In the Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark shows how in the Wild West, it wasn't as just as people think it is, people killed each other and stole cattle, and whether or not they had enough information that a person was guilty, they would hang them anyways. When Sparks and Croft are discussing having seen lynchings before, they say "Ah saw mah {Sparks} own brother lynched, Mistah Croft.","They wouldn't lynch him without knowing," I {Art} said. He thought for a while before he answered that. "They made him confess," he admitted. "But they would have anyhow," he protested. "It wouldn't have done him any good not to, and confessin' and made it shortah. It was still bad, though; awful bad," he added. Ah wouldn' lahk see a a thing like that
again, Mistah Croft." (132). Even though Sparks brother had done the crime, he was hung before anyone knew he actually did it. The Southern people were not looking for justice, they were only out for revenge for whatever crimes Sparks' brother had committed. They did not care if he actually did it or not. Later in the book when Art is resting Davies says: "Croft," he said, "I killed those three men." I just stared. "I told you you'd think I was crazy," he said. Well, I did, and I didn't like a man twice my age confessing to me" (221). Davies was confessing about the hanging of the people, because he was not able to stop the hanging, so he was feeling guilty. Multiple people in the novel knew that their actions were unjust but Davies was the only one who admitted and acknowledged it, making him the true cowboy, or hero of the West.
The Army CID sent a new, inexperienced investigator named William Ivory to investigate the scene. Ivory decided after looking around the house that MacDonald made up the story of the killers. He also persuaded everyone that he was the culprit. This meant that everyone in Ivory’s chain...
Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.
This scandalous case centers on a woman named Katherine Watkins. On Friday, August 18, 1681, Katherine accused a slave by the name of John Long, also known as Jack, of rape. There was some evidence of violence, but there were also outstanding questions about her character and conduct. Those who testified, however, painted a different picture about certain events preceding the crime. They were John Aust, William Harding, Mary Winter, Lambert Tye, Humphrey Smith, Jack White (Negro), Dirk (Negro), and Mingo (Negro). Whether these individuals were so inclined because Katherine Watkins was a Quaker, rather than an Anglican, we can never really know. That certainly fueled the fire, though. The day in question involved an afternoon of cider drinking. Several of the witnesses in the testimonies recounted Mrs. Watkins sexual advances to multiple of Thomas Cocke 's slaves, particularly, a mulatto named Jack. John Aust pleaded that Katherine, at one point, had lifted the shirt of one slave and announced “Dirke thou wilt have a good long thing” (Sex and Relations, 53). She allegedly had thrown another on the bed, kissed him, and, “put her hand into his codpiece” (Sex and Relations, 53). The most interesting piece of evidence that Aust brings forward is that Jack was actually avoiding Watkins at the party, an apparent attempt at avoiding any intimate entanglement with her (Sex and Relations, 52). Finally, he reported that Watkins and Jack had gone into a side room (Sex and Relations, 53). Later in the trial, Humphrey Smith seemingly referred to Aust 's testimony. His deposition suggested that he and Aust had some reservations about Jack 's guilt (Sex and Relations 54). Clearly, the character of the plaintiff was considered important evidence in the trial of a slave for rape. The reasonable extenuating circumstances of the case might have granted the magistrates leave way
Wexler, Laura. 2003. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. Scribner; 2004. Print
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
These two men, both coming from different backgrounds, joined together and carried out a terrible choice that rendered consequences far worse than they imagined. Living under abuse, Perry Smith never obtained the necessary integrity to be able to pause and consider how his actions might affect other people. He matured into a man who acts before he thinks, all due to the suffering he endured as a child. Exposed to a violent father who did not instill basic teachings of life, Smith knew nothing but anger and misconduct as a means of responding to the world. He knew no other life. Without exposure to proper behavior or responsible conduct, he turned into a monster capable of killing an entire family without a blink of remorse. In the heat of the moment, Perry Smith slaughtered the Clutter family and barely stopped to take a breath. What could drive a man to do this in such cold blood? The answer lies within his upbringing, and how his childhood experiences shaped him to become the murderer of a small family in Holcomb, Kansas. ¨The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.¨ (Capote 191). ¨But it is Dr. Statten´s contention that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when
In the poem "The Hangman," by Maurice Ogden, the poet explained that a person could resolve a situation by showing acts of courage. One day, a hangman came to a town and built a scaffold on the courthouse square. The townspeople asked him which criminal would be hanged and he replied with a mischievous grin and a glint in his eye that it would be the person who will continually make his job easier. When the hangman spotted a foreign person, he chose him to be the first victim. The townsfolk were relieved that they weren't picked to be hanged, and that the gallows frame would be gone the next day. However, after they saw that it was still there, the hangman said that the foreigner was used to determine how strong the hemp was. When a man cri...
