Chicot County is in Arkansas. If you know anything about Arkansas after the Civil War… is that they usually don’t allow that shat down there. Arkansas was a confederate state and left the Union in May 1861. It initially stayed in the Union at the start of the war in 1860, but later joined under the command of General Albert Sidney “Yo Name Is Platt!” Johnston. It entered the Union as a slave state in 1836, and so for all intents and purposes was an “official” enslaved state for only 25 years before the Union Army whipped that thang really good at the battle of Battle of Elkhorn Tavern in 1862 capturing Little Rock, the states capital.
Now don’t get me wrong, they had started importing enslaved people in 1790 before it became a state. By the time the Civil War started in 1860, there were over a hundred thousand enslaved people living in Arkansas and they constituted twenty-five percent of the population, it just wasn’t an “official” enslaved state “until” after 1836. Once Arkansas became a part of the Union, they were covered by the enslaved black folk’s statues of the federal government. That meant runaways were property and if they escaped, they could be hunted down and returned to slavery… but before they became an official slave state…
Massa Ray Siss: “Sheriff, I got some papers here showing that there nigra over there with the big yellow hat, with the ostrich feather sticking out of it is my property!”
Sheriff: “Let me see those papers… okay let’s go… Sir… excuse me… sir?”
Blackman: “What can I do for you my good fellow…?”
Massa Ray Siss: “NIGRA YOU AIN’T FOOLING NOBODY!!”
Blackman: “Why whatever do you mean old chap…?”
Massa Ray Siss: “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!! I WANT YO BLACK AZZ IN THE BACK OF THIS WAGON BEFORE A COUNT OF THREE… OR IMA SNATCH THAT FEATHER OUT YO HAT AND PUT IT WHERE IT REALLY BELONGS!!”
Blackman: “Tut…Tut… My dear man… let me see those papers…? Oh my… I’m afraid these papers are from Arkansas old chap… they are no good here heathen…”
Sheriff: “DROP THAT ROPE SISS AND BACK OFF…!!! LET ME SEE THOSE PAPERS!! HE’S RIGHT!! THESE PAPERS ARE NO GOOD HERE! AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED, THIS MAN IS FREE!!”
Massa Ray Siss: “WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT!!! WAIT UNTIL I GET BACK!!!”
Blackman: “Oh Ray… tell Mrs. Siss and everybody I said “HELLO”…!!”
Massa Ray Siss: (Thinking to himself…) “Ima hang that nigra from a tree so high… He gonna need suntan lotion and sunglasses!!”
Well as the story goes, Ray went back to Arkansas… and then the war broke out. He was killed at the “Battle of Imagine There’s No Negroes” in 1861. They say he never forgot about Blackman. As for Blackman, he returned to Arkansas after the war and married Mrs. Siss in February 1866. Unfortunately, Blackman died unexpectedly of complications from a bullet in his back an hour after his wedding and is buried on the Siss Plantation next to Ray. Ray’s only daughter named Sweetie R. Siss, spoke at the funeral saying… “Blackman, please tell Dad everybody says hello… and if you can… please give him that suntan lotion I buried with you… he asked me to put it in your casket with some sunglasses… Amen…”
Yep… that’s what they say happened…
Anywho… so yeah, Arkansas became an official enslaved state in 1836. After the Civil War ended in 1865, they still had a very large African American population residing there. One of the counties where they had a huge black presence was Chicot County and that’s where our story begins…

Get The Sensation…

Before the war, Chicot was home to some of the largest plantations in Arkansas. Enslaved African Americans outnumbered whites four to one in Chicot. After the war and with this numerical advantage in Chicot, African Americans dominated the county legislature. Not only in Chicot County where there was a large black presence influencing politics, but overall state politics were affected by the large black population in Arkansas. These black officials were overwhelmingly Republicans. I am saying overwhelmingly because I am sure you had a few uh… negroes like Tim who were Democrats… but the majority were not. Tim is the uh… black man who unashamedly castrated himself in front of a national TV audience as he was being embarrassed and stripped of every last bit of his dignity when he avowed unconditional love for his tormentor. I’m not going to get into politics because this blog is about history… but those who know… know.
Tormentor: “Come up here Tim… let’s see… you were appointed by her and now you are up here endorsing me! You must really hate her… you backstabbing jigaboo…!! ” (Okay he didn’t call him a backstabbing jigaboo… I just threw that in there…)
Tim: “No it’s because I really LOVE YOU!!”
Me: (Running to the bathroom to throw up…)
Tormentor: ” I don’t believe you!! Take this banjo and sang me a song…”
Now he didn’t make him sang a song, but the optics… dang!! Anyway, let’s get back to the story. So, the black folks had taken all of the state and local offices in Chicot County. Meanwhile you still had the wealthy plantation owners, who’s political allegiance was with the Democrats. So, we know that back in this time, most blacks were Republicans, because it was a Republican, Abraham Lincoln who was president during the war which freed us from slavery. It was the Democrats that wanted to keep us enslaved. We switched party affiliations to Democrats during the Roosevelt “New Deal” years. The New Deal put a lot of black people on a payroll.
Anyway, the planters were Democrats and having their former enslaved people running the government was like a bad dream…
Buckwheat: “Go downstairs and get me a plate of chitlins and cornbread from Miss Lilly, Massa Luke.”
Massa Luke: “Yes suh boss!”
Buckwheat: “On second thought… don’t use the door… go out the window… I don’t want slave master breath in my hallway…”
Massa Luke: “Yes suh…!!” (Luke thinking to himself… “One day that nigra is going to get his!!”)
A few minutes later…
Massa Luke: “Here you are suh… hot chitlins and cornbread!!”
Buckwheat: “Chitlins and cornbread!!? I SAID FRIED CHICKEN AND BISCUITS!!”
Massa Luke: “But boss…”
Buckwheat: “NOW EAT EM’!!”
Massa Luke: “Boss please!!”
Buckwheat: “Either you eat them chitlins standing in front of me… right now!! or you eat them chitlins standing in front of me right now with a pistol in my hand!!!”
Massa Luke: (Crying) “OH NO!! I HATES CHITLINS!!! BOSS PLEASE!!”
Buckwheat: “PUT THAT FORK DOWN!!! USE YO FINGERS!!!”
Massa Luke: “NO!! NO!! NO!! LAWD HELP ME!! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!”
Miss Lilly: (Shaking Luke awake) “WAKE UP LUKE!! WAKE UP…!! YOU’RE DREAMING!!” PLEASE WAKE UP DEAR!!
Massa Luke: “Oh honey!! It was a frightful dream!! That nigra Buckwheat made me eat chitlins standing in front of him with my fingers and he had a gun… and then he…”
Miss Lilly: “There there now honey… it’s all over… I’ll send Buckwheat up here with some nice hot tea to relax you…”
Massa Luke: “Thank you honey… that sounds good…. but before you go… could you please open that window…”
Miss Lilly: Of course dear…
Buckwheat: Here’s your tea Massa Luke…
Massa Luke: TEA!!! I SAID WATER!!…
*************
Yep… it’s going to be a long day for Buckwheat… Anywho, the focus of the plantation owners ire was a man named James W. Mason. Mason was a well-educated black politician who was supported by the Arkansas governor who also was a Republican. Appointed by the governor, Mason served as postmaster of the Sunnyside Post Office, making him the first documented black postmaster in the United States. He served in the Arkansas Senate from 1868 to 1869 and again from 1871 to 1872. He was also instrumental in taking back the land the plantation owners had taken from his father before the civil war. Of course, that put him at the top of the plantation owners “Dead Nigra List,” and they wished to gawd that they would live long enough to see him wearing sunglasses hanging from the tallest tree they could find. The hatred of the plantation owners only enhanced Mason’s reputation and he was a very influential man in the black community.

