Indiana White Caps

Last updated

White caps were groups involved in the whitecapping movement who were operating in southern Indiana in the late 19th century. They engaged in vigilante justice and lynchings, with modern viewpoints describing their actions as domestic terrorism. They became common in the state following the American Civil War and lasted until the turn of the 20th century. White caps were especially active in Crawford and neighboring counties in the late 1880s. Several members of the Reno Gang were lynched in 1868, causing an international incident. Some of the members had been extradited to the United States from Canada and were supposed to be under federal protection. Lynchings continued against other criminals, but when two possibly innocent men were killed in Corydon in 1889, [1] Indiana responded by cracking down on the white cap vigilante groups, beginning in the administration of Isaac P. Gray.

Contents

Governor of Indiana James A. Mount belonged to one of the white cap groups, and reversed state policy of trying to stop the groups. His successor, Winfield T. Durbin, resumed the policy in 1900, two years after the Indiana General Assembly passed a strong anti-lynching law. When a lynching occurred in Vincennes in 1902 Durbin removed several law enforcement personnel from their positions, to show that he expected locals to cooperate in stopping the lynching. His plan worked, and when a lynching was threatened in the following year local police notified Durbin who called out the state militia to guard the jailhouse. When the white cap groups attacked the jailhouse, the militia opened fire; killing one and wounding at least eleven.

The show of force effectively brought an end to vigilante lynching in Indiana. Only two recorded lynchings have occurred since then, the 1930 murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. Lynching in Indiana was not explicitly racial, but tended to occur against anyone suspected of murder. Between 1860 and 1910, at least 68 people were lynched; twenty were blacks and forty-eight were whites.[ citation needed ]

Early white cap activity

Reno Gang lynching

Frank Reno, one of the first lynching victims in Indiana Frankreno.jpg
Frank Reno, one of the first lynching victims in Indiana

In the years following the American Civil War, southern Indiana experienced several high-profile criminal events. The Reno Gang began to terrorize the region in the immediate years after the war, becoming the first gang in the nation to begin robbing trains. They sacked rural towns, murdered and robbed travelers, and carried out numerous acts of indiscriminate violence against people. The state police were unable to bring the group under control, but the Pinkerton Agency was hired by one of the robbed train companies to pursue and capture the group. It took a year for the Pinkertons to capture the gang leaders and the townspeople had already grown wary of the gang and had formed the "Jackson County Committee of Vigilance" in 1868, one of the first of the white cap groups in Indiana. Most likely made of up Civil War veterans, they attacked the jail where the men were held and lynched three of them. Four more gang members were captured in Canada and were extradited to the United States. The same group of hooded men traveled by night, marching in formation as they attacked the New Albany jail where the prisoners were held, wounding the county sheriff, and lynching the men. [2]

Their murders caused an international incident with Great Britain, who demanded to know why they had not been adequately protected and threatened to cancel their extradition treaty with the United States. Given the severity of the gang's crimes, and the near certainty they would have suffered the same fate after a trial, the state government did not take any action against the white cap group. [2]

Moral police

White caps groups began to spring up across the state over the next decade. By the mid-1870s, there were numerous such groups like the State Horse Thief Detective Association, which carried out vigilante justice against horse thieves. The groups operated in secret, and had an element of masonic influence in their organization. The groups were most prevalent in the southern part of Indiana, and especially so in Harrison and Crawford Counties. Many of the groups started as enforcers of morality. They were known to target alcoholics, people believed to be idle, and men who did not provide for their families. Such people were often abducted and flogged. [3]

They soon began to target women who were not believed to be adequately caring for their home and children, children who were truant from school, and people who shirked from civic duty like working on road projects. By the late 1870s, the groups were beginning to target criminals for punishment, and continued to carry out sporadic lynchings. [3]

State crackdown

Early measures

The June 13, 1889, lynching of two men in Corydon sparked an outcry for something to be done about the vigilantes. A mob of 150 mounted men, led by twenty masked white caps, arrived at the county jail and demanded the release into their custody of two men (James Devin and Charles Tennyson) being held on charges of attempted murder. The leaders of the group demanded the keys to the jail, threatening to burn down the town if they were refused; after the sheriff refused to hand over the keys, the mob used hammers to knock down the jail doors and removed the two alleged assailants. The two men were dragged to the old Western Bridge, where they were hanged. [4] [5] The guilt of the men was not widely accepted, and many believed they had been killed unfairly and deserved a trial. [3]

