Blackened Faces

Both violence and justice have evolved in the United States since the 1800s. They have continued to evolve. There are scholars who research current day crime and justice issues in order to provide guidance to those responsible for the implementation of programs designed to address crimes in communities, and some of them reach back into history for useful data. Sometimes that data can reveal information that's helpful in being able to see potential catalysts and explanations for human behavior being examined in the current day. The following is an examination into the phenomenon of blackening one's face in order to obscure identity to avoid detection by people. As you'll read, the overwhelming majority of the instances were in order to commit a crime. The crimes were of various degrees of harm. In the wartime cases and instances involving spying on a person(s), it was done to become someone else unrecognizable to the person(s). The following has been compiled and then written in order to provide additional context for an aspect of life in the 1800s that people all over the country would have had some knowledge about given the geographic distribution of the various newspapers provided below. This report will be useful for those examining topics that have some relation. The Maryland connections, both the instances of blackening faces and the newspaper reporting of instances, shows that it was known there by readers and witnesses.

Reports from Ireland were easily located in newspapers continuing into the year 1766. The following three accounts involved people blackening their faces in order to commit robberies. Click on each one to view it in its entirety.

Newspaper reports were located from the 1830s that involved blackened faces being used in the United States for the "robbery of an indian", the tar and feathering of a household of people, forcibly entering a house, and "negro stealing." In the 1835 Maryland Gazette article, it was written that one of the men that had been caught in the act by two men "who blackened their faces, and whom he mistook for negroes."

The 1840s was similar, but with a surge of reports. The years and newspaper cities are as follows:

The ways in which blackening of the face was utilized can be seen from the reports below:

Two more reports in 1847 and 1849 completed the decade. The 1847 report in a Hillsdale, Michigan newspaper recounted a threat made by several people with their faces blackened to tar and feather a man at his Mercer County, PA home. The 1849 report in a Missouri newspaper was of three men who entered the home of a woman to rob her with their faces blackened. One was reported to have been her husband "who had thus laid a plan to rob himself of the funds of the State in his possession."

Reports in the 1850 decade revealed similarities from the previous ones along with some marked differences. An 1851 edition of a New Orleans newspaper reported that a watchman encountered a man between one and two o'clock in the morning who he thought was Black. As a result, he asked him for his pass. The man was reported to have had "his face blackened and a negro wig on." A 1855 report in a New York newspaper detailed the story of a man who attempted to spy on his wife to see if she was being unfaithful by going "to the person who supplied his house with charcoal, borrowed his working dress, blackened his face and hands" and participated in a ruse that led to the arrest of his wife and her lover.

Other reports in the 1850s involved the most common motive for utilizing a blackened face up to that point: robbery. An 1857 Washington, DC story contained: "His face was blackened, as if to pass himself off for a negro." An 1858 Baltimore, MD story in the Sun contained "He had his face blackened to avoid identification.."

The reports of people blackening their faces continued into the 1860s. This table shows the years, newspaper location, and where the person deployed the use of blackened face. The newspaper clippings will follow, and it is pointed out that "vigilance committee or secret tribunal of justice" is mentioned in one of them. Another (1866 Baltimore paper) detailed a Mississippi Black man suspected of having relations with a white woman being visited and severely maimed by three men in blackened faces. In 1868, a newspaper article mentioning men "with faces blackened" making raids on Black people were reported to have called themselves member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The 1860s saw other instances of people blackening their faces to do things like: spying/attending meetings of Black people (1865); play pranks on people (1867); disguise themselves to follow loved ones suspected of cheating (1867); and spying during the wartime preparations (1861). The 1861 story involved a man in blackened face and hands who was reported to have passed unsuspected through two checkpoints before being detected by the third person "having, perhaps, a keener perception of the peculiarities of the genuine, took the bogus African in custody." The book Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy written by Seymour Reit is said contain have reference to Emma changing her identity to a Black man named "Cuff" using silver nitrate to darken her skin in order to infiltrate the Confederacy as a spy. The publication by Susie King Taylor in 1902 titled Reminiscences of My Life in Camp With the 33rd United States Colored Troops Late 1st S.C. Volunteers contains her description of arriving in Jacksonville, FL in 1863 pursuing rebels that "..were hiding behind a house about a mile or so away, their faces blackened to disguise themselves as negroes." At first believing them to be Black, her regiment allowed them to pass through. When fired upon by them she wrote "It was through this way the discovery was made that they were white men."

