Whitecapping was a movement among farmers that occurred specifically 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 ...

during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was originally a ritualized form of extralegal actions to enforce community standards, appropriate behavior, and traditional rights. However, as it spread throughout the poorest areas of the rural South after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, white members operated from economically driven and anti-black biases. States passed laws against it, but whitecapping continued into the early 20th century. After it was institutionalized in formal law, its legal definition became more general than the specific movement itself: "Whitecapping is the crime of threatening a person with violence. Ordinarily, members of the minority groups are the victims of whitecapping." Whitecapping was associated historically with such insurgent groups as

The Night Riders The Night Riders was the name given by the press to the militant, terrorist faction of tobacco farmers during a popular resistance to the monopolistic practices of the American Tobacco Company of James B. Duke. On September 24, 1904, the tobacco p ...

Bald Knobbers The Bald Knobbers were a group of vigilantes in the Ozark region of southwest Missouri from 1885 to 1889. They are commonly depicted wearing black horned hoods with white outlines of faces painted on them, a distinction that evolved during the r ...

and the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

. They were known for committing "extralegal acts of violence targeting select groups, carried out by

vigilantes Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who ...

under cover of night or disguise."

History

The Whitecapping movement started in

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

around 1837, as white males began forming secret societies in order to attempt to deliver what they considered justice on the

American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of United States territorial acquisitions, American expansion in mainland North Amer ...

, independent from the state. These groups became known as the "White Caps". The first White Cap operations generally aimed at those who went against a community's values. Men who neglected or abused their family, people who showed excessive laziness, and women who had children out of wedlock all were likely targets. As whitecapping spread into the Southern states during the 1890s after Reconstruction, a period of increasing racial violence against blacks by whites, the targets changed. In the South, White Cap societies were generally made up of poor-white farmers, frequently

sharecroppers Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

and small landowners, who operated to control black laborers and to prevent

merchants A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as industry ...

from acquiring more land. In the South, Whitecaps tried to force victims to abandon their home or property. Whitecapping in the South is thought to have been related to the stresses of the

postbellum may refer to: * Any post-war period or era * Post-war period following the American Civil War (1861–1865); nearly synonymous to Reconstruction era (1863–1877) * Post-war period in Peru following its defeat at the War of the Pacific (1879� ...

agricultural depression that occurred immediately after the Civil War. The South had issues with

overproduction In economics, overproduction, oversupply, excess of supply or glut refers to excess of supply over demand of products being offered to the market. This leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods along with the possibility of unemployment. The de ...

and falling crop prices. With attention centered on producing cotton, the South's economy became very unbalanced. Many farmers went into debt and lost their lands to merchants through mortgage foreclosures. The dispossessed turned on merchants, African-American laborers, and sometimes new white tenants.

Racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

contributed to the problem as well. Prosperous black men, or simply African Americans who acquired land in the South, frequently faced resentment that could be expressed violently. White Caps were also part of the effort by whites to maintain

white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...

, particularly in the economy.

Mexican Americans Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

were also victims of whitecapping, particularly in the state of Texas. Many White Cap societies were disbanded by 1894 and their members were punished with fines. Some state governments were determined to disband the White Cap societies operating in their regions. While a segregationist, Mississippi Governor James K. Vardaman assembled an executive task force in 1904 in order to gather information about membership. He feared that the violence would drive too many black workers away from the state economy, as the number of

lynchings 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 ...

was also high in the state. Active members of the Whitecaps were found and punished by states in the early 1900s. Though the negative economic effects of whitecapping violence were the main reason for state response to the lawlessness, political leaders often expressed values of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

as the main reason to end whitecapping. In Oklahoma, both white and black settlers migrated to

Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...

after its creation and opening for settlement in 1890, with black migrant leaders such as

Edward P. McCabe Edward P. McCabe (October 10, 1850 – March 12, 1920), also known as Edwin P. McCabe, was a settler, attorney and land agent who became one of the first African Americans to hold a major political office in the American Old West. A Republican off ...