In 1889, Governor of Indiana Isaac P. Gray was the first to begin attempting to put an end to the white cap's activities. He did so primarily by offering increased police support to local officials in southern Indiana. The measure proved ineffective though, because many of the local sheriffs were themselves members of the organizations and turned a blind eye to the activity. [3] Governor Alvin Hovey, an American Civil War general who had campaigned in part on the white cap problem, was the next governor to combat them. He continued his predecessor's attempt to have local law enforcement play a role in stopping the white caps, but ratcheted up the rhetoric by making threats to remove local law enforcement from office and declare martial law in towns where lynchings occurred. His threats were somewhat successful, and only two lynchings occurred during his term. [6]

Governor Claude Matthews took another step in dealing with the groups, primarily by attempting to identify and prosecute leaders of the groups. His attempts were mostly unsuccessful in capturing anyone of merit, but did add another level of suppression to the groups. When James A. Mount came to office though, he stopped most of the anti-white cap policies. He himself had been a member of one such organization. During his term, the groups became increasingly active, leading to numerous incidents of vigilante justice and a rise in lynchings. The Indiana General Assembly attempted to force the governor to action by passing a law in 1898 that required local sheriffs to petition the governor for support in the event of a threatened lynching. They also authorized the governor to call out the militia to protect prisoners, and granted him the power to remove local officials from office if they did not notify him of a threatened act of violence. Despite the law, Mount took no action against the groups during his term. [7]

Confrontation

Governor of Indiana Winfield T. Durbin cracked down on white caps. Indiana Governor Winfield T. Durbin.gif
Governor of Indiana Winfield T. Durbin cracked down on white caps.

Winfield T. Durbin succeeded Mount in 1900 and began a vigorous campaign to put an end to the white caps. In 1902, he invoked the new anti-lynching law after a lynching in Vincennes. He removed from office numerous law enforcement officials and put the militia on patrol, and launched a host of investigations into local government. [8]

In 1903, a police officer was killed in Evansville following a dispute between two black men at a bar. The sheriff, fearing the same fate as the sheriff in nearby Vincennes, sent word to the governor requesting assistance in protecting the suspect, Lee Brown, in custody. Durbin quickly dispatched a company of militia to protect the jailhouse from any potential danger. A mob of hooded white caps soon surrounded the jailhouse and the militia and began taunting them. After several hours, the crowd began to become increasingly hostile, demanding that the militia let them past to get at the suspect. Someone in the crowd fired a shot at the soldiers, who responded by opening fire on the crowd. The militia had wounded eleven and killed one. The crowd fled and began looting and rioting in the city's black neighborhoods, an event known as the Evansville Race Riot. When the rioting subsided, many from the black community had fled the city and would not return. [9] The show of force also began the end of the white caps activity in the state. [8] [10]

Aftermath

No more lynchings would occur in Indiana for more than thirty years until the deaths of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930. Between 1865 and 1905, at least sixty-eight people had been lynched by the white caps. [8] In all cases, the victims had been suspected criminals, almost all of which were in state custody when they were killed. Forty-eight of the victims were whites, while twenty were blacks. [8] Although the white cap ended their lynching and more severe forms of vigilante justice, the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan began to rise in the following decade, drawing many former white caps into their numbers.

See also

Notes

  1. Strung to the Bridge, Corydon's Murderers Lynched (19 June 1889). "Indiana State Sentinel 19 June 1889 — Hoosier State Chronicles: Indiana's Digital Historic Newspaper Program". Indiana State Sentinel. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  2. 1 2 Funk, pp. 102106
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gugin, p. 181181
  4. William H. Roose (1911). Indiana's Birthplace: A History of Harrison County, Indiana. New Albany, Indiana: The Tribune Company, Printers. p. 62.
  5. "Strung to the Bridge, Corydon's MurderersLynched". Indiana State Sentinel. June 19, 1889. Retrieved April 17, 2016.
  6. Gugin, p. 195
  7. Gugin, p. 213
  8. 1 2 3 4 Gugin, p. 219
  9. Clark, Justin (2017-07-06). ""The City's Crown of Shame": The Evansville Race Riot". Hoosier State Chronicles: Indiana's Digital Newspaper Program. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  10. "PRESIDENT DENOUNCES MOB LAWLESSNESS; Letter of Praise Sent to Gov. Durbin of Indiana. Says Lynching Is Merely One Form of Anarchy Which is the Forerunner of Tyranny – Laws Should Work Swiftly and Surely". New York Times . 1903-08-10. Retrieved 2008-08-09.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corydon, Indiana</span> Town in Indiana, United States

Corydon is a town in Harrison Township, Harrison County, Indiana. Located north of the Ohio River in the extreme southern part of the U.S. state of Indiana, it is the seat of government for Harrison County. Corydon was founded in 1808 and served as the capital of the Indiana Territory from 1813 to 1816. It was the site of Indiana's first constitutional convention, which was held June 10–29, 1816. Forty-three delegates convened to consider statehood for Indiana and drafted its first state constitution. Under Article XI, Section 11, of the Indiana 1816 constitution, Corydon was designated as the capital of the state, which it remained until 1825, when the seat of state government was moved to Indianapolis. In 1863, during the American Civil War, Corydon was the site of the Battle of Corydon, the only official pitched battle waged in Indiana during the war. More recently, the town's numerous historic sites have helped it become a tourist destination. A portion of its downtown area is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the Corydon Historic District. As of the 2010 census, Corydon had a population of 3,122.

John Gibson was a veteran of the French and Indian War, Lord Dunmore's War, the American Revolutionary War, Tecumseh's War, and the War of 1812. A delegate to the first Pennsylvania constitutional convention in 1790, and a merchant, he earned a reputation as a frontier leader and had good relations with many Native American in the region. At age sixty he was appointed the Secretary of the Indiana Territory where he was responsible for organising the territorial government. He served twice as acting governor of the territory, including a one-year period during the War of 1812 in which he mobilized and led the territorial militia to relieve besieged Fort Harrison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Neely Johnson</span> American judge

John Neely Johnson was an American lawyer and politician. He was elected as the fourth governor of California from 1856 to 1858, and later appointed justice to the Nevada Supreme Court from 1867 to 1871. As a member of the American Party, Johnson remains one of only three members of a third party to be elected to the California governorship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Hendricks</span> American politician (1782–1850)

William Hendricks was a Democratic-Republican member of the House of Representatives from 1816 to 1822, the third governor of Indiana from 1822 to 1825, and an Anti-Jacksonian member of the U.S. Senate from 1825 to 1837. He led much of his family into politics and founded one of the largest political families in Indiana. He was the uncle of Thomas Andrews Hendricks, who was also Governor of Indiana and Vice President of the United States. Hendricks County was named in his honor. His term as governor was spent repairing the state's finances to later enable large scale internal improvements. The establishment of the basic framework of the state's public school system and the transfer of the capital from Corydon to Indianapolis also occurred during his term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvin Peterson Hovey</span> American judge

Alvin Peterson Hovey was a Union general during the American Civil War, an Indiana Supreme Court justice, congressman, and the 21st governor of Indiana from 1889 to 1891. During the war he played an important role in the Western theatre, earning high approval from General Ulysses Grant, and uncovered a secret plot for an uprising in Indiana. As governor, he launched several legal challenges to the Indiana General Assembly's removal of his powers, but was mostly unsuccessful. He successfully advocated election reform before he died in office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaybird–Woodpecker War</span>

The Jaybird–Woodpecker War (1888–89) was a feud between two United States Democratic Party factions fighting for political control of Fort Bend County, Texas, in the southeast part of the state. The Jay Bird Democratic Association was an all-White political organization formed in 1887 by young men to challenge and regain control of the county government from the biracial coalition of former White and Black Republicans who had dominated the county Democratic party and county government since 1869. Murders and political assassinations were committed against persons in each faction in 1888 and 1889.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bald Knobbers</span> Vigilante group in the Ozarks of Missouri in the later 1880s.

The Bald Knobbers were a group of vigilantes in the Ozark region of southwest Missouri, United States from 1885 to 1889. They are commonly depicted wearing black horned hoods with white outlines of faces painted on them, a distinction that evolved during the rapid proliferation of the group into neighboring counties from its Taney County origins. The group got its name from the grassy bald knob summits of the nearby Ozark Mountains. The hill where they first met, Snapp's Bald, is located just north of Kirbyville, Missouri. An article in the October 5, 1898 issue of Springfield, Missouri's The Leader-Democrat states:

Henry Westmoreland is in from Beaver County, Oklahoma, which was formerly a part of the strip known as No-Man's-Land. He says grass is in abundance and cattle plenty, but no efforts are made at raising crops there, except roughness and alfalfa. The venerable gentleman owned a ranch in Taney County at the time of the Bald Knob uprising, and was the man who gave that organization its name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James A. Mount</span> American politician

James Atwell Mount was an American politician serving as the 24th governor of Indiana from 1897 to 1901. His term coincided with the economic recovery following the Panic of 1893, and focused primarily on industrial regulations and advancement of agriculture. As governor during the Spanish–American War, he oversaw the formation as dispatch of the state levies and played an important role in changing national policy to allow African-Americans to serve as army officers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winfield T. Durbin</span> American politician

