History of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1851, A Study of Social Control on the the California Frontier in the Days of the Gold Rush
New York: Da Capo Press, 1969.
Hardcover. Near fine. Reprint of the University of California Press edition of 1921. 543 pp, with index and bibliography, 4 illustrations. Bound in blue cloth; no dust jacket. Light bumping to upper corners, stamp of Da Capo Press on rear endpaper, else fine. From the Introduction: "We cannot understand the Committee of Vigilance until we understand the failure of the courts to punish crime, and the consequent survival of the resort to popular tribunals. Nor can we discern the initial need of such popular tribunals and their recognized place in the life of 1848 and 1849 until we realize the extraordinary problems that developed when a hundred thousand gold seekers swarmed into a mining region that was destitute of any form of civil government. For an explanation of this strange lack of the ordinary bulwarks of American society, we must look still deeper into the unusual status of California while it was held as a military possession during the war with Mexico, and...we must appreciate how these years of uncontrolled, tumultous life developed in the men of California an enormous self-reliance...."
Item #14425
Price: $45.00