The Jaybird-Woodpecker War: Reconstruction and redemption in Fort Bend County, Texas, 1869-1889

Abstract

Beginning with the emergence of Fort Bend County, Texas, as an antebellum plantation society, this thesis examines the effects of emancipation and reconstruction within this community. The Jaybird-Woodpecker War, which culminated in August 1889, brought a violent end to a unique twenty-year period of biracial government in Fort Bend County, notable for outlasting reconstruction in the rest of the former Confederacy. Through the auspices of the Jay Bird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, an all white political organization, county whites established one of Texas' first white primaries, effectively negating black political involvement at the county level. Between 1869 and 1889 blacks and whites experienced a revolutionary period of political equality; on August 16, 1889, county whites revolted against post-war changes in their society, restoring white supremacy as the guiding principle of Fort Bend County politics