The PPA intended to withhold tobacco from the market until purchasing companies agreed to pay higher prices. In , when the PPA efforts failed to raise tobacco prices in the Black Patch, some growers turned to vigilantism in frustration. Area residents had a long history of using group violence to redress real and perceived grievances. Indian warfare, several regulator and vigilante movements, guerrilla warfare during the Civil War and Reconstruction, and lynching had characterized the Black Patch history long before the onset of the tobacco war.
The example of the Robertson County possum hunters spread throughout the region, and most Black Patch counties adopted similar resolutions. The peaceful visits soon turned violent, however, and gave rise to the night riders. Frank Amoss, a physician from Caldwell County, Kentucky, reportedly led the order. Over the next few years, the night riders engaged in attacks on both property and people. They scraped or salted tobacco plant beds, destroyed tobacco in the fields, killed livestock, burned barns and warehouses filled with tobacco, dynamited farm machinery, and assaulted hillbillies and tobacco buyers.
At the height of their power, the night riders staged spectacular night raids and captured entire towns. To burn or otherwise destroy the property of growers and to whip them and others who refuse to co-operate with you in winning your fight against the Trust is more than they deserve.
There is no reason why a few persons should continue to make the masses suffer when their cooperation would not only be to their benefit, but would increase the earnings and thus improve the conditions of all equally. By the spring of around 2, men had taken the oath and, orders in hand, spread out into the countryside to do their work. Tobacco farmers themselves, the Night Riders knew just how to inflict the maximum harm on their victims.
On the last night of November the Night Riders upped the ante. Two policemen dozing through the late shift in the small Kentucky town of Princeton awakened in a most unpleasant manner to find themselves staring wide-eyed into the barrels of rifles held by six masked men. Outside, hooded accomplices, their boots wrapped in muffling gunny-sacks, jogged silently down the wood-planked sidewalks.
Some axed the telephone and telegraph cables, others seized the firehouse and cut off its water supply. Meanwhile a band of mounted Night Riders swept inaudibly into town on a cold black wind, heading calmly toward the J. Orr Tobacco Factory.
Within moments explosions rent the building apart as the dynamite detonated. The centre of Princeton was a glaring, earsplitting holocaust of fire and explosions; the shocked townspeople, awoken from slumber by this awful visitation, must have thought the End had come. Those residents courageous enough to brave a glance outside would have seen a thin man on horseback blowing three sharp blasts on a horn, summoning his riders to depart.
For David Amoss this spectacle was a thundering blow against tyranny, accomplished with military precision. There would be no turning back. Labour unrest was bad enough when confined to the Northern cities, with their teeming immigrant shanty towns, but to have it rear its head in the rural South, the very cultural soil from where the Duke fortune had been wrung, was sacrilege. And now there was another troublemaker that monopolies such as the Duke Trust had to contend with.
The Association would not have looked to a Yankee, much less a Republican like Roosevelt, for help. Given the success of the Princeton raid, Amoss must have felt he had things very much under control. As one member noted at the time, the Association:. I will keep on working for the Association and if need be I will die in the ditches with the boys from the furrows. On the night of 6 December hundreds of masked men from the surrounding countryside converged on Hopkinsville.
Then a comparative metropolis of the Black Patch and the seat of Christian County, Kentucky, the town had a population of 8, As at Princeton, curious civilians were swiftly ushered back inside by barrages of buckshot. They waited quaveringly in the darkness until a vast orange glow from downtown signalled the demise of the immense Trust warehouses there.
The newspaper office was thoroughly ransacked. Trust sellers were dragged from their homes and viciously beaten. Several men were shot trying to escape, though miraculously no one was killed. The Night Riders were now national news. Vituperative screeds of alarm arose from the mouthpieces of the Establishment at these savages from wildest Kentucky and their anarchic onslaught on international capitalism.
The Association had reached the height of its success in , with tobacco prices at more than eight cents per lb. The battle won, there began to be talk in the confidential meetings of the Night Riders of setting aside the hood and the lash and reassuming a normal life of tilling the soil and curing the baled leaves.
Then the Commonwealth elected as the new governor of Kentucky Augustus E. Willson, an urbane Republican attorney and firm friend of big business. Political power had long resided in the wealthy, agrarian, Confederate-sympathising and largely Democratic flatlands.
Hi everyone! There is a lot of great information here, between the original post and the additional comments that followed. I thank God for our black farmers because black folks farming go way back.
Black farmers got experience from there ancestors. Black farmers are hard workers. Black farmers seeks to use healthy feed for the food and animals I support you black farmers. We provide organically raised poultry, eggs, lamb and garlic in New Jersey. So glad to have found such an amazing website just for shopping within our own community.
I love this article and am so glad to have the information to learn more about each farm. Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
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Black owned farms make up less than 2 percent of all farms in the United States. Tags: farmer farming farms Food health vegan. You might be interested in. November 4, November 4, October 21, September 13, September 13, Please include it on your wonderful list.
This list is grossly incomplete! No Black farms in Mississippi? A more constructive comment would have included the names of the farms you speak of. Vertical Life Farms in Dallas is showing as closed. You covered their farm in May! Although I knew it was a long-shot, I was hoping that there was something in New England. Excellent information. Please keep me posted. Thank you. Blessings and Guidance.
Are there any black owned farms in North Carolina Raleigh, Durham area? They are called the Little Washington Group: here is their email: littlewashingtongg gmail. Thank you for this list. There are more Black owned farms in North Carolina! Some more to add to the DMV list! Any information about the question would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance! Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Latest from All Posts. Go to Top. Loading Comments
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