In the fall of 1869 the grand jury of Leon County attempted to inquire into the reported bribery of the members of the Legislature. It was believed that Littlefield, when he first arrived in the State deposited his money in the Freedman's Savings Bank in Jacksonville. The grand jury issued a subpoena duces tecum to the cashier of the Tallahassee Bank, which compelled him to appear before the jury and bring the books and papers belonging to that institution. The books and papers showed that a large number of the carpetbag members of the Legislature had received drafts from M. S. Littlefield, payable at this bank, which drafts had been collected. The drafts to the different members ran all the way up from two thousand to five and six thousand dollars to each member. No white man got less than two thousand dollars. The books further showed that only two colored members received drafts, and these two fell away down into the hundreds-receiving five hundred dollars each.

As the drafts did not show what this money was paid for it was thought by the prosecuting officer that indictments for bribery could not be sustained. Therefore, no true bills were found. See stub of blank draft book, Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company, Tallahassee, Fla.

Although no bills were found at this term, the Ring secured the indictment of C. H. Pearce, colored, a Senator from the Eighth Senatorial District, in the fall of 1876, by the grand jury of Leon County, for offering a bribe to Fred Hill, colored, of the Seventh Senatorial District. The circumstances of the case were as follows: Littlefield requested Pearce to inform Hill that he could get five hundred dollars to vote for Littlefield's four million bond bill. Pearce delivered the message, which, however, Littlefield did not intend to fulfill, as he had already secured a sufficient number of votes to pass the bill. Pearce afterwards denied having carried the message, but said that Hill had got the message from some carpet-bagger, and afterwards asked him about the matter, when he was told what Littlefield had said. The impeachers, who had grown fat from the lavish hand of Littlefield, deemed this a splendid opportunity to cripple Pearce for life, and insisted that Hill, who was one of Stearns' submissive tools, should report the matter to the grand jury. Harry Cruse, another submissive and obedient servant of Stearns, was

pitched upon as a witness to the delivery of the message. No one ever believed (who understood the game) that Cruse knew anything about the matter until requested to testify, so as to get Pearce out of the way before the impeachment of Governor Reed, which was to take place at the earliest possible moment. The real bribe-takers, the men who had in their pockets five and six thousand dollars each of Littlefield's money, were now hiring men to swear away the liberty of Pearce, that his hold upon the colored voter might be broken. Littlefield, the man who offered the bribe, if it could be considered an attempt at bribery, was not arrested, nor did the grand jury which indicted Pearce for carrying the message, inquire into the conduct of Littlefield in the premises. Stearns, after the indictment was found, smiled as gracefully over the downfall of Pearce as he afterwards smiled over the consummation of various election frauds.

CHAPTER X.

The Purman-Hamilton Reign of Terror in Jackson County.

And here opens a scene of oppression and usurpation of power which is equally diabolical in many instances with the reign of "Bloody Mary." There was no portion of the State more disturbed by the operations of the reconstruction measures of 1868 than Jackson County. The two races became arrayed against each other in deadly hostility, which led to frequent occurrences of violence and bloodshed. This state of things was not due to the enmity of the whites to the blacks, nor their opposition to the new law enfranchising the latter-though they were opposed to it, of course-nor was it due to any natural bad temper or hatred of the whites on the part of the colored people, for under ordinary circumstances there are no more peaceable people in the world than the inhabitants of Jackson County, of both colors, and they would have passed through the ordeal of reconstruction without a jar or disturbance, had it not been for the evil influence of the very men who were delegated to preserve peace, to administer justice, and to promote good fellowship and kindly relations between the freedmen and their former owners.

