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3 you Can’t Come here with Any such equality, 1867 his voice upon the “stump” was heard; he “yankeedom” did prate; The “carpet-bagger” he revered; The southerner did hate. —T. Thomas Fortune, “bartow black” optimism for 1867 was shattered in early February by a brutal killing. Gilbert Walker, a freedman “of excellent character,” was hauling lumber on a public road outside marianna when he encountered a mr. bell driving an empty oxcart in the opposite direction. Charles m. hamilton reported the subsequent incident in detail: both gave way,but the road being narrow,and Gilbert heavily loaded, sufficient space to pass could not be given, and both stopped. Gilbert got down and held aside some bushes to permit bell to pass—which he did. At this juncture Parker came up, on foot, and demanded of Gilbert why he did not turn out of the road. Gilbert replied that he did as far as he could. Parker retorted “if you ever do that again i’ll kill you”—and cursing him, added “i might as well do it now”— and put a revolver to his breast and shot him—Gilbert expired in fifteen minutes. Reporting on the incident to Florida governor David s. Walker, Judge George F. baltzell pointed out that Parker was not a Jackson County citizen and had probably escaped to Texas despite the efforts of “officers appointed by the freedmen” to capture him.1 in 1867,a single,brutal incident likeWalker’s murder still had the power to shock the entire county. The slaying left an indelible impression on T. Thomas Fortune, who described the crime sixty years after the event in “After War Times.” Fortune compared the impact of the news of this killing on the black community to “a thunder bolt . . . descended out of a clear sky.” The story “swept through the county like a prairie fire. negro men and women from every direction swarmed into the village, fighting 30 / Chapter 3 mad and determined to be avenged. The village and nearby swamps and forest were thoroughly searched for the bloody miscreant, all of the afternoon and the night, but he eluded capture.” if they had found the culprit ,Fortune insisted,“enraged” negroes would have “torn him from limb to limb.”2 Walker’s murder, however, although outrageous, was an isolated event and was not followed by reprisals or other slayings. Attention swiftly returned to the labor situation. January and February were the months for employers and laborers to negotiate their annual contracts. hamilton and William J. Purman reported they had approved only 116 contracts signed by six hundred freedmen, representing fewer than half the number who had entered into contracts the year before. Freedmen were increasingly choosing to fend for themselves, even squatting or homesteading on worthless public lands,rather than contract with mistrusted employers.A few arranged to pay rent directly to landowners and some acquired title to land under the southern homestead Act.3 Planters were determined to frustrate any move toward black economic independence. emanuel Fortune reported that by conspiring to sell blacks parcels of land not smaller than one hundred acres, the planters created an impassable barrier that prevented African Americans from establishing viable farming enterprises. Certainly, no freedmen were in the position to purchase large plots of productive farmland, and the government land available for homesteading was poor quality. nevertheless, by 1870 about seventy black families acquired their own acreage.4 The Freedmen’s bureau agents conducted their activities with continued vigor in their second year in Jackson County. Freedmen’s schools now flourished with two schools in operation during the day in addition to a night school under the direction of Dr. John l. Finlayson. The indefatigable Purman, continuing his lecture series, claimed to have delivered forty-six such speeches to black audiences since the previous April.in perhaps the ultimate tribute to the effectiveness of the bureau agents, blacks in surrounding areas, and particularly from distressed counties in southern Alabama, began moving into labor-hungry Jackson County, which they perceived as comparatively stable.5 in their second year, the bureau agents also began to attend to the freedmen ’s political future. hamilton and Purman frequently appeared at gatherings of the freedmen’s benevolent Aid society that had been organized “for the relief of the indigent and suffering,and for the dissemination and discussion of principles and news.” The secret meetings of the society, prob- You Can’t Come Here with Any Such Equality / 31 ably a...

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