James G. Hollandsworth, Jr. An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30,
1866. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. xvi + 163 pp. $28.95 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-8071-2588-5.
Reviewed by Kevin D. Roberts (Department of History, University of Texas at Austin)
Published on H-South (November, 2001)
Reconstruction in Microcosm: The 1866 New Orleans Race Riot
Reconstruction in Microcosm: The 1866 New Orleans
Race Riot
“Beast” Butler engendered severe hatred for the Union
in New Orleans, Hollandsworth argues that timely interventions by President Abraham Lincoln ensured the creation of the Free State of Louisiana in 1864.
Local events that magnify the broader themes of Reconstruction are frequently obscured by the national political events of the era. Though scholars’ attention to
legislation and congressional intrigue as a means of grappling with the tumultuous Reconstruction period is understandable, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., in his study
An Absolute Massacre, demonstrates the importance of
considering how local events affect historians’ grand narrative of the era. By describing the origins, events, and
results of the New Orleans race riot of July 30, 1866, Hollandsworth illuminates the inextricable linkages between
national political events and the riot, all the while employing a crafty narrative to build up to the page-turning
crescendo of July 30. In short, this study should remind
historians of the explanatory power that local events offer to well-covered topics and periods, for the author
shows that this particular event was as much a product
of national factors as it was of issues unique to Louisiana
and New Orleans.
This already complicated political intrigue became
the political kindling for violence as a vocal faction of
pro-Union free blacks and many transplanted whites
opposed congressional recognition of the Free State of
Louisiana on the grounds that its constitution did not
guarantee universal male suffrage. The lobbying of Radical Republicans by this faction’s leader, Thomas Durant,
led to the passage of the Wade-Davis Bill, which would
have required that a majority of white voters, rather than
Lincoln’s policy of ten percent of voters, swear an oath
of allegiance to the Constitution in order for a state to
be readmitted to the Union. Lincoln’s subsequent pocket
veto of the bill ensured that Louisiana’s fledgling unionist government would proceed in its affairs without the
support of Durant’s faction, which redoubled its efforts
to press for universal male suffrage.
The insertion of race into the issue of readmission
to the Union exacerbated already tenuous alliances between pro-Union whites and their perceived political inferiors. That fissure stunted the momentum of the proUnion efforts, especially when it resulted in the disruption of alliances among leading Louisiana politicians
such as Michael Hahn, the governor of the Free State of
Louisiana, and Thomas Durant. The assassination of Lincoln, whom Hollandsworth describes as “the best friend
Hollandsworth’s study is a much-needed narrative of
an event that has received surprisingly little attention
by other scholars. The author begins by situating the
riot within the state and national political contexts of
the period. As he shows, the movement by unionists in
Louisiana to form and then to have Congress recognize
the Free State of Louisiana was centered in New Orleans,
which fell into Union hands in 1862. Though Benjamin
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the Free State of Louisiana had in Washington” (p. 31),
was the crucial turning point in these tensions, for President Andrew Johnson’s desire that Reconstruction be a
local affair simply strengthened the position of unionists in Louisiana who opposed more liberal suffrage laws.
Thus, in the absence of a presidential commitment to Reconstruction from the top down, Hollandsworth argues
convincingly that the balance of power shifted to antiblack, anti-suffrage whites, many of whom used black
leaders’ activism on the issue of universal male suffrage
as a justification for an event that would single-handedly
avenge the Confederacy’s defeat and damage the increasing political power of African Americans and their “carpetbagger” allies.
Though one could concentrate on several aspects of
the actual riot itself, the point that resonates profoundly
from Hollandsworth’s depiction of the riot is the randomness of the violence. By sunset on July 30, dozens of
black citizens who had no affiliation with the convention lay dead, victims of racial violence that was only
sporadically halted by the New Orleans police. Although
the final tally is, as Hollandsworth indicates, impossible
to know with certainty, approximately fifty people were
killed and well over one hundred wounded, with all but
a few of those casualties being either African Americans
or people associated with the convention.
Though Hollandsworth fashions a gripping narrative
and compelling analysis of national and local politics, An
With the national political context set, Hol- Absolute Massacre, in its sparse coverage of New Orleans
landsworth shifts the focus of his study to those factors society and race relations, raises more questions that it
that led to the riot itself. At the heart of this momentum answers. Save for a brief chapter that uses black peis the convention of July 1866, where supporters of uni- riodicals to flesh out the lives and thoughts of African
versal male suffrage planned to meet in order to ratify Americans in the city, the most obvious weakness of the
a new state constitution that guaranteed those rights. book is this omission. To what extent did ongoing relaCreating angst among many whites by simply planning tions between blacks and whites affect the turmoil of July
to gather, the language of the resolution to be considered 30? Were black organizations and communities in the
by the convention inflamed the situation further: “Re- city in public support of the convention? In addition to
solved, That, until the doctrine of political equality of all the riot accelerating the demise of Andrew Johnson and
citizens, irrespective of color, is recognized in this State his moderate, locally centered Reconstruction, how did it
by the establishment therein of universal suffrage, there affect black-white relations in New Orleans immediately
will and can be no permanent peace” (p. 50). Clearly, following the riot? Addressing such questions would not
as Hollandsworth shows with reports from New Orleans only strengthen Hollandsworth’s political narrative; so
newspapers, neither whites nor the pro-suffrage faction doing would also employ the riot as an explanatory tool
was flinching.
for both political events and society in Reconstructionera New Orleans. It is not Hollandsworth’s project to
The tinderbox that had been effectively yet tenuously
compose a social history, but a more thorough analysis of
protected was blown open when delegates to the conventhe black community in New Orleans would have made
tion finally arrived at the Mechanics Institute, the tem- his political narrative even more compelling.
porary seat of power in the state (the capital would be
moved back to Baton Rouge in 1879). Using almost exNonetheless, Hollandsworth easily accomplishes
clusively the House Report No. 16: Report of the Select what appears to be his ultimate goal: the composition of
Committee on New Orleans Riots (1867) as his founda- the first book-length study dedicated to the origins and
tion for reconstructing the day’s events, Hollandsworth events of the July 30 race riot in New Orleans. Though
traces with blow-by-blow precision the details of the riot, his focus on the political background to the riot might
which, although apparently planned by whites in New prompt other scholars to search for social and cultural
Orleans well in advance, proceeded helter-skelter once explanations, James G. Hollandsworth ensures that An
the police-led, white mob stormed the mostly unarmed Absolute Massacre will be the much-needed foundation
twenty-seven delegates to the convention in the after- for pursuing such inquiries.
noon of July 30.
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Citation: Kevin D. Roberts. Review of Hollandsworth, James G., Jr., An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot
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of July 30, 1866. H-South, H-Net Reviews. November, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5641
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