Winfield Taylor Durbin was an American politician serving as the 25th governor of the U.S. state of Indiana from 1901 to 1905. His term focused on progressive legislation and suppression of white cap vigilante organizations operating in the southern part of the state. He was the seventh and last veteran of the American Civil War to serve as governor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banditti of the Prairie</span> Group of loose-knit outlaw gangs, during the early-mid-19th century

The Banditti of the Prairie, also known as The Banditti, Prairie Pirates, Prairie Bandits, and Pirates of the Prairie, in the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio and the Territory of Iowa, were a group of loose-knit outlaw gangs, during the early to mid-19th century. Though bands of roving criminals were common in many parts of Illinois, the counties of Lee, DeKalb, Ogle, and Winnebago were especially plagued by them. The new crime wave in the region of the frontier Midwest may have occurred following the crackdown on Southern outlaws by the rising vigilante-regulator movement and the breakup of the criminal syndicate of John A. Murrell and his gang, the "Mystic Clan", in the Southern United States. In 1841, the escalating pattern of house burglary, horse and cattle theft, stagecoach and highway robbery, counterfeiting and murder associated with the Banditti had come to a head in Ogle County. As the crimes continued, local citizens formed bands of vigilantes known as Regulators. A clash between the Banditti and the Regulators in Ogle County near Oregon, Illinois resulted in the outlaws' demise and decreased Banditti activity and violent crime within the county.

Whitecapping was a violent vigilante movement of farmers in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was originally a ritualized form of extralegal actions to enforce community standards, appropriate behavior, and traditional rights. However, as it spread throughout the poorest areas of the rural South after the Civil War, white members operated from economically driven and anti-black biases. States passed laws against it, but whitecapping continued into the early 20th century.

The Reno Gang, also known as the Reno Brothers Gang and The Jackson Thieves, were a group of criminals that operated in the Midwestern United States during and just after the American Civil War. Though short-lived, the gang carried out the first three peacetime train robberies in U.S. history. Most of the stolen money was never recovered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Ed Johnson</span> African American who was lynched in the U.S.

On March 19, 1906, Ed Johnson, a young African American man, was murdered by a lynch mob in his home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had been sentenced to death for the rape of Nevada Taylor, but Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court had issued a stay of execution. To prevent delay or avoidance of execution, a mob broke into the jail where Johnson was held, and abducted and lynched him from the Walnut Street Bridge.

Pancho Daniel (?–1858) was a Californio bandit, leader of the Flores Daniel Gang who was lynched in November 1858 while awaiting trial for his involvement in the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton.

George Armwood was an African American who was lynched in Princess Anne, Maryland, on October 18, 1933. His murder was the last recorded lynching in Maryland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flossie Bailey</span> American civil rights and anti-lynching activist

Katherine "Flossie" Bailey was a civil rights and anti-lynching activist from Indiana. She established a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Marion, Indiana, in 1918 and became especially active fighting for justice and equality following the double lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930. As president of the Indiana NAACP, Bailey was pivotal in lobbying for passage of a statewide anti-lynching law in Indiana in 1931 and advocated for a similar bill at the national level. She was also a recipient of the national NAACP's Madam C. J. Walker Medal.

In the early hours of 3 June 1893, a black day-laborer named Samuel J. Bush was forcibly taken from the Macon County, Illinois, jail and lynched. Mr. Bush stood accused of raping Minnie Cameron Vest, a white woman, who lived in the nearby town of Mount Zion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William "Froggie" James</span> African-American man lynched in southern Illinois in 1909

William "Froggie" James, an African-American man, was lynched and his dead body mutilated on November 11, 1909 by a mob in Cairo, Illinois, after he was charged with the rape and murder of 23-year-old shop clerk Anna Pelley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching in Posey County, Indiana</span>

On October 11, 1878, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Ed Warner, William Chambers, and Dan Harris, Sr. were lynched in Posey County, Indiana, near the town of Mount Vernon. These men, who were allegedly connected to the robbery of a brothel, were killed by a white mob who broke into the jail where they were being held. Two other men, Dan Harris, Jr. and John Harris, were also lynched in the days leading up to October 11, in connection with the same alleged offense. This racial terror lynching is the largest reported lynching in Indiana's history.

In November 1902, a white mob from Sullivan and Knox counties lynched James Dillard, a young Black man from Indianapolis. Dillard's death resulted in a lengthy legal battle over Indiana's 1899 anti-lynching law.

References