The Colfax Chronicle (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,357 issues from 1877 to 1922, published in Colfax, Louisiana, digitised for Chronicling America.
In 1876, the Colfax Chronicle was established as a four-page, independent weekly, serving as the official journal of Grant Parish, Louisiana. Divided from neighboring parishes in 1869 to give Radical Republicans greater power in the state legislature, Grant Parish and its seat, Colfax, were named after Republican President Ulysses S. Grant and Vice President Schuyler Colfax. The cotton-producing parishes of north Louisiana had been devastated economically by the Civil War. In the 1870s, economic upheaval led to political tensions both within Grant Parish and with neighboring parishes, culminating in the 1873 Colfax Massacre, one of the worst instances of Reconstruction-era political and racial violence, in which at least 125 African Americans were killed.
James M. Sweeney, the Colfax Chronicle’s first editor and proprietor, advertised the paper as “An Independent Journal, devoted to Local and General News, Literature, Science, Agriculture, etc.” Political reporting covered both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as the repercussions of the Colfax Massacre. A weekly letter from New York reported on miscellaneous political subjects, including “Boss” Tweed and New York’s Democratic machine. Considerable space was devoted to General George Armstrong Custer and the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.
Publication was suspended in January 1877 due to a paper shortage, and from February through April, the journal was issued in two pages. Sweeney appears to have been unpopular…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Colfax, Louisiana, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress