Vigilantism During the California Gold Rush

2359 Words5 Pages

Vigilantism is the black eye on the history of the American frontier. During the 19th century due to a lack of trust, competence, or unreliable law enforcement, the settlers on the frontiers took it upon themselves to provide security and safety for their newly progressing cities. Life in the developing American west was difficult and created many problems for everyone involved. Texas’ history is riddled with skirmishes, wars, and feuds that called upon the local civilians to turn to vigilantism. So to, Arizona and New Mexico, while struggling to gain their statehood, saw instances of civilian uprisings to quell local violence. Of course, however, neither Texas nor the American Southwest saw the hotbed of violence and destruction that was seen in San Francisco following the introduction of the Gold Rush. The descriptions that were used to describe the excitement that the discovery of gold created could also be just as easily applied to the ways it affected the peoples mentality. “In 1848 and 1849 it was usually known as the ‘Gold Fever,’ the ‘California Fever,’ the ‘Yellow Fever,’ the ‘California Mania,’ and the ‘Gold Mania.” People from all over the globe were abandoning their responsibilities and duties for the chance of striking it rich and making a big splash. This dramatic influx of people, cultures, and beliefs into one location created the right mix of hope, frustration, anger, and pride that would lead to chaos and even though “San Francisco had the most efficient, most professional police department in the United States [during the 19th century]” it could not quell the need for vigilantes to rise up and provide order amongst lawlessness.
Types of Prospectors
John Marshall ushered in the Gold Rush when he discovere...

... middle of paper ...

...Vigilantes and the police: The creation of a professional police bureaucracy in San Francisco, 1847-1900." Journal of Social History 21.2 (1987): 197-227.

Hamilton, Gary G. 1978. "The Structural Sources of Adventurism: The Case of the California Gold Rush." American Journal Of Sociology 83, no. 6: 1466-1490.

Joan, Levy. 2006. "Meet Billy Mulligan from our 1856 election." San Mateo Daily Journal, The (CA), May 15.

Johnson, David A. 1981. "Vigilance and the Law: The Moral Authority of Popular Justice in the Far West." American Quarterly no. 5: 558.

Lapp, Rudolph M. 1964. "The Negro in Gold Rush California." The Journal Of Negro History no. 2: 81.

Putnam, John. 2010. "Vigilantes in Gold Rush San Francisco." Life Examiner, August 4.

Paula, Friedman. 2000. "Snort a little gold dust and ya just go crazy." San Diego Union- Tribune, The (CA), December 03.

Show More
Related

  • Little Bighorn Mission Command Analysis

    1599 Words  | 4 Pages

    McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

    Read More

  • The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution by Thomas P. Slaugther

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Professor Thomas Slaughter has provided a most thorough overview of the Whiskey Rebellion, which he asserts had by the time this book was conceived nearly two centuries after the episode transpired, had become a largely forgotten chapter of our nation's history since the time of the Civil War. He cites as direct evidence of this fact the almost complete absence of any mention of the event in many contemporary textbooks of the conservative era of the 1980's, which this reviewer can attest to as well, having been a high school student in the late 1970's, who never heard of the Whiskey Rebellion until years later. Building off of his own dissertation on the topic, the author convincingly shows that the Whiskey Rebellion was in fact an event of tremendous importance for the future of the fledgling United States of America, which was spawned by the head-long collision of a variety of far-reaching forces and factors in the still quite primitive environs of western Pennsylvania that summer and fall. Slaughter contends that one must place the frontier at the center of the great political debates of the era and fully explore the ideological, social, political, and personal contexts surrounding the episode in order to fully understand the importance of its place in American history. In doing so the author has produced a very readable work that may be enjoyed by casual readers, who will likely find the individual vignettes which open each chapter particularly fascinating, and a highly useful basis of further research by future scholars into the importance of the frontier region as it relates to events on a national scale in those early days of the republic.

    Read More

  • Frederick Jackson Turner’s Reliance on the Myth of an Unoccupied American Wilderness

    1542 Words  | 4 Pages

    Solnit, Rebecca. "Spectators." Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Hidden Wars of the American West. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1994. 228-47. Print.

