USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > History of the San Francisco Committee of vigilance of 1851 : a study of social control on the California frontier in the days of the gold rush > Part 32
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47 For the citations, see Papers, 700, 373, 617, 635.
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sacred constitution from the machinations of a "corrupt minor- ity."48
Approval of the Committee of Vigilance was not limited to San Francisco. Everywhere in California the courts were proving inefficient. Everywhere the miners still made their own laws for the regulation of claims.49 and settled many vexed questions in open meetings. Members of such communities con- stantly reverted to popular trials and punishments as they found themselves overrun with vieious and dangerous neighbors. Hang- ings and whippings and brandings, conflicts with sheriffs, and cruelty alike to innocent and guilty, had become all too common in the state.30 The precedent set in San Francisco was welcomed as a means of securing prompt punishment without the demoral- izing accompaniments of irresponsible mobs and brutal vengeance.
A plan for a state-wide movement had been one of the early ideals of the San Francisco association, and the suggestion that other communities should organize for protection met with immediate response. On July 1 the editor of the Herald spoke with approval of the organization of committees in the interior
45 See Papers, 373, and Index under "C. of V .- Theory of Organiza- tion." Bluxome said: "There is a time when men should take the law into their own hands" (MS Statement, 10). A. M. Comstock, of the Com- mittee of '56, said: "The community resolved itself back iuto its original rights, and took the law into its own hands" (MS Vigilance Committees- Miscellany, 37). The "right of insurrection" was defended in the Herald, 1851, August 11 3%; Alta, June 14 21; Nov. 8 31; Nov. 15 33 ; Sacramento Union, Nov. 10 32. The grand jury of Marysville deprecated the evils that gave rise to the Committees of Vigilance, but felt that they could not be dispensed with (Alta, August 20 %).
49 See supra, p. 74. Referring to the miners' action in criminal affairs, Bancroft said that their courts were not wholly abrogated until after 1854 (Popular Tribunals, 1, 436). See also his California Inter Pocula, 240; Borthwick, Three Years, 125, 154-156; Helper, Land of Gold, 151-153.
50 Ide wrote in December, 1851; "Last year the whole interior of Colusi [sic] County fell a prey to lawless maurauders and thieves, to suppress which 'lynch-law' was resorted to, to supply the defects of such systems of law as were, in the exigencies of the ease, imported from, and alone applicable to, other communities-differing as widely from ours as light from dark- ness" (Biographical Sketch, 235). See also Carr, Pioneer Days, 134-135; Memoirs of Cornelius Cole, 86-91; Mrs. D. B. Bates, Incidents on Land and Water, 1858, p. 121.
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towns;51 by the end of the month Governor McDougal felt it necessary to issue his proclamation against a widespread Vigi- lante movement; and when in December Metcalf asked for a change of venue in his suit against committeemen and alleged that justice could not be expected in San Francisco, it was stated . in reply that a change would be fruitless, as Vigilance Com- mittees existed in nearly every county of California.52 There is no evidence that the relation between these scattered bodies was based on any closer bond than friendship and cooperation. At one time a suggestion was made that the San Francisco Com- mittee should send delegates to organize Vigilantes throughout the state, but no resultant action was recorded, although a recommendation that subcommittees of correspondence should be established was adopted. at least by the Committee of Santa Clara.53
It was not surprising that the scheme of protective com- mittees was approved in the old mining centers, where men were already accustomed to volunteer associations. Stockton, for instance, had attempted popular organization very early in its history. In the sumer of 1850 a "Vigilance Committee" of fifteen citizens had been appointed to solicit from the state and military authorities assistance in preserving order.5+ This was. perhaps, the first use of the specific name that became so familiar in 1851, but it is not apparent that any success attended the effort. Allusion has already been made to the public demand for summary action when the band of horse thieves was discovered
51 "Other cities in the interior have imitated the example of San Frau- cisco, and have instituted Branch Vigilance Committees, who act in concert with the parent body. They have recently displayed the same euergy aud vigor that have characterized our own Association. It is probable that such branches will be established throughout all the settlements in the country, when by concert and correspondence, speedy justice will be sure to overtake the criminal, however rapid or remote his flight" (Herald, 1851. July 1 21).
