Note XXV-43 — Chapter XXV · DIVERS PHASES OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 1819-1863.

The trouble originated in the act of a drunken man named Jack Oliver, who seized a slice of watermelon from a fruit stall, and refused to pay for it. Simultaneously and without preconcertion, fights occurred between parties of passengers and the colored population in various parts of the town. The city was soon in commotion. Residents retired to their homes and barred themselves in. The fights lasted about three hours, when the foreigners were driven into the depot. The negroes, who had formerly been humble and submissive to the whites, remembered on that day the abusive treatment often received by them at the hands of transient foreigners; but did not confine their expressions of hatred to foreigners only, for they transversed the streets crying, Mueran los blancos! They were now ungovernable. They rushed to the Panamá depot—at a moment when from 250 to 300 passengers of both sexes and all ages, landed at Colon from the steamship Illinois, were procuring their tickets for San Francisco—and began firing at the building, hitting one man. The doors were then closed, and some of the passengers armed themselves. It has been stated by eye-witnesses that some of the armed passengers went out and discharged their arms at the black mob before any shot had been fired at the building; but the weight of testimony is against this assertion. U. S. Consul Ward came on horseback, saying that the government at his request would soon send a force to quell the disturbance. The force did come, but instead of affording protection to the passengers huddled in the depot, fired a volley of musketry in their midst, and followed it by others, besides stray shots. The only reasons assigned for this conduct of the force were that it sympathized with the mob, or was awed by it. The latter was the real cause. The active firing from the outside continued about one and a half hours even after it had ceased from the inside. The mob for a time did not succeed in entering the building, but finally broke into the baggage-room, killing and wounding several persons. Fortunately, the rabble was bent more on plunder than slaughter. It is said that even the wounded had their boots pulled from their feet and carried away. Many robberies had also been committed by the negroes in the city, principally in shops and barrooms. S. F. Bulletin, May 1-3, 17, Aug. 30, Oct. 14, Dec. 17, 1856; Cal. Chronicle, May 20, 1856; Sac. Union, May 5, 13, 1856; S. F. Alta, May 2, 3, 18, 1856.