| The
deadliest campaign of vigilante
justice in American history erupted in the Rocky Mountains during the
Civil
War when a private army hanged twenty-one troublemakers. Hailed as
great
heroes at the time, the Montana vigilantes are still revered as
founding
fathers.
Combing
through original sources,
including eye-witness accounts never before published, Frederick Allen
concludes that the vigilantes were justified in their early actions, as
they fought violent crime in a remote corner beyond the reach of
government.
But
Allen has uncovered evidence
that the vigilantes refused to disband after territorial courts were in
place. Remaining active for six years, they lynched more than fifty men
without trials. Reliance on mob rule in Montana became so ingrained
that
in 1883, a Helena newspaper editor advocated a return to
“decent, orderly
lynching” as a legitimate tool of social control.
Allen’s
sharply drawn characters,
illustrated by dozens of photographs, are woven into a masterfully
written
narrative that will change textbook accounts of Montana’s
early days—and
challenge our thinking on the essence of justice.
|
A Decent, Orderly
Lynching
The Montana Vigilantes
by Frederick Allen
University of Oklahoma
Press, 2004
Order
a copy. |
