The Revolution that Failed

Reconstruction in Natchitoches

Adam Fairclough

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780813052168
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

"A masterful and revelatory examination of Reconstruction populated by a cast of compelling characters who leap to life in all their glory, gore, and pathos."--Lawrence N. Powell, author of The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans "Illuminates a complex period, city, and state and advances a reinterpretation of Reconstruction politics that is both welcome and overdue."--Paul D. Escott, author of Uncommonly Savage: Civil War and Remembrance in Spain and the United States

The chaotic years after the Civil War are often seen as a time of uniquely American idealism--a revolutionary attempt to rebuild the nation that paved the way for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. But Adam Fairclough rejects this prevailing view, challenging prominent historians such as Eric Foner and James McPherson. He argues that Reconstruction was, quite simply, a disaster, and that the civil rights movement triumphed despite it, not because of it.

Fairclough takes readers to Natchitoches, Louisiana, a majority-black parish deep in the cotton South. Home to a vibrant Republican Party led by former slaves, ex-Confederates, and free people of color, the parish was a bastion of Republican power and the ideal place for Reconstruction to have worked. Yet although it didn't experience the extremes of violence that afflicted the surrounding region, Natchitoches fell prey to Democratic intimidation. Its Republican leaders were eventually driven out of the parish.

Reconstruction failed, Fairclough argues, because the federal government failed to enforce the rights it had created. Congress had given the Republicans of the South and the Freedmen's Bureau an impossible task--to create a new democratic order based on racial equality in an area tortured by deep-rooted racial conflict. Moving expertly between a profound local study and wider developments in Washington, The Revolution That Failed offers a sobering perspective on how Reconstruction affected African American citizens and what its long-term repercussions were for the nation.

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Revolution That Failed
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Reconstruction in History
• 2. The Collapse of Confederate Louisiana
• 3. Freedom and Survival
• 4. The Lost Cause and the Politics of Loyalty
• 5. Organizing the Republican Party
• 6. Louisiana Democrats and the 1868 Elections
• 7. Republicans in Power
• 8. Unprincipled Politics
• 9. The Natchitoches “Scalawags”
• 10. The White League Insurrection
• 11. The Politics of Murder
• 12. The Election of 1876
• 13. The Compromise of 1877
• 14. Endgame in Natchitoches
• 15. The Slow Death of the Republican Party
• 16. Reconstruction’s Legacy and the Civil Rights Movement
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index