In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death…

So, it started going down in April 1871. The former governor, Powell Clayton and a U.S Senator appointed then State Senator Mason as the County Probate Judge so that Mason would back Clayton U.S Senate bid. Remember Chicot County was majority black, and Mason had a lot of sway. However, after Clayton got elected, he asked the Senate not to consider Mason appointment as judge. He instead appointed a man named Major Ragland of Lee County to the post. Mason had delivered him the black votes to become a U.S Senator and then Clayton stabbed him in the back. Ragland wasn’t even from Chicot County! When Mason got back, the black folks forced Ragland to leave the building immediately… or else buy a pair of sunglasses!! Yep, black folks were out in the woods looking for the tallest tree they could find if Ragland was still in the building when they got back. I assume Mason had been at the state capital when they gave him the news that he wasn’t going to be a judge. Anyway, Mason came back and took Ragland’s place.
Remember the story I you about Tim and that there is always one of them in the crowd… well Clayton also appointed another former slave who also lived in another county as the Chicot County Assessor… against the wishes of the county residents. Conway Barbour had represented Lafayette and Little River counties in the Arkansas House of Representatives but was installed as the Chicot County Assessor. I’m not sure if it was a favor or not, but the folks in Chicot weren’t having it.
By the early part of July 1871, Mason started dropping it like its hot… when the county court met that month, and when the sheriff refused to obey an order given by Mason, Mason had him put in jail, assembled a militia, and chased Ragland and Barbour out of town. On July 17th when the court met again Ragland was there, and facing him were four hundred big, strong, young muscular black men, armed to the teeth. So, now that Ragland had seen the handwriting writing on the wall which said, “We Wish A #@@% Would…,” he went to plead his case with acting Governor Orzo Hadley who was in Little Rock, Arkansas. To make a long story short, Hadley decided to let Mason keep the position. I mean he had little choice. It was Ragland and Barbour against a county full of angry black people armed to the teeth. Even if Orzo would have given Ragland the position…the first day would have probably gone down like this…
Clerk: All Rise… Please stand for the Honorable Judge Ragland presiding… Your honor…? Your honor, the court is waiting…
Crowd: Mummering….
Clerk: HAS ANYONE SEEN JUDGE RAGLAND!!?
Black Residents: Nope… we ain’t seen him…
So yeah… it was probably better for him if he didn’t get the post.

Stranger Fruit…

So, for the next few months everything was okay considering the situation. Then in December 1871, someone got out their lane. Wathal G. Wynn, a black attorney and who was, according to some sources, Mason’s brother-in-law—was killed in a Lake Village Chicot County store by a white man named John W. Saunders. Now Wynn was an attorney, he had graduated from Howard University and had just passed the Arkansas bar the year before. He got involved with a town matter concerning a railroad being built. Half of the residents didn’t want to take on the expenditure of building the infrastructure needed to support a railroad and half did. Anyway, Wynn was in this man store, and he got into a verbal argument with Saunders and a couple of other men named Jasper Dugan and Curtis Garrett…
Wynn: “This town would benefit from the revenue a railroad would bring here John…”
Saunders: “Boy did you just call me by my first ##@! name…!!?”
Wynn: “Ain’t that the name yo’ mamma gave you!!?”
Garrett: “Where do you keep the sunglasses at John?”
Dugan: “We don’t need another pair… let’s just use the ones that other disrespectful nigra got on …”
Wynn: “Why don’t you use the ones in my pocket?”
Saunders: “AWW NIGRA!!! YOU BETTER HAVE A GUN!!”
Wynn: As I was saying… this town would benefit from the revenue a railroad would bring here… “JOHN…!!”
Saunders: “AWW NIGRA!!! BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!”
Saunders shot and killed Wynn. So, I don’t know if that’s how it really went down, but all three men were arrested and jailed.
Now normally in this time period down south, three white men killing a black man would have been looked at as self-defense… Racist: “The nigra was threatening and besides, he backed sassed… aww nigra!!,” However they killed a prominent black man in the middle of blackity-black Chicot County where there was a proverbial Popeye’s and Chen’s Nail Salon on every block. Add to the fact that Saunders was believed to have been a member of the KKK and was suspected in the assault of a bureaucrat from the Freedman Bureau… and well you have George Floyd… the 1871 version. Black folks were mad as hell. Mason, who had just dined with Wynn the day before he was killed, sent a letter to an Ohio Congressman named A. G. Riddle. A.G. Riddle was white, but he was like John Brown. John Brown was the white guy who wanted to arm blacks in a rebellion against slavery. He went to Harpers Ferry, W.V., to take the weapons depot there, but things didn’t work out for him, and they hung him from the tallest tree they could find. Anyway, Riddle was similar in that he wanted to arm the enslaved black population in Ohio in 1859… a year before the war started!! Southerners say if they would have gotten their hands on Riddle, they would have changed his last name to “Solved…” Anywho, Mason wrote that feelings of rebellion against the federal government were at a fever pitch, and “martial law ought to be declared throughout the entire South!” Now I don’t think he wasn’t talking about the beaten down southerners… I think he was talking about “BLACK REBELLION!!”… and yeah I know… you’re like “WHUTT!!!…but he wasn’t hung from the tallest tree they could find immediately. He died years later…. was it peacefully? Now that’s another question.
So, he wrote Congressman Riddle and said that Wynn had been killed by the KKK… even though the extent of Klan involvement had and has never been determined. Didn’t matter, the letter was reprinted in the New York Times and the Washington Chronicle in December 1871. They might have as well called that letter the “Toes Dangling,” letter… because that’s exactly what happened in Chicot County.

