Eli Barnes

Last updated

Eli Barnes
Georgia Assembly
In office
1868–?
Personal details
Political party Republican

Eli Barnes was an American politician. He was a representative in the Georgia Assembly as a Republican during the Reconstruction Era. A former slave who worked as a mechanic, he was African American. [1] He was elected in 1868 and represented Hancock County, Georgia in the 80th Georgia General Assembly. [2] He was appointed to the Committee on Manufactures. He only served one term.

He asked for military units to protect a black school in 1869. As a result, he received threats and intimidation from members of the Ku Klux Klan. [3] [4]

Barnes was one of those who testified to a select committee of congress about widespread intimidation and horrific attacks in African Americans in the Southern States. [5] [6] He told the congressional investigating committee, "It has got to be quite a common thing. . . to hear a man say, 'They rode around my house last night, and they played the mischief there; my wife was molested, my daughter badly treated, and they played the wild generally with my family.'" [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reconstruction era</span> Military occupation of southern US states from 1865 to 1877

The Reconstruction era was a period in United States history following the American Civil War, dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of abolishing slavery and reintegrating the former Confederate States of America into the United States. During this period, three amendments were added to the United States Constitution to grant equal civil rights to the newly freed slaves. Despite this, former Confederate states often used poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation to control people of color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">P. B. S. Pinchback</span> American politician

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was an American publisher, politician, and Union Army officer. Pinchback was the first African American governor of a U.S. state 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 African-American officeholders during the Reconstruction Era.

The Radical Republicans were a faction within the Republican Party originating from the party's founding in 1854—some six years before the Civil War—until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction. They called themselves "Radicals" because of their goal of immediate, complete, and permanent eradication of slavery in the United States. They were opposed during the war by the Moderate Republicans, and by the Democratic Party. Radicals led efforts after the war to establish civil rights for former slaves and fully implement emancipation. After unsuccessful measures in 1866 resulted in violence against former slaves in the rebel states, Radicals pushed the Fourteenth Amendment for statutory protections through Congress. They opposed allowing ex-Confederate officers to retake political power in the Southern U.S., and emphasized equality, civil rights and voting rights for the "freedmen", i.e., former slaves who had been freed during or after the Civil War by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Americans in the United States Congress</span>

From the first United States Congress in 1789 through the 116th Congress in 2020, 162 African Americans served in Congress. Meanwhile, the total number of all individuals who have served in Congress over that period is 12,348. Between 1789 and 2020, 152 have served in the House of Representatives, 9 have served in the Senate, and 1 has served in both chambers. Voting members have totaled 156, with 6 serving as delegates. Party membership has been 131 Democrats and 31 Republicans. While 13 members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 during the 92nd Congress, in the 116th Congress (2019-2020), 56 served, with 54 Democrats and 2 Republicans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiram R. Revels</span> 19th-century American politician (1827–1901)

Hiram Rhodes Revels was an American Republican politician, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a college administrator. Born free in North Carolina, he later lived and worked in Ohio, where he voted before the Civil War. Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era, he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carpetbagger</span> Pejorative term for opportunistic Northerner

In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, and were perceived to be exploiting the local populace for their own financial, political, and/or social gain. The term broadly included both individuals who sought to promote Republican politics, and individuals who saw business and political opportunities because of the chaotic state of the local economies following the war. In practice, the term carpetbagger often was applied to any Northerners who were present in the South during the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). The word is closely associated with scalawag, a similarly pejorative word used to describe native white Southerners who supported the Republican Party-led Reconstruction.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Mercer Langston</span> American politician (1829–1897)

John Mercer Langston was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, activist, diplomat, and politician. He was the founding dean of the law school at Howard University and helped create the department. He was the first president of what is now Virginia State University, a historically black college. He was elected a U.S. Representative from Virginia and wrote From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol; Or, the First and Only Negro Representative in Congress From the Old Dominion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John R. Lynch</span> American politician

John Roy Lynch was an American writer, attorney, military officer, author, and Republican politician who served as Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and represented Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin J. Moses Jr.</span> American lawyer, editor, and politician (1838–1906)

Franklin Israel Moses Jr. was a South Carolina lawyer and editor who became active as a Republican politician in the state during the Reconstruction Era. He was elected to the legislature in 1868 and as governor in 1872, serving into 1874. Enemies labelled him the 'Robber Governor'.

