are somewhat confused. Newspapers reported that he'd been arrested in swamp, but he evidently had already agreed to turn himself into the authorities. After his arrest, he told authorities that his two accomplices, Joshua Logan and John West Talbert, fled the state after being given $1,000 as aid.

A month after his arrest, Tolbert testified before a congressional subcommittee charged with investigated the election held in November. His testimony was explosive. He not only offered a detailed account of the murder of Randolph, but he explained how leading conservatives had been behind the murder and other acts of political violence.

Legal efforts to hold Randolph's murderers accountable ended on a strange note. Tolbert escaped from the state penitentiary on August 2, 1869 (after he'd been imprisoned for roughly half a year). In December, an Abbeville constable (Jerry Hollingshead) received information that Tolbert was at a dance held in a private home. The constable went to arrest Tolbert, but when he attempted to do so, Tolbert resisted and the two exchanging gunfire. The constable was seriously injured, and Tolbert killed. This brought an end to the government's efforts to obtain justice for B. F. Randolph.

Tolbert's Testimony

William K. Tolbert's testimony at the February 1869 congressional committee hearing offers a lot of insight into the nature of conservative political violence. Tolbert said that he and his two accomplices (Talbert and Logan) had originally gone to Hodges' Depot to hear Randolph speak, However, when they got there, they were told that he would not be speaking there. Instead, he would be taking the train to Anderson and delivering a speech there. Tolbert learned of this from the group of men who had gathered around the train station. The group included Langdon Corner, James Cochran, Fletcher Hodges, and John Brooks.

The men gathered at the train station were there because they were angry with Randolph. Many said that he had been engaged in provocative political speech. At one public meeting, he was said to have threatened to "burn up the state," a serious threat as many property-owners feared arson

The men evidently were planning attempting to murder Randolph because they had come to the train station armed, and while waiting for him, they engaged in target practice. Shortly before Randolph's train pulled in, some of the men suggested that Tolbert, Talbert, and Logan should be the shooters as they were less likely to be recognized. When Randolph's train pulled into the state, Langdon Conner asked the train conductor if Randolph was a passenger. After being told he was, Conner informed the others, and they took positions on the train platform. After Randolph changed trains and took a seat, James Cochran expressed concern that the shooters were disguised but decided that Randolph needed to be killed before he left town. Fletcher Hodges then came up to the shooters with a roll of money, and said that the money is Tolbert's once Randolph is dead. Around this time, Randolph got off his seat and walked to the platform of his car. John Brooks came over to Tolbert and others, pointed out Randolph, and instructed them to kill Jim. William K. Tolbert, Joshua Logan, and John West Talbert then shot Randolph dead and rode off.

Political violence in Abbeville

A close look at William K. Tolbert's testimony and related evidence shows that conservative political violence functioned in the manner described by Elaine Frantz in her book Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction. Focusing on Ku Klux violence in York County, she argues that Ku Klux violence developed out a partnership between the local criminal element and conservative elites. Violent criminals, otherwise uninterested in state politics, targeted Republicans in exchange for conservatives elite's political and financial support. 

Apolitical criminals seems to be an apt descriptions of William K. Tolbert, Joshua Logan, and John West Talbert. According to Tolbert, the three shot Randolph because they were offered money by the son of the founder of Hodges' Depot. While Tolbert understandably did not present himself a a career criminal to the congressional subcommittee, this seems to be what he was. In public testimony, both conservatives and Republicans described Tolbert and the other two as notorious "bad men." Congressman George Dusenberry described them as being part of a group of "reckless men, here, who would kill man for five dollars and a little whiskey." J. A. Leland called these men a "small band of ruffians" who were a general menace to the community. Each Saturday, he said, they would engage in "rowdyism, swearing, drinking, and shooting pistols," and they would prey on freedmen during the night. Citizens were afraid to try and arrest them, and women were so frightened that they would not go around at night. 

Tolbert was a member of the democratic party, and at the time, membership provided him with considerable license to commit crime. According to Tolbert, the regional Democratic Party included a secret sub-organization that he called the Ku Klux Klan. The main function of the main function of the sub-organization was to suppress the Republican party, especially by disrupting the activities of the Union Leagues (which helped organized Black voters). They organized regular patrols to find and break up Union League meetings. They also tried to suppress the Republican vote at the November 1868 election by having Ku Kluxers go through the community, demanding that Republican voters turn over their ballots which they proceeded to destroy.

