“No Rights That White Men Were Bound to Respect:” Reconstruction and Political Violence in Jackson County, Florida Main Menu

Violence and Fury Unleashed

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The Regulators began their assault on Republican forces soon after Maggie McClellan’s murder. They were looking for Republicans whom they believed were connected to the murder. However, local white Republicans became the target of Regulators long before any of the violence erupted in October. A concealed gunman shot both Dr. John L. Finlayson and William Purman as they were walking to Finlayson’s home on a February night in 1869. Finlayson, a local physician, was instantly killed, and Purman, though severely injured, survived the attack.
 
Whipped up into a fury, the young men, sons of prominent white merchants and professionals in the town, began to search for vengeance against Rogers. Finally, three drunken young men, Billy Coker, Edward S. Alderman, and Jack Myrick, forced two local African Americans, Oscar Granberry and Matt Nickels to help them locate Rogers. When they reached the outlying country, they ordered the men to walk ahead. Then, bullets rang out. Granberry was murdered, but Nickels escaped unscathed.
 
This event only served to stoke the fiery wrath of white men who became a menacing presence on the street. Prominent and politically active African Americans were targeted and harassed in the coming weeks. Emanuel Fortune was one of those men. Years after the violence of Reconstruction, T. Thomas Fortune remembered his father’s precautions against them. He wrote, “Mr. Fortune built a trap door under his bed on the first floor of his house, commanding the whole front approach, and had a small arsenal in reach. The children slept in the 'loft.' The understanding was that, if a knock on the door came, his wife was to open the door and follow it behind as it swung, while he would drop into the trap door and, if there were persons outside, open fire on them and those of them who should rush for the house. Fortunately, for all concerned, no raid was made on him in his home, but sharp shooters sneaked about, a hundred yards away, every night.” Eventually, Coker,  Alderman, and Myrick targeted Matt Nickels and his family, brutally murdering him, his wife, Mariah, and their son, Matt Jr. This frenzied string of slayings permeated the atmosphere of the town, putting everyone on edge.
 
On January 29, 1870, the Regulators captured and murdered Calvin Rogers despite any evidence of his actual involvement with the murder of Maggie McClellan. Regardless of the vigilante violence that had been occurring in the fall of 1869 and the spring of 1870, Republican leaders still continued to be politically active. 

Through Regulators’ racialized political rhetoric, more murders would continue to occur after the spike of violence in October 1869. White republicans continued to be targeted after the foment of the murders of Granberry and the Nickels family. The German-Jewish immigrant and merchant Samuel Fleishman was also a part of the Republican Party. Regulators constantly antagonized him, and targeted his store. They tried to intimidate him to sell his goods at low prices and leave. Though Fleishman left for awhile in order to protect his family, but then he returned, determined to weather the threat of the Regulators. However, shortly after his return, he was murdered, as well. 
 

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  1. Introduction: Understanding Jackson County, Florida, from 1865-1871 Annemarie Nichols