The Black Patch Tobacco Wars were a period of civil unrest and violence in the western counties of the U.S. states of Kentucky and Tennessee at the turn of the 20th century, circa 1904–1909. The so-called "Black Patch" consists of about 30 counties in southwestern Kentucky and northwestern Tennessee. During that period this area was the leading worldwide supplier of dark fired tobacco. It was so named for the wood smoke and fire-curing process which it undergoes after harvest. This type of tobacco is used primarily in snuff, chewing and pipe tobacco.Rick Gregory, "Black Patch War" Tennessee Encyclopedia (2024) onlineTracy Campbell, " Black Patch War," The Kentucky Encyclopedia (1992) pp.84–85. online
The primary participants were the American Tobacco Company (ATC) (owned by James B. Duke), historically one of the largest U.S. industrial monopolies, and the Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee (PPA). This association of planters formed on September 24, 1904, in protest of the monopoly ATC practice of paying deflated prices for their product and with the intent to control their own product and pricing by banding together. The initial idea of the PPA was to "pool"Suzanne Marshall, Violence in the Black Patch of Kentucky and Tennessee (1994) and withhold their tobacco until the ATC agreed to pay higher prices. When this plan was unsuccessful, many farmers resorted to violence and vigilante practices, organizing as the Silent Brigade or Night Riders. They committed numerous acts of violence and destroyed crops, machinery, livestock, and tobacco warehouses, even capturing whole towns. They raided Princeton, Hopkinsville, and Russellville, Kentucky, destroying tobacco warehouses,The Kentucky Encyclopedia p. 441.
The players
The American Tobacco Company James Buchanan "Buck" Duke of North Carolina was an ambitious businessman and planter who quickly learned that profit was maximized buying and selling tobacco, not producing it.Tracey Campbell, "The Politics of Despair: Power and Resistance in the Tobacco Wars" (1993) In 1879, the W. Duke Sons and Company was established as a tobacco manufacturer and began producing cigarettes. Two years later, the commercial cigarette-rolling machine was invented by James Bonsack. Duke quickly rented two of these machines, allowing his company to produce 400 cigarettes per minute. In 1884, he struck a deal with its inventor to use his machines exclusively in manufacturing cigarettes in exchange for lower royalties. The lowered manufacturing costs realized allowed him to cut his retail prices so low that his competitors couldn't compete. By 1890, Duke was able to compel his major competitors to consolidate with him as the American Tobacco Company (ATC).
By 1900, the ATC had a stranglehold on the American market and had made inroads into foreign markets, affecting the majority of the world's tobacco sales either directly or through foreign partnerships. Duke used this power to reduce his tobacco-buying price by eliminating the competitive bidding process. This brought many farmers to the brink of financial ruin or led to the complete loss of their farms, as they found it cost more to plant their crop than they earned on it.
The ATC's collusive fixed-price purchasing policy, combined with a new Federal tax on tobacco, placed tobacco producers into an impossible situation.
Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee In 1904, Felix Ewing, a wealthy tobacco planter and owner of Glenraven Plantation near the Kentucky stateline in Adams, Tennessee, proposed a way for the Black Patch growers to regain control of their sale prices. Glenraven Plantation, developed like a company town, had its own church, stores and post office, and its residents were tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Because of the decline in sale price of their product, they were defecting to find better-paying opportunities in the cotton industry. During the summer of 1904, Ewing discussed his idea throughout the region and on September 24, 1904, hosted a meeting in Guthrie, Kentucky, attended by some 5,000 locals. He presented a plan for every farmer in the area to join a protective association whose purpose was withholding their tobacco from the Trust until buyers paid their asking price.
The group moved to form the new organization, the "Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee,” referred to as the PPA. Officers were appointed, and a charter drawn up and approved. One article called upon each member to use his influence and strong endeavor with those tobacco planters who are not members of the Association to become members. This provision was implemented in a way that resulted in years of unrest and violence.
The PPA gained instant popularity throughout the region, among both farmers and businessmen. For those who were indifferent about the Association, a boycott of their businesses was generally enough to convince them to join.
The number of members soared as farmers anticipated an immediate resolution to their problem, and included judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials. However, some farmers refused to join. When the Trust fought back by offering exceptionally higher prices for tobacco sold by non-members, the number of holdouts increased. PPA members referred to these hold-outs as "hillbillies".
The PPA inadvertently created new tensions in the region, dividing men who had previously worked closely together if they had opposite ideas about joining the association. This situation worsened as PPA members turned to violence to "persuade" former friends to join.
Conditions for the growers did not improve by 1905, causing dissension among the members who had expected an immediate turnaround. What had started as an idea for a peaceful resolution turned ugly.