Little Rock Arkansas 1959

No Suh!!!

So, I said earlier that three men were arrested and jailed for the killing. Several days after the letter was reprinted in the Times and Chronical, they reported that a group blacks marched into the town where they were holding the men arrested for killing Wynn. As reported in the local newspaper: “Several days after the arrest, 300 or so African Americans entered town “yelling…in a fearful manner, and driving men, women and children before them.” 
Yelling in a fearful manner… Now I don’t know what they were yelling, but I’m almost sure some of them were saying something about the “tallest tree and those hillbilly’s…” Anywho, they went to the jail and took the men… carried their asses to the nearest woods… gathered under the tallest tree they could find… and shot them… Oh, you thought I was going to say they hung them. They were mad, but they weren’t “that” mad… Dragging three white men out of a jail and shooting them wasn’t the same as dragging three white men out of a jail and hanging them from the tallest tree you could find!! That would have been a violation!! Racist from all over the country would have come to Arkansas by the thousands… no… by the tens of thousands… Hillbillies would have been writing songs about what happened there…
“Hang…Hang them all day!”
“Where the deer and the antelope play…”
“Don’t mind if I do… yes I’ll cut them off too…”
“To make bait when I fish on the bay…”
“Whut… Whut they do that for”
“Don’t they know that I’ll kick down that door…”
“And drag their ass out… there wont be no doubt…”
“That Nigras can’t live…
“In Arkansas no more…“
Yep… so they shot them instead. Even so, taking those men out of jail and executing them was very bold for that time period. Many of the area’s white citizens, fearing a reign of terror, left the area, leaving African Americans effectively in control of the town. There were other reports of blacks looting stores, robbing people and of course raping white women… because that’s what they do. I think I went over how newspapers would print anything to make a buck. Indeed, back in those days, that’s how most of the strife started between blacks and whites after the Civil War, newspapers printing lies to make money. Anyway, another report from a paper in Maine claimed that a group of black folks went to Saunders house demanding money. After they got it, they burned his and all of the livestock of the other nearby plantation owners… except the chickens. Nigras don’t burn chickens unless they are in a frying pan… Blackman: “Put some gravy on top of my chicken baby….” okay… lemme stop…
So yeah, anyway blacks were feeling some kind of way after Wynn was killed. Now you are probably wondering if there was a reaction to all these nigra acting up and scaring white folks and all. Yep it was. However, no one didn’t do anything until after they heard the testimony of O. E. Moore of Chicago, Illinois. Moore was a Republican and was quote unquote one of them. I’m not sure if they realized there were such a thing as racist republicans… but his description of what happened was printed in the Memphis Daily Appeal newspaper. Yep, that Memphis Tennessee, just two hours away from Pulaski, birthplace of the KKK. Anyway, he as described Chicot as gloomy. He said that white folks’ homes were deserted, buildings were going to decay, the livestock was all gone, lands were overgrown with weeds and almost every white woman in the county was gone. He even used the “A” word!! He said that white men were “afraid” for their lives and that they were selling plantations at a fraction of their cost! That black men were buying the plantations and sleeping with white women in them… okay no he didn’t say that… but he did say they were afraid because black men were roaming the street and road with guns. He also said, “the outbreak at Chicot was the legitimate offspring of the advice that such men as Gov. Davis and Judge Oliver continuously give the colored people.” I don’t know what that means… but I’m sure it’s not meant to be pleasant.

