Opelousas Massacre - On Sept. 28, 1868, one of the worst outbreaks of violence during Reconstruction took place in Opelousas, Louisiana. The event started Bentley a white schoolteacher and Republican newspaper editor was instructing a class at the Freedmen's School when he was interrupted and confronted by three Seymour Knights: John Williams, James R. Dickson, and Sebastian May. In front of Bentley's students, the three men beat and whipped Bentley and forced him to sign a retraction of the editorial. When the beating began, the children ran from the classroom.
Bentley escaped but fled in secret, hiding out in Republican safe houses for several weeks before reaching New Orleans. Meanwhile, Black Republicans began organizing and threatening vengeance for the missing Bentley's "death." White supremacists, including the Knights, responded by mobilizing thousands of members.
As the massacre began, the white supremacists held a clear advantage in both numbers and weapons, and they began hunting, capturing and killing Black Republicans and white party leaders. Twenty-seven of the first Blacks captured were lynched the next day, and families were chased and shot both in public and in their homes. The white mobs destroyed the Freedmen's school and the office of the St. Landry Progress and lynched C. E. Durand, Bentley's co-editor, leaving his body displayed outside the drug store in Opelousas. Blacks who escaped were driven into the swamps and shot.
Estimates of the casualties vary widely. Democratic Party media reported 100 or less, while Republicans estimated between 200 and 300. The massacre is considered one of the bloodiest of the Reconstruction era.

Did You Know?

In 2021, the St. Landry Parish NAACP held a vigil commemorating the anniversary of the beginning of the massacre.