Some easy to overlook details about the murder of congressman James Martin (the assassination that directly preceded that of Randolph) suggest the manner in which criminals took advantage of the political situation. Martin was killed while transporting a barrel of whiskey. The whiskey-trade a major part of criminal activity, and getting a whole of the barrel may have been as significant a motive anything political. The previous day the ten-year old son of Congressman was sent to Martin's to pick up some whiskey, and on his way back, he was waylaid by men who took the whiskey he had purchased. Those men may have been the very same ones who murdered Congressman Martin.

It is unclear if the murder of B. F. Randolph was formally organized by the Democratic Party. Tolbert said that earlier voter suppression acts had been planned at regular party meetings but he had learned of Randolph's visit informally. However, the distinction does not seem to be that significant. A number of democrats were present for the killed, and they included the men who instructed Tolbert and the others to commit the act. 

The aftermath

What was the long-term significance of the assassination of B. F.  Randolph and other Republican politicians. The political violence certainly did not lead to the Democratic Party gaining power. The Republican Party enjoyed a strong political base as Black voters made up more than 60% of the electorate, and voter suppression was not enough to over come this. Republicans continued to win major elections until the 1876 which saw the statewide collapse of the Republican Party. 

Democrats themselves seem to have decided that political violence was ineffective. There are few recorded acts of violence after Randolph's killing, and when Ku Klux Klan violence erupted in 1871, Abbeville was not among those counties were civil liberties were suspending, indicating that violence was not a problem there. 

At the same time, the assassination was highly significant. On the most basic level the Republican party lost a leading politician. Randolph was hard to replace too: few Republicans in South Carolina had qualifications comparable to Randolph's college education and military service. 

The killing also appears to have had a chilling effect on local Republican leaders. A number appear to have become political allies of the Democrats in 1876. Aaron Mitchell, one of men who had accompanied Randolph on the fatal train ride, gave political speeches in favor of the Democratic candidate and was even participated in an Abbeville rally for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Wade Hampton. In congressional testimony, he explained that he had joined the Democrats because he was disgusted with the corruption and incompetence of the Republican party, but certainly, witnessing the murder of leading Republican must have impressed upon him the power of the Democrats.

Sources 

1. "Arrest of Colonel D. Wyatt Aiken" The daily phoenix, November 10, 1868, Image 2

2. Edgefield advertiser. [volume], November 18, 1868, Image 3

3. The daily phoenix. [volume], December 25, 1868, Image 2

4. "More arrests in Abbeville." The daily phoenix. [volume], December 30, 1868, Image 1

5. The Charleston daily news. [volume], December 31, 1868, Image 3

6. The Charleston daily news. [volume], January 12, 1869, Image 1

7. "The Randolph Murder – One of the Perpetrators Surrenders Himself." The southern enterprise. [volume], January 13, 1869, Image 2

8. "On the Wing." The Charleston daily news. [volume], January 25, 1869, Image 1

9. Abbeville press. [volume], February 19, 1869, Image 1

10. The Anderson intelligencer. [volume], March 04, 1869, Image 2

11. Abbeville press. [volume], March 12, 1869, Image 2

12. The Anderson intelligencer. [volume], March 04, 1869, Image 2

13. "The New Regime." The Charleston daily news. [volume], November 19, 1868, Image 4

14. The daily phoenix. [volume], January 13, 1869, Image 2

15. The Abbeville press and banner. [volume], December 17, 1869, Image 2

16. The daily phoenix. [volume], December 04, 1869, Image 2

17. The Charleston daily news. [volume], December 08, 1869, Image 1

Assassination in Abbeville: The murder of B. F. Randolph

B. F. Randolph
From Wikipedia

Nineteenth century Ku Klux violence reached its height in the South Carolina counties of Spartanburg, York, and Union in 1871. However, political violence in the state began three years earlier with political killings of the Republican politicians B. F. Randolph, Solomon G. W. Dill, and James Martin. These incidents took place in different parts of the state: the counties of Abbeville, Kershaw, and Newberry.

