Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (37 page)

67
    
“to get news of the goings on”
: Interview with Susan Berry Roberts, January 6, 2016.

68
    
“Pa told this man”
: Ibid. Records confirm that on October 11, 1912, Garrett Cook sold to a white man named George Olivet for $200. Deed Book 2, p. 101, Forsyth County Courthouse.

68
    
“until no colored was left”
: Ruth Mae Jordan Berry, handwritten account, November 1980.

68
    
“the subject was never again brought up”
: Interview with Henry Dan Berry, son of Ruth Jordan, January 8, 2016.

68
    
“They looked ahead of them”
: Isabella Harris, letter to Max Gilstrap, January 24, 1987.

69
    
“Certain men”
: Quoted in Shadburn,
Cottonpatch Chronicles
, 230.

CHAPTER 6: THE DEVIL’S OWN HORSES

70
    
“but very few residents”
: “Cumming Blacks to Waive Trial,”
Atlanta Constitution
, September 9, 1912.

70
    
“the members of the mob”
: “Six Blacks Threatened with Lynching,”
Atlanta Constitution
, September 8, 1912.

70
    
“The real thing that upsets me”
: “Leaders in Georgia County Say Outsiders to Blame for Violence,”
Wilmington Morning Star
, January 19, 1987, p. 10A

71
    
the original KKK all but defunct
: David M. Chalmers,
Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981), 18–19.

71
    
fellow clansmen to battle
: Sir Walter Scott,
The Lady of the Lake
, “Canto III: The Gathering,” lines 1–18.

72
    
screened at the White House
: London Melvin Stokes,
D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 111.

72
    
“See! My people fill the streets”
: D. W. Griffith,
The Birth of a Nation
, 1915, at 2:48:48.

72
    
“people of the county”
: Ruth Mae Jordan Berry, handwritten account, November 1980.

72
    
“with their horrible faces”
: Isabella Harris, letter to Max Gilstrap, January 24, 1987.

73
    
treaty after another was broken
: Francis Paul Prucha,
The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indian
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 235–42.

74
    
integrated frontier community
: For more on Cherokee families in Forsyth prior to the Indian Removal Act, see Don Shadburn,
Unhallowed Intrusion: A History of Cherokee Families in Forsyth County, Georgia
(Cumming, GA: Pioneer-Cherokee Heritage Series, 1993).

74
    
“there was such excitement”
: “A Georgia Jaunt,”
Atlanta Constitution
, July 15, 1894, 2.

74
    
“Our [white] neighbors”
: “New Echota,”
Cherokee Phoenix
, May 27, 1829, 2

75
    
“an industrious Indian”
: “Atrocious Injustice,”
Cherokee Phoenix
, May 18, 1833, 3.

76
    
Two of the largest Cherokee removal forts
: Shadburn,
Cottonpatch Chronicles
, 5.

76
    
“search out”
: David A. Harris,
Stories My Grandmother Told Me
(Unpublished manuscript in the collection of the Historical Society of Forsyth County, 1964), 14.

76
    
“the execution of the most brutal order”
: Diary of John G. Burnett, quoted in James C. Cobb,
Georgia Odyssey
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 5.

77
    
sixteen thousand native people
: Prucha,
The Great Father
, 235–42.

77
    
“were worked exclusive of slave labor”
: Shadburn,
Cottonpatch Chronicles
, 192 (emphasis added).

78
    
The largest slaveholders
: Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850–1880, Census Years: 1850 and 1860; District 31, Forsyth, Georgia [database online]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2010.

78
    
15 percent of all households
: Stephen A. West,
From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850–1915
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 2008), 204.

78
    
Most prominent among them
: 1840, 1850, and 1860 U. S. Census—Slave Schedules [database online]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2004.

79
    
fathered by their white owners
: Interview with Deidre Brown-Stewart and Leroy Brown, October 25, 2014.

79
    
“git me mo’ slaves”
: “Ex-Slave Interview: Aunt Carrie Mason, Milledgeville, Georgia,” in
The American Slave: A Composite Biography
, ed. George Rawick (Greenwood, 1972), vol. 13, 112.

79
    
“made an honest living”
: Hiram Parks Bell,
Men and Things
(Atlanta: Foote and Davies, 1907), 51.

80
    
Resentful of their rich white neighbors
: Gladys-Marie Fry,
Night Riders in Black Folk History
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975), 82–109.

80
    
“the slave’s arms were bound”
: Rawick,
The American Slave
, 328.

81
    
Eliza made repeated attempts to escape
: Interview with Anthony Neal, April 2, 2014.

CHAPTER 7: THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW

83
    
The U.S. Supreme Court
:
Norris v. Alabama
, 294 U.S. 587 (1935).

84
    
“a state of insurrection
”: “Martial Law Will Be Declared in Forsyth,”
Atlanta Constitution
, September 28, 1912.

84
    
“each one offered an excuse”
: “Lawyers Appointed to Defend Negroes,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 1, 1912, 2.

84
    
a partner in the Atlanta Northeastern
:
Railway Review
, 48 (1908), 733.

84
    
the defense team
: “Cumming Is Quiet on Eve of Trial,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 3, 1912.

86
    
“the barefooted, fiendish-looking type”
: “Troops on Guard,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 4, 1912.

87
    
“a personal guard”
: “Cumming Is Quiet on Eve of Trial,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 3, 1912.

87
    
stop for lunch
: A. M. Light later submitted a reimbursement request for “wagon transportation furnished [to] troops en-route to Cumming”; Alice Mashburn received $28.75 for “meals furnished troops on duty”; and the proprietors of the Merchant’s Hotel at Buford requested compensation for meals totaling $65.50. Correspondence Files of the Adjutant General’s Office, October 1912, Georgia Archives, Morrow, GA.

87
    
a camp perimeter
: “Cumming Is Quiet on Eve of Trial,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 3, 1912.

87
    
“the mountaineers of north Georgia”
: “Troops Off to Cumming with Six Negroes,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 2, 1912, extra edition.

88
    
“came to the camp
”: “Cumming Is Quiet on Eve of Trial,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 3, 1912.

89
    
“a fourteen-karat son of a bitch
”: Steve Oney,
And the Dead Shall Rise
(New York: Vintage, 2004), 522.

89
    
“the will of the people”
: “Letter to the Editor” by Ansel Strickland,
North Georgian
, November 22, 1912.

89
    
“Little time will be required”
: “Trials at Cumming,”
Gainesville Times
, October 2, 1912.

91
    
“turned State’s evidence”
: Royal Freeman Nash, “The Cherokee Fires,”
The Crisis
11.1 (1915), 266.

91
    
“crowded as never before”
: “Bayonets Guard Blacks as Trial at Cumming Begins,”
Atlanta Journal
, October 3, 1912.

91
    
“mountaineers [who had] been gathering weapons”
: “Martial Law in Cumming as Blacks Are Tried,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 2, 1912, extra edition.

91
    
“ordered to discard
”: “Martial Law in Cumming as Blacks Are Tried,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 2, 1912.

92
    
“any disorder”
: “Troops Uphold Law,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 2, 1912.

92
    
“their minds were not clearly unbiased”
: “Troops Guard Negroes’ Trial at Cumming,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 3, 1912, home edition, 5.

92
    
“a watchman”
: Ibid.

92
    
E. S. Garrett and William Hammond
: Shadburn,
Cottonpatch Chronicle
s, 478–79.

92
    
“expedite the trial
”: “Troops Guard Negroes’ Trial at Cumming,”
Atlanta Georgian
, October 3, 1912, home edition, 5.

93
    
“was compelled to repeat the pathetic story”
: “Troops on Guard as Two Rapists Are Convicted,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 4, 1912.