Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was an American publisher, politician, and Union Army officer. Pinchback was governor of Louisiana and the second lieutenant governor. A Republican, Pinchback served as acting governor of Louisiana for 35 days from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873, during which ten acts of Legislature became law. He was one of the most prominent office holders during and following the Reconstruction era during the Reconstruction Era.
The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to as the Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the parish seat of Grant Parish. An estimated 62–153 Black militia men were murdered while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan. Three White men also died during the confrontation.
The White League, also known as the White Man's League, was a white supremacist paramilitary terrorist organization started in the Southern United States in 1874 to intimidate freedmen into not voting and prevent Republican Party political organizing, while also being supported by regional elements of the Democratic Party. Its first chapter was formed in Grant Parish, Louisiana, and neighboring parishes and was made up of many of the Confederate veterans who had participated in the Colfax massacre in April 1873. Chapters were soon founded in New Orleans and other areas of the state.
George Henry Williams was an American judge and politician. He served as chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, was the 32nd Attorney General of the United States, and was elected Oregon's U.S. senator, and served one term. Williams, as U.S. senator, authored and supported legislation that allowed the U.S. military to be deployed in Reconstruction of the southern states to allow for an orderly process of re-admittance into the United States. Williams was the first presidential Cabinet member to be appointed from the Pacific Coast. As attorney general under President Ulysses S. Grant, Williams continued the prosecutions that shut down the Ku Klux Klan. He had to contend with controversial election disputes in Reconstructed southern states. President Grant and Williams legally recognized P. B. S. Pinchback as the first African American state governor. Williams ruled that the Virginius, a gun-running ship delivering men and munitions to Cuban revolutionaries, which was captured by Spain during the Virginius Affair, did not have the right to bear the U.S. flag. However, he also argued that Spain did not have the right to execute American crew members. Nominated for Supreme Court Chief Justice by President Grant, Williams failed to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate primarily due to Williams's opposition to U.S. Attorney A. C. Gibbs, his former law partner, who refused to stop investigating Republican fraud in the special congressional election that resulted in a victory for Democrat James Nesmith.
Oscar James Dunn served as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana during the era of Reconstruction and was the first African American to act as governor of a U.S. state.
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Party. They sought to regain their political power and enforce white supremacy. Their policy of Redemption was intended to oust the Radical Republicans, a coalition of freedmen, "carpetbaggers", and "scalawags". They were typically led by White yeomen and dominated Southern politics in most areas from the 1870s to 1910.
The Coushatta massacre (1874) was an attack by members of the White League, a white supremacist paramilitary organization composed of white Southern Democrats, on Republican officeholders and freedmen in Coushatta, the parish seat of Red River Parish, Louisiana. They assassinated six white Republicans and five to 20 freedmen who were witnesses.
Victor Hugo "Vic" Schiro, was an American politician who served on the New Orleans City Council and as Mayor from 1961 to 1970.
Philippe Régis Denis de Keredern de Trobriand was a Breton aristocrat, lawyer, poet, and novelist who, on a dare, emigrated in his 20s to the United States, settling first in New York City. During the American Civil War, he became naturalized, was commissioned and served in the Union Army, reaching the rank of Major general.
Paul Octave Hébert was a soldier and politician who served as 14th Governor of Louisiana from 1853 to 1856. A veteran of the Mexican-American War, he later served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.
William Pitt Kellogg was an American lawyer and Republican Party politician who served as the governor of Louisiana from 1873 to 1877 and twice served as a United States senator during the Reconstruction era.
John McEnery was a Louisiana Democratic politician and lawyer who was considered by Democrats to be the winner of the highly contested 1872 election for Governor of Louisiana. After extended controversy over election results, the Republican candidate William Pitt Kellogg was certified. McEnery, who had been an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, was not allowed to take office following a weighing in by the federal government and local Republicans loyal to President Ulysses S. Grant.
Henry Clay Warmoth was an American attorney and veteran Civil War officer in the Union Army who was elected governor and state representative of Louisiana. A Republican, he was 26 years old when elected as 23rd Governor of Louisiana, one of the youngest governors elected in United States history. He served during the early Reconstruction Era, from 1868 to 1872.
The Wheeler Compromise, sometimes known as the Wheeler Adjustment, was the settlement of the disputed gubernatorial election of 1872 in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and negotiation to organize the state's legislature in January 1875. It was negotiated by, and named after, William A. Wheeler, Congressman from New York and a member of the U.S. House Committee on Southern Affairs. He later was elected as Vice President of the United States.
The following table indicates the party of elected officials in the U.S. state of Louisiana:
Jean Maximilien Alcibiades Derneville DeBlanc was a lawyer and state legislator in Louisiana. He served as a colonel for the Confederate army during the American Civil War. Afterward, he founded the Knights of the White Camelia, a white insurgent militia that operated from 1867–1869 to suppress freedmen's voting, disrupt Republican Party political organizing and try to regain political control of the state government in the 1868 election. A Congressional investigation overturned 1868 election results in Louisiana.
James Lewis was an African-American soldier and politician in Louisiana. Born into slavery and of mixed race, during the American Civil War he left a position as steward on a Confederate steamboat to move to New Orleans, which had been taken over by Union troops. There he helped organize the First Louisiana Volunteer Native Guards, becoming captain of Company K and serving until 1864. After the war he became politically active in the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era, where he was an ally of several other leading men of color in the city and state.
The Battle of Liberty Place Monument is a stone obelisk on an inscribed plinth, formerly on display in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, commemorating the "Battle of Liberty Place", an 1874 attempt by Democratic White League paramilitary organizations to take control of the government of Louisiana from its Reconstruction Era Republican leadership after a disputed gubernatorial election.
Edmond Ducre Estilette, known as E. D. Estilette, was a politician and lawyer in Opelousas, Louisiana. He served in a number of public positions, most notably speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives at the end of Reconstruction in 1875. Estilette oversaw the creation of one of the most infamous Black Codes of the post-Civil War era, but he was later seen as a moderating force in the turbulent politics of that era.
