The Night Riders

The Night Riders was the name given by the press to the militant faction of tobacco farmers during a popular resistance to the monopolistic practices of the American Tobacco Company of James B. Duke. On September 24, 1904, the tobacco planters of western Kentucky and the neighboring counties of western Tennessee formed the Dark Fired Tobacco District or Black Patch District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee (called the Association or PPA). It urged farmers to boycott the American Tobacco Company and refuse to sell at the ruinously low prices it offered in a quasi monopoly market. A more militant faction of farmers, led by David A. Amoss of Caldwell County, Kentucky, resorted to physical intimidation or burning the crops of those who ignored the boycott, targeting the tobacco warehouses of the ATC itself, culminating in large scale raids of cities in the area - most prominently Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1907.

The Black Patch Tobacco War (or the Great Tobacco strike) in southwestern Kentucky and northern Tennessee extended from 1904 to 1909. It was the longest and most violent conflict between the end of the Civil War and the civil rights struggles of the mid 1960s. Originally known as the Silent Brigade, The Night Riders were a vigilante force opposed to the American Tobacco Company because it priced tobacco so low that farmers could not make any profit from their work.

The head of the Night Riders was David Amoss, a medical doctor and farmer. The Amoss House in Caldwell County, Kentucky is dedicated to the history of Dr. Amoss and the Night Riders. The building is currently in danger of being sold. Other area museums house numerous artifacts and personal histories regarding the era of the Night Riders.

The major cause of the Black Patch Wars was the drastic reduction in price that the American Tobacco Company offered tobacco farmers for their crops. In the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, farmers had earned a profit of from eight to twelve cents a pound, more than enough for a comfortable lifestyle. That changed with the turn of the twentieth century, due to the development of a virtual monopoly by the American Tobacco Company. After eliminating competition, ATC paid an average of four cents a pound from 1901 to 1903. This was two cents per pound less than the cost of producing tobacco. Farmers were losing money just by planting their crops. In some areas the price fell as low as three, two or even one cent a pound.

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