The Millican Riot (August 2, 1868)

The Millican Riot (August 2, 1868)

Millican

"The Millican Riot." The Daily Phoenix [Columbia, SC]  2 Aug. 1868: 1.

Chronicling of America

August 2, 1868

Katelyn Heflin

English

Newspaper Article

Newspaper Article

For the past three days, our city has been laboring under a great deal of excitement, consequent upon a difficulty which began on the 15th ult., between the whites and the blacks, at the town of Millican, Brazos County, on the Central Railroad, and which is not yet fully quieted. I learn from a perfectly reliable source that the difficulty had it's origins as follows: A negro man, whose name I have not been able to learn, went to the house of a young man named Holliday, a short distance from Millican, to settle some business matters. Finding Holliday absent, the negro demanded a settlement of his wife, who informed him that she knew nothing about the business, and consequently could not do anything in the matter. This seemed to enrage the negro and he began making threats and cursing Mrs. Holliday, which so alarmed her that she fled to a neighbor's and informed the members of the family of what had taken place, and requested some men to go to her house and make the negro leave. Two or three men immediately went over and arrested the negro and carried him into Washington County, but a short distance from there, and turned him over to the civil authorities. Somehow or other - perhaps under instructions from the Loyal League - a report was circulated among the negroes in the vicinity that Holliday and his friends had hung the negro, and in an incredibly short space of time they congregated a force of about sixty well armed negroes, and marched through Millican in the direction of Holliday's house, breathing threats of vengeance. ....