The 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre

by C. Dier

  The second account, told by black and white Republicans, is the one Lee favored. According to this account, as the freedmen were leaving Ong’s residence, they stopped at Feliu’s to buy whiskey. Feliu, aware of the surrounding violence and the intentions of the freedmen, appeared at the window and fired his shotgun toward those closest to his home. Before reloading, he picked up another shotgun and fired, wounding several freedmen. Two wounded men were rushed to Thomas Ong’s plantation for assistance. Feliu repeated the process with multiple guns. After at least twenty shots, there was a pause, perhaps to reload, and it provided the freedmen the opportunity to ambush his residence. Feliu killed the first intruder, Thompson Morgan, before falling victim to multiple gunshot wounds. The freedmen looted and then set fire to his home, burning the bodies of both Feliu and Morgan.123

  Lee gives credence to the second account in his report. He claims:

  I give it as my opinion after the most careful and patient inquiry in relation to this matter, that the attack on Pablo Felio [sic] was not premeditated on the part of the freedmen, or any one else, that they did not attack his house until after he had fired into them: that he fired the first shots, wounding several freedmen—shedding the first blood, and that [had] he acted with any degree of judgment or presence of mind, neither himself or his house would have been injured by the freedmen.124

  Although Lee believes the second version to be more accurate, he claims to be “at a loss to understand why one man would fire into a hundred freedmen, the greater number of whom were armed.” For unstated reasons in any of the accounts, the freedmen dispersed after the incident with Feliu, perhaps realizing they could not muster an adequate defense against mounted men armed with shotguns.125

  Louis Wilson, a freedman who gave his testimony to Lieutenant J.M. Lee, was with the group that night. According to Wilson, who referred to Feliu as “Mr. Powells,” the events transpired as such:

  We started up about dark, when we got up as far as Mr. Powells the Baker—some of the colored men says “Let’s go and take a drink.” We went to the door which was shut, knocked at the door. The colored people used to get drinks there. Mr. Powell did not open the door, but jumped up, came to the window, and shot into the crowd. He hit Isaiah Johnson in the leg, and “little Jacob,” of Gen. Lee’s plantation in the head; John Proctor in the ankle and Billy Smith in the leg. He shot them with buckshot I believe. I think Powell and his son fired about fifty shots.

  He fired first. The colored men just let him shoot, the colored men fell back, and after he got done shooting they went back to the house, put fire to it, I don’t know who, and began firing into the house at Powell. He fired from the window below. I don’t know anything about any colored men pushing his wife into the fire. I never heard the colored men threaten anything about going to Powells to attack the house or him.126

  Wilson believed Feliu’s son was present because of the number of rounds fired. However, it was really due to the number of guns Feliu preloaded. As terrifying as this ordeal was, it would not compare to the carnage Wilson would face the next day.

  The story of Feliu’s death was perhaps the most convoluted story of the entire saga. Newspapers around the country falsely reported that the freedmen murdered numerous others that night, including innocent children and some of Feliu’s family members. According to Wilson’s testimony, he was aware of a rumor that some of the freedpeople pushed Feliu’s wife into the fire. However, Feliu’s family was in fact either hiding in the nearby canebrake or in New Orleans at the time. It is unknown whether the newspapers knew the truth of Feliu’s family and fabricated information for political or racial motives or they believed the information they published was accurate. The Columbus Daily Enquirer based in Columbus, Georgia, reported:

  The city has all day been filled with rumors of trouble in St. Bernard parish, adjoining New Orleans, below the city. From information brought to headquarters by the sheriff of the parish, and others, it appears that a difficulty occurred yesterday on the occasion of a public display by a couple of Democratic clubs, in which one white man was wounded and two negroes killed, one being a member of the new Metropolitan police force. At night the negroes congregated and proceeded in a body to the house of a Spanish baker, killing him, his son and sister-in-law, and burning his house. His wife escaped with a child in her arms. The other houses reported burned, at one of which four children are reported killed. Rumors are various and conflicting as to the extent of the outrages. Many white inhabitants of the parish deserted their homes last night and fled to this city.127

