Black Patch Tobacco Wars

The American Tobacco Company James Buchanan "Buck" Duke of North Carolina was an ambitious businessman and planter who quickly learned that profit was maximized buying and selling tobacco, not producing it. In 1879, the W. Duke Sons and Company was established as a tobacco manufacturer and began producing cigarettes. Two years later, the commercial cigarette-rolling machine was invented by James Bonsack. Duke quickly rented two of these machines, allowing his company to produce 400 cigarettes per minute. In 1884, he struck a deal with its inventor to use his machines exclusively in manufacturing cigarettes in exchange for lower royalties. The lowered manufacturing costs realized allowed him to cut his retail prices so low that his competitors couldn't compete. By 1890, Duke was able to compel his major competitors to consolidate with him as the American Tobacco Company (ATC). By 1900, the ATC had a stranglehold on the American market and had made inroads into foreign markets, affecting the majority of the world's tobacco sales either directly or through foreign partnerships. Duke used this power to reduce his tobacco-buying price by eliminating the competitive bidding process. This brought many farmers to the brink of financial ruin or led to the complete loss of their farms, as they found it cost more to plant their crop than they earned on it. The ATC's collusive fixed-price purchasing policy, combined with a new Federal tax on tobacco, placed tobacco producers into an impossible situation. Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee In 1904, Felix Ewing, a wealthy tobacco planter and owner of Glenraven Plantation near the Kentucky stateline in Adams, Tennessee, proposed a way for the Black Patch growers to regain control of their sale prices. Glenraven Plantation, developed like a company town, had its own church, stores and post office, and its residents were tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Because of the decline in sale price of their product, they were defecting to find better-paying opportunities in the cotton industry. During the summer of 1904, Ewing discussed his idea throughout the region and on September 24, 1904, hosted a meeting in Guthrie, Kentucky, attended by some 5,000 locals. He presented a plan for every farmer in the area to join a protective association whose purpose was withholding their tobacco from the Trust until buyers paid their asking price. The PPA inadvertently created new tensions in the region, dividing men who had previously worked closely together if they had opposite ideas about joining the association. This situation worsened as PPA members turned to violence to "persuade" former friends to join. Conditions for the growers did not improve by 1905, causing dissension among the members who had expected an immediate turnaround. What had started as an idea for a peaceful resolution turned ugly. ==Silent Brigade and Night Riders==

Ewing fell ill and became less of a regular presence. More radical members took power, promoting a harsher approach to handling the farmers' problems. Dr. David Amoss, a farmer and country doctor from Cobb, Kentucky who lived in Caldwell County rose to a position of notoriety within the Association. He took a lead when frustrated members wanted to take stronger action. Possum Hunters "In October 1905 thirty-two members of the Robertson County Branch of the PPA met at the Stainback schoolhouse in the northern part of the county and adopted the "Resolutions of the committee of the Possum Hunters Organization. "The possum hunters outlined their grievances against the Trust and the farmers and stated their intention to visit Trust tobacco buyers and farmers in groups of no fewer than five and no more than two thousand and use "peaceful" methods to convince buyers and non-poolers to adhere to the PPA." The idea caught on quickly and Possum Hunter groups began to spring up throughout the region. They paid visits to non-PPA members, delivering stern lectures on the advisability of joining the cause. Gradually, however, their activities grew more violent. Rise of the Night Riders: The Black Patch turns violent. Amoss had been a cadet and drillmaster at Major Ferrell's Military School in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He used this background to begin training his groups as paramilitary insurgents. They conducted nocturnal mounted raids, while wearing masks, hoods and robes, and riding in well-organized columns of twos. When on a mission, they muffled their mounts' hooves with cloths, and rode silently, carrying torches and lanterns. As a result, they began referring to themselves as the Silent Brigade. By mid-1906, they numbered an estimated 10,000 members. Amoss ordered his men to burn or otherwise destroy the property of growers, and whip them and other persons who refused to cooperate with them in their fight against the Trust. Raid on Princeton, Kentucky According to local accounts, on December 1, 1906, small groups of Night Riders drifted during the day into Princeton, Kentucky, the seat of Caldwell County. At an appointed time some raided and occupied the police station, while others simultaneously seized the telegraph and telephone offices, and the fire station, and shut off the city water supply. The Night Riders took complete control of the city. The largest group first burned the Latham warehouse near the Rail Depot, then the Tandy and Fairleigh warehouse a few blocks away. The fires burned out of control, igniting several residences and the PPA warehouse. J.C. Felts, a brakeman working for the railroad, was shot in the back with 35 pellets of buckshot (but survived the injury) as he tried to save railcars from the fire. Additional violence took place in the county from the spring on, with an increasing number of attacks on blacks as tensions and violence rose. On August 1, 1908, about one hundred masked men believed to be Night Riders entered the jail in Russellville and demanded four black prisoners: Joseph Riley, and Virgil, Robert, and Thomas Jones. The frightened jailer complied. The four men were local sharecroppers, and friends with Rufus Browder. Browder was a sharecropper for a white landowner named James Cunningham. Cunningham and Browder had engaged in an altercation, and Cunningham hit Browder with a whip and shot him as the sharecropper had turned to walk away. Browder returned fire, killing Cunningham in self-defense. Browder was arrested and taken to another town for protection. His friends and Masonic lodge brothers, Riley and the three Jones, were arrested for allegedly having expressed approval of Browder's actions, as well as discontent with their employers. The Night Riders are believed to have taken the four men from the jail and hanged them all from the same tree. They pinned a racist warning to the clothing of one man. Raids in Crittenden County On February 4, 1908, Crittenden County was raided for the first time. Night Riders took over the small village of Dycusburg, Kentucky, burning the tobacco warehouse and distillery of Bennett Brothers. During the raid they took W. B. Groves from his home and severely whipped him because he refused to join the Association. They also seized Henry Bennett, and after binding him to a tree, they whipped him with the branches of a thorn tree. Raid on Birmingham, KY On April 9, 1908, Lyon County Night Riders crossed the Tennessee on the Birmingham Ferry, and rode into the small African-American section of the Marshall County river town of Birmingham, Kentucky. The Night Riders fired gunshots into every home there as a warning to the African-Americans of Birmingham to move on and not be hired for the tobacco fields of the "enemy" tobacco growers. Apparently, most white residents of the area had been sufficiently dissuaded from working in these competitor fields, but the black residents hadn't "gotten the message", as far as the Lyon County Night Riders were concerned. The intimidation shots fired into the rows of houses unfortunately struck a few people, including the fatal wounding of an elderly African American named John Scruggs and the fatal wounding of his young grandson in the same round of fire. Some African Americans were taken from their homes and held down to be whipped. Marshall County authorities were relentless in their investigation of this raid. Burnett Phelps was the first raider to be brought to trial. Black victims, refugees from Birmingham, were encouraged to sue in court for damages. By December 1908, two men who confessed to being lesser leaders in the raid were persuaded to turn State's evidence and admit their crimes. However, Ed Fox, one of these men, had several younger brothers and in-laws in the Riders and was filled with remorse or fear for them. Deciding he would be better off dead, as he was about to shoot himself in the head, his wife discovered him and grabbed the pistol. He accidentally shot himself in the stomach, dying in agony a few days after Christmas, 1908. The other witness, Fred Holden, also committed suicide rather than testify. Otis Blick, a Night Rider, did testify in court, having little choice since his Night Rider mask was found hidden in a tree stump. He admitted that he was inducted into the Riders in Amous Stringer's barbershop. After being put through some "strange rites", he was taught the passwords of the Night RIders. "Silent Brigade" was spoken; replied with, "I see you have been there"; counter-replied with, "Yes, on bended knees." The Lyon County Night Riders attempted to intimidate the Marshall County Judge (Judge William Reed) and the Court at Benton, even so much as staging a ride through the town. But their tactic backfired, and led the authorities there to pursue the men even harder, seeking to bring to justice the killers of a black man and a black boy. One Dr. Emilius Champion of Lyon Co., a popular physician, was indicted by popular belief to have been the ringleader of the Lyon County Night Riders and would later serve a year in the Eddyville Kentucky State Penitentiary based on a convincing circumstantial case and eyewitness testimony. Two of the Black plaintiffs, L. A. Baker, and schoolteacher Nat Frizzell, were each awarded $25,000.00 in damages, payable by even shares from the 72 defendants. In each case, the juries were only out five minutes. ==The wars come to an end==

In April 1908, a Kentucky State Guard detachment commanded by Lieutenant Newton Jasper Wilburn led a series of raids against the Night Riders' leaders. Wilburn arrested several of the men and also provided protection to several key informers. He gained the help of former Night Riders, including Macon Champion, who implicated fifteen local farmers. The arrests broke the power of the Night Riders and effectively ended the Black Patch War. Lieutenant Wilburn was rewarded with a promotion to captain. Even though most men arrested were not convicted at trial, Capt. Wilburn's actions helped bring law and order to the region. Aftermath By the summer of 1910, the Night Rider trouble had come to an end except for a few scattered minor episodes. The tobacco growers were now receiving higher prices for their crops. A challenge to the ATC reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled in United States v. American Tobacco Co. (1911) that the Duke trust, ATC, was a monopoly and was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. It ordered the ATC to dismantle. ==Poetry==

THE OLD KNOTTY OAK On the old Knotty Oak in North Christian Way out on the Kirkmansville Road, There has lately been posted a notice, To all farmers, the bad and the good. Its just a "guilt" edged invitation Placed there by a Night Rider brave (?) "Better join the 'Sociation, If you plant beds and barns you would save." It was stylishly dressed up in canvas, And written by type-writer's hand, It was worded in terms so expressive, That any one might understand. The farmers were warned to come over, that they were in danger outside, All tobacco must be in the union, And the signature this "Men who ride." Now, Old Knotty has long been a landmark, Not noted for beauty 'tis true, But a study and silent old fellow And of secrets he's heard quite a few. Wiley words of the smooth politician, Merry laughter of children at play. Whispered wooing of lovers by moonlight, All of these he has heard in his day, The patient ox, the tired horses in summer How they long for his shade by the road. To them he's the feed ground, the noon hour, and rest from the weary road. Old has held all the sale bills; He's proud of the nails in his side. But his head hangs in humiliation At the threat of the bad "Men who ride." However he's keeping the secret, but of course he would know just at sight The face of the man who disgraced him, by posting a threat in the night The people who live near Old Knotty, and quietly working their farms, but they've nothing to lose by marauders, No plant beds, tobacco or barns. They are not opposed to the Union, Its findings they would not revoke. But they'd like a 'polite invitation, Instead of a threat to the Oak. They've read long ago, in an old book, That in Union alone man may stand; That a house with its members divided, Is like the one build on the sand. then, here's to the D.T. 'Sociation, May its principles ever abide, Here's to order and law in Old Christian But contempt for the men who ride." • -This poem was published many years ago in The Kentucky New Era. ==See also==