Charles M. Hamilton and William J. Purman were sent to Marianna as agents of the Freedman's Bureau in 1866, and if the purpose of the head of that department of the government had been to establish a reign of terror over the people of that county he could not have selected more fitting instruments. Hamilton, though afterwards a member of Congress, was a man of very ordinary capacity, but possessed courage and will power in a high degree. Purman, as has been said, was a man of unusual ability-shrewd, eloquent and persuasive, and with perfect knowledge of the character and prejudices of the colored man at that time, and also with a hidden contempt for his ignorance. He directed all the operations of the Bureau and put Hamilton forward to do all the dirty or dangerous work. He played upon the weaknesses and impulses of the colored people and drew from them shouts of joy, and responses of applause

and approval with the skill and ease a master organist brings out the great swells of music by a gentle touch of the key. These would occur when he was eloquently depicting to his eager listening audiences the horrors of slavery and the cruelty and oppression they had undergone. Every device was resorted to by these agents to embitter the colored man against the white man; and, with the powers they possessed, it is no wonder they succeeded upon material so easily mislead.

What incendiary harangues failed to accomplish they sought to do by exhibitions of their power over the whites, which they displayed in frequent acts of the grossest tyranny They set at defiance the orders and decrees of the courts of justice when the matters involved were mere questions of right between two citizens, neither of whom were freedmen. They arrested and imprisoned peaceable citizens without any real cause, and refused to furnish them or their counsel with the charges upon which they were held. On one occasion they had brought before them two young ladies of the highest respectability on the charge of removing flowers from a Union soldier's grave, who protested their innocence and offered to prove it without the insult and humiliation of being arraigned at bureau headquarters, but their appeals were in vain, and they were forced to appear and stand up and unveil themselves in the presence of Hamilton to answer the charge, which no witness could be found to sustain.

Among their duties as agents of the Freedman's Bureau, was the supervising of labor contracts between the freedmen and their employers. For this service they charged each freedman twenty-five cents and the employer fifty cents. An enterprising and intelligent citizen of the county, happening in Washington, called upon General Howard, the head of the bureau, and inquired of him if his agents were allowed to do such things. The General informed him they were not, and requested him to furnish him with evidence of its being done in any case. Thereupon the gentleman prepared and posted notices requesting those who had receipts for moneys so paid to present them to him, or, in his absence, to a designated agent. This gentleman and his agent were immediately arrested and kept in confinement without charges being preferred against them until one of them was taken dangerously ill, when they were discharged out of fear of

the consequences.

Four young farmers, who worked a large number of freedmen under a contract approved and ratified by these agents, were arrested and imprisoned for doing what was provided in said contract, and without any charges or causes assigned, though the officers were repeatedly requested to furnish them. The men were discharged at the pleasure of the agents of the bureau. Many other minor acts might be mentioned showing a persistent determination to alienate the races and breed strife.

These deeds of tyranny and oppression were resorted to for the double purpose of demonstrating their power to the colored people and of humiliating the whites. Of course they bore their legitimate fruit and naturally awakened feelings of the bitterest hostility among the people who were the victims of such injustice and insult. While the colored people were not responsible for these misdeeds, they were inevitably drawn into the troubles which ensued and doubtless encouraged to commit the first act of bloodshed which opened that eventful chapter in the history of Jackson County.

In the fall of 1868 a man by the name of McGriff, residing near Port Jackson, had a difficulty with some of his colored employes and the matter in dispute, which became angry, was referred to the Bureau by McGriff; but he obtained no satisfaction. A few nights thereafter he was shot in his house and wounded. He left for Alabama and sent a man by the name of McDaniel to take charge of his place. In a short time McDaniel was called to the door at night and shot dead. These acts were traced directly to the failure of these agents of the Bureau to settle peaceably the trouble between McGriff and his employes.

One exasperation followed close on another, until the county was in a fever of irritation. In the spring of 1869, while Purman was going to his home in Marianna at night, in company with Dr. John Finlayson, they were fired into by parties in ambush, and the latter was instantly killed. Purman was shot through the neck, but not badly. A few days after that a man by the name of Colliter, who had made himself very obnoxious to the Bureau by his open and bitter denunciation of their conduct, was shot and killed in his house at night by unknown persons. From this time on, during the year 1869, the whole