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EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
| Volume II |
December 1921 |
No. 12 |
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Copyright 1921 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
[TRANSCRIBER’S WARNING: This article
contains offensive language. In the interest of accurate
history, it is included. To omit it would weaken the ability
to preserve a part of Iowa as it was at that time.]
A RACE RIOT ON THE
MISSISSIPPI
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It was early in the morning of
the 29th of July, 1869, when the Northern Line steamer
"Dubuque" swung slowly away from the wharf at Davenport and
with many puffs and snorts from the remonstrating engine,
began to push her way northward against the current. The
shouting of orders, the creaking of the boat's machinery, and
the bumping of the boxes and barrels of freight as they were
moved about were in marked contrast to the quiet of the river
slipping interminably on its way to the ocean, and the
peaceful shores dotted here and there.
In her
cabins on the upper deck the vessel carried about one hundred
passengers, and on the deck below where the freight was piled
high were twice as many steerage or deck passengers, who
shared with some horses, also bound northward, the discomforts
of the open deck. These men, rough in dress. and fluent in
profanity, included many lumbermen who had floated huge rafts
of logs down the river and were now returning to the harvest
fields and logging camps of the north. The steamer was
commanded by Captain John B. Rhodes who had under him a crew
astonishing of a few white officers and about thirty deck
hands, most of whom were colored.
A little
after eight o'clock, just as the cabin passengers were
finishing breakfast, the second clerk, Theodore Jones by name,
went to the lower deck to collect fares and examine tickets.
This was no easy task for the space was crowded; and the
officer stationed a negro deck hand named Moses Davis at the
stairway with orders to permit no one to ascend while the
fares were being collected.
Apparently
this was a mistake in judgment on the part of the clerk, for
the raftsmen, accustomed to submit to harsh and even brutal
treatment from their white bosses, had only contempt for a
colored man. It was not long before an Irish lumberman known
as "pock-marked" or "Mike" Lynah, who had been drinking and
was in a quarrelsome mood, attempted to pass the
guard—probably to secure more liquor at the bar above. An
altercation followed which was interrupted temporarily by the
mate, John F. Sweet. Lynch withdrew but gathered about him
some twenty-five of his associates and began to threaten the
negro. It was suggested that Lynah and Davis fight it out and
a ring was formed, but the Irishman refused to fight a negro
on these terms and instead led a rush at Davis.
This was
the signal for pandemonium. Other raftsmen joined in the
assault which was extended to all the colored employees on the
boat. By this time the steamer had reached Hagy's Landing at
Hampton, Illinois, and some of the rioters, running to the
shore, armed themselves with pieces of coal, rocks, and
billets of wood with which they bombarded the luckless colored
men. Others, led by Lynch, began a search for the colored deck
hands who made frantic efforts to find places of concealment.
Some sixteen of them escaped to the shore followed by
scattering revolver shots and missiles of various kinds.
Others were not so fortunate. In the melee, Davis escaped from
the mob and secreted himself under a lifeboat on the hurricane
deck. Two other colored hands, beaten and cut by their
assailants, hurried to the stern and in despair leaped into
the river, where they sank immediately leaving the water
colored with their blood.
A third
victim, likewise cut and beaten until partly unconscious, was
then seized by half a dozen men and thrown into the river
where he, too, disappeared. A fellow sufferer, pursued by the
blood crazed mob and frantic with fear jumped from the deck.
For a while he struggled in the current but chunks of coal and
sticks of wood fell thick and fast about him and he was soon
engulfed by the stream, while the rioters shouted in
exultation.
After
these four murders, the mob made a hunt for more "niggers",
searching the main deck, the guards of the cabins, and the
hurricane deck. At last Lynch spied Davis and with an oath
pointed out his hiding place to the other rioters. The negro
sprang up knife in hand, and ran toward the stairs slashing
one of his pursuers as he went but not inflicting a fatal
wound. He too was forced to jump into the river. Two men in a
skiff started out to rescue him but before they could reach
him he had been hit by one of the missiles which were being
hurled at him and was drowned. Some days later his body was
found in the river at Muscatine and given burial.