proclaiming Oklahoma as a new opportunity to escape racism from elsewhere in the South. After the initial wave of settlement, tensions eventually rose, especially in mixed-race towns. Whitecappers would threaten violence and encourage blacks in mixed-race areas to move out, as well as threaten black farmers who were seen as controlling too much land and competing with white farmers. As a result, Oklahoma became quite segregated, with some formerly mixed towns becoming all-white; black residents generally lived in all-black towns. Popular history and perception of the state generally omitted its black residents, especially during the 20th century, portraying only whites and American Indians due to the whitecappers' successful campaign to push black life away from view in most of the state. Over many years, whitecapping not only affected individuals, but communities and counties as a whole. In the South, whitecapping discouraged many merchants and industrialists from doing business in the counties. Added to the thousands of murders committed by whites in lynchings of blacks, whitecapping threatened to drive away black laborers. Beginning around the time of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, tens of thousands of rural blacks began to leave in the Great Migration, with 1.5 million leaving for northern and midwestern industrial cities by 1940. In the late twentieth century, whitecapping continued to be an issue in the South: Mississippi passed a 1972 statute criminalizing its practice. The statute reads as follows: "Any person or persons who shall, by placards, or other writing, or verbally, attempt by threats, direct or implied, of injury to the person or property of another, to intimidate such other person into an abandonment or change of home or employment, shall, upon conviction, be fined not exceeding five hundred dollars, or imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding six months, or in the penitentiary not exceeding five years, as the court, in its discretion may determine."SEC. 97-3-87. Threats and intimidation; whitecapping
Mississippi Code of 1972, As Amended.

Methodology

Despite the different whitecapping targets, the White Caps used similar methods. Generally, the members of this society were disguised in a way that somewhat resembled that of the

(KKK), and always attacked at night. Physical attacks could include such things as whipping, drowning, firing shots into houses, arson and other brutalities, with whipping and threats constituting the majority of the tactics used against victims.Holmes, William. "Whitecapping: Agrarian Violence in Mississippi, 1902–1906." ''The Journal of Southern History.'' 35 (1969):169 The White Caps also used non-violent means of intimidation to force certain residents from their homes. These included posting signs on doors of blacks' and merchants' homes, as well as cornering a target and verbally threatening them. If a resident or witness to a crime did not abandon their homes after being terrorized, White Caps sometimes murdered them.Holmes, William F. "Whitecapping in Late Nineteenth Century Georgia." In ''From the Old South to the New: Essays on the Transitional South'', 123. Praeger, 1981. The victims of these attacks had little support from the legal authorities until 1893, when the threat of whitecapping began to be taken more seriously. But even if suspects were prosecuted, local officials had difficulty clearing juries of White Cap members or sympathizers. In addition to white bias against black victims, part of the White Cap oath was to never help convict a fellow member. Some members of the White Caps had elite connections to defense attorneys in their state, who aided them in avoiding harsher sentences in court. In the case of '' Hodges v. United States'', the defendants' attorneys were the lieutenant governor and a candidate running for state prosecutor. Defendants were convicted but sentenced only to one year and one day in prison, along with a $100 fine. The penalty for violating the blood oath of the White Caps was death. In some states, whitecapping societies were interconnected throughout the region. Members could call on members from another county to terrorize witnesses of crimes as a scare tactic.

References

External links

Mississippi bibliography * ttp://www.mscode.com/free/statutes/97/003/0087.htm SEC. 97-3-87. Threats and intimidation; whitecappingMississippi Code of 1972, As Amended
Whitecapping: Agrarian Violence in Mississippi, 1902–1906
JSTOR scholarly journals

The New York Times, 1903-11-10 {{Reconstruction era Crime in Indiana Crime in the United States Discrimination in the United States History of racism in Indiana History of racism in the United States Ku Klux Klan Political masks Racially motivated violence against African Americans Right-wing militia organizations in the United States Secret societies in the United States Terrorism in the United States Vigilantism in the United States White supremacy in the United States

History

Methodology

See also

References

Further reading

External links