Sworn and Examined: Witnesses to Suwannee Valley Reconstruction Violence in Florida's Third Judicial Circuit

Sworn and Examined: Witnesses to Suwannee Valley Reconstruction Violence in Florida s Third Judicial Circuit A county judge was fatally shot while sitting on his front porch early one morning. The assassination of a republican state senator gave control of the state senate to democrats. People were beaten and threatened. Murders, beatings, death threats, and intimidation were the order of the day in North Central Florida during Reconstruction. Sworn and Examined is a compilation of transcribed testimony given at two Congressional Hearings held in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1871 and 1876 respectively. These hearings were held to enquire about the conditions in the South during Reconstruction following the Civil War. Specifically, the testimony included in this book was given by witnesses from the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida in North Central Florida or by witnesses whose testimony, at least partially, dealt with events in the Third Judicial Circuit. The testimony relates accounts of events occurring as the native white democrats sought to wrest political control from the republicans during Reconstruction following the Civil War through any means necessary, including the Ku Klux Klan. The Third Judicial Circuit during Reconstruction consisted of Columbia, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison, Suwannee, and Taylor Counties. The area is the same today, with the only difference being that Dixie County was formed from the lower part of Lafayette County in 1921.