[Draft for a formal anti-miscegenation letter emanating from a meeting in Bossier Parish, Louisiana promoting racial purity.]

Bossier Parrish, Louisiana, July 1886. Sm. 4to (10" x 7.75"), ruled bifolium. 3 pp. of manuscript in pencil, with illustrated envelope printed for Montgomery Female College, Christiansburgh, Virginia. CONDITION: Good, small separations along old folds, 1.25” tape repair at page 2, and two repairs to page 4. Stains and small losses to envelope.

A rare and revealing draft for a letter to be issued by an anti-miscegenation committee in Bossier Parrish, Louisiana.

Initially addressed "to all whom it may concern" this letter drafted for a "committee appointed by a mass meeting of the citizens of Bossier Parish, Louisiana held at Cottage Grove on July 31st" of 1886, is subsequently worded as if addressed to a single individual and evidently works out the language for a letter meant to be sent to all those targeted by the committee. The draft reads in part:

We are reliably informed that you are cohabiting with a negro woman and thereby casting yourself, and your offspring, upon a social level with the African race; and thereby affecting all the respect of mankind, violating the laws of God and society and by your example and evil influence are tending to ruin the young men, the future hope of our country. Now therefore, we implore you by all the power that lies within us to sever those ties and relationships, which bind you with the chains of infamy and disgrace… We appeal to your parental affection, to the prayers and tears of your dear Mother, to the natural and fond hope of all parents that their sons would be an ornament to society …and never tarnish their blood with shame, or degenerate into a race of mulatoes. Oh! what an awful disappointment to fond parents to see their race degenerate. Do you wish to mongrelize your race?…Let us conjure and implore you, (if the die is cast, if your doom is sealed, if you have rendered your own verdict,) to remove the disgrace, the insult to society, to a more congenial clime where miscegenation and social equality can be tolerated.

An account of this anti-miscegneation meeting appeared in the 24 Sept. 1886 issue of The Columbus Enquirer-Sun of Georgia under the title, “Organization In Louisiana to Prevent the Intermarriage of Whites and Blacks”:

New Orleans. September 20.—A practical movement has been inaugurated in Bossier parish, in this state, for the abolition of miscegenation. There have been during the past year or so several spasmodic efforts in this direction, both in Louisiana and Mississippi. Self-constituted vigilance committees have warned white men with negro wives and mistresses to leave them and lead a regular life, and when this failed have ridden through the parish, severely whipping both men and women who disobeyed this order. In Mississippi there were several arrests, convictions and sentences for violation of the law prohibiting intermarriages between the races, and in Louisiana one man was severely cut in a scrimmage arising from this movement. But these anti-miscegenation raids were spasmodic, the freaks of a few wild young men. The present movement is more serious and more general, and is a thorough and practical organization, like that of the prohibitionist, to break up miscegenation.

The first meeting was held in Bossier parish in July, where the subject was generally discussed, and adjourned over to this month to find the drift of public opinion. It was found that public sentiment among the whites was well nigh unanimous on the subject. The recent meeting held at Cottage Grove, in the upper portion of Bossier parish, was the result. There was no secrecy or mystery about it. It was an open mass meeting, in which all the people of the neighborhood—farmers, clergymen and others—assembled. The meeting was opened with prayer and presided over by a clergyman. The resolutions were of the strongest character. Those guilty of miscegenation were threatened with social boycott, and warned that they were insulting the race feelings and moral principles of the community. But the gist of the meeting was the appointment of a vigilance committee of nineteen to serve notices on these white men living with negro women—the vigilants were not instructed as to what they should do if this warning is unheeded—and the appointment of another committee to assist in the organization of anti-miscegenation societies in other parishes in the state.

This plan of operation is warmly supported by the press. The Bossier Banner declares that race purity must be preserved at all hazards, the line must be sharply and distinctly drawn, and those who cross it must pay the penalty. The Robeline Reporter of Natchitoches, edited by the father of the present attorney-general of the state, approves the idea.

As this sentiment prevails in most of the neighboring parishes, it is thought that the present organization, by giving a start to the anti-miscegenation sentiment, which in this part of the state is now stronger than the anti-liquor sentiment, it will spread through north Louisiana if not into the neighboring states of Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas. There is no law in Louisiana against the intermarriage or cohabitation of races, this prohibition, which was strongly urged by many persons, being voted down in the late constitutional convention, but miscegenation is growing rarer every day, in deference to the strong public sentiment on this point.

The illustrated envelope accompanying this letter depicts Montgomery Female College in Christiansburgh, Virginia, and is postmarked July 1886—being the same month in which the Louisiana anti-miscegenation movement’s first meeting was held. It is addressed to physician and planter Dr. James S. Milling (1831–1895) of Bossier Parish, Louisiana. However, it is not entirely clear that the letter was sent in this envelope. Indeed, it seems unlikely, as it is difficult to imagine why the present draft would be sent from such a far-removed locale. One possible explanation is that one of Milling’s daughters attended Montgomery Female College and sent a letter home around this time, the envelope for which was at some time repurposed to hold the draft. As Milling lived in Bossier Parish, it seems likely that he was a member of the vigilance committee and the author of the draft.

James Milling was originally from South Carolina and studied at the Medical College of South Carolina. He married his cousin Mary (1828–1913) in 1857; two years later he moved to Bossier Parish with his slaves. Throughout the Civil War, Mary and the couple’s two daughters stayed in South Carolina, then moved to Louisiana in 1866.

REFERENCES: “Collection Title: James S. Milling Papers, 1852-1883” at finding-aids.lib.unc.edu; Columbus Enquirer-Sun (Columbus, Georgia, 24 Sept. 1886), p. 5.