In a story that is closer to home to Howard County, MD is an instance of blackened face that was detailed in a 1976 book titled Montpelier & The Snowden Family written and compiled by William G. Cook. On page 237 of the publication, the story is detailed about Walter Bowie, Jr. being a southern spy that was caught and sentenced in Washington, DC to hang. The author wrote that two days before the hanging, his aunt passed him a note detailing how his friends and family were going to break him out of confinement. Sentences later, the author wrote "He blackened himself with charcoal, slipped into one of the servant's dresses, and walked with her to a spring at the edge of the woods." The implication is that it worked.

In the 1870s, the use of blackened face to commit crime continued to dominate the newspaper reports about the behavior. An 1871 Chicago newspaper contained the report that a gang in Kentucky had worn masks and had their faces blackened and that "This was probably done to create the report that they were negroes." Another account in 1873 mentioned men with blackened faces threatening witnesses with murder if they testified in a case. An account in an 1876 newspaper conveyed the story of a man threatened with lynching by men "masked by blackened faces." In 1877, an account was made in a Chicago, IL newspaper about a man who was lynched in Iowa. It was reported that the woman who identified one of her attackers had "tore off" his mask "and found the man's face blackened."

In Baltimore, MD, a man was charged by a police officer in 1870 after he blackened his face with burnt cork and sat on the steps of a woman he liked. A Pennsylvania man was reported to have blackened his face in order to vote as a Republican in 1870. In the July 13, 1871 edition of The Sun, a Howard County, MD man was reported to have experienced an attempted highway robbery. It was written that "Two of the men were either negroes, or white men in blackened faces." In 1873, it was reported that a husband had fabricated a story about a party of men with blackened faces beating her and leaving her to die that he had actually done. An 1880 article reported about a man blackening his face with burnt cork to disguise himself as the Black man who was whitewashing the jail. He escaped.

The use of blackened face in order to gain entry to a jail or take a person from custody was also a thing. The earliest instance located was written up in an 1811 newspaper in Alexandria, VA. A summary of the jail instances is provided below. The newspaper accounts follow it. Some of the cases resulted in the lynching of someone. In one 1875 instance involving John Simms, it was reported that written resolutions days before had been made to justify the actions of the lynchers.

The practice continued into the twentieth century. A 1908 story reported in the Baltimore Sun newspaper provided the details of a man who was nearly lynched after following his wife in a disguise involving blackened face by burnt cork. His wife didn't recognize him. Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) wrote for their blog about a North Carolina man who had been lynched in 1918. A subsequent investigation revealed that a white man in blackened face had been the actual rapist of the white woman. A Georgia police officer made the news in 1931 for posing in blackened face to trap "both withe and colored bootleggers."

In very bright light, it's a little more obvious to people when someone may be using a disguise of blackened face as this 2020 still image from a television report of a Cecil County, MD bank robber shows.

As for the actual act of blackening one's face and hands, whether it was to deceive in order to commit a crime, spy on someone or other reasons, the mechanism involved the application of blackened cork, black paint, grease or makeup, etc. An 1899 book written by the American minstrel show manager Frank Dumont was titled The Witmark Amateur Minstrel Guide and Burnt Cork Encyclopedia. Page 14 was the start of a chapter called "How to Black Up." which can be seen below.

A 1940 catalog of the Johnson Smith company advertised a "Complete Negro Make Up" kit that contained a black mask advertised as it is below. The image looks almost like an exaggeration of an 1892 sketched representation of masked people participating in a lynching that was printed in a newspaper which was titled "In the Hands of the Mob." The reader will conclude as they will.

In 1935, a pamphlet was published by the Georgia Commission on Interracial Cooperation titled "Burnt Cork and Crime: Stories Summarized from Press Reports." Mr. Wayne Davis is given all of the credit for locating a copy of this elusive and valuable publication. The pages are presented here in order for viewing.

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