January 8, 1892: Nathan Andrews

Today we learn about a lynching in Louisiana through the pages of The Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) dated January 10, 1892:

ANOTHER NEGRO GONE.

Lynched by a Crowd of White Men at Shreveport.

SHREVEPORT, La., Jan. 8.—This morning a negro named Nathan Andrews shot and wounded William Driscoll, a lessee of the Cash plantation in Caddo parish. Andrews had been ordered by Driscoll to leave the place, but paid no attention to the command.

Seeing Driscoll approaching his house he fired at him through a crack in the house, wounding him in the arm. Andrews fled, but was captured at noon. There is strong talk of lynching him.

Later—a negro who has just arrived in town from the Cash Point plantation brings news of the lynching of the negro Andrews by a mob of about fifty men.

He states about 8 o'clock to-night he was passing along the road when he suddenly came upon the lynching party. They compelled him to stop and witness the proceedings.

The negro, who was astride a white horse, was taken beneath the limb of a cottonwood tree and a noose was placed around his neck and over the limb.

At a given signal the horse left his rider dangling in the air.

The negro witness was then allowed to proceed on his journey to town, and he was terrified over his night's experience.

The shooting occurred in the same neighborhood in which three weeks ago the negro Patterson killed two white men, his wife and a negro man, for which he was subsequently lynched.

I feel very bad for the man who was stopped and forced to witness the lynching. I can only imagine how truly terrifying it would be to be stopped by a mob intent on lynching someone and not knowing whether their blood lust would be sated with just the one lynching or if you were to follow. 

I am only going to put down the headlines from another paper because there are no more details in the article, but I found the headlines were an example of the attitudes of the populace at the time. The headlines come to us from the Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona) dated January 15, 1892:

LYNCHING AS AN EPIDEMIC.

The Colored Population of Louisiana Being Properly Decreased.

Thank you for joining me and as always, I hope I leave you with something to ponder.