  This article inaccurately speculates that Michael Curtis, the white Metropolitan police officer who was murdered, was African American. Hundreds of newspapers reiterated a similar narrative. The New York Herald published this account:

  Another riot has occurred in Louisiana, and, from the telegraphic accounts, appears to have been attended with more brutal scenes, although with probably the loss of fewer lives, and to have occasioned more deep-seated indignation and excitement among the whites than any of the previous ones. In St. Bernard parish, just below New Orleans, on Sunday, an affray took place between negro and white clubs, in which, as usual, the negroes were the heavier losers in killed and wounded, two of them being killed, while one white man was wounded. At night, however, the blacks wreaked their demoniac vengeance on the innocent and helpless, burning three houses and killing a man and woman, it is believed, five children.128

  The article continued with news of “large crowds of white men” gathering in New Orleans upon hearing the news. They attempted to charter three steamboats into St. Bernard Parish to join the mayhem but were refused by General Lovell Harrison Rousseau, who claimed he was going to send troops to quell the violence. President Andrew Johnson placed General Rousseau in command of the Department of Louisiana, a military district encompassing the states of Louisiana and Arkansas. The New Orleans Bee, a bilingual newspaper that published in both French and English, printed an article titled “Negro Riot in St. Bernard Parish,” with one subtitle that read, “White Families Massacred or Burned to Death in Their Houses.” The article reported that at least two of Feliu’s children were “certainly” burned alive. On the same night, a distillery on the Walker Plantation and a coffeehouse were also reported to have burned to the ground. The article also erroneously claimed that an elderly white man was killed at the Ducros Railroad Station. The article sent shockwaves throughout New Orleans with embellished reports that “the negroes to the number of 1800 or 2000, are burning and killing, and marching towards the city.” Whites near the parish border in New Orleans mobilized and equipped themselves to enter St. Bernard Parish at a moment’s notice for a preemptive attack. In subsequent paragraphs, the article stated freedpeople fled the violence and entered New Orleans “stealthily through the swamps” or others “swam the intervening canals in their route to the city.”129

  Local newspapers were exceptionally harsh toward the freedpeople. The Louisiana Democrat relayed this account on November 2:

  The Riot in St. Bernard was started by the negroes who were inflamed by these speeches and other acts of encouragement from white Radicals. The Constitution Club of St. Bernard were parading, accompanied by a delegation from the Seymour Infantes [sic], of this city. One of the latter Club was insulted by a negro, a few were bantered, when the negro drew his pistol and shot the white man, who died soon after. A melee then occurred in which two negroes were killed. Quiet was then restored and everybody supposed the trouble was over. At night the negroes commenced arming at the plantation of Mr. Ong, and soon after surrounded the house of Mr. Pablo Tellio [sic], a baker, a well known Democratic citizen. There were fifty or more of them, and being refused admission, they broke in and immediately murdered Mr. Tellio [sic], a lady relation and three children. Having ransacked the house, set fire to it and burned it. Mrs. Tellio [sic] escaped through a back window. Her husband is said to have fought the fiends desperately, but was overpowered by numbers. The negroes then went to
the house of Mr. Manuel Serpas, which they burned, but the family fortunately escaped. The colored man who drove the bread cart for Tellio [sic] was murdered for being a Democrat and another well known Democratic negro, a sugar boiler on the plantation of Olive & Wogan was searched for by the Radical mob and when found he was also murdered. These outrages caused a stampede amongst the residents of the Parish, and they came up [to] the city in vehicles of every kind.130

  The entire article was fabricated, with the exception of the killing of Feliu, referred to as Mr. Tellio, and the burning of his house. It states that the “Radical mob” murdered a black bread cart driver and a sugar boiler. There is no evidence of either of these killings. Furthermore, it put an unusual amount of blame on the Republican leaders in the parish:

  In the Parish of St. Bernard several white men consorting with the negroes, incited them to acts of violence and advised them to commit outrages on the people. Two of these, Mr. Lee, father of General Lee, of the Republican, and Mr. Thos. Ong…have been arrested, both charged with leading and advising the negroes in their lawless conduct. Those who knew Mr. Ong in former years will be surprised to hear, not that he is a Republican, but that he is a Radical of the most bitter type, and is said to have prepared breastworks for the negroes to fight behind, and that on his place their arms and ammunition were stored.…Some of the negroes who have been arrested in St. Bernard Parish state that a white man, whose name has not been ascertained, made them a speech a few days ago, advising them not to care for guns and pistols, but to arm themselves with axes and when the white men were away, they could strike at the root of the family, by making way with the women and children.131

  The article falsely stated that General Lee and Ong were arrested for inciting the mayhem. Papers supporting the Democrat position reiterated similar stories in both English and French. Some of these stories were most likely designed to conjure up emotions from undecided voters to convince them to vote the Democratic ticket in the upcoming election. Calls for Democrats to vote were accompanied with stories of the “riot.” The aforementioned article states, “Democrats! to your posts tomorrow morning bright and early. We repeat it again vote early and then remain on watch all day and do your duty to your party and to your country.”132

  Another version of these rumors reached General Rousseau. He documented them in a report to General Ulysses S. Grant, the highest commanding officer of the U.S. Army and the current presidential candidate. Rousseau wrote:

  From the parish of St. Bernard reports of a highly inflammatory nature were received. A white democratic club in that parish had killed a negro; some citizens had shot a metropolitan policeman. The negroes assembled at night, burnt the house of a leading white democrat and his body with it, drove his wife and little children into the woods, severely beat his sister, and broke the leg of one of his children. These were the facts.133

  Most coverage skewed facts and constructed falsehoods to support an anti-Republican agenda. The majority of newspapers either favored that perspective or did not question the accuracy of the dominant narrative that the freedpeople escalated the situation. At the end of the bloody Sunday, a number of freedpeople were murdered and two white men, Michael Curtis and Pablo San Feliu, were murdered.

  Republican newspapers painted a much different picture of the course of events. The New Orleans Republican wrote in its first article concerning the events, “Rumors are rife of trouble in St. Bernard. It is said that yesterday, during the parade of some Democratic clubs, a difficulty arouse and two colored men were killed. Last night the negroes assembled and killed a man named Pablo Felio [sic] and burned his house. Great excitement is said to exist.”134

  It then claimed to have a letter from a “planter.” The paper did not release the author’s name in order to protect the planter, but given the details, it is possible the writer was Thomas Ong, especially considering Ong was a friend of one of the main editors. It read:

  We have terrible times in this parish. Murder has been committed on both white [and] black, and add to this the burning of Pablo Felio’s [sic] bakery. There is a large gang of armed white men in this parish. I am under guard of one of their own number in my own house. The negroes in this neighborhood have all fled into the woods. Can not some troops be sent into this parish at once? They are wanted here to preserve order. The Sheriff is reported to have fled the parish. General Rousseau has already dispatched troops to the parish, and we feel little doubt but that order will now be preserved.135

  The murder of Feliu was mentioned in all reports, with Democratic-leaning papers erroneously reporting the additional death of his family members. According to William Hyland, a local historian, Feliu’s wife gave a testimony of her version of events. According to her, she went to hide in the canebrake as word of the armed freedmen approached the area. She overheard many freedmen ask Feliu for whiskey, but he refused to sell it to them. The freedmen became agitated and attempted to break into his residence; he responded by lethal force. They eventually broke into his residence and set it ablaze. Feliu was burned alive. Unfortunately, records of her testimony were lost during Hurricane Katrina.136

  Nonetheless, armed and angry white Democrats had their martyr, regardless of the accuracy of witness testimony. It was the perfect justification needed to intensify the killings. No one slept well that Sunday night. The freedpeople hoped the carnage had ended and federal troops would soon arrive to protect them from any potential dangers. They were gravely mistaken.

  Chapter 5

  DEVASTATION

  This is such a cold bad place I am afraid I will die here.

