[Ads-l] "bulldoze(r)" (June 1876)

Fri Feb 16 00:27:36 UTC 2018

It's not clear from the article, but I assume that it is "Bull's whip" (as in bullwhip<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip>), abbreviated to "Bull".

A transcript of testimony describing the electoral violence includes a victim saying that the perpetrator threatened to give another "dose," corroborating, I guess, the suggestion in the purported etymology that giving a beating would be called giving a dose.

Message from the President of the United States transmitting a letter, accompanied by testimony, addressed to him by Hon. John Sherman and others, in relation to the canvass of the vote for electors in the State of Louisiana, December 6, 1876.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433113857886;view=1up;seq=497

Page 479:

"After the assault the squad made public declaration of their achievement and threatened to repeat the dose if he came about the town."

[END]

The testimony also includes numerous references to people being whipped by people called "regulators" or "bull-dozers," corroborating, perhaps, the notion that the "bull" was, in fact, a whip as suggested by the proposed etymology.

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Subject: Re: "bulldoze(r)" (June 1876)

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> a compound word, the first of which is 'Bull's.'

And the second?

JL

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 3:59 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Feb 15, 2018, at 3:08 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > John Kelly has a post on the Oxford Dictionaries blog about the racist
> > roots of "bulldozer" -- it goes back to violent voter intimidation
> tactics
> > in the 1876 elections.
>
> Ah, not *that* John Kelly.  Whew.
>
> LH
> >
> > ----
> > https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2018/02/14/word-racist-roots-
> bulldozer/
> > To suppress their vote or coerce them away from casting their ballots f=
or
> > Republicans, Democratic supporters would intimidate black voters with
> > threats or acts of violence. This practice especially plagued the 1876
> > presidential election, and in Louisiana came to be called bull-dozing.
> > ----
> >
> > Linking to:
> > https://jubiloemancipationcentury.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/
Posts from March 17, 2011 on Jubilo! The Emancipation Century<https://jubiloemancipationcentury.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/>
jubiloemancipationcentury.wordpress.com
1 post published by lunchcountersitin on March 17, 2011

> bulldozing-reconstruction-and-southern-voters/
> >
> > The post mentions that the earliest known examples of the word, from
> > Louisiana sources, date from the summer of 1876, but I don't see the
> early
> > cites given anywhere. HDAS and GDoS have cites from later in 1876, and
> the
> > OED2 entry for "bulldoze" just cites an unnamed and undated "American
> > newspaper" from that year. ("If a negro is invited to join it [a societ=
y
> > called =E2=80=98The Stop=E2=80=99], and refuses, he is taken to the woo=
ds and whipped.
> This
> > whipping is called a =E2=80=98bull-doze=E2=80=99, or doze fit for a bul=
l.")
> >
> > Here are the earliest examples I've found for the various forms.
> >
> > * bulldozle, bulldozer
> >
> > New Orleans Republican, June 20, 1876, p. 1, col. 1
> > Monday or Tuesday night W.Y. Payne, a colored man, of East Baton Rouge,
> was
> > taken from his home, at Holt's place, at night, from his bed, and was
> > afterward found hung to a tree, two miles above that place, on the plan=
k
> > road near White's bayou. He had committed no offense; all had been quie=
t,
> > but he was the secretary of the Third Ward Republican Club of that
> parish.
> > He was therefore "bulldozled," which is of late the local name of the
> > actions of the "Regulators." Besides this many other negroes have withi=
n
> a
> > few days been taken from their homes and brutally whipped and beaten, a
> > milder means of correction sometimes adopted by the bulldozers.
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17471753/bulldozled/
bulldozled - Newspapers.com<https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17471753/bulldozled/>
www.newspapers.com
Clipping found in New Orleans Republican in New Orleans, Louisiana on 20 Jun 1876, Tue. bulldozled Monday or Tuesday night W. T. Payne, a colored man. of Esst Baton Ronge, was taken from his home, at Holt's plaoe, at night, from his bed, and was afterward toond hang to a tree, two miles above that

> >
> > * bulldoze
> >
> > New Orleans Republican, June 24, 1876, p. 1, col. 4
> > Lorenzo Jackson, of J.A. Campbell's plantation, was bulldozed, terribly
> > whipped, the excuse being he had stolen a gun in 1872.
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17471800/bulldozed/
bulldozed - Newspapers.com<https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17471800/bulldozed/>
www.newspapers.com
Clipping found in New Orleans Republican in New Orleans, Louisiana on 24 Jun 1876, Sat. bulldozed A man—and perhaps his name had better not be mentioned just yet—living close by Mount Pleasant, was concealed on an island at Fontania landing. He saw Levin Foster, Foster, a Baptist minister, Hen

> >
> > * bulldozing (ppl. adj.)
> >
> > New Orleans Republican, June 28, 1876, p. 1, col. 5
> > So complete is the reign of terror created by the bulldozing Regulators
> of
> > East Feliciana and East Baton Rouge, that a half of the inhuman
> brutalities
> > practiced on innocent colored men will never be told.
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17472010/bulldozing/
bulldozing - Newspapers.com<https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17472010/bulldozing/>
www.newspapers.com
Clipping found in New Orleans Republican in New Orleans, Louisiana on 28 Jun 1876, Wed. bulldozing Hanging a Colored Preacher ia a Church. So complete is the reign of terror created by the bulldczing Regulators of East Feliciana Feliciana and East Baton Rouge, that a half of the inhuman brutalities

> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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