Knights of the White Camelia

Knights of the White Camelia
White Camelia Participant in the Reconstruction Era
Alcibiades DeBlanc, the group's founder. He was a Democrat and a former Confederate soldier, like many white supremacists of the late 19th century. After Democrats regained control of the Louisianan state government in the late 1870s, he was appointed to the Louisianan supreme court by the state's Democratic governor.
Active	1867 – c. 1870
Ideology	White supremacy
Leaders	Alcibiades DeBlanc
Originated as	Confederate Army veterans
Allies	U.S. Democratic Party, Ku Klux Klan
Opponents	U.S. Government, U.S. Republican Party, carpetbaggers, scalawags, African-Americans

The Knights of the White Camelia was an American political terrorist organization that operated in the Southern United States during the 19th century. Similar to and associated with the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia supported white supremacy and opposed freedmen's rights.

The Knights of the White Camelia was founded by Confederate army veteran Confederate Colonel Alcibiades DeBlanc on May 22, 1867 in Franklin, Louisiana. Author Christopher Long stated, "Its members were pledged to support the supremacy of the white race, to oppose the amalgamation of the races, to resist the social and political encroachment of the so-called carpetbaggers, and to restore white control of the government". Historian Nicholas Lemann calls the Knights the leading terrorist organization in Louisiana. Their tactics, (which included "harassment, floggings, and sometimes murder") "produced a reign of terror among the state's black population during the summer and fall of 1868."

Chapters existed primarily in the southern part of the Deep South. Historian George C. Rable noted that, "Although the Republicans saw evidence of a massive conspiracy in these outrages, in Louisiana as elsewhere, white terrorists were not organized beyond the local level." Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, which drew much of its membership from lower-class southerners (primarily Confederate veterans), the White Camelia consisted mainly of upper class southerners, including physicians, landowners, newspaper editors, doctors, and officers. They were also usually Confederate veterans, the upper part of antebellum society. It began to decline, despite a convention in 1869. The more aggressive people joined the White League or similar paramilitary organizations that organized in the mid-1870s. By 1870, the original Knights of the White Camelia had mostly ceased to exist. Among its members was Louisiana Judge Taylor Beattie, who led the Thibodaux massacre of 1887.