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Vigilantism is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
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A vigilance committee is a group of private citizens who take it upon themselves to administer law and order or exercise power in places where they considered the governmental structures or actions inadequate. Some vigilance committees engaged in forms of vigilantism such as aiding fugitive slaves in violation of the laws on the books at the time. Beginning in the 1830s committees of abolitionists worked to free enslaved people and transport them to freedom.
Henry Plummer (1832–1864) was a prospector, lawman, and outlaw in the American West in the 1850s and 1860s, who was known to have killed several men. He was elected sheriff of Bannack, Montana, in 1863 and served until 1864, during which period he was accused of being the leader of a "road agent" gang of outlaws known as the "Innocents," who preyed on shipments from Virginia City, Montana to other areas. In response some leaders in Virginia City formed the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch and began to take action against Plummer's gang, gaining confessions from a couple of men they arrested in early January 1864. On January 10, 1864, Plummer and two associates were arrested in Bannack by a company of the Vigilantes and summarily hanged. Plummer was given a posthumous trial in 1993 which led to a mistrial. The jury was split 6–6.
The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a vigilante group formed in 1851. The catalyst for its formation was the criminality of the Sydney Ducks gang. It was revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco, California. The need for extralegal intervention was apparent with the explosive population growth following the discovery of gold in 1848. The small town of about 900 individuals grew to a booming city of over 20,000 very rapidly. This growth in population overwhelmed the previously established law enforcement, and led to the organization of vigilante militia groups.
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The history of the city of San Francisco, California, and its development as a center of maritime trade, were shaped by its location at the entrance to a large natural harbor. San Francisco is the name of both the city and the county; the two share the same boundaries. Only lightly settled by European-Americans at first, after becoming the base for the gold rush of 1849 the city quickly became the largest and most important population, commercial, naval, and financial center in the American West. San Francisco was devastated by a great earthquake and fire in 1906 but was quickly rebuilt. The San Francisco Federal Reserve Branch opened in 1914, and the city continued to develop as a major business city throughout the first half of the 20th century. Starting in the later half of the 1960s, San Francisco became the city most famous for the hippie movement. In recent decades, San Francisco has become an important center of finance and technology. The high demand for housing, driven by its proximity to Silicon Valley, and the limited availability has led to the city being one of America's most expensive places to live. San Francisco is currently ranked 16th on the Global Financial Centres Index.
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James King of William was a crusading San Francisco, California, newspaper editor whose assassination by James P. Casey, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1856 resulted in the establishment of the second San Francisco Vigilance Committee and changed the politics of the city. King was among the first newspapermen to be honored by the California Journalism Hall of Fame.
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Joaquin Valenzuela was a Sonoran fortyniner who came to California in 1849, during the California Gold Rush, with a small band of people from the vicinity of their hometown with Joaquin Murrieta. He subsequently became one of the leaders of the Five Joaquins Gang. Descendants of his family and those of former gang members said he died in 1853, at the hands of the California Rangers on Cantua Creek. The San Luis Obispo Vigilantes claim he was still alive when they took him to be hanged for his crimes with the Five Joaquins Gang in San Luis Obispo in 1858.
Jose Antonio Garcia (1836–1858) was a Californio bandit, born in Santa Barbara, Alta California. He was suspected by the San Luis Obispo Vigilance Committee of being part of the gang of Pio Linares, and he was hung after making a confession exposing other members and the leadership of the gang as the participants in an 1857 robbery and murder of two French Basque cattlemen.
The San Francisco Herald, or San Francisco Daily Herald, was a newspaper that was published from 1850 to 1862 in San Francisco, California. The paper stood out aggressively against crime and corruption associated with the California Gold Rush. The editors fought several duels with men whom they had offended. In 1856 the paper attacked the Vigilance Committee, which was taking the law into its own hands. Supporters of the committee withdrew their subscriptions and advertising, almost forcing the newspaper to close. However, the newspaper continued to be published with smaller circulation until 1862.
References
- ↑ Mick Sinclair, San Francisco: a cultural and literary history, Signal Books, 2004 pp. 54-57
- ↑ Asbury, Herbert (1933). The Barbary Coast, An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (New York).
- ↑ Ricards, Sherman L.; George M. Blackburn (February 1973). "The Sydney Ducks: A Demographic Analysis". The Pacific Historical Review. 42 (1): 20–31. doi:10.2307/3637740. JSTOR 3637740.
- ↑ Davis, Mike. "'WHAT IS A VIGILANTE MAN?' White Violence in California History" (PDF). San Diego State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
- ↑ Bell, Bob Boze, "The Gang Slayer: Captain Jonathan Davis vs 14 Polyglot Kilers, True West; History of the American Frontier. June 2014, Vol. 61, No. 6
