Unprovoked Shooting of a Negro (1866)
From the Cleveland (Tenn.) Banner we clip the following: Wash. HENDERSON, a colored man, was shot through the thigh, at this place, on Monday evening last, by a man named COLEMAN, from Hamilton county. Wash. is a very peaceable and orderly – attends to his own business and interfere with the affairs of no one. We learn the shooting was done without any provocation at all on the part of the negro. It is said COLEMAN was very much intoxicated when the shooting was done. It is time such conduct was suppressed, and if the civil authorities are unable to do it, negro troops will be sent here to do it. Where a negro is behaving himself and conducting himself in accordance with the laws of the country, it is wrong – very wrong – for him to be maltreated and abused. Let the civil authorities arrest this fellow COLEMAN, and let him be sent to the Penitentiary, provided the negro don’t die, and if he dies let his murderer be hung. (pg. 3)
Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig. (Knoxville, Tenn.), 07 March 1866. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045629/1866-03-07/ed-1/seq-3/>