The most shocking of these murders was that of state senator B. F. Randolph. Senator Randolph was shot to death in broad daylight at the Hodges' Depot train station. His killers are often referred to as Ku Klux Klan members, but here we'll take a close look at who actually participating in the act. We'll see that incident does not fit into the usual image of Ku Klux violence, although it was undoubtably a political murder. 

The fact that Randolph was killed at Hodges' Depot is itself noteworthy as Randolph had no real connection to the town. Hodges' Depot (now just Hodges) is located in the northwestern part of the state. Now it is part of Greenwood County, but at the time, Greenwood did not exist, and the area was part of Abbeville County. Randolph was a senator for a county in the Midlands, namely Orangeburg. Randolph had never spent a significant time in the northwestern part of the state. He had come to South Carolina during the Civil War as Union soldier. Like a number of former Union soldiers, he had stayed in the state after being mustered out of the army. He first lived in Charleston, but once Reconstruction started, he became an elected official for Orangeburg.

Randolph was able to rapidly advance in state politics as post-war South Carolina presented him with great opportunities. After Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts (enfranchising Black voters), there was a great need for politicians in South Carolina who could represent newly freed Black South Carolinians, and Randolph was perfectly suited for this role. Born free in Kentucky to Back parents, he had attended Oberlin College, completing the school's college preparatory program and one year of college. After his studies, he had worked as a school principal in Buffalo, New York for a few years before the Civil War broke out and he joined the army. His college education and military experience were rare and valuable political credentials during this time. 

Randolph's first major political position was as a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention (where delegates revised the constitution in accordance with the Reconstruction Acts). He was then elected to a four-year term as the state senator for Orangeburg County.

The same traits that made Randolph a success in politics also made him into a figure of hatred for conservatives. A reporter for the New York World newspaper called described him as a "thicklipped, lustful mulatto." A number of newspapers within the state gave him the mocking nickname "Rev. Burnt District Randolph." A month before he was murdered, the Charleston Daily News published the following description of a speech he gave at the statehouse:

This allusion to the power of the press [by another senator], kindled the dormant wrath of the Burnt District [i.e. Senator Randolph]. The smoke and flames broke forth in suffocating forty. In fact the Burnt District was in its most flaming condition. Lying rebels and rampant disloyalty were the staples of his irate harangue. But the speech cannot be properly appreciated without some idea of the appearance of the poor devil in the act of uttering it. There he stood, not square, fleshy and saddle-colored as he was familiar to the citizens of Charleston before the renowned adventure that gave him his sobriquet; but long, lank, cadaverous, loosely jointed, his leather colored skin surcharged with bile and clinging dark and discolored to his high cheek bones, his long black coat hanging from his shoulders as if from two pegs, his beard unshaven for three days, a proportionate amount of dirt unwashed, his left hand holding the lapel of his coat, his right army pumping up and down in his favorite gesture which he learned in his boyhood in his efforts to procure the water which he carried on his head in the streets of his native Mud Town. . . . The amount of malice that animates this scarecrow can only be accounted for by supporting the heart (?) to be as hideous as the body.

While this was one of the longer diatribes against him, the general tone and attitude was indicative of his general treatment by the press. 

Map of Abbeville County
From South Carolinians Library

Background to the Murder

In light of the inflammatory rhetoric published by the newspapers, it is not perhaps not surprising that political violence began breaking out. The new state constitution, which granted Black men a number of political rights including the right to vote, was ratified on April 16, 1868. Prior to that, conservatives hoped that they could defeat attempts to enfranchise former slaves through conventional political means like organizing voters to oppose the newly proposed constitution. Those efforts were soundly defeated. Not only was the constitution ratified, but in late April, an election was held under the new constitution and it resulted in a Republican-dominated state government being elected by that state's Black majority. It was then that conservatives turned to political violence as a means for regaining power.

The first acts of political violence were small-scale threats and violent acts against Republican voters, especially local Black political leaders. The first major political assassination took place on June 4, a little over a month after the new state legislature was elected. That evening, a group men approached the home of a Kershaw County congressman, Solomon G. W. Dill, and then discharged firearms. The senator and another man were killed, and the senator's wife was seriously injured. 