52 Herald, 1851, Dec. 20 24.
53 See Papers, 281, 283, 391, 527.
54 Alta, 1850, July 19 91.
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in June, 1851, and of its contributing influence upon San Fran- cisco affairs. Almost coincident with the formation of the San Francisco association, that is, on June 13, one hundred and seventy citizens of Stockton formed a volunteer patrol, which later developed into a Committee of Vigilance with regular officers, who corresponded with the Committee of San Fran- cisco and joined with Sonora in the search for Whittaker and MeKenzie. It was this body which transferred the thief, Jenks. to the Committee of San Francisco and recommended mercy, in spite of his evident guilt.55
One of the first communities to fall into line was the town of Marysville. A volume of minutes of a formal Committee of Vigilance is still preserved in the public library of that city.56 The initial entry gave minutes for a meeting on June 24, which was an adjournment from an earlier gathering. Eleven more meetings were reported at intervals until August 26. The con- stitution as published in the Marysville Herald was signed by one hundred and twenty-seven persons and was almost identical with that of the San Francisco Committee. The minutes do not indicate, however, that an Executive Committee took the initia- tive, and all the gatherings were open to the entire membership.57 Permanent headquarters were leased and guards appointed. but no action of any particular interest was reported. The Com- mittee of Marysville corresponded with that of San Francisco in regard to the Stuart-Berdue trials, transmitted information relative to various criminals, and assisted at the rescue of Mary Lye. In October a standing committee of ten was charged with the further conduct of affairs, and the general committee ceased
55 See supra, p. 320; Papers, Index under "C. of V. of Stockton"; Popular Tribunals, I, 449-451.
56 Minutes of the Vigilance Committee of Marysville, 1851. Transcript obtained through the kindness of Dr. O. C. Coy.
57 An Executive Committee of five was appointed, July 19, to assist the president, and another on July 29, but their proceedings are not noted.
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operations. The daily papers spoke of temporary revivals of a Vigilance Committee in November, 1851, and in the spring of 1852. Bancroft said that the original organization, or its suc- cessors, continued activities for many years and participated in public affairs as late as January, 1858.58
The citizens of Santa Clara, called together by a public notice, met on or about June 25, 1851, adopted resolutions endorsing the action of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance and organ- ized a local association. The San Francisco Herald, noting with great approval "that not a single citizen has yet refused to join," hoped for efficient cooperation between the societies of the interior towns. Several letters showed the warm support the smaller body offered to the San Francisco Committee, and one of them, dated "Vigilance Association Rooms," indicated that permanent head- quarters were occupied in Santa Clara. One of the first acts was to furnish bail for a well-known thief, to make his temporary freedom the occasion of a whipping, and then to return him to the more lenient courts. At another time this Committee con- victed an old man and his son of cattle stealing and sentenced both to corporal punishment. The father pleaded for mercy on account of his age and the son sturdily offered to bear a double share, an act of filial piety that moved the judges to remit the chastisement of the elder, although the dutiful son received his own allotted stripes.59
The Alta California of June 28 stated that a Committee of Vigilance had been formed in Sacramento, where two hundred and thirteen citizens had signed the roll of members. This organ- ization cooperated with the San Francisco Committee in the search for Kay, and for Whittaker and Mckenzie, but no other
58 See Popular Tribunals, I, 300, 454-456; History of Yuba County, 124; Alta, 1851, Nov. 14 32; 15 33; Herald, 1852, March 23 34.
59 See Papers, Index under "C. of V. of Santa Clara"; Popular Trib- unals, I, 474-475; Herald, 1851, July 3 %; Alta, August 30 %.
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record of its activities appears in the Papers.60 Early in July there was great excitement in Sacramento over a murderous assault made upon James Wilson, and a Vigilance Committee was organized to demand the punishment of the four men who attacked him. The reports of the affair make it appear that this body had impromptu officers chosen by the crowd, and it may have lacked organic connection with the permanent society started in June. However that may be, we learn that when the governor reprieved one of the highwaymen who had been legally convicted and sentenced to death, the bandit was hanged by popular aetion immediately after the lawful execution of two of his companions. On that occasion Joseph R. Beard, president of the permanent Vigilance Committee, was chairman of the citizens' committee in charge of the hanging.61
On June 28 the people of Sonora lynched a confessed thief, named Hill, and a day or two later a Vigilance Committee was privately organized. It immediately sent the San Francisco Committee a report of nine rogues implicated in Hill's confes- sion, and at other times it transmitted useful information. Its members also gave cordial assistance to the San Francisco dele- gates who searched for Whittaker, and they passed resolutions condemning Governor MeDougal's seizure of him and of his companion, MeKenzie. The correspondence showed that regular officers directed the affairs of the organization and that letters were dated from the "Chamber" of the society. Lang's History of Tuolumne County gave some account of severe floggings ad- ministered by the Sonora Committee, and Bancroft mentioned other excessive punishments. But the local Directory boasted that the Committee refrained from all excesses and turned over
60 Papers. 392, 415.
61 See Papers, 366 note 2; History of Sacramento County, 125-126; Popular Tribunals. I, 441-448. The Sacramento Union, 1851, July 10, gave the officers chosen at the impromptu meeting on July 9. Bancroft gave the same names as if elected on June 25, and made no distinction between a permanent and temporary organization.
