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 This study utilizes local newspaper, biographies, and an unpublished memoir as source material for examining the construction of these two men as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
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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.
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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.
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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 Myer have all categorized a number of the myths associated with legendary outlaws. The categorization of these myths allows us to see the construction of a figure from common outlaw into a social bandit. For example, White, Steckmesser, and Myer find that being a fighter of unjust laws, revenging a personal injustice, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, and being admired by the public are several of the elements found in the legends of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and
John Dillinger.8
6 Ibid., 128.
7 Kent Steckmesser,”Robin Hood and the American Outlaw,” 349.
8 Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Co., 1959), 5, Richard White, “Outlaw Gangs of the Middle Border: American Social Bandits,” The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct., 1981), 387, Kent Steckmesser, The Western Hero in History and Legend, 9, Richard Myer, “The 4
As will be shown, writers, both contemporary and modern, have labeled Sontag and Evans as social bandits. However, no one yet has demonstrated through analysis of primary and secondary accounts, how the social bandit label came to be applied to this pair. In Chapter 1, this essay will explain the cultural concept of social banditry by presenting the work of several historians. In
Chapter 2, the essay outlines the nineteenth century historical context in which the Sontag and
Evans story unfolded to illustrate why Californians may have desired cultural heroes. Chapter 3 presents the Sontag and Evans narrative, and finally, Chapter 4, analyzes the works of the journalists and biographers who successfully constructed the men as social bandits.
Outlaw: A Distinctive American Folktype,” 115-116.
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Chapter 2
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL BANDITRY
In America, the “social bandit” is best described as a notable lawbreaker widely
supported, paradoxically, by the law-abiding members of society. The origin of this term comes
from the influential work of historian Eric J. Hobsbawm. An advocate of Marxism, Hobsbawm
argues that the oppression created by powerful economic forces created social banditry, which
was “little more than endemic peasant protest against oppression and poverty: a cry for vengeance
on the rich and the oppressors, … a righting of individual wrongs.”9 According to this theory, once a peasant society feels oppressed and begins to lose its direction and sense of community, they seek salvation in bandit heroes. Hobsbawm describes the archetype of the social bandit as one who gains fame, a “Robin Hood” reputation—rob from the rich and give to the poor—and popular adulation.10 The social bandit flaunts authority, lives with abandon, and champions the
causes of the masses against elite oppression. In turn, the peasants aid, admire, and protect the
bandits from authorities. Hobsbawm found that an “ideal” bandit exists because of “a remarkable
uniformity and standardization” that reaches beyond time and geographical space. 11
Hobsbawm limited his analysis of the social bandit tradition to Europe. Steckmesser’s analysis of the Robin Hood and American Outlaw connection brought the label of social bandit into the field of United States history and into western history lexicon. No scholarly investigation
9 Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Co., 1959), 5.
10 Ibid., 13-14.
11 Ibid., 14.
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had previously sought to understand what elements were often used by journalists and song
writers to construct a social bandit. Folklorist Richard Myer created a comprehensive list of some
of the elements necessary for the American outlaw to achieve social bandit status. Through the
study of ballads and legends about Jesse James, Sam Bass, Billy the Kid, and Arthur “Pretty Boy”
Floyd, he found that as many as twelve motifs were notable elements in the construction of a
social bandit. For example, Myer established that the social bandit must operate on his own set of
laws, a set of laws that operate outside of established laws in his era. This image allows the
outlaw to become a hero to newspaper readers who believe social institutions have failed them
and they have no recourse under established laws. Other elements are that he must be someone
the locals can identify with and rally around; he must embrace outlawry to revenge a personal
injustice; he only robs from the rich, is kind, admired, clever, and only harms those who threaten
him. 12 While there are other elements, Myer states that “one rarely, if ever finds all of the 12
elements present in any one text.”13 Such is the case here, but an examination of several sources will provide multiple examples.
One of the problems associated with the creation of social bandits is how the image and deeds of the outlaw translated from the local to the wider public. According to historian and dime novel expert James Deutsch, dime novel publishers routinely altered the image of James to appeal to the readers.14 Deutsch writes that publishers portrayed James as both noble and a “devil
incarnate, breathing fire and smoke as he kills and plunders all who stand in his way.” The
contrasting images both fascinated and appalled the public, according to Deutsch.
12 Myer, “The Outlaw,” 94-111.
13 Ibid., 96-97.
14 Deutsch, “Jesse James in Dime Novels,” 2.
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Historian Richard White further explains the appeal of the outlaw turned social bandit.
White’s examination of American social bandits makes one thing very clear: “Americans have
often regarded western outlaws as heroes. In popular culture—legend, folksongs, and movies—
the American West might as well be Sherwood Forest.”15 While his analysis agrees with much of
Kent Steckmesser’s thesis, White delves deeper into the meaning behind Steckmesser’s
classification to more closely define the terms that created the American social bandit.
