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A paper edition of a scholarly history--first published in 1971 and based largely on primary sources--that treats the post-Civil War South state by state and details the close link between the Klan and the Democratic Party. Trelease (history, U. of North Carolina-Greensboro) also looks at other "night-riding" groups, such as the Ghouls, the White Brotherhood, and the Knights of the White Camellia. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Indian Affairs in Colonial New York is a standard in the study of Indian-European relations in seventeenth-century New York. First published in 1960, it remains the only one-volume history to explore these complex relations, which profoundly affected the economy and politics of the colony. Allen W. Trelease describes the Dutch period that followed Henry Hudson?s voyage in 1609 and New Netherland?s dealings with the Algonquian bands of the Hudson Valley and Long Island. The second half of the book, treating the English period after 1664, emphasizes the colonists? relations with the Iroquois.
In The Scalawags, James Alex Baggett ambitiously uncovers the genesis of scalawag leaders throughout the former Confederacy. Using a collective biography approach, Baggett profiles 742 white southerners who supported Congressional Reconstruction and the Republican Party. He then compares and contrasts the scalawags with 666 redeemer-Democrats who opposed and eventually replaced them. Significantly, he analyzes this rich data by region -- the Upper South, the Southeast, and the Southwest -- as well as for the South as a whole. Baggett follows the life of each scalawag before, during, and after the war, revealing real personalities and not mere statistics. Examining such features as birthplace, vocation, estate, slaveholding status, education, political antecedents and experience, stand on secession, war record, and postwar political activities, he finds striking uniformity among scalawags. This is the first Southwide study of the scalawags, its scope and astounding wealth in quantity and quality of sources make it the definitive work on the subject.
The North Carolina carpetbagger Albion Winegar Tourgée came to the South in 1865 after serving as a Union volunteer during the Civil War. His struggles in the cause of civil rights led him to take part in the political reorganization of the region. However, in 1879, Tourgée despaired of his efforts in the South and returned to the North. There he published A Fool’s Errand, a largely autobiographical novel that depicted a southern society dominated by the Ku Klux Klan and riddled with racism, ignorance, and corrupt policies. Within a year of the release of A Fool’s Errand, Tourgée published The Invisible Empire, a nonfiction account of his years in the South intended to buttress the po...
Despite the fact that the Ku Klux Klan can be traced from the 1700s through the Civil War and is going strong in the present day, many people fail to realize the reach and influence of the group. Many scholars, for instance, perceive the KKK as a radical racist group composed primarily of ignorant, uneducated members, when it is actually much more. Some Klan groups are political, while others are simply social. Some meet and eat just as any other mainstream civic or church group, but others are focused toward the use of well-planned violence. Not all Klan groups advocate an overthrow of the U.S. government, though some do. The author traces the historical development of the Klan, addressing its organization, membership, ideologies and philosophies. Avoiding the bias of previous works--written by either Klan apologists or detractors--the author chronicles the directions the group has taken during its long and diverse history. The study also details the secret oaths of allegiance, the Imperial Wizards, and the concept of Knighthood. The result is an accurate account of the Ku Klux Klan, a group that has continued to grow and evolve in response to changing times.
The Reconstruction was meant to be a time of rebuilding and healing for the South following the Civil War. But the Reconstruction, marked by the continued strong hatred and hostility between liberated African Americans and angry Ku Klux Klan members, was hardly a time of reconciliation for the South. This work deals with the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan, a paramilitary group with political aims that used violence and intimidation to achieve its goals. It addresses exclusively the Klans activities in York County, South Carolina, during the years 1865-1877. It clarifies some misconceptions about the Reconstruction Klan and disentangles it from later organizations that used the same name. There are no reports of its burning crosses or persecuting Jews and Catholics and it has no connection to the Klan that appeared in the early part of the twentieth century or todays counterpart that marches under the Confederate flag. Throughout the Reconstruction, blacks and whites tried to out-shout each other in the new era of conversation, and, as shown in this work, made little progress in understanding, or trying to understand, each other.
Five years after the Civil War, North Carolina Republican state senator John W. Stephens was found murdered inside the Caswell County Courthouse. Stephens fought for the rights of freedpeople, and his killing by the Ku Klux Klan ultimately led to insurrection, Governor William W. Holden's impeachment, and the early unwinding of Reconstruction in North Carolina. In recounting Stephens's murder, the subsequent investigation and court proceedings, and the long-delayed confessions that revealed what actually happened at the courthouse in 1870, Drew A. Swanson tells a story of race, politics, and social power shaped by violence and profit. The struggle for dominance in Reconstruction-era rural No...
A history text of America's colonial period, emphasizing the interaction of three cultures--colonialists, Indians, and Blacks.
In some places during Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a social fraternity whose members enjoyed sophomoric high jinks and homemade liquor. In other areas, the KKK was a paramilitary group intent on keeping former slaves away from white women and Republicans away from ballot boxes. South Carolina saw the worst Klan violence and, in 1871, President Grant sent federal troops under the command of Major Lewis Merrill to restore law and order. Merrill did not eradicate the Klan, but he arguably did more than any other person or entity to expose the identity of the Invisible Empire as a group of hooded, brutish, homegrown terrorists. In compiling evidence to prosecute the leading Klansmen and restoring at least a semblance of order to South Carolina, Merrill and his men demonstrated that the portrayal of the KKK as a chivalric organization was at best a myth and at worst a lie. Book jacket.
Wall Street Journal’s Five Best Books on the Confederates’ Lost Cause Southern Association for Women Historians Julia Cherry Spruill Prize Even without the right to vote, members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy proved to have enormous social and political influence throughout the South—all in the name of preserving Confederate culture. Karen Cox traces the history of the UDC, an organization founded in 1894 to vindicate the Confederate generation and honor the Lost Cause. In this edition, with a new preface, Cox acknowledges the deadly riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, showing why myths surrounding the Confederacy continue to endure. The Daughters, as UDC members were popu...