Committee of Vigilance
Author: George R. Stewart
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin
Published: 1964
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13:
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Dirty Deeds
Author: Nancy J. Taniguchi
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2016-10-27
Total Pages: 434
ISBN-13: 0806157054
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe California gold rush of 1849 created fortunes for San Francisco merchants, whose wealth depended on control of the city’s docks. But ownership of waterfront property was hotly contested. In an 1856 dispute over land titles, a county official shot an outspoken newspaperman, prompting a group of merchants to organize the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. The committee, which met in secret, fed biased stories to the newspapers, depicting itself as a necessary substitute for incompetent law enforcement. But its actual purpose was quite different. In Dirty Deeds, historian Nancy J. Taniguchi draws on the 1856 Committee’s minutes—long lost until she unearthed them—to present the first clear picture of its actions and motivations. San Francisco’s real estate comprised a patchwork of land grants left from the Spanish and Mexican governments—grants that had been appropriated and sold over and over. Even after the establishment of a federal board in 1851 to settle the complicated California claims, land titles remained confused, and most of the land in the city belonged to no one. The acquisition of key waterfront properties in San Francisco by an ambitious politician motivated the thirty-odd merchants who called themselves “the Executives” of the Vigilance Committee to go directly after these parcels. Despite the organization’s assertion of working on behalf of law and order, its tactics—kidnapping, forced deportations, and even murder—went far beyond the bounds of law. For more than a century, scholars have accepted the vigilantes’ self-serving claims to honorable motives. Dirty Deeds tells the real story, in which a band of men took over a city in an attempt to control the most valuable land on the West Coast. Ranging far beyond San Francisco, the 1856 Vigilance Committee’s activities affected events on the East Coast, in Central America, and in courts throughout the United States even after the Civil War.
Memoirs of General William T. Sherman
Author: William Tecumseh Sherman
Publisher:
Published: 1875
Total Pages: 428
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDavid Ruggles
Author: Graham Russell Hodges
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 282
ISBN-13: 0807833266
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPresents the life of the most prominent black abolitionist of antebellum America, describing his work as a writer and activist whose assistance to runaway slaves in New York City inspired the formation of the Underground Railroad.
Complicity
Author: Anne Farrow
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2007-12-18
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 0307414795
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA startling and superbly researched book demythologizing the North’s role in American slavery “The hardest question is what to do when human rights give way to profits. . . . Complicity is a story of the skeletons that remain in this nation’s closet.”—San Francisco Chronicle The North’s profit from—indeed, dependence on—slavery has mostly been a shameful and well-kept secret . . . until now. Complicity reveals the cruel truth about the lucrative Triangle Trade of molasses, rum, and slaves that linked the North to the West Indies and Africa. It also discloses the reality of Northern empires built on tainted profits—run, in some cases, by abolitionists—and exposes the thousand-acre plantations that existed in towns such as Salem, Connecticut. Here, too, are eye-opening accounts of the individuals who profited directly from slavery far from the Mason-Dixon line. Culled from long-ignored documents and reports—and bolstered by rarely seen photos, publications, maps, and period drawings—Complicity is a fascinating and sobering work that actually does what so many books pretend to do: shed light on America’s past.
Against the Vigilantes
Author: Dutch Charley Duane
Publisher:
Published: 1999
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 9780806131665
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"His memoir, originally printed in the San Francisco Examiner in 1881, was located and edited by John Boessenecker. Now published for the first time in book form, it reveals a charismatic ruffian who played many roles: gunfighter, fire chief, politician, shoulder-striker, bare-knuckle boxer, gambler, saloon keeper, and land squatter."--BOOK JACKET. "Boessenecker's introduction provides information that is crucial in judging the actions of the vigilantes who moved against Duane and his cohorts. At the same time, Against the Vigilantes is cultural history, filled with details about the fires that swept early San Francisco, prizefighting, dueling, and urban machine politics in the decade before the Civil War."--Jacket.
The Vigilance Committee of 1856.
Author: James O'Meara
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Published: 2023-09-07
Total Pages: 78
ISBN-13: 338703394X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Kidnapping Club
Author: Jonathan Daniel Wells
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Published: 2020-10-20
Total Pages: 345
ISBN-13: 1645037118
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWinner of a 2020-2021 New York City Book Award In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city's soul: the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting for freedom. We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive. In The Kidnapping Club, historian Jonathan Daniel Wells tells the story of the powerful network of judges, lawyers, and police officers who circumvented anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free and fugitive African Americans. Nicknamed "The New York Kidnapping Club," the group had the tacit support of institutions from Wall Street to Tammany Hall whose wealth depended on the Southern slave and cotton trade. But a small cohort of abolitionists, including Black journalist David Ruggles, organized tirelessly for the rights of Black New Yorkers, often risking their lives in the process. Taking readers into the bustling streets and ports of America's great Northern metropolis, The Kidnapping Club is a dramatic account of the ties between slavery and capitalism, the deeply corrupt roots of policing, and the strength of Black activism.
China's Influence and American Interests
Author: Larry Diamond
Publisher: Hoover Press
Published: 2019-08-01
Total Pages: 223
ISBN-13: 0817922865
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhile Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.
Faces Like Devils
Author: Matthew J. Hernando
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Published: 2015-04-07
Total Pages: 328
ISBN-13: 0826273343
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the twenty-first century, the word vigilante usually conjures up images of cinematic heroes like Batman, Zorro, the Lone Ranger, or Clint Eastwood in just about any film he’s ever been in. But in the nineteenth century, vigilantes roamed the country long before they ever made their way onto the silver screen. In Faces Like Devils, Matthew J. Hernando closely examines one of the most famous of these vigilante groups—the Bald Knobbers. Hernando sifts through the folklore and myth surrounding the Bald Knobbers to produce an authentic history of the rise and fall of Missouri’s most famous vigilantes. He details the differences between the modernizing Bald Knobbers of Taney County and the anti-progressive Bald Knobbers of Christian County, while also stressing the importance of Civil War-era violence with respect to the foundation of these vigilante groups. Despite being one of America’s largest and most famous vigilante groups during the nineteenth century, the Bald Knobbers have not previously been examined in depth. Hernando’s exhaustive research, which includes a plethora of state and federal court records, newspaper articles, and firsthand accounts, remedies that lack. This account of the Bald Knobbers is vital to anyone not wanting to miss out on a major part of Missouri’s history.
