The
San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856. Their purpose was to rein in rampant crime and government corruption. They were among the most successful organizations in the
vigilanteA vigilante is someone who unlawfully punishes a criminal, or participates in a mob or conspiracy to mete out unlawful punishment to a criminal or criminals....
tradition of the
American Old WestThe American Old West comprises the history, geography, peoples, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the period of the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
.
These militias hanged eight people and forced several elected officials to resign. Each Committee of Vigilance formally relinquished power after three months.
The 1851 Committee of Vigilance was inaugurated following the June hanging of alleged burglar John Jenkins, who had been convicted in a trial organized by the committee of trying to steal a safe from an office (grand larceny was punishable by death under California law at the time).
The
San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856. Their purpose was to rein in rampant crime and government corruption. They were among the most successful organizations in the
vigilanteA vigilante is someone who unlawfully punishes a criminal, or participates in a mob or conspiracy to mete out unlawful punishment to a criminal or criminals....
tradition of the
American Old WestThe American Old West comprises the history, geography, peoples, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the period of the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
.
These militias hanged eight people and forced several elected officials to resign. Each Committee of Vigilance formally relinquished power after three months.
1851
The 1851 Committee of Vigilance was inaugurated following the June hanging of alleged burglar John Jenkins, who had been convicted in a trial organized by the committee of trying to steal a safe from an office (grand larceny was punishable by death under California law at the time). The June 13 San Francisco Alta printed this statement:
It boasted a membership of 700 and operated parallel to, and in defiance of, the duly constituted city government. Committee members used its headquarters for the interrogation and incarceration of suspects, who were denied the benefits of due process. The Committee engaged in policing, investigating disreputable boarding houses and vessels, deporting immigrants, and parading its militia. In total, four people were hanged by the Committee; one was whipped (a common punishment at that time); fourteen were deported to Australia; fourteen were informally ordered to leave California; fifteen were handed over to public authorities; and forty-one were discharged. The 1851 Committee of Vigilance was dissolved during the September elections, but its executive members continued to meet into 1853.
The Committee offered a $5,000 reward for the capture of anyone found guilty of arson, and committee members patrolled the streets at night to watch for fires. After these actions were taken, fires in San Francisco diminished noticeably.
1856
The Committee of Vigilance was reorganized on 15 May 1856 by many of the leaders from the first one and adopted an amended version of the 1851 constitution. Unlike the earlier Committee, and the vigilante tradition generally, the 1856 Committee was concerned with not only civil crimes but also politics and political corruption. The catalyst for the Committee was a political duel in which James P. Casey shot James King of William. The 1856 Committee was also much larger, claiming 6,000 in its ranks. The 1856 Committee of Vigilance dissolved on 11 August 1856, and marked the occasion with a “Grand Parade.” Political power in San Francisco was transferred to a new political party established by the vigilantes, the
People's PartyThe People's Party, Peoples Party, or Popular Party, is any of several political parties claiming to speak for the people.People's Parties in various countries run the gamut from left to right...
, which ruled until 1867 and was eventually absorbed into the Republican Party. The vigilantes had thus succeeded in their objective of usurping power from the Democratic Party
machineA political machine is a disciplined political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters , who receive rewards for their efforts...
that hitherto dominated civic politics in the city. Notable people included
William Tell ColemanWilliam Tell Coleman was an American pioneer. He was born in Cynthiana, Harrison County, Kentucky, and was educated at St. Louis University. In 1849 he went to California and eventually settled in San Francisco, where he engaged in the shipping and commission business...
, San Francisco mayor
Henry F. TeschemacherHenry Frederick Teschemacher served as mayor of San Francisco from October 3, 1859 to June 30, 1863.He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and worked for a Boston shipping house around the 1840s. The firm sent him to San Francisco, California in 1846, where he traded goods for furs, tallow, and hides...
and Martin J. Burke.
Vigilante headquarters in 1856 consisted of assembly halls, meeting rooms, a military kitchen and armoury, an infirmary, and prison cells, all of which were fortified with gunny sacks and cannons. Four people were officially executed again in 1856, but the death toll also includes
James “Yankee” SullivanYankee Sullivan also known as Frank Murray and James Sullivan was a bare knuckle fighter and boxer. He was a Champion of Prizefighting from 1851 to October 12, 1853...
, an
IrishThe Irish people are a Western European ethnic group who originate in Ireland, in north western Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolgs, Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians The Irish...
immigrant and professional boxer who killed himself after being terrorized and detained in a Vigilante cell. The 1856 Committee also engaged in policing, investigations, and secret trials, but it far exceeded its predecessor in audacity and rebelliousness. Most notably, it seized a federal shipment of armaments intended for the state militia and tried the chief justice of the
California Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of California is the state supreme court of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco, and regularly holds sessions at its branch offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts....