The murder occurred during a time of heightened tensions as an election for county offices had been held on the previous day. It is not entirely clear why Congressman Dill was targeted as he is a somewhat obscure figure. He only appeared in the historical record after his 1868 election as a convention delegate. He was a white man in his late forties who had spent his life in South Carolina, much of in Charleston. He appears to have moved to Kershaw to serve in politics. Dill was killed before the state legislature convened, so he must have been killed for his political rhetoric (which was incendiary) and the general offense of being a white South Carolinian aligned with the Republican party.

The next major political murder took place on October 5. Abbeville County's congressman, James Martin, was killed while traveling home by wagon from the village of Abbeville. Three men on horseback overtook the wagon and shot Martin with pistols. 

Other than being a member of the Republican Party, Congressman Martin does not seem to have done anything particularly controversial. He was an Irish immigrant who had worked as a merchant in Abbeville before the Civil War. He did not have much of a political record, and he appears to have been killed as a part of a general plan to assassinate the county's Republican legislators. The other legislators survived simply because they took major precautions after Martin's murder. For example, Abbeville's senator, after learning of Congressman Martin's death, slept in the woods for several nights and then disguised himself and traveled by train to the state capitol of Columbia.

R. F. Randolph
From Library of Congress

Randolph's Murder

Senator Randolph was a far more prominent politician than Congressman Martin or Senator Dill. That September, he was elected chairman of the Republican's State Central Committee. It was in that capacity he was traveling around the state. 

Randolph was well aware of the problems with political violence in the state. The previous month, he proposed a resolution to ask the governor what the legislature needed to preserve the peace, noting that "many lawless acts have recently been committed" and "the former leaders of late rebellion by their journals and public speakers are again advising and urging resistance to civil authority."

Randolph was personally warned about the potential for violence in Abbeville County. After Abbeville's state senator fled to Columbia following the murder of Congressman Martin, he met with Randolph. Randolph had been appointed to make speeches in Abbeville, and the county's senator warned that doing so "would be very dangerous for you." 

Despite the warning, Randolph traveled to the county on October 16, only a few weeks after the murder of Congressman Martin. He traveled with Associate Justice Solomon L. Hoge, a prominent Republican. They planned to speak at the village of Abbeville, but before arriving there, their train stopped in Hodges' Depot, so they could switch trains. 

As Randolph and Hoge were changing trains, Col. D. Wyatt Aiken, a prominent planter active in regional conservative politics, approached and engaged them in a conversation. He asked if was speaking with B. F. Randolph. After Senator Randolph affirmed that he was, Col. Aiken told him, "You damned son of a bitch, you have no business here." He went on to warn that, if all white men were like him, Randolph would not set foot again in his railroad car. Randolph stood firm and said that he was going to take the train to Abbeville and speak. The conversation then ended with Col. Aiken telling him that, if he did so, he would never see the capital city of Columbia again. 

Randolph and Hoge delivered speeches the next day. Hoge left that evening, while Randolph planned to leave the next day for the town of Anderson, where he was scheduled to speak. Unfortunately for him, just as Col. Aiken had threatened, conservatives in Hodges' Depot and the neighboring village of Cokesbury began planning to murder him. That evening in Cokesbury, Henry Nash, a Black man who was running for county commissioner, overhead two white men, Fletcher Hodges and Sam Simmons, discussing their plans for the next day. They not only stated that they were going kill Randolph, but that anyone who wanted to see him killed should go to the depot when the train whistled.

The next day, Randolph boarded the train, and when it pulled into Hodges' Depot, a large group of white men had gathered around the depot. Estimates of the group ranged from about eleven to fifty men. The group included Fletcher Hodges, the man who had planned to kill him the previous night. Also present were two local Black political leaders, Aaron Mitchell and Thomas Williamson, who were there to greet Randolph. Aaron had brought his daughter. Seemingly oblivious to the danger he was in, Randolph grabbed his baggage and then switched trains. As he did so, he began chatting with Aaron and Thomas about routine political matters. After finding a seat on the new train and setting down his personal belongings, he went to the door of his train car, continuing talking to Aaron and Thomas. At that moment, the assassins struck.

Some of the white men at the depot had begun walking up and down the train, looking into the train cars. When Randolph emerged from his car, a number of men drew revolvers and three of them opened fire. Randolph was hit multiple times. Aaron Mitchell was standing less than two feet away from him, and Randolph's blood splashed him in his face. The whole scene was witnessed by Aaron's daughter.

