Editing Iberia Parish, Louisiana (section)

==History==
Iberia Parish was created from parts of St. Martin Parish and St. Mary Parish in 1868. It was part of an effort by the Reconstruction-era government to create parishes in which there would be large Republican-majority populations, composed primarily of [[freedmen]] in those years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://stmartinparishclerkofcourt.com/history.aspx |title=St. Martin Parish History page |website=stmartinparishclerkofcourt.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316074003/http://stmartinparishclerkofcourt.com/history.aspx |archive-date=March 16, 2015}}</ref> {{Citation needed|reason=current citation does not include this information|date=July 2024}}

This territory was part of the sugar parishes, where sugar cane plantations were developed along the waterways before and after the Civil War, dependent on labor of high numbers of enslaved African Americans before the war. Sugar cane was a lucrative commodity crop for planters. Relations between White and Black people were troubled after the Civil War, as White people sought to dominate [[freedmen]], by violence and intimidation if necessary.

The period after the [[Reconstruction era]] was one of increasing violence, especially at the turn of the century and into the early 20th century. In this period, the highly populated Iberia Parish had 26 lynchings of Black people by the [[Ku Klux Klan|KKK]], as part of racial terrorism. This was the fifth-highest total of any parish in Louisiana, and tied with the total number of lynchings in [[Bossier Parish]].<ref>[https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf ''Lynching in America, Third Edition: Supplement by County''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023063004/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf |date=October 23, 2017 }}, p. 6, Equal Justice Initiative, Mobile, AL, 2017</ref>

There was intense political factionalism in Louisiana. Iberia Parish had factions split among conservatives and those who were more moderate about the status of Black people. Moderates sometimes allied with the Republican [[Creoles of color|creoles]] and White people in the parish. But in 1884 white Democrats murdered more than 20 African Americans (most of the total noted above), in a kind of political lynching, and arrested White Republicans to regain power in Iberia Parish. In contrast to northern Louisiana, residents otherwise seemed to rely more on the formal legal system, with fewer mob lynchings. But Black people suffered here, making up 88 percent of the persons legally executed for violent crimes in the late 19th century.<ref name="pfeifer">[https://books.google.com/books?id=zAGwb3G6soMC&q=Iberia+Parish Michael James Pfeifer, ''Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947''], University of Illinois Press, 2004; pp.79-80</ref>

In the late 19th century, there was often a labor shortage on the sugar plantations. Planters recruited thousands of Italian immigrants as temporary laborers, many [[Sicilians]] who had first settled in New Orleans. They were needed during the fall harvest and processing season, which extended from October to January. The Italians became part of the volatility of social relations, struggling to make their way between planters and Black workers, and competing with other workers for jobs.<ref name="scarpaci">[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00236567508584332?needAccess=true Jean Ann Scarpaci, "Immigrants in the New South: Italians in Louisiana's sugar parishes, 1880–1910"], ''Labor History'', Vol. 16, 1975- Issue 2</ref>

The parish economy changed markedly in the 20th century after the discovery of oil. The Port of Iberia was developed into an industrial center. New types of jobs became available for African Americans. Iberia produces the most sugar of any parish in the state.