Vigilance committee

Not to be confused with the Vigilance committee (trade union).

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 consider the governmental structures or actions inadequate. see Vigilantism in the United States of America. 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.^[1]

Abolition and fugitive slaves

 

Vigilance committee in Boston in 1851, after Thomas Sims's arrest

Abolitionists met at Faneuil Hall in the 1830s and formed the Committee of Vigilance and Safety to "take all measures that they shall deem expedient to protect the colored people of this city in the enjoyment of their lives and liberties."^[2] The abolitionist New York Committee of Vigilance and Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia were also established in the 1830s and assisted fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad.

Between 1850 and 1860, following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, when professional bounty hunters swarmed through Northern states searching for missing enslaved people, vigilance committees were set up in several places in the North to assist the escaped enslaved people. For example, Gerrit Smith called the Fugitive Slave Convention of 1850 "on behalf of the New York State Vigilance Committee.".^[3] These vigilance committees helped to run the underground railroad.^[4] One group was the Vigilance Committee of Albany in Albany, New York.

In the American West

In the Western United States, before and after the Civil War, the stated purpose of various vigilance committees was to maintain law and order and administer summary justice where governmental law enforcement was inadequate. In reality, those high in the social hierarchy often used them to attack maligned groups, including recent immigrants and racial or ethnic groups. In newly settled areas, vigilance committees promised security and mediated land disputes. In ranching areas, they ruled on ranch boundaries, registered brands, and protected cattle and horses. In the mining districts, they defended claims, settled claim disputes, and attempted to protect miners and other residents. In California, some residents formed vigilance committees to take control of officials whom they considered to be corrupt. This occurred during the trial of Charles Cora (Husband of Belle Cora) and James Casey in San Francisco in 1856.^[5]

United States vigilance committees

• In 1835, a vigilance committee in Nashville, Tennessee was responsible, after a kangaroo court "conviction", for the public whipping of Rev. Amos Dresser for the crime of distributing abolitionist publications (which he claimed he did not do). The names of all 62 members of the self-appointed vigilance committee were published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, annotating some as "Elder in the Presbyterian Church" and the like.^[6]
• Philadelphia Vigilance Committee; 1840s and 1850s, abolitionists who worked to subvert the Fugitive Slave Act and helped escaped enslaved people, including Henry Box Brown
• Jackson County, Indiana vigilance committee (a.k.a. the Scarlet Mask Society or Southern Indiana Vigilance Committee), 1868 – captured and hanged ten members of the Reno Gang
• Know-Nothing Riot; 1850s, New Orleans, Louisiana
• San Francisco Committee of Vigilance; 1851 and 1856, San Francisco, California
• San Luis Obispo Vigilance Committee, 1850s, San Luis Obispo, California, known to have hanged six Californios and engaged in battles around the area.^[7]
• 3-7-77 Vigilance Committee; 1860s–1870s, Virginia City, Montana
• Anti Horse Thief Association; 1860s, organized at Fort Scott, Kansas
• Baldknobbers; 1880s, Taney, Christian, and Greene Counties, Missouri

English vigilance committees

• Whitechapel Vigilance Committee; 1888, London, United Kingdom – founded to capture Jack the Ripper.
• An Oxford Vigilance Committee was formed during World War I in Oxford, UK, a town whose own men of military age had gone to war and where soldiers were stationed. The Committee ran volunteer patrols of women to discourage, observe, and report on what was perceived as "immoral" behaviour of the town's women. In November 1916, the Committee issued a report "on the Moral Condition of Oxford," warning that the town's streets were "crowded with young girls, whose dress [and] behaviour show that they are deliberately laying themselves out to attract men." Their reports included detailed accounts of casual or adulterous sexual liaisons in the town. Births out of wedlock in Oxford decreased from 1914 to 1925, but the Committee attributed the reduction to "forced marriages" and abortions.^[8]

Other vigilance committees

• Biddulph Peace Society; 1876, Biddulph, Ontario, Canada
• Vigilance Committee of the Gaelic Athletic Association – A committee tasked with identifying association members who either played or attended "Foreign Games" (predominantly soccer and rugby union) in contravention of the association's rules. The rule was in place until 1971, up to which point many GAA players who also wished to play other sports had to resort to elaborate tactics, including the wearing of disguises, the use of false names, and travelling covertly (e.g. in the boot of a car) to attend matches.

In film and media

• The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) is a movie directed by William A. Wellman, based on the novel of the same name written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (1940). The story tells of a group of men pursuing cattle rustlers, capturing and hanging them, and the moral consequences.
• "Ride in the Whirlwind" (1966) is a movie, directed by Monte Hellman and written by Jack Nicholson, that tells the story of innocent men who are thought to be part of a gang on the run from members of a vigilance committee.

See also

• Vigilantism in the United States of America
• Vigilance committee (trade union)
• Vigilante
• Committee of Safety (disambiguation)

References

1. "Arthursville abolitionists ran Underground Railroad through Pittsburgh". from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
2. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/faneuil-hall-and-boston-vigilance-committees.htm#:~:text=Attendees%20at%20this%20meeting%20formed,slavery%20through%20Boston%20in%20
3. "Gerrit Smith's Convention". Lehigh Register. Allentown, Pennsylvania. August 29, 1850. p. 2. from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20 – via Library of Congress Chronicling America.
4. Foner, Eric (2015). Gateway to freedom : the hidden history of the underground railroad (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-393-24407-6. OCLC 900158156.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
5. Woolley, Lell Hawley (1913), "Vigilance Committee of 1856", CALIFORNIA : 1849-1913 or The Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four Years' Residence in that State, Oakland, California, from the original on March 6, 2017, retrieved February 26, 2017{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
6. Dresser, Amos (1836). The narrative of Amos Dresser : with Stone's letters from Natchez, an obituary notice of the writer, and two letters from Tallahassee, relating to the treatment of slaves. Link is to a reprinting in the collection Slave Rebels, Abolitionists, and Southern Courts. New-York: American Anti-Slavery Society. from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2021-07-30.
7. Krieger, Dan (July 13, 2013). "Lynch mobs part of area's history". The Tribune. from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
8. Malcolm Graham (30 November 2014). Oxford in the Great War. Pen and Sword. pp. 122–124. ISBN 978-1-78346-297-1.

General references

• Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984. ISBN 0-520-06026-1
• Bancroft, Hubert Howe, Popular tribunals V.1, The History Company, San Francisco, 1887
• Bancroft, Hubert Howe, Popular tribunals V.2, The History Company, San Francisco, 1887

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vigilance committees.

• Click here for a WorldCat search for American Vigilance committee pamphlets published before 1900 available online, many but not all free. Click here for a search that includes pamphlets not available online.