Silent Brigade and Night Riders Ewing fell ill and became less of a regular presence. More radical members took power, promoting a harsher approach to handling the farmers' problems. Dr. David Amoss, a farmer and country doctor from Cobb, Kentucky who lived in Caldwell County rose to a position of notoriety within the Association. He took a lead when frustrated members wanted to take stronger action.
Possum Hunters "In October 1905 thirty-two members of the Robertson County Branch of the PPA met at the Stainback schoolhouse in the northern part of the county and adopted the "Resolutions of the committee of the Possum Hunters Organization. "The possum hunters outlined their grievances against the Trust and the farmers and stated their intention to visit Trust tobacco buyers and farmers in groups of no fewer than five and no more than two thousand and use "peaceful" methods to convince buyers and non-poolers to adhere to the PPA."
The idea caught on quickly and Possum Hunter groups began to spring up throughout the region. They paid visits to non-PPA members, delivering stern lectures on the advisability of joining the cause. Gradually, however, their activities grew more violent.James O. Nall, The Tobacco Night Riders of Kentucky and Tennessee, 1905-1909 (1939)
Rise of the Night Riders: The Black Patch turns violent. Amoss had been a cadet and drillmaster at Major Ferrell's Military School in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He used this background to begin training his groups as paramilitary insurgents. They conducted nocturnal mounted raids, while wearing masks, hoods and robes, and riding in well-organized columns of twos. When on a mission, they muffled their mounts' hooves with cloths, and rode silently, carrying torches and lanterns. As a result, they began referring to themselves as the Silent Brigade. By mid-1906, they numbered an estimated 10,000 members.
They began beating and whipping non-compliant people, officials and Trust employees. They burned people's barns and destroyed their tobacco fields and plant beds by scraping, salting, or choking the young plants with grass seed.Cunningham, William. On Bended Knees: The Night Rider Story, McClanahan Publishing, 1983. Amoss ordered his men to burn or otherwise destroy the property of growers, and whip them and other persons who refused to cooperate with them in their fight against the Trust.
Raid on Princeton, Kentucky According to local accounts, on December 1, 1906, small groups of Night Riders drifted during the day into Princeton, Kentucky, the seat of Caldwell County. At an appointed time some raided and occupied the police station, while others simultaneously seized the telegraph and telephone offices, and the fire station, and shut off the city water supply. Some 200 masked men arrived at night, riding down the main street of Princeton. Armed with rifles, shotguns, and pistols, they began firing, waking the townspeople. As lights came on, if anyone looked out or tried to venture outside, the riders would shout "stay in your houses!" and "keep the lights off!", then shoot to shatter windows and door frames.
The riders moved swiftly toward the J.G. Orr Tobacco Factory (located at the corner of North Seminary and West Shephardson Street), where they placed sticks of dynamite under piles of tobacco and doused the building with kerosene. They tossed a flaming torch into the warehouse, which quickly went up in flames and became a raging inferno. The raiders moved to the Steger & Dollar Warehouse (located about 5 blocks south at the corner of South Seminary and Depot Street) and set it on fire as well. Then with three long whistle blasts the men came together, then slowly and methodically rode out of town singing "The fires shine bright on my old Kentucky home" bringing the night of terror to an end. Both warehouses were completely destroyed, along with 75 tons of non-PPA tobacco.
Raid on Hopkinsville News of the Princeton raid spread rapidly. Residents of nearby Hopkinsville, the county seat of Christian County, worried that their town could be next. The police, a large contingent of armed citizens, and the state militia prepared to protect the town from the expected raid.
On January 4, 1907, Hopkinsville Mayor Charles Meacham received a telephone call warning that the Riders were coming. He set the defense plan in action, and the different units were alerted and took their positions, but the warning was a hoax, a test of the city's preparedness.
As had been the case in Princeton, Night Riders regularly drifted in and out of town to keep an eye on what was going on, in order to properly plan the raid and be prepared to pull it off at the right time. For months the riders assembled, ready to strike. On one such night as they approached the city limits, they received word the militia was waiting for them and turned back. Finally, in the early hours of December 7, 1907, the Silent Brigade struck Hopkinsville.
They left their horses outside town, and about 250 masked men marched down 9th Street to Main, where they separated and carried out their orders with military precision. Several men guarded the routes into the city and other downtown streets, while others took control of the police and fire departments, L&N rail depot, and the telephone and telegraph offices, essentially cutting off communications. Others rode up and down the streets, shooting out windows whenever a light would be turned on. They held several people hostage in a makeshift corral on Main Street. Many businesses were vandalized, including the newspaper office. Lindsey Mitchell, a buyer for a local tobacco company, was dragged from his home and beaten.The Country Gentleman Newspaper, 1908 p. 252 The Night Riders took complete control of the city."Night Riders", Western Kentucky History