No Suprise There…

Some liberal newspapers questioned this account and while they did concede that black folks had taken over the town, they weren’t interfering with the rights of its citizens. Still, you did have a bunch of black folks running around town with guns doing whatever they wanted to… disrespecting folks and looking at white women… anyway… The governor had to do something, and he sent his adjunct general to peep out what was going on. The general’s name was Keyes Danforth and he tried to contain the situation… by that I mean take the guns away from the “coloreds.” They say there were watermelon seeds on his uniform when they found him… I don’t know, but that’s what they say… Anyway, he wasn’t successful. The sheriff then asked the governor for federal troops. At first the governor sent 15 members of the State Guard. Guards: “We hear you negroes have been mighty disrespectful lately!! We are here to bring “ORDER!” So, the word is after that, people heard a lot of begging and crying after that. Old women started praying for the black boys and then the Guards came out… All anyone knows is that they refused to tell the sheriff what happened to their guns… they went out to get order and they came back without their guns… Finally, the governor said those Nigras ain’t playing in Chicot County and sent 250 well-armed federal troops. The federal troops didn’t stay long but were able to bring about an uneasy peace. They got the State Guards guns back… okay I’m kidding… I just said they took their guns because they were only 15 strong against more than a couple hundred young muscular black men whose mammas were enslaved by them… I know who I would put my money on… but anywho, after the troops left, the State Guards stayed there until the spring.
So, remember a while back I said a group of black men went to Saunders house? Saunders was the man that shot Wynn and one of the men the black folks dragged out of jail and shot. Remember, they said the black folks went to his house to get his money and burn it all down? Well, his wife bought charges against one of the men she said was involved in the robbery. She knew him because he waved a gun in her face when he told her to give it up. Anyway, he had to leave because the sheriff had a warrant out for him. He went to Mississippi, but later came back with forty supporters. Somehow, after Mrs. Saunders saw the man come back with forty black folks with guns, she left town. The man’s name was Coroner Wesley Brown. Now, without a witness… Brown was acquitted of whatever charge the sheriff had accused him of, but that wasn’t the end of it. The next year after everything had settled down, a circuit court found Brown guilty of theft. He was sentenced to five years… with some of the biggest hairiest white men you’ve ever saw… They say he was a good one… when he got out… anywho…
That was in 1872 and Mason was able to retain power throughout this tumultuous event and time. He was even elected county sheriff in November 1872. However, black hold on political power in Chicot County was coming to an end. In March 1873, the state legislature crafted a constitutional amendment which would grant political rights to all ex-Confederates. In other words that was our azz. It was the beginning of the end of Reconstruction. In four more years, blacks in the former Confederate states would be immersed in the racism of Jim Crow. Chicot County fared better than most. Although Jim Crow started in 1877, blacks in Chicot County held most government seats all the way up to 1883! As for Mason, after the Democrats took over, they didn’t forget him and the Toes Dangling letter… He was eventually tried for his participation in the Chicot events and charged with inciting a race war. After several weeks of trial, he was released on a writ of habeas corpus. That means he was released to somebody who would be responsible for him returning to court. That was in 1883. In 1884 Mason died of “unknown” causes. His burial site is unknown… (James W. Mason is pictured above)

Funny how it is remembered as the “Chicot Massacre.” It really was a rebellion against racism. But you know something… I’m glad this massacre is not about scores of black folks being killed. I’ll take that as a win. Anyway, thanks for reading ©Hill1News.