First, White argues that three gangs seem most clearly part of the western social bandit
tradition. The James-Younger gang of western Missouri and its successors led by Jesse James
(1866 – 1882), the Dalton gang of Oklahoma territory (1890-1892), and the Doolin-Dalton gang
of Oklahoma Territory (1892-1896). White states that this was purposefully a narrow list and not meant to be exclusive, but an “examination of them can establish both the reality of social banditry and the nature of its appeal.” These three gangs enjoyed the support of a large number of other people who gave them aid and became technically tied to their crimes. However, these people in no way participated in the heinous crimes of the gangs and “are willing to justify their own action in supporting outlaws on grounds other than fear, profit, or expediency.” The James-
Younger, Dalton, and Doolin-Dalton gangs thrived on three types of support: “the kinship networks so important to western settlement in general, active supporters, and those people who can be termed passive sympathizers.” 16
In a vivid example of the importance of kinship ties to social banditry, White points out
that both the James, Younger, and Dalton gangs formed around sets of brothers. These gangs
relied on kinship ties for necessities such as food and shelter, but they also used them to when
15 Richard White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 387.
16 All quotes in paragraph, White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 389.
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they needed to be hidden from the law or provided with alibis. However, social bandits often needed other forms of support that White says was “common to all the gangs.” The gangs often relied on groups outside of the kinship lines that offered the same kinds assistance. White calls these the “active supporters.” These people considered themselves “friends of the outlaws” who would never betray their confidence. White’s final category is also the one he deems most important--the passive sympathizers. In the day-to-day functioning of the gangs, this group had little impact, but they provided the crucial element in creating the gangs into heroes. Passive sympathizers demonstrated their sympathy by grieving for Jesse James, glorifying Bill Doolin after his capture, attending some of the gang’s trials, and applauding their heroes.17 Nevertheless,
as White points out, “the mere existence of support does not explain the reasons for it.”18
Fear does not adequately explain why people supported the gangs. Too much evidence
betrays that belief. If not fear, what factors cause law-abiding citizens to support known outlaws? Insurgency might explain their desire to protect the bandits. E. J. Hobsbawm suggests social banditry is a pre-modern social revolt—a protest against oppression from economic forces
from above, or a change in traditional norms by progressive elements in society.19 White,
however, discounts this since the social standing of many of the gang’s kinship ties were well-to- do “prosperous farmers with sizable landholdings.”20 The James gang was largely supported by
substantial farmers and speculators who “seem an unlikely source for pre-modern rebels or as
leader of a revolt of the rural poor.”21 Thus, neither class nor traditional values appeared to alter
17 White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 392.
18 Ibid., 392.
19 Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 5
20 White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 395.
21 Ibid., 395. 9
the support for the bandits. Perhaps it is the rural environment? Perhaps support for the bandits
represents some kind of agrarian revolt against the urban regions and the modernizing of the
country?
White does agree that some politicians lamented the discouraging effects the James gang
had on city and state growth. They blamed the James’ for “discouraging investment and
immigration.” Governor Thomas T. Crittenden of Missouri applauded the assassination of Jesse
James and said the assassination finally rid the state of “a great hindrance to its prosperity and as
likely to give an important stimulus to real estate speculation, railroad enterprise, and foreign
immigration.”22 Even the criminals themselves appear as rural rebels. After their life of crime,
Frank James and James Younger became leftist defenders of agrarian life—defending “American
manhood” against capitalist greed” and government intrusion—with Younger joining the socialist
movement while in prison.23 White, however, argues that the People’s Party, the leading agrarian party in Missouri in the 1870s, while it had a strict edict against monopolies and attacked banks and railroads, it also denounced lawlessness. Agrarian groups, at least those in Missouri, did not appear to provide the bandits with any support or sympathy, nor did they view the gang’s activities as some sort of political action. White also reminds us that Farmers Alliance—the precursor to the Populist movement—started out as a group to combat horse theft.24 If the bandits supposedly represented some kind of agrarian revolt against banks and railroads, more communities would have given them support. In the case of these three gangs, support for the
22 White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 396, quote taken from Frank Triplett, The Life, Times and Treacherous Death of Jesse James (St. Louis, 1882), 335.
23 Quotes are attributed to Frank James, White, 396.
24 Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York, 1975), 278-279, found in White, 396.
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bandits came largely from a confined area, while Populism spread to the South and the West.25
So, if popular protest does not provide an explanation, why did supporters find sympathize with the bandits?
