San Francisco Committee of Vigilance facts for kids
The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a vigilante group formed in 1851. The catalyst for its formation was the criminality of the Sydney Ducks gang. It was revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco, California. The explosive population growth following the discovery of gold in 1848 was cited as the source of the alleged need for the revival of the committee. The small town of about 900 individuals grew to a booming city of over 20,000 very rapidly. Founders alleged that the growth in population overwhelmed the previously established law enforcement, and led to the organization of vigilante militia groups.
These militias executed eight people and forced several elected officials to resign. Each Committee of Vigilance formally relinquished power after three months.
1851
The 1851 Committee of Vigilance was inaugurated on June 9 with the promulgation of a written doctrine declaring its aims and executed John Jenkins of Sydney, Australia, on June 10 after he was convicted of stealing a safe from an office in a trial organized by the committee: grand larceny was punishable by death under California law at the time. The June 13 Daily Alta California printed this statement:
WHEREAS it has become apparent to the citizens of San Francisco, that there is no security for life and property, either under the regulations of society as it at present exists, or under the law as now administered; Therefore the citizens, whose names are hereunto attached, do unit themselves into an association for the maintenance of the peace and good order of society, and the preservation of the lives and property of the citizens of San Francisco, and do bind ourselves, each unto the other, to do and perform every lawful act for the maintenance of law and order, and to sustain the laws when faithfully and properly administered; but we are determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary or assassin, shall escape punishment, either by the quibbles of the law, the insecurity of prisons. the carelessness or corruption of the police, or a laxity of those who pretend to administer justice.
It boasted a membership of 700 and claimed to operate in parallel to, and in defiance of, the duly constituted city government. Committee members used its headquarters for the interrogation and incarceration of suspects who were denied the benefits of due process. The committee engaged in policing, investigating disreputable boarding houses and vessels, deporting immigrants, and parading its militia. Four people were executed by the committee; one was whipped (a common punishment at that time); fourteen were deported to Australia; fourteen were informally ordered to leave California; fifteen were handed over to public authorities; and forty-one were discharged. The 1851 Committee of Vigilance was dissolved during the September elections, but its executive members continued to meet into 1853.
A total of four were executed: John Jenkins, an Australian from Sydney accused of burglary, who was executed on June 10, 1851; James Stuart, also from Sydney and accused of murder, who was executed on July 11, 1851; and Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie, associates of Stuart accused of "various heinous crimes", who were executed on August 24, 1851. The lynching of Whittaker and McKenzie occurred three days after a standoff between the committee and the nascent police force trying to protect the prisoners; the committee nabbed Whittaker and McKenzie after storming the jail during Sunday church services.
The committee also tried to punish arsonists.
1856
The Committee of Vigilance was reorganized on 14 May 1856 by many of the leaders from the first one and adopted an amended version of the 1851 constitution. Unlike the earlier committee, and the vigilante tradition generally, the 1856 committee was concerned with not only civil crimes but also politics and political corruption. The catalyst for the committee was a murder, in the guise of a political duel in which James P. Casey shot opposition newspaper editor James King of William. King, along with many San Francisco residents, was outraged by Casey's appointment to the city board of supervisors and believed that the election had been rigged. The motivation behind this murder came from King's publishing an article in the Daily Evening Bulletin accusing Casey of illegal activities, and serving a prison term for Grand Larceny in New York. The combination of the political unrest surrounding the election and the article resulted in Casey's shooting of James King.
The 1856 committee was also much larger than the committee of 1851, claiming 6,000 in its ranks. The committee worked very closely with the formal government of San Francisco. The president of the Vigilance Committee, William T. Coleman, was a close friend of Governor J. Neely Johnson and the two men met on several occasions working towards the shared goal of stabilizing the town. Another important figure at this time who would later come to make a name for himself in the Civil War is William T. Sherman. Sherman was running a bank when Governor Johnson requested he become the commander of the San Francisco branch of the state militia in order to curb the activities of the Committee. Sherman accepted the position two days before the murder of King by Casey.
The 1856 Committee of Vigilance dissolved on 11 August 1856, and marked the occasion with a "Grand Parade".
Political power in San Francisco was transferred to a new political party established by the vigilantes, the People's Party, which ruled until 1867 and was eventually absorbed into the Republican Party. The vigilantes had thus succeeded in their objective of usurping power from the Democratic Party machine that hitherto dominated civic politics in the city. Notable people included William Tell Coleman, Martin J. Burke, San Francisco mayor Henry F. Teschemacher, and San Francisco's first chief of police James F. Curtis.
Vigilante headquarters in 1856 consisted of assembly halls, meeting rooms, a military kitchen and armory, an infirmary, and prison cells, all of which were fortified with gunny sacks and cannons. Four people were officially executed again in 1856, but the death toll also includes James "Yankee" Sullivan, an Irish immigrant and professional boxer who died after being terrorized and detained in a Vigilante cell.
The 1856 committee also engaged in policing, investigations, and secret trials, but it far exceeded its predecessor in audacity and rebelliousness. Most notably, it seized three shipments of armaments intended for the state militia and tried the chief justice of the California Supreme Court. The committee's authority, however, was bolstered by almost all militia units in the city, including the California Guards.
Influence in British Columbian affairs
A former member of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, physician Max Fifer, moved to Yale, British Columbia at the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, and participated in the organization of a Vigilance Committee on the Fraser River in 1858 to address issues of lawlessness and a vacuum of effective governmental authority created by the sudden influx of prospectors to the new British colony. The Vigilance Committee, which in San Francisco had persecuted disgraced Philadelphia lawyer Ned McGowan, played a role in the bloodless McGowan's War on the lower Fraser in 1858–1859. At the end of the so-called "War", McGowan was convicted by Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie of an assault against Fifer in British Columbia but McGowan's defense statement, which described some of the activities of the San Francisco vigilantes and his own personal experience of vigilantism, impressed and disturbed Begbie who, like Colonial Governor James Douglas was determined to prevent conditions in the goldfields of British Columbia from deteriorating into mob rule.
See also
- Sydney Ducks
- Samuel Brannan
- William Tell Coleman
- McGowan's War
- List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
