Constructing Social Bandits: the Saga of Sontag and Evans, 1889-1911

CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL BANDITS: THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS, 1889-1911 Ronald Edward Rife B.A. University of California, Davis, 2003 THESIS Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in HISTORY at CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO SPRING 2011 CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL BANDITS: THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS, 1889-1911 A Thesis by Ronald Edward Rife Approved by: ___________________________________________, Committee Chair Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D. ___________________________________________, Second Reader Christopher J. Castaneda, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Date ii Student: Ronald Edward Rife I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis. ________________________________, Graduate Coordinator __________________ Mona Siegel, Ph.D. Date Department of History iii Abstract of CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL BANDITS: THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS, 1889-1911 by Ronald Edward Rife This work chronicles the construction of two nineteenth-century train robbers from Tulare County, California into social bandits. It presents the context of late nineteenth-century California as an essential element in creating a social bandit, and suggests the unifying features of the social bandit for California citizens. This study utilizes local newspaper, biographies, and an unpublished memoir as source material for examining the construction of these two men as “social bandits.” _________________________________, Committee Chair Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D. _________________________________ Date iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface………….………………………………………………………………………... vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..1 2. THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL BANDITRY…..…………....…………….....5 3. CALIFORNIA IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY..………………………. 15 4. THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS………….……………………………….. 24 5. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SONTAG AND EVANS AS SOCIAL BANDITS……..33 6. CONCLUSION.……………………………………………………………………….49 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..51 v PREFACE This project grew out of my curiosity about the phenomena of “social banditry,” or how criminal figures become cultural heroes. I became interested in how social bandits often rise above their criminal activity to reach a status in the public eye as admirable icons. Yet, I was unsure how this process actually happened. I also wanted to know why our culture idolizes a character that we define as a social bandit. My curiosity led me through the well known figures of Billy the Kid and Jesse James. In reading about these outlaws, I came to understand that much of what we think we know about these men has been constructed by writers, both modern and contemporary. Legend and fact are deeply entwined to the point where they have become indistinguishable, yet this not discouraging. We are able to learn a great deal about a society that attempts to construct a social bandit because historians have found traits common to all the most well known social bandits. The outlaws I read about came from places in the Midwest, far from my home in California. I wondered why I had never heard of a social bandit in California. I thought about the period of the late nineteenth-century when railroad magnets dominated California politics. I thought of the farmers who struggled against the railroad’s fluctuating prices for transporting goods, eventually demanding that the government regulate the railroad’s monopoly. I had heard an area in the San Joaquin Valley that was known for train robberies and after some research, I was surprised to learn that California had its own history of social bandits in the persons of John Sontag and Chris Evans. After finding several articles in contemporary papers about Sontag and Evans, I realized that the story of these two men had made a significant impact on California vi society in the late 1890s. Yet, while these men were well known in their time, no scholarly research has addressed their exploits, nor more importantly, no one had attempted to detail the construction of their climb from outlaws to social bandits. As such, this essay will attempt to answer this question by presenting the context surrounding Sontag and Evans’ exploits and the newspaper coverage that helped construct the men into social bandits. vii 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Nineteenth-century newspaper writers and biographers have frequently made the suggestion that Sontag and Evans were social bandits. The idea that Sontag and Evans were social bandits is not a new idea. Yet, no author has demonstrated how this construction took place. The change from criminal to outlaw is not a natural process; various elements need to occur for society to accept a cultural hero. This essay attempts to demonstrate how local California journalists and biographers continually portrayed Sontag and Evans in a sympathetic light and utilized essential metaphors to construct the men as social bandits, thus creating the image that would become their legacy. Numerous historians have discussed the impact of figures like Jesse James and Billy the Kid in creating American West myths.1 These myths have been important in creating a national identity. As an emerging country with a diverse population, nineteenth-century Americans needed something to admire, something to identify with in order to forge an identity. The American West frontier provided many of those figures, such as Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Jesse James, who became legendary, mythical characters. Historians contend that their legends have had a significant impact on the shaping of the American character. For example, historian Richard Slotkin states that a figure like Jesse James could unite local, even a national, 1 Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America (New York, Maxwell McMillan, 1992), 4; Richard Myer, “The Outlaw: A Distinctive American Folktype,” Journal of the Folklore Instititue, Vol 17, No. 2/3 (May 1, 1980),95; Kent Steckmesser, “Robin Hood and the American Outlaw: A Note on History and Folklore”, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 79, No. 312 (Apr.-Jun., 1966), 348. 2 population and see him as a positive force capable of making great changes to society.2 Accordingly, this essay will present the circumstances in California during the late nineteenth century to illustrate that California provided the necessary social and political turmoil needed to create a hero for public admiration. The Jesse James legend is steeped in myth and inaccuracies, but it serves as a useful model in illustrating how a person who committed crimes evolved into an emblematic American figure. In his book, Gunfighter Nation, historian Richard Slotkin argues that the national development of Jesse James’ popular legend was an “integral part of the frontier myth and its ideological meanings, which molded the life, thought, and politics of the nation.”3 James’ legend is rooted in the events surrounding the Civil War and its aftermath in Missouri. As an ex- southern Civil War soldier, James became famous as a Robin Hood-style marauding bank robber who skillfully eluded authorities, killed only when his own life was threatened, and avenged alleged wrongs with violence.4 The James legend had widespread implications and was not confined to meaning in only one geographic location. While extremely popular in the South, James also found popularity in the North for reasons that differed from those of Southerners. Slotkin finds that northerners favored the popular legend because of the “conflict between labor and capital in the industrializing cities and towns, a conflict in which railroads figured prominently.”5 Slotkin also notes that Jesse James became a part of the culturalization of the frontier myth through the contributions of folklore and literature. However, Slotkin continues: 2 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America, 4-5. 3 Ibid., 4. 4 William Settle, Jesse James Was His Name (Missouri, University of Missouri Press, 1966), 3. 5 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 129. 3 Jesse James’ . greatest significance was not developed in the folklore of the provincial community whose resentments and resistance they [Jesse and his outlaw contemporaries] initially symbolized. After 1873, Jesse James was taken up by the national media as the central figure in a mass-cultural myth of social banditry. The case of Jesse James suggest that in modernizing or adapting the ideology of social banditry to capitalism, mass culture gradually replaces real historical deeds and political struggles with generic mythologies.6 Thus, Slotkin illustrates how the outlaw hero, like the frontier hero, often represented Americans’ struggles against contemporary problems in society. The crimes of Jesse James, infused with symbolic meaning, become powerful messages to a society looking for a way to control their changing civilization. According to western historian Kent Steckmesser, the legends of outlaws like Jesse James are often entangled with elements of fact and fiction. Over time, much of what people remember is based on fiction. But, Steckmesser believes trying to untangle fact from fiction is really not that important. Categorizing the myths in an effort to understand why people wanted to believe in the legend is far more important than debunking them.7 Using different approaches, historians Eric Hobsbawm, Richard White, Kent Steckmesser, and Richard

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