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to the officers of the law the only man that came before them charged with a capital offense.62
Sometime in July a Committee was organized in Nevada City. In response to a request for a copy of the constitution of the San Franeiseo Committee Stephen Payran addressed to the new society a characteristic letter which set forth the aims and ideals of the Vigilance movement in the following grandiloquent terms :63
Our great aim, gentlemen, is to remove corruption from high places, to advance the safety and interest of our adopted state, to establish justice and virtue, without which our fall and ruin would be certain. .. . It is an old and popular doctrine, that it may be necessary to sacrifice the government to the people, but never the people to the government. That your course may be marked with prudence and justice, may God grant. Do not permit vindictiveness to enter into your deliberations. Be calm and determined; swerve not to the right nor to the left, but go onward in your pursuit of right. Be of one mind, and carry your point. The might, majesty, and power of the people can overcome all impending evils; like the thunders of heaven it will shake to naught all corruptive influences, and drive its authors into oblivion. Let the motto of our fathers be ours to sustain and perpetuate-Virtue, Liberty. Let us show ourselves worthy of our origin, determined to sustain and support the blessed privileges bequeathed by them to us. The moment we render up one tittle of the sacred constitution under which we were born, and which cost so much to obtain, and permit a small and corrupt minority to prescribe, we lose our caste, and our boasted institution will become the laughing stock of the world.
Late in the fall the organization appointed an Executive Com- mittee, modeled, we may presume, on the system adopted in San Francisco.
The genesis of the Committee of Mokelumne Hill was typical of the temper of the time. The settlement was a mining camp.
62 See Papers, Index under "C. of V. of Sonora"; History of Tuolumne County [by Lang], 79-81; Heckendorn & Wilson, Miners & Business Men's Directory, 44; Popular Tribunals, I, 467-469; Sacramento Union, 1851 July 11; Herald, July 14 24; Sept. 19 24; Alta, July 2 23 ; Aug. 29 2%; Sept. 19 %.
63 Papers, 373-374. See also Herald, 1851, July 29 %; Alta, Nov. 21 2%.
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still primitive and crude, and dependent upon the county magis- trates at Jackson for the restraint and punishment of criminals. But the county jail was so insecure and the county courts were so inefficient that the thugs of Mokelumne Hill had little cause to fear the law. Therefore the miners of that town approved the customs of '49 that lynched murderers red-handed. In July, 1851, one John Nelson was so sentenced to death.64 In November another murder was committed but the people were persuaded to leave the criminal in the hands of the sheriff at Jackson.65 A general jail delivery at Jackson on Christmas night did not increase confidence in the constituted authorities. A popular jury immediately assembled at Mokelumne to try a man named Campbell who had wantonly killed a Chileno on Christmas Day. The verdict was "guilty," but the crowd was influenced to vote for the transfer of Campbell to the authorities. His friends took advantage of the reprieve to appeal his case to a smaller meeting. which voted to discharge him unpunished. 66
On December 28 the better element of the camp organized a Vigilance Committee, elected responsible officers, and requested a model constitution from San Francisco. The ensuing weeks were nearly free from crimes of violence. Late in March a murder was committed and the Committees of Mokelumne Hill and Stockton united in an unsuccessful pursuit. A series of daring robberies occurred about the same time. The offender was detected and forced to confess and the Committee decided to deal with him on the spot, as delivery to Jackson would inevitably end in his release or escape. He was accordingly sentenced to death, allowed the ministrations of a priest, and hanged the next day, with the full approval of the town. The Committee deplored the fact that the necessity existed for such extreme measures, but