Aaron Mitchell had come armed with a pistol which he drew and pointed at one of the assassins. That assassin bent down to avoid being shot, and the other two pointed their pistols at Aaron, daring him to shoot: "Let him shoot. I will fix him." Aaron put his gun away and returned to the train car. The assassins then began walking away from the train, taking care to pick up their percussion caps as they went. Once they got about 50 yards away, they put their guns away. They then walked to a store owned by James Cochran. When they got close, two men emerged from the store and asked, "Did you get him?" One of the assassins replied, "By God, we have got him." They then got on horses and rode away.

After the men left, Aaron Mitchell ran over to inspect Randolph and found him dead. While he was inspecting the corpse, Fletcher Hodges (who had spoken about murdering Randolph on the previous day) came over and asked, "What is this?"Aaron responded, "They have shot this man." Fletcher asked Aaron who had shot him and got an evasive answer, "It is not worth while to ask me; the men are known and there is not a man here but knows them." Fletcher responded with an implicit threat: "Well, you had better mind how you talk; you don't know whether they are known or not."

After the exchange, Fletcher walked over to the Randolph corpse and exclaimed, "Yesterday you boasted, and thanked your God, that negro blood run through your veins, but now it is running on the ground." Upset at the remark, Aaron began to exchange words with Fletcher, but he was taken aside by another one of the white men, Langdon Conner. Langdon advises him, "Aaron, you come away from here and shut your mouth or some of them will hurt you." Aaron followed the advice, but before leaving, he tried to take some of Randolph's personal effects. However, a third man, Pompey Davis, stopped him and told him to leave it. Finally, Aaron gathered a group of four Black men to move Randolph's corpse, but the white men in the crowd would not let him, so he got in his train car and returned home.

Randolph's corpse was left lying on the ground overnight. The next day, a group of men placed him in a coffin, and it was sent by train to Columbia. On Sunday October 18, funeral services for Randolph were held at the Bethel A.M.E. Church. He apparently was given a cemetery burial, but it unclear where exactly he was buried. In 1871, a new cemetery, Randolph Cemetery, was named in his honor, and was supposedly reburied there, but no headstone or burial plot has been identified. 

Closing thoughts

At the start of this post, I observed that Randolph's murder is often referred to as one of the first incidents of Ku Klux Klan violence, but a close look at the event shows important differences from Ku Klux Klan violence. The incident differed from typical Ku Klux Klan violence in that the target was a statewide political leader, rather than a local leader. Moreover, the murder had none of the theatrics of typical Ku Klux attacks: the murderers didn't wear any of the elaborate disguises or pretend to be supernatural creature. They also didn't make any effort to disguise their actions. Not only did the murder occur in broad daylight in front of a large audience, but it was publicized in advance, and political supporters were invited to show up. In a later post, we'll take a closely look at the assassins, and this will further highlight the nature of the murder. The assassins were well-known local criminals who were given "a roll of money" for killing.

The murder of B. F. Randolph is unusual for an additional reason. He actually received a measure of justice. One of the assassins was arrested, imprisoned, and then later killed by law enforcement after escaping jail. While imprisoned, he gave testimony about the killing. This, together with personal records of Col. Wyatt, provides an unusually close look at murder from the perspective of the perpetrators.

The daily phoenix. August 21, 1869

Sources

1) "A Brace of Carpet-Baggers–The Men who would Rule South Carolina. The Orangeburg news, August 8, 1868, p. 1.

2) "State Republican Convention." The Anderson intelligencer. [volume], September 16, 1868, p. 2

3) "From the State Capitol." The Charleston daily news. [volume], September 23, 1868, Image 1

4) "Randolph's Scape" The Orangeburg news. [volume], April 11, 1868, Image 5

5) "Dreadful Murder." The daily phoenix. [volume], October 09, 1868, Image 1

6) The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Abbeville, South Carolina; Roll: M653_1212; Page: 37; Family History Library Film: 805212

7) The Charleston daily news. [volume], September 11, 1868, Image 1

8) Abbeville press. [volume], October 09, 1868, Image 3

9) "'Burnt District' on the Rampage." The Anderson intelligencer. [volume], September 09, 1868, Image 2

10) Keowee courier. [volume], December 10, 1869, Image 2

11) "One Thousand Dollar Reward!" The daily phoenix. [volume], August 21, 1869, Image 1