High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The White League was a white paramilitary group started in 1874 that operated to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and political organizing. Its first chapter in Grant Parish, Louisiana was made up of many of the Confederate veterans who had participated in the Colfax massacre in April 1873. Chapters were soon founded in other areas of the state and in New Orleans. During the later years of Reconstruction, it was one of the paramilitary groups described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party." Through violence and intimidation, its members reduced Republican voting and contributed to the Democrats` taking over control of the Louisiana Legislature in 1876. After white Democrats regained power, members of the White Leagues were absorbed into the state militias and the National Guard.