"Violent Land" by David T. Courtwright

A reading of Eternity Street, the excellent study published early this year on early Los Angeles criminal justice by John Mack Faragher, included an observation of some of the books cited in the bibliography that were definitely worth checking out.

One of these is David T. Courtwright's Violent Land:  Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City.  Well, here's a book, published in 1996, which covers exactly some of the sentiments expressed in this blog and previous articles, essays and presentations related to Trembling on the Brink.  Violent Land clearly and cogently explains the conditions that fostered violence in places like Los Angeles, due in large measure to the presence of young men inclined to commit acts of murder and other crimes on the frontier.

While Courtwright doesn't specifically address Los Angeles, his fourth chapter, "The Altar of the Golden Calf," did cover the Gold Rush years in California and the particular and exceptional conditions that applied there.  He started with this compelling statement:  "From the standpoint of social order nearly everything that could have gone wrong on the American frontier did go wrong."  He lists some key ingredients in the recipe for violence: alcohol, racism, and an over-sensitive code of honor.  The new availability of the Colt revolver, revolutionizing violence in volume, was another major element, as it became available in 1849, just in time for the Gold Rush.

Moreover, he continued, "institutional restrains like efficient police, predictable justice, permanent churches, and public schools were lacking, as were the ordinary restrains of married life."  It could be said that, though places like Los Angeles had churches, these were generally attended by women, which partly explains why the Roman Catholic Church was well-established, given that there were plenty of Latino women in town.  Protestant churches, however, struggled to survive, because, especially in the first half of the 1850s, there were so few women to be congregants.

Courtwright identifies another important element:  men who were in trouble elsewhere fled to "the current rogue's haven."  He cited an example of the phrase "gone to Texas" as symbolic of fleeing law enforcement and creditors, but it is also true that a great many Texans hightailed it to California, if not to flee, then to join the hordes of Gold Rush migrants, but those conditions of violent behavior often came with them.

Naturally, Gold Rush California was attractive because there was both money and vice in ample supply.  Young men in mining towns as well as the larger cities and towns outside the gold regions brought more gambling houses, saloons and taverns, brothels and more.  Drunken brawls, fights over insults, cheating (perceived or real) or losses incurred at cards, and many others resulted.

Courtwright pointed out that of the nearly 90,000 persons who poured into California in 1849, the ratio of men to woemn was about 20 to 1.  He also cited a fact that, within six months, 20% of the new arrivals had died, due mainly to endemic illnesses, such as cholera, which swept through the gold fields.  Poor nutrition, abysmal sanitation, over-indulgence in alcohol, and addictions to gambling were also huge problems.  The latter two could also lead to gross excesses in violence.

Hinton Helper, who wrote about California at the time, estimated there were over 4,000 murders in six years (along with 3,000 suicides and deaths due to insanity) and these were almost certainly over-inflated, but, as Courtwright noted, "California was a brutal and unforgiving place."  It was also, he continued "the most unfettered and individualistic place in the world."

This early 1850s magazine illustration of a "Miner on a Prospecting Tour" does show the man packing a long-barrelled pistol in a holster.  Weapons were essential equipment for miners, along with picks, shovels and pans, and were necessary accesories in Gold Rush Los Angeles for many men, as well.

In a section titled "Counting Bodies," Courtwright looked at homicide statistics, noting that "for ease of comparison the result are expressed in the modern Uniform Crime Reports format of so many homicides per 100,000 persons per year."  While comparing numbers, even accounting for missing information, exaggerations, inaccurate reporting on what might be a murder relative to another form of homicide and so on, can be useful, such analyses should be viewed with caution.  Giving some examples of mining towns with astronomical rates of homicides compared to Boston, Philadelphia or a rural Illinois county, Courtwright correctly stated that "the western mining frontier was an exceptionally violent place," though he also pointed out that railroad towns were also notoriously violent.

Still, a mining town, railroad town, or a place like Los Angeles existed in a particularly specific and unique condition not replicable elsewhere, so comparisons to an established eastern metropolis or a remote rural county in the Midwest is, to a significant extent, questionable.  This is largely so because, as Courtwright commented, the former examples involved "abnormally male and youthful populations" subject to vice and violence.  The lack of money to effectively fund policing and court operations, the lack of women as mothers, sisters, and spouses to tamp down male aggression, a dearth of religion and other social institutions, and other factors were significant.

Again, Courtwright did not mention Los Angeles anywhere in this section of his book, though he did so later in discussions in talking about modern violence in the city, but his general discussion of Gold Rush California is useful in looking at how a southern "cow town" with business links to the gold fields and which was a transit point to emigrant trails from the east and roads leading to the gold country, has much food for thought.