At the end of the American Civil War, the devastation and disruption in the state of Georgia were dramatic. Wartime damage, the inability to maintain a labor force without slavery, and miserable weather had a disastrous effect on agricultural production. The state's chief cash crop, cotton, fell from a high of more than 700,000 bales in 1860 to less than 50,000 in 1865, while harvests of corn and wheat were also meager. The state government subsidized construction of numerous new railroad lines. White farmers turned to cotton as a cash crop, often using commercial fertilizers to make up for the poor soils they owned. The coastal rice plantations never recovered from the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calvin Smyre</span> American politician (born 1947)

Calvin Smyre is an American politician who served as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives. Elected in 1974, he was the longest-serving member of the Georgia Legislature. In May 2022, his nomination to serve as the United States ambassador to the Dominican Republic was withdrawn and he was instead nominated to serve as the United States ambassador to the Bahamas.

William Henry Harrison, also known as Bill Thomas, was a state legislator from Hancock County, Georgia.

Alfred Richardson (1837?–1872) was a member of the Georgia Assembly in the U.S. State of Georgia, representing Clarke County. An African American, he entered government service after the U.S. Civil War during the Reconstruction era. Richardson faced hostility, intimidation, and physical attacks representing Clarke County. Richardson survived two shooting attacks by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1872 Richardson testified to a congressional committee that it was not safe for him to go home so he was staying in Athens, Georgia, and that many other "Colored" people had been forced to flee their farms in fear. He also spoke about being attacked and shot at at his house by men in disguise and said that he had been threatened, told of many instances of whippings, and that fellow "Colored" people were told that they should vote for Democrats or not vote at all.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malcolm Claiborne</span> U.S politician during the Reconstruction Era

Malcolm Claiborne, sometimes spelled Claiborn, was an elected representative in the Georgia Legislature. An African American, he along with 25 of 29 African Americans elected in Georgia in 1868 were denied seats by their white colleagues. After federal intervention, they were allowed to take office in 1870. Claiborne was shot and killed the same year in a dispute with the messenger sent by the Georgia House, Moses H. Bentley, who had been a black delegate to the Constitutional Convention, in a heated dispute over the pay of House pages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James M. Simms</span> African-American minister

James Merilus Simms was a minister, newspaper publisher, author, and elected representative in the Georgia Assembly during the Reconstruction era. He was African American.

The "Original 33" were the first 33 African-American members of the Georgia General Assembly. They were elected to office in 1868, during the Reconstruction era. They were among the first African-American state legislators in the United States. Twenty-four of the members were ministers. Upon taking office, white Democrats, then a minority in the Assembly, conspired with enough white Republicans to expel the African-American legislators from the Assembly in September 1868. The next year, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that African Americans had the right to hold office in Georgia. The expelled legislators were reinstated and took office in January 1870.

Paris Simkins (1849-1930) was an African-American storekeeper, lawyer, minister, barber, and politician. Born into slavery, Simkins founded the Macedonia Baptist Church in Edgefield, South Carolina. A staunch Republican, he served in multiple governmental offices following the Civil War, including the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1872 to 1876.

Hercules Wilson was an American politician. He represented McIntosh County, Georgia in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1882 until 1885.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Wade Perrin</span> 1870 murder in Joanna, South Carolina, U.S.

On the evening of October 20, 1870, Wade Perrin, a Republican Party member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, was assassinated by a group of white men affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. The murder took place in present-day Joanna, South Carolina, in rural southeastern Laurens County. Perrin had been re-elected to a second term in the legislature the day before, but riots in and around Laurens County on the day of the election spurred violence towards at least a dozen Republican members-elect, most of them African Americans. After being caught by the men and being made to dance, sing, and pray, they ordered Perrin to run away, at which point he was shot dead. He was found lying in the street with his pockets turned inside out. Perrin was honored with a funeral service held in the House chambers on January 31, 1871, with the House and State Senate both present. A total of six men were ultimately charged for Perrin's murder, as well as the murders of several other black legislators under similar circumstances.

References

  1. Edmund L. Drago (1982). Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A Splendid Failure. University of Georgia Press. pp. 38–. ISBN   978-0-8203-1438-9.
  2. Sanford, Paul Laurence (August 1, 1947). "The negro in the political reconstruction of Georgia, 1866-1872". ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 2110.
  3. Grant, Donald Lee (1993). The Way it was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia. University of Georgia Press. p. 119. ISBN   9780820323299.
  4. Representatives, USA House of (1872). House Documents. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 954–955.
  5. Mark Roman Schultz (October 1, 2010). The Rural Face of White Supremacy: BEYOND JIM CROW. University of Illinois Press. p. 277. ISBN   978-0-252-09236-7.
  6. 1 2 Rosén, Hannah; Ash, Jennifer (2009). Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN   978-0-8078-3202-8.