The Hamburgh Riot Explained. Speech of Hon. Wm. W. Eaton of Connecticut, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, August 7, 1876.

The Hamburg, South Carolina Riot

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On July 4th, in the all-black community of Hamburgh (Hamburg) South Carolina, all-black members of a local militia were harassed by angry planters trying to pass through the militia’s formation. By July 8th, a court case had come to bear, charging the militia with obstruction public roads. White armed men began to descend upon the town, intending to riot.

By afternoon, led by former Confederate General Matthew Butler and his Red Shirt militia —South Carolina’s version of the Ku Klux Klan— violence and gun fire broke out between the armed whites and the black militia. The latter retreated to the town armory, but they were outnumbered; the white attackers captured the armory. The whites then rounded up the town’s militiamen, and formed what they called a “dead ring,” and murdered, in cold blood, at least four black men. In all, six black men would die. Hamburg’s businesses and homes would be looted. Of the ninety-four white attackers indicted, none were prosecuted.

Eaton’s speech is given in the aftermath of these events.

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