The history of the United States of America is a short one but one that could be painted with disgust and prejudice. In order to protect either ourselves or our nation's youth, we are taught about the demons America has attempted to conquer but with a bit of preselected lessons.
Most of us, at least those who grew up in the late-90s/early 00s could tell you a lot about Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall (amongst others) who helped tried to create a colorless society.
But while there were triumphs and success stories, there were also severe and ugly miscarriages of justice that are horrendous inkblots on our culture. We can't ignore these things though because we need to learn about our past. Our present isn't the most ideal but I think we need to constantly remind ourselves of what happened when our great-grandparents lives were beginning.
I would like to introduce you to Sam Hose. This isn't a happy piece however.
Samuel Hose was a young farmhand on a farm not too far away from Atlanta in the mid-1870s. Hose, who was born as Tom Wilkes, relocated to Coweta County and assumed the alias that would become synonymous with America's horrific racial relations past to work for Alfred Cranford.
Cranford was a wealthy white landowner at the time and was married to a Mrs. Cranford. Hose was literate and looking to earn a bit of money to help his dying mother and presumably his mentally challenged brother.
Hose and Cranford would often quarrel and in an all-too-common argument occurred over paid wages. Much like the rest of the South following Reconstruction, race relations were not strong at all (the North is not exempt either) so the Hose-Cranford arguments had to obviously be one of many that took place throughout the burgeoning nation.
Remember this was still in an area where former South Carolina Governor and Senator "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman was quoted as saying:
“I have three daughters, but, so help me God, I had rather find either one of them killed by a tiger or a bear and gather up her bones and bury them, conscious that she had died in the purity of her maidenhood by a black fiend. The wild beast would only obey the instinct of nature, and we would hunt him down and kill him just as soon as possible. What shall we do with a man who had outbruted the brute and committed an act which is more cruel than death? Try him? Drag the victim into court, for she alone can furnish legal evidence, and make her testify to the fearful ordeal through which she has passed, undergoing a second crucifixion?”
so it's not like the area was impervious to such racial tensions. For what it's worth, Tillman has a residency hall named after him at Clemson University & a statue commemorating is right outside South Carolina's statehouse.
Anyway, one day in April of 1899, Hose apparently had enough of not being paid by Cranford. After another heated argument, Cranford pulled out a gun while Hose withdrew the axe he was holding.
The story gets a little foggy right here. However, it is thought that out of self-defense, Hose threw the axe at Cranford and fled the scene immediately at risk of being shot. That's the widely assumed theory and there seems to be verification of these findings in investigations afterwards. Cranford's wife however would allegedly imply that after throwing the axe at her husband, Samuel Hose would proceed to enter the house and raped her.
The words "rape" being tagged alongside the murder of a white farmhand sent off a wave of hysteria. The mobs of angry white protestors began to collect and a manhunt ensued to find Hose.
Days later Hose was recovered and one of the most vile acts in American history (along with a humongous miscarriage of justice) took place as a mob started to form. Two thousand people eagerly saw Hose assaulted in ways that are vomit inducing.
Hose first would feel the loss of his ears as "prosecutors" would chop him off as he initially did not admit to purposely murdering Cranford. The cries and eventual "admittance of guilt" by Hose did not stop the torture in which he would be skinned alive, lose his scrotum, and then be drowned in kerosene before being burned at the stake.
But if that can't possibly be any worse, and if you are imagining this (which is a horrific thought to have in your head, I know) think of a loud cheering crowd in a town square. Now think that after this man is done burning, the remaining parts (organs included) are being chopped off and sold as merchandise. He's being treated in death just as cruelly as he was in life.
W.E.B. DuBois would later hear of this case and head down to a small Southern shoppe where he would either hear or find Hose's knuckles in a jar as a warning to blacks. This is in the 1900s.
This piece was not made to vilify the South or exempt the North from wrongdoing. The North had lynchings in Minnesota that packed the streets/houses and in every other state. This isn't about showing why the justice system can be biased, why the death penalty should be abolished or why torture is useless (though I support all those positions). This isn't to make parallels about the recent South Carolina primaries and the constant usage of the term "food stamps" in our lexicon.
This isn't to depress us or spit daggers at the Cranford family or the state of Georgia. This isn't to demonize Pitchfork Ben Tillman or protest against Clemson University.
This is to bring light to the man Sam Hose. We cannot, even though our minds would appreciate it if we did, forget his torture. We cannot forget his screams even though we were not even thought of to be even thinking about being alive.
This is to remember the people who slip from the textbooks or who aren't as famous as their equally important counterparts. This is, not embracing but acknowledging America's past.
Samuel Hose is not an answer to a trivia question but a person who was living and breathing just like we were. Who knew that he was going to die brutally and had no hope.
Do not forget Samuel Hose.