On July 25, 1946, two young black couples- Roger and Dorothy Malcom, George and Mae Murray Dorsey-were killed by a lynch mob at the Moore's Ford Bridge over the Appalachee River connecting Walton and Oconee Counties (Brooks, 1). The four victims were tied up and shot hundreds of times in broad daylight by a mob of unmasked men; murder weapons included rifles, shotguns, pistols, and a machine gun. "Shooting a black person was like shooting a deer," George Dorsey's nephew, George Washington Dorsey said (Suggs C1). It has been over fifty years and this case is still unsolved by police investigators. It is known that there were atleast a dozen men involved in these killings. Included in the four that were known by name was Loy Harrison. Loy Harrison may not have been an obvious suspect to the investigators, but Harrison was the sole perpetrator in the unsolved Moore's Ford Lynching case. The motive appeared to be hatred and the crime hurt the image of the state leaving the town in an outrage due to the injustice that left the victims in unmarked graves (Jordon,31).
Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phase. New York: New York Age Print, 1892. Print. 6.
...ventually limited to 38. Of that 38, a few innocent men were hanged. In the eyes of the settlers, it was justice be done. In the eyes of the Sioux, it was a reminder that nothing had changed.
In the midst of all the commotion, Jesse is unable to sleep the night before the lynching. Within another flashback to that night, Jesse feels a strong need to have his ...
and their ethics and morale. The first difference is the two groups view on the
For my breaching experiment, I decided to break the social norm of looking at someone while engaged in conversation with them. Today, it is socially unacceptable and impolite to avoid looking at someone when talking to them. The background assumption for a typical conversation is that direct eye contact will be made more often than not; otherwise social norms are being violated. Avoiding eye contact during an exchange tends to dehumanize the person that is not receiving the eye contact. It is impolite and offensive, not looking at someone who is talking makes it seem as though the topic being discussed is unimportant. For my research experiment I would constantly talk to someone without initiating eye contact, or with my back facing toward the subject, not turning around or making eye contact until I had to ring up their order or make the drink for them. This research is important because it uncovers what happens when the social norm of
“The cowboys had lain in ambush in the hemlock groves, jumped Father, and taken him away someplace,” which was quoted by Tim Meeker in chapter ten. (Collier and Collier 161) This shows how useless it was to kidnap an innocent man for no reason. “In June 1777, we found out that Father and Jerry Stratford were dead. It had happened as we thought: they'd been sold to prison ship in New York. There was one funny thing- it wasn’t even a Rebel prison ship, it was a British.”(Collier and Collier 183) After the cowboys captured Mr. Meeker they sold him to a British prison ship where he ended up dying. “Those soldiers caught Sam with the your stolen cattle, and the soldiers will probably decide to hang him,” said Colonel Read. (Collier and Collier 196)This shows that the real cattle thieves are willing to lie so that Sam has to die for no reason. All Sam did was try and get his family's stolen cattle back. “Sam slammed backwards as if he had been knocked over. I never really heard the guns roar. He hit the ground on his belly and then flopped over on his back. He was shaking and thrashing, they had shot him so close that his clothes were on fire. He kept jerking and then another soldier shot him, then he stopped jerking.” (Collier and Collier 206) This was said by Tim in the last chapter of the book where his brother is shot for no reason due to
The different views and punishments of the men born and raised in the South compared to men from up North is depicted through the confrontation of the Arkansaw townspeople along with Sherburn, who was raised it the Northern states. “Colonel Sherburn… was standing… in the street… a pistol raised it his right hand… Bang! (Sherburn shoots the first and second bullet, then Boggs)... tumbles backwards onto the ground… (Later the townspeople confront Sherburn, who responds by saying) The average man is a coward… he lets anybody walk over him… you didn’t bring a man with you… You brought part of a man with you” (Twain 143, 146). The townspeople back down after confronting Sherburn because his confident attitude breaks down the cowardly courage of the townspeople, which it turn allows Sherburn to get away with murder without any consequences as a result of the lack of a Justice system. Similarly, the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons have committed countless murders throughout the course of the continuous feud between the two families, without a justice system intervening and convicting members