Vigilance committee
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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.[1] Prominent historical examples of vigilance committees engaged in forms of vigilantism include abolitionist committees who, beginning in the 1830s, worked to free enslaved people and aid fugitive slaves, in violation of the laws at the time.[2] However, many other vigilance committees were explicitly grounded in racial prejudice and xenophobia, administering extrajudicial punishment to abolitionists or members of minority groups.
American vigilance committees
Abolition and fugitive slaves
Abolitionists met at
Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia were also established in the 1830s and assisted fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad.[citation needed
]
Between 1850 and 1860, following the passage of the
missing enslaved people. In response, 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."[4] Many such committees were integral parts of the Underground Railroad.[5]
In the American West
In the
Belle Cora's husband) and James Casey.[6]
Other United States vigilance committees
- In 1835, after a 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.[7]
- 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
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- 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[8]
- 3-7-77 Vigilance Committee, 1860s–1870s, Virginia City, Montana
- Anti Horse Thief Association, 1860s, Fort Scott, Kansas
- Baldknobbers, 1880s, Taney, Christian, and Greene Counties, Missouri
- Knights of Liberty, c. 1917–1918, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and California
English vigilance committees
- Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, 1888, London: founded to capture Jack the Ripper
- The 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.[9]
Other vigilance committees
- Biddulph, Ontario, Canada
- Vigilance Committee of 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
- 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
- ^ "VIGILANCE COMMITTEE definition and meaning". Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved March 8, 2024.
- ^ "Arthursville abolitionists ran Underground Railroad through Pittsburgh". Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
- ^ "Faneuil Hall, the Underground Railroad, and the Boston Vigilance Committees (U.S. National Park Service)".
- ^ "Gerrit Smith's Convention". Lehigh Register. Allentown, Pennsylvania. August 29, 1850. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20 – via Library of Congress Chronicling America.
- )
- ^ 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, archived from the original on March 6, 2017, retrieved February 26, 2017
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ 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. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2021-07-30.
- ^ Krieger, Dan (July 13, 2013). "Lynch mobs part of area's history". The Tribune. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
- 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.