vigilante
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history of policing in the United States
( in police: Early police in the United States )
In the frontier regions of the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there arose a novel form of the Saxon tradition of frankpledge: the vigilante. In areas where a formal justice system had yet to be established or the rudimentary policing apparatus had proved inadequate in the face of rampant crime, it was not uncommon for citizens (called “regulators”) to band...
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lynchings
( in lynching )
Vigilante justice has been practiced in many countries under unsettled conditions whenever informally organized groups have attempted to supplement or replace legal procedure or to fill the void where institutional justice did not yet exist. Such conditions commonly give rise to acts of genocide. Statistics of reported lynching in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730...
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history of policing in the United States police
In the frontier regions of the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there arose a novel form of the Saxon tradition of frankpledge: the vigilante. In areas where a formal justice system had yet to be established or the rudimentary policing apparatus had proved inadequate in the face of rampant crime, it was not uncommon for citizens (called “regulators”) to band...
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lynchings lynching
Vigilante justice has been practiced in many countries under unsettled conditions whenever informally organized groups have attempted to supplement or replace legal procedure or to fill the void where institutional justice did not yet exist. Such conditions commonly give rise to acts of genocide. Statistics of reported lynching in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730...
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role of Bronson Bronson, Charles
...Ugly Man”), earning him the Golden Globe Award in 1971 as the most popular actor in the world. He returned to Hollywood and in 1974 appeared in perhaps his best-known film, Death Wish, portraying an architect who becomes a vigilante following the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter. Although the film was criticized for its violence, it established Bronson...
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role of Baker Baker, LaFayette Curry
In 1848 Baker left his home in Michigan, where the family had moved when he was a child, and worked at a variety of occupations in the West. In 1856 he joined the San Francisco Vigilance Command (known as the Vigilantes), a group of self-appointed police whose operations were characterized by arbitrariness and lack of due process. In the next four years he was often employed in an undercover...
town, seat (1876) of Madison county, southwestern Montana, U.S., on the Ruby River. Founded as Verona (after Varina Davis, wife of the president of the Confederate States of America) in 1863, when gold was discovered in nearby Alder Gulch, it was the first town to be incorporated (1864) in Montana and was the territorial capital from 1865 to 1875. The mines are no longer productive but the town has been reconstructed in the style prevalent during the days of the gold rush. Restored buildings include the offices of the Post, Montana’s first newspaper (issued August 27, 1864). Pro-Northern vigilantes organized there in the 1860s and assassinated several residents, including the sheriff of the Bannack Mining District, suspected of sympathizing with the Confederate cause. The city was renowned for violence long after the end of the Civil War. Tourism, supplemented by livestock raising, is the economic mainstay. In the summer, 19th-century drama and vaudeville shows can be seen in the Opera House. Nevada City, just west, is also a reconstructed gold camp. Pop. (1990) 142; (2000) 130.
Student Encyclopædia Britannica articles specifically written for elementary and high school students.
gunfighter and murderer of the American West.
Born in Illinois, Slade ran away while still a boy and became a cowboy in the Southwest, serving in the army in the Mexican War (1848). He gained a reputation as a vicious gunman when, in 1859 in Cold Springs, Colo., during a drunken bout, he had an old enemy, Jules Bene, tied to a stake and used him for target practice, killing him. Later, in Fort Halleck, Colo., he was indicted on another charge of assault and fled north to Virginia City, Mont. (1861). There he gained such notoriety for drunkenness, brawling, menacing gunplay, and shooting that local vigilantes dragged him from a saloon in 1864 and hanged him.
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