While this
scene of bloodshed was being enacted on the lower deck, many
of the cabin passengers watched the riot from the rail of the
deck above, among them being a young woman named Jane
Teagarden who many years later wrote a reminiscence of the
experience. With her were some children and a number of other
women. Fortunately for the colored men, however, many of
the cabin passengers were still in their staterooms. One of
the negroes, covered with blood from a cut in his throat, ran
into the cabin occupied by Rev. and Mrs. D. C. McCoy,
exclaiming "Save me, do save me, Missis!" He was kept there
and his wounds bandaged while rioters rushed back and forth in
the corridor outside hunting for more victims. One fugitive
was hidden by a woman passenger in her stateroom and his
pursuers were given to understand that he had jumped into the
river. Several of the colored men were secreted by the
officers in their cabins.
This was
apparently all the officers of the "Dubuque" could do, for
none of them, strange to say, were armed. In twenty minutes
there was not a colored deck hand to be seen anywhere. In the
midst of the riot, the vessel had left Hampton and was now
continuing her course up the river, the rioters threatening to
burn the boat if the captain made a stop for assistance. It
appears, however, that no attempt was made to prevent the
passengers from going ashore and these were requested by the
officers of the boat to telegraph to Rock Island for aid. Some
of the raftsman even volunteered to act as deck hands and the
steamer resumed a semblance of order, though the rioters kept
a lookout for any of the colored men left on the vessel.
At
Camanche, the ringleader, Lynch, and a man named Butler who
had been slightly wounded by Davis in his unsuccessful dash
went on shore and failed to return They escaped just in time.
A telegram had reached the Sheriff of Rock Island County and
in a short time Deputy Sheriff Payne with a posse of about
sixty men started to intercept the boat at Clinton reaching
there between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, about
fifteen minutes ahead of the "Dubuque". Here the steamer
pulled into the shore and threw out a gang plank, for the
arrival of the officers was unknown to the rioters. As the
boat docked a number of the raftsmen started to follow Lynch's
example and leave the vessel but they were met by the Deputy
Sheriff backed by a dozen armed men and compelled to return to
the boat. The bluster and defiance of authority which had been
growing weaker now disappeared entirely and it was without
much difficulty that twenty of the men, pointed out by the
boat's officers as implicated in the riot, were put in irons.
Captain
Rhodes decided to land the prisoners at Rock Island, and the
"Dubuque", upon which there was now the hush of tragedy and
the order imposed by armed representatives of the government,
was turned southward late in the afternoon, stopping only to
pick up some of the deck hands who had fled from the boat at
the beginning of the attack.
As the
steamer drew up to the landing at Rock Island crowds of
curious people were kept back by ropes which had been
stretched about a part of the levee. The colored deck hands
who had escaped the fury of the mob were formed in two lines
inside this space while the posse stood guard with drawn
revolvers. Then the chief rioters in irons were marched off
the boat and the remaining deck passengers were ordered to
pass between the rows of negroes to be identified. Over forty
white men were taken to jail to await a preliminary hearing
and the crowd dispersed. The colored witnesses were given
lodgings in the Court House. Mr. Jones, the clerk whose order
had precipitated the riot, and Mr. Sweet, the mate, remained
to give evidence and at half-past nine that night the boat
again started northward.
The
following Friday morning the preliminary hearing was begun at
Rock Island before Police Justice E. C. Cropper. The prisoners
were brought in manacled in pairs and guarded by the Deputy
Sheriff and fifteen assistants. The survivors of the colored
crew, twenty-four in number, were seated inside the bar,
fronting the prisoners. A local newspaper gives the following
description of the scene:
"The
negroes were then called up, one by one, and asked to take a
careful survey of the prisoners. They followed instructions to
the letter. The objects of their searching gaze were about as
uneasy a set of mortals as ever occupied the prisoner's box in
Rock Island. As the negro would point to a rioter and spot
him, the fellow's breath would be impeded by a thickness in
his throat, and his face gave signs of oppressive fear."