. The Committee’s authority, however, was bolstered by almost all militia units in the city, including the California Guards.
Controversy
A great deal of historical
controversyControversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion, but sometimes the allegation that a matter of scientific fact is no better than opinion or even religious belief, as in the controversy between evolutionary biology and Creationism or Intelligent...
exists about the vigilance movements. The 1856 hangings of Charles Cora and James Casey, for example, are open to interpretation. Both were hanged as murderers by the Committee of Vigilance after killing men in duels: Cora shot dead a U.S. Marshal who had drunkenly insulted his mistress, and Casey killed a rival newspaper editor for publishing an editorial that exposed Casey's criminal record in
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Cora's first trial had ended in a
hung juryA hung jury is a jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.-United States :...
, and there were rumors that the jury had been bribed. Casey's friends sneaked him into the jail precisely because they were afraid that he would be hanged. This
hangingHanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. It hurts a lot. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", although it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would...
could be seen either as a response by frustrated citizens to ineffectual law enforcement, or as their unwillingness to accept the possibility that due process would result in acquittals. Most popular histories have accepted the former view, that the illegality and brutality of the vigilantes was justified by the need to establish law and order in the city.
One prominent critic of the San Francisco vigilantes was
General W. T. ShermanWilliam Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War , for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched...
, who resigned from his position as major-general of the Second Division of Militia in San Francisco. In his memoirs, Sherman wrote:
As they [the vigilantes] controlled the press, they wrote their own history, and the world generally gives them the credit of having purged San Francisco of rowdies and roughs; but their success has given great stimulus to a dangerous principle, that would at any time justify the mob in seizing all the power of government; and who is to say that the Vigilance Committee may not be composed of the worst, instead of the best, elements of a community? Indeed, in San Francisco, as soon as it was demonstrated that the real power had passed from the City Hall to the committee room, the same set of bailiffs, constables, and rowdies that had infested the City Hall were found in the employment of the "Vigilantes."
Influence in British Columbia Affairs
A former member of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, physician Max Fifer, having moved to
YaleYale is an unincorporated though historically very important small town in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale, then Chief...
,
British ColumbiaThe Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1871. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still...
at the time of the
Fraser Canyon Gold RushThe Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River, a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton...
participated in the organization of a Vigilance Committee on the
Fraser RiverThe Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for 1,375 km , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
in 1858 to address issues of lawlessness and a vacuum of effective governmental authority created by the sudden influx of goldseekers to the new British colony. The Vigilance Committee, which in San Francisco had persecuted disgraced Philadelphia lawyer
Ned McGowanright|300px|thumb|Ned McGowan Edward McGowan was an American lawyer, Pennsylvania assemblyman, Judge of the California Court of Quarter Sessions, poet, Fraser Valley gold seeker, adventurer, assistant sergeant-at-arms in the United States Congress, newspaper publisher and bon vivant instigator of...
, played a role in the bloodless
McGowan's WarMcGowan's War was a bloodless war that took place in Yale, British Columbia in the fall of 1858. The conflict posed a threat to the newly-minted British authority on the British Columbia mainland, which had only just been declared a colony the previous summer, at the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold...
on the lower Fraser in 1858-1859. At the end of the so-called 'War', McGowan was convicted by judge
Matthew Baillie BegbieSir Matthew Baillie Begbie was a British-born judge who served in British Columbia in colonial times and in the first decades of that province of present-day Canada....
of an assault against Fifer in British Columbia but McGowan's statement in defence, which described some of the activities of the San Francisco vigilantes and his own personal experience of their vigilantism, impressed and disturbed Begbie who, like colonial governor
DouglasSir James Douglas KCB was a company fur-trader and a British colonial governor in northwestern North America, particularly in what is now British Columbia. Douglas worked for the North West Company, and later for the Hudson's Bay Company becoming a high-ranking company officer. From 1851 to...
was determined to prevent conditions in the goldfields of British Columbia from deteriorating into mob rule.
External links
- Hubert Howe Bancroft, Popular Tribunals Volume I and Volume II. San Francisco: The History Company, 1887.
- Kevin Mullen, "Malachi Fallon: First Chief of Police" from the Encyclopaedia of San Francisco.
- Primary sources from the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
- Mary Floyd Williams, History of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance: A Study of Social Control on the California Frontier in the Days of the Gold Rush, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1921.
- Website critical of the Vigilantes
- Discussion of 1856 vigilante activities in Memoirs of William T. Sherman
- Edward McGowan, Narrative of Edward McGowan, including a full account of the author's adventures and perils while persecuted by the San Francisco vigilance committee of 1856, together with a report of his trial, which resulted in his acquittal. McGowan's account of his persecution by the Committee of Vigilance, self-published, 1857, reprinted 1917.