Shepperson Series in Nevada History

Clare V. McKanna

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780874175530
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Nineteenth-century California was a society in turmoil, with a rapidly growing population, booming mining camps, insufficient or nonexistent law-enforcement personnel, and a large number of ethnic groups with differing attitudes toward law and personal honor. Violence, including murder, was common, and legal responses varied broadly. Available now for the first time in paperback, Race and Homicide in Nineteenth-Century California examines coroners' inquest reports, court case files, prison registers, and other primary and printed sources to analyze patterns of homicide and the state's embryonic justice system. Author Clare V. McKanna discovers that the nature of crimes varied with the ethnicity of perpetrators and victims, as did the conduct and results of trials and sentencing patterns. He presents specific case studies and a vivid portrait of an unruly society in flux. Enhanced with testimony from contemporary sources and illustrated with period photographs, this study richly portrays a frontier society where the law was neither omnipotent nor impartial.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: Race and Homicide
• Chapter One - Red Man: White Justice
• Chapter Two - Chinese Tongs: Group Solidarity
• Chapter Three - Hispanics: Justice in a Conquered Land
• Chapter Four - White Man: White Justice
• Epilogue: Prison, Homicide Rates, and Justice
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index