As a
result of this hearing ten men were held for trial and the
rest were freed. Among those held was Timothy or "Ted" Butler
also known as William Jones, who had left the "Dubuque " in
company with Lynch. Butler had been captured by the Sheriff of
Clinton County and turned over to the authorities at Rock
Island. The prisoners were indicted for the murder of one of
the negro deck hands known as William Armstead or William
Armstrong, but their trial was postponed from time to time and
the witnesses allowed to leave on their own recognizance.
This gave rise to the suspicion that the authorities did not
intend to prosecute the white men for the murder of negroes.
"The long and short of the business is that the case is
virtually approaching an inglorious fizzle", was the comment
of the Rock Island Argus in October, 1869. "A pile of money
has been expended by the county and private individuals, and
the whole affair has ended like a shepherd's tale'. Justice
has been cheated of its prey. . . . It is to be hoped that
Lynch will not be caught, and another $500 saddled on the
county."
To this
the Davenport Democrat replied: "Such surely cannot be the
case. When a reckless crowd of rioters will murder negroes,
drive them into the river, cut and shoot them down for no
other offense than color, whether drunk or sober, they should
be made to suffer the full penalty of the law. These men are
the terror of river travel, and now let them learn well the
lesson of obedience to law, and of respecting the rights of
others." The fact that the crime was caused by race
prejudice aggravated by drinking gave the tragedy some
political significance in the opinion of a Muscatine editor
who published the following comment:
WHISKY
and PREJUDICE—These
were the incentives to the late terrible affair on the steamer
Dubuque, whereby five human lives were sacrificed and the
persons and property of hundreds of men, women and children
placed in imminent peril by an infuriated mob.... For the
first of these incentives, whisky, the steamboat company is
responsible, at least to the extent to which it permits
intoxicating beverages to be dealt out from the bars of its
steamers to reckless and irresponsible men. For the second
incentive, prejudice, the leaders of the Democratic party are
mainly responsible. They have persistently taught their
followers to hate the negro and loon upon him as one having
"no rights which a white man is bound to respect."
After some
delay, however, arrangements were made for the trial of the
rioters; but the defendants, evidently fearing the sentiment
in the community familiar with the story of their crime, asked
for a change of venue. This was granted and the case was
transferred to the Circuit Court of Henry County, Illinois.
Here nine of the men were put on trial at the June term of
court in 1870. As a result of this trial two of the defendants
were acquitted and seven were found guilty of manslaughter,
receiving sentences of from one to three years in the
penitentiary. The case against Timothy Butler for some reason
was postponed and finally dropped.
In the
meantime Michael Lynch, the chief instigator of the crime,
remained at liberty for some months. At the request of the
Northern Line Packet Company a reward of $500 was offered for
his arrest but he had apparently disappeared completely. He
was finally apprehended in a lumber camp at Clarendon,
Arkansas, where he secured work in a saw mill. Reports as to
the agency of his capture differ. One story is that he was
identified by a former associate, who, knowing that Lynch was
aware that he had another wife still living, feared that the
Irish lumberman would make known this fact and desired to get
Lynch out of the way. Another account is that Lynch was
identified by a traveling agent who had been on the "Dubuque"
during the riot.
The
identity of the person who received the $500 reward is not,
however, an essential point in the story. Lynch was arrested
and two officers went to Clarendon and returned bringing with
them the former rioter. The trip was made by boat, the steamer
"Minneapolis" bringing the trio from St. Louis to Rock Island.
At various stopping places curious and sometimes hostile
crowds tried to get a glimpse of the pock-marked face of the
prisoner, but Lynch was kept in a stateroom in irons and the
would-be spectators were disappointed.
Lynch was
put on trial for the crime of murder in the Circuit Court of
Rock Island County in September, 1870, and after a trial
lasting six days was found guilty of manslaughter and
sentenced to ten years in the State Penitentiary at Joliet.
And while
these men served out their sentences, the steamer "Dubuque"
plied up and down the Mississippi. The riot, unusual only
because of the number of the victims, was almost forgotten,
except when in the evenings the colored deck hands perhaps
related to newcomers among them the story of the five men of
their race who lost their lives that July morning, or the
white officers pointed out to favored passengers the places on
the boat from which the hunted negroes jumped into the river
which on that occasion served as the executioner for the mob.
RUTH A. GALLAHER
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