Warning out of town was a widespread method in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
for established
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
communities to pressure or coerce "outsiders" to settle elsewhere. It consisted of a notice ordered by the
Board of Selectmen of a town, and served by the
constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
upon any newcomer who might become a town charge. When persons were warned out of a town, they were not necessarily forcibly removed.
The first warning out in
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the British America, first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the pa ...
was recorded on June 6, 1654, in the village of
Rehoboth.
Robert Titus was called into town court and told to take his family out of Plymouth Colony for allowing "persons of evil fame" to live in his home.
The practice was common throughout the early
Colonial Period, and died out in the early 19th century. In
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, for example, the law was changed to disallow "warning out" in 1817.
Legal foundation
The right of a municipality to "warn out" one of its inhabitants was based on the theory that a city has a
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
duty to care for its inhabitants when they cannot support themselves; therefore, it was reasoned, the city had the right to "exclude from inhabitancy persons for whose conduct or support they did not desire to be responsible." According to another theory, the right to exclude inhabitants was derived from the principle that "the estate of any inhabitant of a town is liable to be taken in execution on a judgment against the town".
The practice of warning out replaced an earlier practice in which admission to a town as an inhabitant, or purchase of property within a town, required a vote of the present inhabitants or the
Board of Selectmen. As cities grew, and it became difficult to enforce the requirement of approval prior to residency, municipalities began to make a distinction between
residency
Residency may refer to:
* Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place
** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship
* Residency (medicine), a stage of postgrad ...
and inhabitancy: those residents who were not admitted to inhabitancy could be "warned out", and thereby the town would be spared liability for the resident in case of poverty. Sometimes, there was a time limit by which, if a resident had not been warned, they would automatically become an inhabitant.
See also
*
Charivari in North America
*
Extrajudicial punishment
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Politically motivated
Extrajudicial punishment is often a fea ...
*
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
*
Mobbing
Mobbing, as a sociological term, means bullying of an individual by a group, in any context, such as a family, peer group, school, workplace, neighborhood, community, or online. When it occurs as physical and emotional abuse in the workplace, suc ...
*
Riding the rail
*
Tarring and feathering
Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture and punishment used to enforce unofficial justice or revenge. It was used in feudal Europe and its colonies in the early modern period, as well as the early American frontier, mostly as a ty ...
*
Vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a pers ...
References
Works cited
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Warning Out Of Town
History of the Thirteen Colonies