Colfax massacre

The Colfax massacre occurred on April 13, 1873, in Colfax, the parish seat of Grant Parish, Louisiana, amid a disputed 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election between Republican William P. Kellogg and Democrat John McEnery. Rival slates of local officials — Republicans Robert C. Register and Daniel Wesley Shaw, and Fusionist Democrats Alphonse Cazabat and Christopher Columbus Nash — each claimed the offices of parish judge and sheriff. Black freedmen, fearing Democrats would seize the courthouse, dug trenches around it and organized armed defense, joined by state militia captain William Ward, a Black Union Army veteran.

Tensions escalated through late March and early April 1873, including gunfire exchanges and the killing of a Black bystander, Jesse McKinney, by a White man. Sheriff Nash assembled an armed White paramilitary force of more than 300 men, drawn from Grant, Rapides, Winn, and Catahoula parishes, equipped with rifles and a small cannon. On April 13, Nash's forces surrounded the courthouse, gave women and children time to leave, and then attacked. After the courthouse roof was set ablaze, defenders attempted to surrender using improvised white flags. Accounts differ on what followed: White participants said defender James Hadnot was shot while surrendering; Black survivors said he was shot from behind by his own men. In the aftermath, Nash's forces killed most of the Black defenders, including men trying to flee or hide, and dumped bodies into the Red River. About 50 Black men taken prisoner were reportedly killed later that night by captors who had been drinking. Only one member of that group, Levi Nelson, survived, having been shot by Bill Cruikshank but escaping. Three White men — Stephen Decatur Parish, James West Hadnot, and Sidney Harris — died. The precise Black death toll was never established, with contemporary and later estimates ranging from 62 to as many as 153.

US Attorney James Roswell Beckwith pursued federal prosecutions under the Enforcement Act of 1870. Ninety-seven men were indicted, and nine were charged. Two trials followed in 1874; the first ended in one acquittal and a mistrial for the rest, while the second produced convictions of three men that were later dismissed by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley, riding circuit, who then released the men on bail. The case was appealed and decided by the US Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank (1875/1876), which held that Fourteenth Amendment protections applied only to actions by state governments, not private individuals, effectively ending federal prosecution of such attacks. No perpetrators were prosecuted by the state of Louisiana. Historian Eric Foner has described Colfax as the deadliest instance of racial violence during Reconstruction. Public memorialization of the massacre has changed over time: a 1920 monument commemorated the three White dead as fighting "for White Supremacy," and a 1950 state highway marker described the events as ending "carpetbag misrule." That marker was removed in 2021, and a new monument listing 57 identified Black victims was dedicated in 2023.