Detroit 1863

Riot, mob violence

Doing research tonight, I stumbled across a remarkable, primary account of the race and draft riots in Detroit in 1863. Part of the document included this poem, written by a black citizen in the city at that time:


THE RIOT.
BY B. CLARK, SEN., A COLORED MAN.


'Twas in Detroit city, the State of Michigan,
Where mob law reigned rampant, disgraceful to man,
In killing and beating both women and men,
And sacking and burning beyond human ken.


The crowd ran collected and beat every one,
Whose skin were not colored exact like their own,
And swore they'd have "Falkner," and hang him that day,
Or kill every "nigger" that came in their way.


The only pretext for this outbreak in fact,
Was "Falkner" committed an now nameless act,
Although given up to the law right away,
The mob sought to lynch him in broad open day.


Now be it remember'd that Falkner at right,
Although call'd a "nigger," had always been white,
Had voted, and always declared in his shop,
He never would sell colored people a drop.


He's what is call'd white, though I must confess,
So mixed are the folks now, we oft have to guess,
Their hair is co curl'd and their skins are so brown,
If they're white in the country, they're niggers in town.


To keep from a rescue, and take him to jail,
The soldiers were ordered to come without fail,
But they were insulted and stoned at--pell mell--
Till some of them fired and down a man fell.


The mob, disappointed, now hied to a place
Where some humble coopers, of the sable race,
Were honestly working to earn their own bread,
By rowdies were set on and left almost dead.



They enter'd, and beat them with billets of wood,
Then fired the cooper shop just as it stood,
And as they attempted to rush from the flames,
They met them with bludgeons to dash out their brains.


Then they took the city without more delay,
And fired each building that stood in their way,
Until the red glare had ascended on high,
And lit up the great azure vault of the sky.


The sight was most awful indeed to behold,
See women and babes driven out in the cold,
And old aged sires, that fought for the land,
Beat almost to death by a desperate band.


Whilst females were heard crying, "kill them"--Oh; shame,
They urged on the mob, yet there's no one to blame,
'Twas got up to please our friends of the South,
Now don't say a word--nay, don't open your mouth.


We go in for the Union just as it was.
And slavery also, and all the slave laws;
Now do not think hard if we do behave rash,
By burning those houses we pocket some cash.


'Tis said that those houses and inmates were bad,
And hence the excuse that the outragers had,
Yet was it the true love of virtue alone,
That made the mob anxious to pull a church down?


Strange as it may be, yet 'tis true without doubt,
Mobs do not discriminate if once let out;
So when they had fired the huts of the poor,
They ran with the torch to their rich neighbor's door.


This brought the community plainly to see
The danger in which all were likely to be;
The rich and the poor, the black and the white,
Stood a chance to be mobbed and burned out that night.


I blush when I think that such deeds should take place,
Not heathens or Turks, a civilized race,
Not where savage nations alone have the rule,
But here amidst churches, the Bible and school.


Humanity wept, she lamented the sight,
The groans, blood and tears of that terrible night;
Yet, oh, may the town of Detroit never see
Such a day as the sixth of March, sixty-three.