Joseph Brooks (politician)
| Joseph Brooks | |
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In office April 15, 1874 – May 15, 1874 |
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November 1, 1812 Cincinnati, Ohio, US |
| Died | April 30, 1877 (aged 64) Little Rock, Arkansas, US |
Joseph Brooks (November 1, 1812 – April 30, 1877) was a Republican politician in Arkansas after the Civil War. He is mainly remembered for losing the 1872 gubernatorial race in Arkansas, after which he led a coup d'état, now referred to as the Brooks–Baxter War, in 1874. It was not successful and Elisha Baxter remained in office.
Joseph Brooks was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and worked as a minister, preacher, and Methodist church official in Illinois and Missouri from 1840 to 1862. He also worked as a newspaper editor for the Central Christian Advocate in St. Louis.
In 1862 he joined the Union Army as a chaplain. In 1863 Brooks, an ardent abolitionist since the 1850s, became the chaplain to the African-American Third Arkansas Infantry. He remained with this regiment until February 1865.
Brooks leased a cotton plantation near Helena, Arkansas after the Civil War. He helped organize African Americans in Arkansas and tried to recruit them to the Republican Party. He was a delegate at the Arkansas Constitutional Convention in 1868. His strong advocacy of voting rights for African Americans won him strong support from them. It eventually alienated other parts of the Republican Party, as the state was majority white.
During Reconstruction, Joseph Brooks was the leader of the Liberal Republicans of Arkansas. The party was nicknamed "The Brindle Tails," because it was said that when Brooks spoke he sounded like a Brindle-Tailed Bull. He is most remembered for his candidacy in the 1872 Gubernatorial Election. Both Brooks and his opponent, Elisha Baxter, were Republicans. Baxter was sworn into office in 1873. Baxter alienated his Republican supporters by restoring voting rights to former Confederate officers, giving the Democratic Party a majority in the state.
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