Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 579 Lynching
Apart from the minor incidents involving Spain, Britain, and France forcibly partitioning parts of Russia during peace negotiations between the League of Nations and the Russian government, 1916 was generally peaceful and stable.

After all, the world war had just ended, and powerful countries were still grieving the immense pain it had caused. Powerless countries were also afraid of the newly formed League of Nations and would not want to cause any trouble at this time.

The only seemingly unsettling incident was a lynching that occurred on May 15, 1916, in Waco, Texas, which shocked the United States and nearly caused nationwide unrest.

Lyingutes are not uncommon in the United States, where there is a large population of people of color. They mainly occurred in the Southern states during the American Civil War. These states all had one thing in common: a large Black population, and most of these Black people were former slaves.

For the large number of white Americans living in the Southern states, even though these black slaves had been effectively freed, they would not care in the slightest whether the blacks lived or died.

This case, known throughout the United States as the Jesse Washington lynching, was a lynching trial of a Black man by a white man.

On May 8, 1916, Lucy Flair, a woman from McLennan County, Texas, was murdered while she was alone at home. She and her husband, George, were both British immigrants.

The couple ran a farm in the area and were highly respected figures in the surrounding towns. Furthermore, because both were white, Lucy Fryer's death drew significant attention from the local police department, which dispatched an investigation team led by Sheriff Samuel Fleming and several law enforcement officers, supplemented by a doctor and a group of local men.

After examining the body, the doctor determined that Lucy died from a blunt force trauma to the head.

Because they had no leads in the case, the local white people involved in the investigation quickly focused their suspicions on 17-year-old Jesse Washington, a Black man.

Jesse Washington worked for five months on the Fryers’ farm, one of the many Black laborers in the area.

One of the locals claimed that he saw Washington near the Fryers’ house just minutes before Lucy’s body was discovered, and suspected that Washington was the one who murdered Lucy.

No one would defend a Black laborer. Even more coincidentally, when the sheriff led a group to Washington's home, they discovered bloodstains on his overalls.

There were no DNA verification methods available in this era. With Washington already a prime suspect, the bloodstains on his trousers convinced everyone that he was the real murderer of Lucy.

Although Washington claimed that the bloodstains were caused by his nosebleed, the white men wouldn't listen to a black man's explanation. They would only think that black people were an inferior race and that only a black man would participate in the murder of a noble white man.

Sheriff Samuel Fleming, without the slightest hesitation, immediately identified Washington as the murderer and took all his family members to nearby Vicko for questioning by the sheriff's department.

Although Washington's family was quickly released, he himself was not exonerated. Despite Washington's repeated denials of any involvement in Lucy's death, his accounts of the details were inconsistent.

Rumors circulated that Jesse Washington had an argument with a white man several days before the murder, but it was unclear whether this white man was Lucy.

At this stage of the investigation, regardless of whether Washington is Lucy's killer, he cannot escape unscathed.

Black people in the United States have no human rights, but when white people get angry, they are capable of anything.

In order to protect Washington, Sheriff Fleming took Washington to Hill County, hoping to gain his trust in exchange for protecting him and thus conduct a deeper investigation into the case.

During the interrogation, Jesse Washington finally confessed to Sheriff Fleming that he and Lucy had argued over her mule and subsequently killed her.

Based on Washington's confession, Sheriff Fleming found the murder weapon that Washington had hidden and officially confirmed that Washington was the murderer of Lucy.

The outcome of the case immediately sparked outrage among the local white community. Fortunately, Sheriff Fleming had brought Washington to Hill County beforehand. The angry white crowd stormed the McClennan County Jail, searched the entire facility but couldn't find Washington, and eventually dispersed.

Although the white mob's storming of the prison in an attempt to execute Washington was somewhat violent, local police departments and newspapers did not object to the action.

Many people even praised the move, and a small private funeral was held for Lucy Fryer that evening, once again highlighting the sins of Black people.

At this point, the matter has escalated beyond a simple criminal case.

Jesse Washington's brutal murder of Lucy sparked widespread hatred towards Black people within the local white community. The whites' unbridled storming of the prison in an attempt to execute Washington also spurred the Black community to band together for mutual support.

Although Washington was indeed the murderer, he should be tried by the US government and courts, not by these white people who had no identity.

Do white people care about the black community sticking together?
Not at all.

A few days later, Washington's trial officially began at the Vico Court.

The courthouse was packed with onlookers that day, and the large gathering of white and black people prevented a significant number of jurors from entering the courthouse.

The streets outside the courthouse were also packed with onlookers. According to statistics, there were at least several thousand people watching, a number far exceeding the capacity of such a small town courthouse.

The Black and white groups who came to the courthouse were silently divided, but the white group always maintained the upper hand.

This is partly due to the sheer number of Black people, and partly because Black people have virtually no voice in the United States. Most of the good jobs are held by white people, leaving Black people with only low-paying manual labor.

Although it was just a court in a small town, all the judges and other staff were white, so the outcome of the trial was predictable.

Of course, there are also lawyers with considerable political standing, the vast majority of whom are white.

The profession of lawyer still carries significant influence in the United States, and many US presidents were lawyers before entering politics.

