Christopher Columbus Nash Explained

Christopher Columbus Nash
Nationality:	American
Office:	Sheriff of Grant Parish, Louisiana
Term Start:	1873
Term End:	Unknown
Birth Date:	1 July 1838
Death Date:	after 1922
Birth Place:	Sabine Parish, Louisiana US
Occupation:	Merchant; law-enforcement officer founder of the white league
Spouse:	Malinda Williams Nash
Parents:	Valentine and Mary Anderson Nash

Christopher Columbus Nash (July 1, 1838 – June 29, 1922) was a Louisiana merchant and Democratic sheriff.^[1] In 1873, Nash led a company of white militiamen in the Colfax Massacre to take the courthouse in Colfax, from armed African-Americans.^[2] Three white men were killed; the number of African-Americans killed is estimated to have been between 60 and 150.^{[2] [3]}

Nash participated in the formation of the White League,^[4] a white supremacist organization that claimed to defend a "hereditary civilization and Christianity menaced by a stupid Africanization".^[5] He was later buried in Natchitoches, Louisiana.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Nash, Christopher Columbus . A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography (lahistory.org) . December 16, 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150512114056/http://www.lahistory.org/site31.php . May 12, 2015 .
2. Web site: Lewis. Danny. The 1873 Colfax Massacre Crippled the Reconstruction Era. Smithsonian.com. April 13, 2016. October 22, 2017.
3. A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, in its article on Nash, uses these sources: Milton Dunn, Christopher Columbus Nash (1925), Mabel Fletcher Harrison and Lavinia McGuire McNeely, Grant Parish, Louisiana: A History (1969), and Manie White Johnson, "The Colfax Riot of April, 1873," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XIII (1930).
4. James K. Hogue The Battle of Colfax: Paramilitarism and Counterrevolution in Louisiana (June 2006), p. 21
5. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n6_v57/ai_13773324/pg_2/?tag=content;col1 Adolph Reed Jr., "The battle of Liberty Monument – New Orleans, Louisiana white supremacist statue"
6. Web site: American Cemetery. ruscahouse.com. December 15, 2010.