64 Alta, 1851, July 7 3%. I have found no record of the execution.
65 Alta, 1851, Nov. 3 34.
66 Alta, 1851, Dec. 30 %: Herald, 1852, Jan. 2 24.
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announced that it would not disband until affairs promised better for the protection of society. Bancroft stated that the Committee of Mokelumne Hill subsequently reorganized to assist the regular courts and to oppose irresponsible mobs.67
Committees of Vigilance with formal organization and per- manent officers existed in other communities. The San Francisco society sent its constitution to a Committee at San José and cor- responded with a Committee at Wymans Ravine.68 In the autumn of 1851 "respectable citizens" of Scott's Valley, then in Klamath County, assured the Indian agent that if he would negotiate treaties with the natives they would punish all bad white men who might violate the provisions therein. In report- ing this action the agent wrote :69
I am utterly opposed to the jurisdiction of "Judge Lynch" in all ordinary cases; but until a military post is established on this exposed frontier, and society assumes a more settled, regular form, there seems to be no other course left for the protection of either person or property.
In 1853, when residents of Humboldt County protested against the issuance of school warrants that would depreciate the value of desirable farming land, they resolved :70 "That the Vigilance Committee be instructed to stop all further location of school warrants in Humboldt township."
The ways of the miners of 1852, at Scott's Bar, Shasta County, were told in a picturesque story "founded on fact" published in the Overland Monthly.71 The theft of a large amount of gold dust led to the hasty formation of a Vigilance
67 Papers, 718, 730-732, 744-745; Popular Tribunals, I, 465-467; Borth- wick, Three Years, 317-318; Alta, 1852, Jan. 5 24; Herald, March 24 23; 26 31; April 4 24.
68 Papers, 676, 708-709.
89 Redick McKee to C. E. Mix, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Oct. 28, 1851, Cong. Docs., Ser. No. 688, Doc. 4, p. 212.
70 Herald, 1853, Oct. 23 34; Placerville Herald, Oet. 29 1/5.
71 W. M. Turner, "How We Did It on Scott's Bar," Overland Monthly, XIV (1875), 377-381.
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Committee, the pursuit of the thief, his arrest, trial, confession, and corporal punishment. "It gave the Bar a rough name," said the pioneer raconteur, "an' there wasn't another robbery there as long as I can remember." He vouched for the authenticity of the copy of the warrant issned for the fugitive by the "old chief of the Vigilantes" at Humbug. It read as follows :
State of California, County of Shaste Shaste Plains Township
Vigelant Com Vs Dr Baid
To any constable of Shaste Plains Township this day complaint having Laid before me Vigelant Committee that the crime of felony has Ben commited and aensing the above named Dr Baid of the same there- fore you are to arest the said Dr Baid and bring him before the people and to be delt with acording to their Judgment.
Yreka 1852
A. BOLES chairman of Commitee
There were popular tribunals in Southern California also during this period,72 but there was not a well defined movement towards the organization of permanent Committees of Vigilance. Conditions of life there were so distinctly different from those that developed about the mining centers of the North, that although they are an integral and important part of the progress of the state as a whole, it has not seemed necessary to enlarge upon them in studying the historical background of the Committee of San Francisco. Still, the courts in Southern California, like those in the North. failed to check crime. There were many robberies and murders and much trouble with lawless bands of Mexican bandits.73 In July, 1851, the citizens of Los Angeles organized a volunteer police force that served under the orders of the authori- ties. and Bancroft spoke of a Vigilance Committee that was
72 Rodman said there were few instances of lynch law in Southern Cali- fornia. Bench and Bar of Southern California, 45. Baneroft noted several instances, Popular Tribunals, I, 486-514.
73 The San Francisco Herald, 1851, Oct. 29 2%, quoted the Los Angeles Star as saying that in the past fifteen months there had been forty-four homicides, and only one trial for murder in Los Angeles County.
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Problems and Methods of Administration
acting in the autumn of 1852."+ Two years later conditions in Los Angeles were so bad that the San Francisco Herald advised the citizens of that town to organize an effective Committee, to which the Los Angeles Star of November 30, 1854, made reply that such an association was unnecessary.75 Just at that time one David Brown was on trial for a murder that had nearly led to his lynching in October. He had then been saved by the efforts of the mayor, Stephen C. Foster, who quieted a mob by promising immediate justice in the courts. Brown was convicted and sentenced, but reprieved at the last minute. Mayor Foster promptly resigned his position, and on January 12 led an indignant crowd that stormed the jail and hanged the murderer. A few days later Foster was re-elected to his former office.76
Other Committees of Vigilance besides those already men- tioned were noted in the California papers between the years 1851 and 1856.77 Bancroft repeated and supplemented these allusions, but the references were so brief and so disconnected that it is impossible to say whether the societies were permanent in character or were temporary associations formed to meet particular emergencies. It is possible that more extended re- search might uncover traces of others, but the facts already col- lected are sufficient to show that the Committees of Vigilance, as organized by responsible citizens, made a sincere effort to secure
74 Popular Tribunals, I, 489, 492.
75 Popular Tribunals, I, 493-494.
76 Popular Tribunals, I, 494-496; Newmark, Sixty Years, 139-141; His- tory of Los Angeles County (1880), 78-79. Another convicted murderer, named Alvitre, was hanged at the same time.