  —Louis Wilson, freedman

  The arrival of the troops did not occur as quickly as the freedpeople had anticipated after the chaotic events surrounding Pablo Feliu’s murder. At the same time, New Orleans experienced its own racial violence. On Saturday, October 24, predominately white Democratic and predominately black Republican clubs simultaneously held marches and converged on a crowded Canal Street. The Democratic crowd fired into the Republican one, killing seven African Americans. Infuriated by these atrocities, black Republicans went home and armed themselves; they took to the streets in retaliation and killed those they felt attacked them. Federal soldiers temporarily put an end to the violence.137

  No one died the following day. However, over the course of the subsequent three days, white Democrats patrolled the city; they robbed, looted and killed until federal troops could again restore order. Statistics on the casualties vary from six white citizens and a dozen black citizens murdered to over sixty-three murdered total. The federal troops from the area were preoccupied with establishing order in a bustling New Orleans; St. Bernard Parish was not of priority.138

  RESIDENTS OF ST. Bernard Parish had to fend for themselves as the spotlight was focused on its populated neighbor. Thomas Ong slept sparingly that Sunday night. By sunrise on Monday morning, October 26, he noticed four armed freedmen sentineled around his plantation. When he inquired about their intentions, the freedmen claimed they had guarded his residence to protect him throughout the night. Ong, appreciative of the help, sent them on their way to avoid conflict.139

  Angry white residents, with the martyrdom of Feliu as pretext, mobilized to renew hostilities. News of their mobilization spread throughout the parish. Many freedpeople believed the groups were assembling to kill Ong and General A.L. Lee. General Lee was a member of the state legislature and the editor of the New Orleans Republican. His unabashed Republican leanings made him a prime target. Freedmen, some armed only with knives and pistols, gathered at General Lee’s plantation to protect him. Dr. M.L. Lee, General Lee’s father, told them the weapons were unnecessary and not to fire on anyone.140

  Around nine o’clock in the morning, just as Dr. Lee finished addressing the freedmen, an estimated forty to fifty mounted men with shotguns lined the road in front of General Lee’s gate. They were speaking mostly Spanish, but French and Italian were heard as well. Dr. Lee told the freedmen not to panic and t
hat he would personally reason with them to prevent bloodshed. The freedmen warned him that the mob would not reason with him; instead, they would kill him.141

  Dr. Lee was unfazed by their warnings. Dr. Lee had practiced medicine before venturing into the political arena in the 1840s. In 1859, he was elected to the U.S. Congress as a Republican. He was an educated doctor, a politician and believed himself to be a skilled negotiator. The experienced sixty-three-year-old mounted his horse and rode toward the men while waving a white handkerchief as a gesture of peace. Adolph Jones, a freedman who spoke multiple languages, accompanied him in case translation was needed. As they approached the group, the men cocked and aimed their shotguns at him. Dr. Lee waved his handkerchief harder to ensure he meant no harm. The men ignored his gesture, swiftly surrounded Dr. Lee and Jones, knocked Dr. Lee off his horse and apprehended him and Jones. Dr. Lee was stunned that he was not provided a chance to negotiate. They then turned their guns toward the freedmen and fired a barrage of bullets. The freedmen dispersed into the cane fields to escape.142

  Lieutenant J.M. Lee visited General Lee’s plantation during his investigation with the Freedmen’s Bureau. He received this account from Adolph Jones:

  The Doctor went up waving his white handkerchief, and they, the Spanish, had their guns pointed towards us as though they intended shooting us. We went on top to them. They were coming on towards us in line. They arrested the Dr. and myself—David Jones, Leone Porter, Antonio Campo. These were the ones that arrested us in particular. They stopped us, took us in charge. All of them wanted us there. They spoke so, because I understood them, as I speak Spanish and understand French, and know the most of them. I know what they meant by their language. All of them said “Kill the Doctor, that it was him and General—General Lee—that was causing the trouble in the country.” They not only spoke it among themselves but said so to the Doctor.