Mysterious Massacre at Opelousas

September 28, 1868. Does the date mean anything to you? Ring any bells? Nah? That's what we said, too. Ditto the name "Opelousas Massacre."

While surfing the blogosphere a few weeks back, we stumbled across a reference to this date in history on a blog named (tongue-in-cheek) Stop the Republicans. We were quite fascinated, not least because we didn't recall ever having heard of the event. To the internet we went, trying to find additional information, with the idea of blogging it on its anniversary.

The short version is this: a young, white Republican newspaper editor (Emerson Bentley) was beaten by three other white men; when local blacks came to his rescue some were taken to jail, then hung, while others were chased into the fields and massacred; accounts of total deaths varies greatly, from 30 to 300.

The long version is...the same as the short version. That's it. That's all she wrote. That's all we could find. We found references at The African American Registry, The Freedmens Bureau, and the Republican Freedom Calendar. None of the accounts give great detail. We tried searching various databases, university records, and even checked out some ancestry stuff trying to get a lead on some more information. Nothing panned out.

So instead of bringing you a detailed and moving account of the Opelousas Massacre on its 137th anniversary, we are instead offering you what little information we were able to find and asking why nobody has ever heard of this. From the little we were able to glean, it seems that a large to incredibly large number of Americans need to be remembered on September 28th for crossing the racial divide to stand up for what was right. God rest their souls.

NOTE: If anyone reading this post has any additional information and/or resources regarding this, we'd love to hear from you!