77 Notices may be found of Committees at Barton's Bar, 1851 ( Alta, Aug. 22 ?(;) ; Natchez, 1851 ( Alta, Nov. 15 % ; Popular Tribunals, I, 456) ; Grass Valley, 1851 (Popular Tribunals, I, 456); Shasta, 1851 (Popular Tribunals, I, 457; Alta, Aug. 20 3%) ; Columbia, 1851 (Popular Tribunals, I, 469-470) ; Santa Cruz, 1852, 1853 (Popular Tribunals, I, 477) ; Campo Seco, 1852 (Herald, Feb. 24 24) ; Jackson, 1852 ( Alta, May 31 24) ; Oak- land. 1852, 1854 (Herald, 1852, Dec. 14 %; 1854, Aug. 24 3%); Nelson Creek, 1853-1854 (Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen and Sierra Coun- ties, 214-215) ; Mariposa, 1854 (Popular Tribunals, I, 467; Alta, March 18 34; Herald, April 10 23) ; Coulterville, 1856 (Alta, April 29 %).
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the punishment of crime without the evils attendant upon lynch- ings by an irresponsible crowd. The danger and the horrors that were inevitable under mob rule were demonstrated by the tragedy that has passed into history as the "Downieville lynching," a tragedy which must form a part of any chroniele of the popular tribunals of California.
Downieville was a bustling, populous mining camp, where heavy-handed punishment was dreaded by the disorderly.78 In this town, on the evening of July 4, 1851, an intoxicated man named Cannon greatly affronted a Mexican woman known as Juanita, by bursting open the door of her house or tent and stumbling within. Cannon's friends declared the entrance was an accident. A resident acquainted with the facts said that it was the climax of unwelcome advances made to the woman, who was young, beautiful, passionate, and the faithful consort of a Mexican who may or may not have been her lawful husband. The aggressor returned the next day, ostensibly to apologize, but his excuses were received with indignation. A heated dispute followed and Juanita suddenly terminated the quarrel by stab- bing the man with her dagger, while she furiously asserted that he had added the insult of spoken words to the insulting deed of the previous evening.
The wound was mortal, the dead man had many friends, and the sheriff of Yuba County was out of reach. A mob seized the murderer and her companion and improvised a court. There was no doubt whatever of the homicide-the girl acknowledged it with blazing eyes and protested that her traditions taught the protection of her honor, but as her defense was in Spanish it made little impression on her angry auditors. She was, however, not entirely lacking in champions. A physician appeared and begged for her life on the plea of approaching maternity, but a sceptical colleague brutally contradicted his statements. Cannon's
78 See Downie, Hunting for Gold, 145.
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Problems and Methods of Administration
friends were determined to secure her instant execution, and under their influence it was decided to hang her from the truss of a bridge that crossed the river close to the town.
Dressed in her gayest clothes Juanita walked towards her doom with the dignity of a princess. On the way another effort was made in her behalf.79 It is said that Stephen J. Field, former alcalde of Marysville, collected a little party of friends, halted the rabble, and made an almost irresistible appeal to the better nature of the men about him. While they hesitated between vengeance and chivalry, another Marysville lawyer, Samuel Spear, followed Field with a flood of invective. The cry for execution was revived, Field and his friends were overpowered, and the torrent swept on. Standing on an elevation beneath the gallows the girl waved back those who offered to lay hands upon her, spoke steadily and calmly for a few minutes, and declared that if by the American code she deserved to die she would pay that penalty without regret or apology. With her own hands she adjusted the rope, cried a brave "Adiós, Señors!" and swung lightly from the scaffold. An hour too late the sheriff arrived ; within a week Downieville acknowledged the shame of the deed and the impromptu judge and jury were denounced for their responsibility. A Vigilance Committee was organized after this execution,80 but we have no records of its activities.
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