The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching

Abstract

Michael J. Pfeifer has been researching the topic of lynching for over two decades. During that time, scholarly texts, exhibitions, and articles have transformed it from a regional topic to a national fact. This well-researched study focuses on cases occurring before 1880 and has been described as a prequel to his Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947 (2004), but many scholars will be drawn to his discussion of lynching in the antebellum South because there has been so little information available. Pfeifer begins by acknowledging that white racism against blacks has been a central topic in the study of lynching in the United States and that recent scholarship has also examined the impact of lynching on specific states, regions, or communities, but in this volume he asks the reader to take a step back and consider a broader view. The Roots of Rough Justice does include some of the earliest cases involving the lynching of blacks, but Pfeifer wants to posit a new model in which the discussion of lynching can also encompass those cases in which race or ethnicity had little or no impact. The book contains cases where community doubts, disagreement, distrust, or rejection of the law (local, state, or federal) emboldened vigilantes—particularly those who believed, regardless of the law, that collective authority was innately American. As such, this volume is more than a prequel; it is an attempt to retool or refocus the discussion of lynching, as the title suggests, at its very roots.