5. The History of Vigilantism in America

Richard Maxwell Brown

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5. The History of Vigilantism in America

Richard Maxwell Brown
Richard Maxwell Brown

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This chapter is in the book Vigilante Politics

Chapter Five The History of Vigilantism in America Richard Maxwell Brown Vigilantism—traditionally defined as taking the law into one's own hands—formed the core of violent American extralegal justice from the late colonial period to the early twentieth century. The first major outbreak of vigilantism occurred in the Regulator movement of the South Carolina back country from 1767 to 1769. Revolutionary Virginia was the scene of a similar movement a decade later when extralegal summary justice upon Tories and outlaws was imposed by hinterland patriots under the direction of a local leading man, Colonel Charles Lynch, whose name eventually became affixed to one of the generic terms of American vigilantism: lynch law.1 After the Revolutionary War, vigilantism moved westward across the Appalachians with the pioneers. From 1767 to 1910 there were at least 326 vigilante movements or episodes distributed over practically all of the trans-Appalachian states and a few of the Atlantic states. Known as "regulators" •This essay is adapted from my prior study, "The American Vigilante Tradition." pp. 121 -80, in Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, eds.. Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, 2 vols. (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1969), and is based also on my three other treatments: "Legal and Behavioral Perspectives on American Vigilantism," pp. 93-144. in Perspectives in American History 5 (1971), reprinted in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds.. Law in American History (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); "Pivot of American Vigilantism: The San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856," pp. 105-19, in John A. Carroll, ed.. Reflections of Western Historians (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969); and "The Conservative Mob: Americans as Vigilantes" (unpublished address, Bloomsburg State College History Conference on "Violence in History," May 3, 1973); see, also, Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), part III. Graham and Gurr, Violence in America ... (in which "The American Vigilante Tradition" first appeared) has been reprinted in two 1969 paperback editions (Bantam Books, New York; New American Library Signet Book, New York) and in a hard cover edition (New York: Praeger, 1969) under the slightly revised title. The History of Violence in America. Because of its readier availability, the hard cover edition is the source for the citations to "The American Vigilante Tradition" that appear in the notes, below, to the present essay. I. James E. Cutler, Lynch-Law: An investigation into the History of Lynching in the United States (New York: Longmans, Green, 1905), pp. 24-30.

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Chapter Five The History of Vigilantism in America Richard Maxwell Brown Vigilantism—traditionally defined as taking the law into one's own hands—formed the core of violent American extralegal justice from the late colonial period to the early twentieth century. The first major outbreak of vigilantism occurred in the Regulator movement of the South Carolina back country from 1767 to 1769. Revolutionary Virginia was the scene of a similar movement a decade later when extralegal summary justice upon Tories and outlaws was imposed by hinterland patriots under the direction of a local leading man, Colonel Charles Lynch, whose name eventually became affixed to one of the generic terms of American vigilantism: lynch law.1 After the Revolutionary War, vigilantism moved westward across the Appalachians with the pioneers. From 1767 to 1910 there were at least 326 vigilante movements or episodes distributed over practically all of the trans-Appalachian states and a few of the Atlantic states. Known as "regulators" •This essay is adapted from my prior study, "The American Vigilante Tradition." pp. 121 -80, in Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, eds.. Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, 2 vols. (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1969), and is based also on my three other treatments: "Legal and Behavioral Perspectives on American Vigilantism," pp. 93-144. in Perspectives in American History 5 (1971), reprinted in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds.. Law in American History (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); "Pivot of American Vigilantism: The San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856," pp. 105-19, in John A. Carroll, ed.. Reflections of Western Historians (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969); and "The Conservative Mob: Americans as Vigilantes" (unpublished address, Bloomsburg State College History Conference on "Violence in History," May 3, 1973); see, also, Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), part III. Graham and Gurr, Violence in America ... (in which "The American Vigilante Tradition" first appeared) has been reprinted in two 1969 paperback editions (Bantam Books, New York; New American Library Signet Book, New York) and in a hard cover edition (New York: Praeger, 1969) under the slightly revised title. The History of Violence in America. Because of its readier availability, the hard cover edition is the source for the citations to "The American Vigilante Tradition" that appear in the notes, below, to the present essay. I. James E. Cutler, Lynch-Law: An investigation into the History of Lynching in the United States (New York: Longmans, Green, 1905), pp. 24-30.

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