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Violence and the Rights of African Americans in Civil War-Era Indiana
RICHARD F. NATION
| In August 1859, an African-American man by the name of James Hays was attacked and brutally beaten by a small group of Franklin County white men, allegedly under the hire of George W. Kimble, Hays's employer. The intention of the beating was to drive Hays from the neighborhood, forcing him to join the substantial exodus of African Americans from Franklin County and indeed from the whole of rural southern Indiana.1 While Hays did move his family just across the county line into Fayette County, he stood up to Kimble and his hired thugs, who faced not only criminal prosecution but were forced to reply to the civil action Hays filed against them. |
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In Indiana, African Americans were not welcome members of the social or political community. The few rights they held under the law were constantly at risk of being denied by the racist practices of European-American residents. The scale of legal limits imposed on African Americans equaled or surpassed that of the neighboring states of Ohio and Illinois, although there is some evidence that many of the laws were not enforced. The best single measure of white feeling about African Americans occurred earlier in the 1850s, when Hoosiers voted on a referendum regarding the exclusion of blacks from the state. Five-sixths voted for it, and in Franklin County, as in most of the southern third of the state, the anti-black position gained over ninety percent of the vote. The story of Hays's beating, however, was more than a simple tale of racial violence; it also involved sexual, party, and class politics. As we will see, Kimble's determination to drive Hays from Franklin County was motivated primarily by Kimble's relationship with Hays's wife, Elizabeth. Further, Hays's ability to stand his ground derived from his unlikely alliance with local Democratic leaders who sought to use the case to embarrass Kimble, a leader of the county Republicans. Ultimately, Kimble's power to resist Hays's allegations rested not in his role in the Republican party nor even in his racial identity, but in the power that his wealth could buy. Yet to ignore the racial issue would be to overlook the central reason that Kimble chose violence and, perhaps more important, the reason that he was able to find others willing to do this deed. Taken together, these interwoven elements of James Hays's story highlight the complex interplay of race, politics, gender, and class in Indiana on the eve of the Civil War.2 |
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That an antebellum Republican county leader would instigate violence against an African American might not surprise those who know the period well; yet the response to this particular act—Democrats coming to an African American's defense—certainly requires reconsideration of the absolute quality of the racism often attributed to the Democratic party in this era. |
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To begin that process of rethinking such simple theses, this article examines closely the small mysteries of individual lives such as Kimble's and Hays's.3 Much of what follows is cautious and tentative as a result of the gaps in the historical record. But some of the evidence is clear. Democrats for a time supported an African-American man. The evidence of sexual impropriety was sufficient grounds for divorce. And James Hays was beaten. |
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