    Read More

  • John Augustus Sutter: Reason For The California Gold Rush

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Augustus Sutter was born in Baden, Switzerland on the 15th of February in 1803. Sutter is the reason for the California Gold Rush that began in 1848. Sutter had a fort called “New Helvetia” beginning in 1842 that ended quickly in 1844. A man named James Wilson Marshall was planning to build John Sutter a water-powered sawmill, when he came across flakes of gold in the American River near Coloma, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This Discovery happened on January 24th in 1848 causing the town to have no till afterwards. Once the discovery got out it was soon the center for merchants and miners. In John Sutter’s earlier years, he claimed to have had a military background being a captain in the Royal Swiss Guard to the French King.

    Read More

  • Echoes In The City Of The Angels Analysis

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    The setting of the essay is Los Angeles in the 1800’s during the Wild West era, and the protagonist of the story is the brave Don Antonio. One example of LA’s Wild West portrayal is that LA has “soft, rolling, treeless hills and valleys, between which the Los Angeles River now takes its shilly-shallying course seaward, were forest slopes and meadows, with lakes great and small. This abundance of trees, with shining waters playing among them, added to the limitless bloom of the plains and the splendor of the snow-topped mountains, must have made the whole region indeed a paradise” (Jackson 2). In the 1800’s, LA is not the same developed city as today. LA is an undeveloped land with impressive scenery that provides Wild West imagery. One characteristic of the Wild West is the sheer commotion and imagery of this is provided on “the first breaking out of hostilities between California and the United States, Don Antonio took command of a company of Los Angeles volunteers to repel the intruders” (15). This sheer commotion is one of methods of Wild West imagery Jackson

    Read More

  • The Clanton Gang

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Taming of the West: Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons of the Frontier 1840-1900.

    Read More

  • The Carolina Gold Rush

    2379 Words  | 5 Pages

    What do you think of when you hear the term “Gold Rush”? The 1849 gold rush in California?

    Read More

  • The Sixties, by Terry H. Anderson

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are several significant, as well as less significant, themes that are put forth by the author. Some themes that are not as meticulously elaborated on, but still contribute to the book, include the idea that war can corrupt the government and it’s actions, police brutality was part of the norm of the 1960s, and the word “power” had more than one meaning during the civil rights era. All these themes are important to take into consideration upon reading this book; however th...

    Read More

  • The California Ethos

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rohrbough, M. (1997). Chapter 17: The California gold rush and the American nation, days of Gold, University of California Press: Berkeley

    Read More

  • DBQ on Western Front

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    To many families the prospect of owning land was the central driving force that brought them to the land known today as the wild Wild West. Much propaganda wa...

    Read More

  • Violence in the Old West

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although many people defend the Old West saying that it was not very violent, the Old West was indeed very dangerous. The Old West was not as violent as Egypt is today but it still was drastically hostile to both the Americans and the Native Americans. How might you depict the Old West?

    Read More

  • The MOVE Organization vs Philadelphia Police

    1952 Words  | 4 Pages

    The MOVE Organization surfaced in Philadelphia in the early 1970’s. The MOVE movement was one of “back-to-nature,” which was poorly understood by their urban neighbors and the local government and possibly by the organization itself (McCoy). John Africa, who is said to have been illiterate, founded MOVE. It was a loosely organized and sparsely populated organization. I argue that the failure of MOVE to “bow to the man” and the lack of police and government self-control, led to the abuse of power and police brutality that culminated on May 13, 1985 of which the magnitude Black’s theories fail to predict. Black’s theories on law, specifically “Socio Economic Status” and “Organization” and its bearing on the application of law, will be used to analyze the MOVE II incident.

    Read More

  • Police Brutality and Accountability: A Disturbing Overlook

    1199 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the time of the nation’s founding in 1776, the decentralization of police power was seen as a safeguard against government oppression and tyranny. Nevertheless, local police departments in the United States of America often used repressive and illegal tactics, particularly against criminals, members of minority groups, immigrants, and others labeled undesirable (Police Brutality).

    Read More

  • The Frontier as a Place of Ethnic and Religion Conflict by Patricia Nelson Limerick

    1414 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Chapter 2 Western Settlement and the Frontier." Major Problems in American History: Documents and Essays. Ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. 3rd ed. Vol. II: Since 1865. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. 37-68. Print.

    Read More

  • The History Of Criminal Justice

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the American landscape began to broaden its horizons, its administration of justice had to expand to accommodate new situations and environments. In the early nineteenth century, due to lack of law enforcement, the frontier presented itself as heavenly to outlaws and bandits (Schmalleger 139). Many citizens took up the task of protecting others in a form of vigi...

    Read More

More about Vigilantism During the California Gold Rush

Open Document