SAN FRANCISCO VIGILANCE COMMITTEES OF 1851 AND 1856
This research paper explains the background of events and circumstances which gave rise to the San Francisco Vigilance Committees of 1851 and 1856, including a brief summary of their activities. It then discusses the view taken by various historians as to the legitimacy or illegitimacy, morality or immorality of those actions and examines their historical significance for California.
The Vigilance Committee of 1851 came about because of the adverse spillover effects of the 1848 Gold Rush on the City of San Francisco. Its illegal actions were almost inevitable, given the circumstances then prevailing, and cannot fairly be judged in retrospect to have been unjustified, as some 20th century historians have attempted to do. The Vigilance Committee of 1856 arose out of similar, but in important respects fundamentally different, conditions. It amounted to an insurrection by a small group of businessmen and others who usurped political power in the City to protect their own economic interests in the face of opposition from the federal and state government, as well as significant elements of the local population. Both Vigilance Committees represented strong reactions by some to economic and social disruptions which were characteristic of many American urban areas during the 1850s, including nativist prejudice against non-Anglo residents and immigrants, and which were occurring nationally. The longer range legacy of these Vigilante Committees for California were, on balance, negative and inconsistent with the requirements of democratic government; however, inasmuch as government at all levels, local, state and federal, failed to maintain law and order and to protect its citizens against criminals and outlaws, excesses of the type which occurred in San Francisco in the 1850s under the aegis of the Vigilance Committees are, however regrettable the consequences, woven into the historica...