An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866 [Hardcover]

James G. Hollandsworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

In the summer of 1866 racial tensions ran high in Louisiana as a constitutional convention considered disenfranchising former Confederates and enfranchising blacks. On July 30, a procession of black suffrage supporters pushed through an angry throng of hostile whites. Words were exchanged, shots rang out, and within minutes a riot erupted with unrestrained fury. When it was over, at least forty-eight men—an overwhelming majority of them black—lay dead and more than two hundred had been wounded. In An Absolute Massacre, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., examines the events surrounding the confrontation and offers a compelling look at the racial tinderbox that was the post-Civil War South.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

One of several atrocious riots perpetrated in the South in 1866, the bloody tumult in New Orleans had both immediate and antecedent causes. Hollandsworth weaves both into a narrative of events shocking in themselves and made more so by the author's objective, detached manner. The underlying factor in the riot, as in all similar incidents in the aftermath of the Civil War, was the extent of equality to be accorded freedmen. Under Lincoln's Reconstruction plan, a Louisiana convention agreed to abolish slavery but deferred the decision on suffrage to the state legislature. Under the even more lenient Johnson, ex-Confederates returning from the war gained control of the state and city governments by early 1866, so the prosuffrage conventioneers seized on a legal technicality to reconvene and give black men the vote. The ensuing explosion was almost wholly a police-perpetrated murder of dozens of blacks and pro-Union whites, recounted in Hollandsworth's ghastly blow-by-blow detail. Remarkably, to this day denizens of New Orleans pass by the riot's location without any memorial to detain them. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., is also the author of The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience during the Civil War and Pretense of Glory: The Life of Nathaniel P. Banks. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807125881
• ISBN-13: 978-0807125885
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,244,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Critical Moment in History, December 24, 2003

By 

S. Jones (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866 (Hardcover)

Covering a pivitol moment in American history, 'An Absolute Massacre' is the history of the tragic riot that overtook the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1866 in which a racist pro-confederate mob attacked loyal African Americans in New Orleans.

The event shocked and alarmed the northern public leading to Civil Rights bill of 1866, the sweeping Republican victories in the 1866 elections, Congressional reconstruction, and the 14th Amendment.

The riot began the chain of events that culminated in the constitutional crisis of the following year, the impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson.

Well researched, well written and well worth reading.

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging Account of Little Known History, September 5, 2011

By 

A reader (New Orleans) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Absolute Massacre (Paperback)

The New Orleans race riot of 1866 would be just the first of several riots, including ones in 1868, 1874 and 1900 in which white, confederate control was reasserted in New Orleans. Hollandsworth has done a fine job of explaining the principals and the issues, highlighting the events with dramatic pauses. This is the kind of history one can't put down, even though we know the train wreck is about to happen. Manumission and universal male suffrage were two very different issues. Manumission had been forced on the defeated south; suffrage would not and could not be, for nearly 100 years from this riot. The author included a postscript chapter which shows the fates of the principal actors. I do wish that postscript had included even passing mention of the subsequent race riots and their contribution to the chain of events cementing Jim Crow, including Plessey v. Ferguson and the Robert Charles affair of 1900.

15 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pay No attention to Ignorant Review by Booklist, July 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866 (Hardcover)

As usual, another slanted, antiSouth Review by Booklist. I bought this book shortly after publication since my husband's direct ancestor was the only New Orleans policeman to die in the line of duty in this "massacre". There is no "memorial" because the fight took place all over what is now the Central Business District of New Orleans. As usual, Booklist characterizes any attempt by Southerners to throw off their shackles and return to true constitutional government as some sort of racist vendetta against blacks. There was plenty of blame to go around in this incident, with much of it coming from Union agitators like Dostie who were constantly inciting the newly freed blacks and making promises they had no intention of keeping. They had been "speechifying" all day on July 29 and urging the freedmen to arm themselves. New Orleans, already under a very harsh Union occupation for several years, was ready to explode, and the Federals made sure the match was lit. The book itself has a lot of interesting details, but the author didn't dig very far - it seems he relied mostly on the old report to Congress after the fight, which is very slanted. While he mentions the death of my husband's ancestor, he misspelled the name and didn't look beyond the two line newspaper mention. I didn't find anything new here - certainly the author never considered the psychology of returning Confederate soldiers and a desperate native populace now under the legislative rule of illiterate men just out of the cotton fields.