Uncle Sam's Policemen: The Pursuit of Fugitives across Borders

Abstract

This well-written volume explores how American law regulated the movement of accused criminals across the globe. Filled with interesting stories and acute insights, it shows the potential of a closely defined topic to illuminate the broader history of the United States. Katherine Unterman argues that the Founders originally defined the United States as a land of asylum, welcoming the fugitives of the world. Over time, officials aimed to secure runaway defendants by negotiating treaties of extradition with other nations, first in western Europe and later Latin America and the Caribbean. In particular, bankers sought a means to retrieve the growing number of defalcating clerks, who fled across the border with stolen funds. As a consequence of this development, Unterman contends, rules governing extradition reflected the priorities of financiers rather than public needs. Lacking a national police force such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (fbi, not founded until 1908), bankers of the 1880s and 1890s employed private detectives such as the Pinkertons to conduct international manhunts. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court granted such investigators broad authority to catch and return fugitives. The key case involved Frederick Ker (Ker v. Illinois, 1886), an embezzling bank clerk who fled to Peru. Obtaining Ker's trust, a Pinkerton agent arrested the “boodler” and rendered him to the United States without obtaining proper authority from the Peruvian government. The Supreme Court upheld this abduction, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment did not protect U.S. citizens on foreign soil.