Charles Caldwell (politician)

Charles Caldwell in 1874

Charles Caldwell (1830 or 1831 – December 25, 1875) was a Reconstruction era political and state militia leader in Mississippi.[1] He held office as a state senator and county commissioner before being assassinated in 1875.[2]

A former slave, he was a delegate to Mississippi's 1868 Constitutional Convention.[3] He worked as a blacksmith in Clinton, Mississippi, a small town about 12 miles from Jackson in Hinds County, Mississippi.[4][3]

Political violence in Clinton included the Clinton Riot after a political rally of African Americans. Governor Adelbert Ames authorized a militia in response and put Caldwell in charge of it in Clinton but later backed down and disbanded it.

The U.S. Congress reported on election violence and Caldwell's assassination.[5] A plaque commemorates his life.[6]

See also

• African-American officeholders during and following the Reconstruction era

References

1. "Charles Caldwell – Against All Odds".
2. "Caldwell, Charles". Mississippi Encyclopedia.
3. Wisniewska, Zuzanna (December 2, 2018). "Charles Caldwell (ca. 1831–1875)".
4. Aptheker, Herbert (1947). "Mississippi Reconstruction and the Negro Leader Charles Caldwell". Science & Society. 11 (4): 340–371. JSTOR 40399859.
5. Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875, United States Congress, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office (1876)
6. "Charles Caldwell (ca. 1831–1875)". December 2, 2018.

Further reading

• Steven J. Niven, “Caldwell, Charles”. African American National Biography, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Oxford African American Studies Center ^[ISBN missing]

External links

• His life is retold in the 1949 radio drama "The Story of 1875", a presentation from Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham