Charles Caldwell (1830 or 1831 – December 30, 1875) was a Reconstruction era political and state militia leader in Mississippi. He held office as a state senator and county commissioner before being assassinated in 1875.
A former slave, he was a delegate to Mississippi's 1868 Constitutional Convention. He worked as a blacksmith in Clinton, Mississippi, a small town about 12 miles from Jackson in Hinds County, Mississippi.
Political violence in Clinton included the Clinton Riot after a political rally of African Americans. Governor Adelbert Ames authorized a militia in response and put Caldwell in charge of it in Clinton but later backed down and disbanded it.
The U.S. Congress reported on election violence and Caldwell's assassination.Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875, United States Congress, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office (1876) A plaque commemorates his life.
See also African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900
References
Further reading Steven J. Niven, “Caldwell, Charles”. African American National Biography, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Oxford African American Studies Center
External links
His life is retold in the 1949 radio drama "The Story of 1875", a presentation from Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham