Three Vigilante Books
Badly written novels with lurid covers exploit this habitual response to the idea of vigilantism, and some historians and novelists can’t suspend their image of vigilantes to consider an alternative view.
The Vigilantes of Montana did not act in defiance of the law because there was no law. At the time, what was to become southwest Montana was part of Idaho, and in carving Idaho Territory from four others in 1863, Congress forgot to assure the transfer of law from one of them to Idaho. Of course, Congress was a little busy at the time, with a conflict known as the Civil War.
That’s right. No law. No code of law whatever. In fact, in 1867, 3 years after Montana was separated from Idaho, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that a man convicted of a crime while there was no law did not commit that crime because there was no law against what he did. All felons convicted during the first year of Idaho Territory’s existence (March 3, 1863 – March 4 1864) were set free.
So that’s the first thing: no law.
Add to that an estimated 25,000 people (90% men) going after gold in one of the largest gold strikes on the North American continent. Between June 1863, when gold was discovered in Alder Creek, and the end of 1866, when it was all played out, an estimated $20,000,000 in gold was taken out of Alder Gulch.
Only a man’s individual conscience governed how he was willing to get his gold. Young men fell in with the wrong friends, and soon they were stealing gold, committing armed robbery, and murder.
That’s the fingernail version of the historical background.
Next week: Who were the people?
Certainly today the popular point of view is that the vigilantes were outside the law, but, in the case of the 1856 vigilantes of San Francisco, the legal system had become so terribly corrupt that it was truly a system by criminals to protect criminals. Juries were often bought and jail was an excellent hideout where all the best of life could be had for a price. The vigilantes were an extremely popular movement led by the most powerful men in town who acted to rid the city of bad elements, including corrupt politicians that allowed such injustice to exist. It seems to have been very successful.
When people get tired enough of lawlessness and disorder, they do something about it, don’t they, John? The 1856 vigilantes in San Francisco and the 1863 Vigilantes of Montana faced remarkably similar situations. Both were primarily composed of men who sought to rid their regions of corruption and crime. In the case of the Montana group, Henry Plummer, the sheriff of two mining districts, was found to be the leader of the gang of armed robbers and murderers who plagued the area.
Thank you for pointing out the parallel situation!
Carol
In my view, Vigilantes did exactly the right thing in both Montana and California for the reasons that you and Carol present.
What is all the more remarkable are those few who, despite these very same reasons, insisted on planting the seed of lawful justice in a place where there was no law, and at a time when the nation was split apart in Civil War.
These are my heroes, and I intend to see that they get their due.
Thanks, Dave! Once the Idaho vigilantes drove the riffraff out, they came over the Bitterroot Mountains to our side, and the Montana vigilantes put a stop to them. Interesting, isn’t it, that you, John, and I are all studying and writing about the vigilante movements in three different places? A fascinating subject, don’t you think?
Thank you, Ron.
Not only THE VIRGINIAN, but THE OXBOW INCIDENT as well have vigilantism at the center. I haven’t read Wister’s early stories, but in the novel, the conflict between city values and frontier necessity is heightened in the emotional pain of friendship betrayed. You’re right that Wister had more of a frontier viewpoint, at least so it seems in the novel. The city man is certainly sympathetic to the Virginian, though horrified at what has happened.
Carol
Well put. The issue, of course, is at the center of Owen Wister’s THE VIRGINIAN (1902) and had already appeared in his earlier short fiction for Harper’s. The editors there requested that he decry vigilantism and lynching, but you can tell that he had more of a frontier viewpoint.