The importance of lawyers in the United States at that time was self-evident. In a country dominated by capital, the benefits of knowing the law were enough to make the guilty innocent and the innocent guilty.

Capitalists exploit legal loopholes to evade taxes, and politicians exploit them to embezzle and accept bribes. For white people, lawyers are their greatest protection when dealing with Black people, ensuring that even if they kill a Black person, they will not be sentenced to death.

Black people didn't receive the same treatment. Although the local court traditionally assigned Washington a lawyer, both of his lawyers were novices and white. How could white people possibly defend a Black person?
The two lawyers in Washington made no preparations for a defense and even stated in court on several occasions that their clients had remained calm in the days leading up to the trial and did not seem to repent for their actions.

Washington's refusal to repent was considered particularly reprehensible by many of the white officials in court.

Although Washington's actions did not seem to reflect this, the white lawyers' accounts were clearly more credible than Washington himself.

More importantly, for most white people, there was no need to believe that Washington had truly repented.

White people have long been dissatisfied with the liberation of black people. They genuinely reject and despise black people and believe that black people should not have human rights.

Although the United States has only been independent for a little over a hundred years, if we include its predecessor, the thirteen British colonies, the history of the United States can be extended by a much longer period.

For such a long period of time, Black people in the United States were treated as slaves and had no human rights whatsoever.

The American Civil War, which represented the complete emancipation of slaves, is only about fifty years old now.

Fifty years is not enough time to change the situation of Black Americans, much less enough to change the deep-seated hatred and discrimination against Black people by white Americans.

Even if Washington wasn't the real murderer, so what? Since such a dirty black man was involved in the case, he should pay for the life of the noble white man.

This idea was the opinion of almost all the white people present at the trial, and even the judge and the sheriff who attended the trial shared almost the same attitude.

With the majority of white people unanimously agreeing, after a brief four-minute trial, the jury found the defendant guilty of murder and sentenced Washington to death.

Including the entry of all parties and other procedures, the entire court hearing lasted less than an hour.

This is extremely rare for the court. After all, in a normal trial, the statements of the plaintiff and the defendant alone would take up a lot of time, and with the presentation of evidence, it would usually take at least several hours.

The brevity of the trial demonstrates the white people's resolute determination to execute Washington. After Washington was sentenced to death, it was not the court bailiffs who carried out the execution, but rather the white men who snatched Washington from their hands.

Just as several bailiffs were escorting Washington out of the courthouse, a large group of white onlookers outside the courthouse immediately broke through the bailiffs, forcibly grabbed Washington, and dragged him away.

The leading white men were met with enthusiastic cheers from all the white men, who surrounded them and shouted that they would try Washington by lynching him to commemorate the noble white men who had been murdered by him.

Although Washington attempted to resist, how could one person fight against the power of hundreds? His resistance not only failed to achieve its purpose, but also provoked even greater anger among the white people.

A large number of white people participated in the beating of Washington, and if it weren't for concerns about affecting the subsequent trial, Washington would probably have been beaten to death by now.

Soon, a chain was put around Washington's neck, and the white men forcibly dragged him toward City Hall. Along the way, Washington was stripped naked and slashed repeatedly with knives.

Washington's dark skin could not conceal his wounds; by the time he arrived at City Hall, his entire body was covered in bruises.

In front of the city hall, another group of people had placed a pile of wood next to a tree, ready to set it on fire.

The primary method of lynching Black people by white Americans was burning them at the stake. Hundreds to thousands of years ago, Europeans also used burning at the stake to execute those condemned as witches.

Before the burning at the stake was carried out, some angry white men carried out a final execution of Washington.

During the execution, the crowd of onlookers grew rapidly, from nearly a thousand to several thousand, and eventually exceeded ten thousand.

Although some Black people tried to liberate Washington, they were powerless to break through the prison composed of a large number of white people.

White people weren't going to be lenient with these Black people trying to rescue Washington. The lucky ones would just get a beating, the unlucky ones might end up with spare parts.

Such cruelty towards white people instilled fear in the Black community, which ultimately led to no Black person being willing to stand up and try to save lives in Washington.

People felt no fear of Washington, which had been reduced to ashes; on the contrary, they believed that this method of trial was the most reasonable and the most powerful revenge for the killing of white people by blacks.

The local white community in Vico certainly got their revenge, but such lynching caused a huge uproar in the United States.

While there have been instances of lynching of Black people across the United States in the past, none have been as brutal as this case, nor have they involved nearly ten thousand onlookers.

Such lynchings evoked panic among the Black community, who feared that one day they too would become like Washington, hanging there, left only to await their death in terror.

Despite explanations from the US government and its statement that it would investigate the death penalty case and try the culprits who arbitrarily executed Washington, the US government has not taken any action.

But Black people clearly did not believe the US government's explanation, and even less did they believe that the US government would execute white people for the sake of Black people.

The U.S. government may indeed try and execute a few white people in Washington, but at most they will be fined a small amount, which is nothing to them.

Who can alleviate the fear of Black people? Is the only fate of Black people to be indiscriminately murdered by white people?

Although the domestic situation in the United States has not changed much because of this lynching, hatred between the Black and white communities in the United States has indeed been filled because of this incident.

(End of this chapter)