The Knights of the White Camelia (named for the
camellia, a type of flower) was founded by
Confederate States Army Colonel Alcibiades DeBlanc on May 22, 1867, in
Franklin, Louisiana. Author Christopher Long states, "Its members were pledged to support the
supremacy of the White race, Historian Nicholas Lemann calls the Knights the leading terrorist organization in Louisiana. Their tactics (which included "
harassment,
floggings, and sometimes
murder") "produced a reign of terror among the state's black population during the summer and fall of 1868." The estimated death toll of their terror campaign may have been as large as 1,800 people, with an even larger number being wounded by them. The double murder of pro-Republican Judge
Valentine Chase and Sheriff Henry H. Pope of
St. Mary Parish may have been committed by them. Chapters primarily existed in the southern part of the
Deep South. Historian George C. Rable notes "Although the
Republicans saw evidence of a massive conspiracy in these outrages, in Louisiana as elsewhere, White terrorists were not organized beyond the local level." An additional aim of the group was to keep freedmen farm labor from leaving the
plantations. Unlike the
Ku Klux Klan which drew much of its membership from lower-class Southerners (primarily Confederate veterans), the White Camelia consisted mainly of upper-class Southerners, including physicians, landowners, newspaper editors, and officers. They were usually Confederate veterans, the upper part of
antebellum society. It began to decline, despite a convention in 1869. The more aggressive people joined the
White League or similar paramilitary organizations that organized in the mid-1870s. By 1870, the original Knights of the White Camelia had mostly ceased to exist. Among its members was Louisiana Judge
Taylor Beattie who led the
Thibodaux massacre of 1887. ==Legacy==