Creating a social bandit requires that a society be immersed in some sort of upheaval. It is a key component in the making of a social bandit. Several historians have documented this element of hero making, including Marshall Fishwick in, American Heroes: Myth and Reality.26
Fishwick argues that when personalities like Sontag and Evans emerge to fulfill a group’s
psychological need, truth and belief will merge, thus, causing reality to become blurred. Echoing
Fishwick’s argument is Piotr Sztompka in The Sociology of Change. Sztompka argues that the emergence of heroes “is greatest in periods of social crisis, when established ways of life, rules and laws are undermined, ruling elites discredited, and traditions rejected. Then the only acceptable source of authority must be sought outside the existing order.”27
White argues that Missouri (186s and 1870s) and Oklahoma (1890s) had peculiar social circumstances that allowed the outlaws to emerge as “variants of the widespread extralegal organizations already common in the West. The exceptional situations prevailing in both
Missouri and Oklahoma encouraged popular identification with the outlaws whom local people supported not because of their crimes but rather because of certain culturally defined masculine virtues the outlaws embodied.”28 This explains the ability of the outlaw’s image to reach across
25 White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 397.
26 Marshall W. Fishwick, American Heroes: Myth and Reality (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Publishers, 1954), 2-10. Helena Huntington Smith, “Sam Bass and the Myth Machine,” The American West 7 (January 1979), 32. Beverly J. Stoeltje, “Making the Frontier Myth: Folklore Process in a Modern Nation,” Western Folklore 46 (October 1987), 241.
27 Piotr Sztompka, The Sociology of Change (Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 270.
28 Ibid,. 387. 11
state lines and across cultural boundaries. As symbols of masculinity, the outlaws appealed to countless generations seeking masculine virtues through hero worship. But achieving the status of cultural masculine icon required several other elements that White details in his essay.
As White, Hobsbawm, and Steckmesser have pointed out, support for social bandits requires that the public no longer have faith in the law or those that enforce the law. Steckmesser contends that folklorists have created a number of common elements found in all Robin Hood tales. They usually involve a “recurrent social situation, namely, one in which the law is corrupt.”29 In this situation, the law conforms to an instrument to oppress—it becomes an injustice—and must be overthrown by a “folk hero serving the higher cause of justice.”30 Locals in Oklahoma and Missouri during Jesse James’ era had grave doubts about those who enforced the laws and distrusted them immensely. Chaos, especially after the Civil War, became common in both areas which lead to the formation of gangs of ex-guerillas, and then, committees of public safety to combat them. Land disputes created similar situations in Oklahoma. The line between law and justice became blurred as those that professed to defend the laws actually seemed to break them.31
In the American West, social banditry, says White, became tolerable in this environment of lawlessness and distrust of law enforcement. Numerous local factions developed that further blurred the lines of right and wrong. Armed groups that rose up to protect themselves became part of the culture in Missouri and Oklahoma, which earned these groups respect as “strong men who could protect and revenge themselves.” This, argues White, becomes the real appeal of the
29 Steckmesser ,”Robin Hood and the American Outlaw,” 348.
30 Ibid., 348.
31 White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 399-400.
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social bandit.32 The social bandit—like Jesse James and Bill Dalton—still remained less than radical agrarian revolutionaries. They did not seek to rebalance inequalities of injustice for a larger population. For them, the fight was personal; it was they who the Union had done wrong; it was the federal marshals and the express companies that had falsely accused them. And their supporters agreed with them.
Sociologist Paul Kooistra echoes much of what Hobsbawm, Steckmesser, and
White acknowledge in their studies, but makes a slight departure in emphasizing the role politics plays in elevating the criminal to hero status. In his study, Criminals to Heroes:
Linking Symbol to Structure, Kooistra argues that the heroic criminal is a socially constructed “cultural product” and “political symbol,” who emerges during periods of oppressive, crisis-filled periods when the justice system appears to no longer represent the values of the people.33 Whereas Hobsbawm believes that the modernization has created peasant populations with a political consciousness, thus no longer needing the pre-revolutionary protest represented by the social bandit,34 Kooistra argues in favor of banditry’s existence in a modern society. Effective forms of political protest did not eliminate the appearance of the social bandit; in fact, Kooistra shows that several social bandits such as Jesse James (1870s), the Daltons (1890s), and “Pretty Boy” Floyd
(1930s), all emerged “concurrently with agrarian political organizations that were rather articulate and effective.”35 The political organization most associated with the agrarian
32 White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 402.
33 Paul Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes: Linking Symbol to Structure,” Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 13 No., 2 (JAI Press, 1990), 218.
34 Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 15.
35 Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes,” 221.
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movement was, of course, the Populists. Kooistra reminds us that the Populists Party was
quite powerful and not ineffective. Indeed, they elected some 50 Congressmen and
nominated a candidate for the Presidency all while the Daltons, Butch Cassidy and his
Wild Bunch, and Sontag and Evans roamed and robbed the American West.36
Richard White, of course, has discounted political movements as a significant factor in
why supporters acquired a sympathetic outlook toward outlaws. He argues that the Populist Party
machine actually went out of their way to denounce lawlessness, particularly the James-Younger
gang.37 Yet, Kooistra maintains that “social banditry has a very indirect and somewhat confusing relationship to agrarian politics.”38 Populism in the United States has its roots in agrarian
discontent with existing political and economic structure that appeared to challenge their
traditional culture.39 Where American social bandits emerged, so did organized agrarian political groups. This is not to say, however, that the social bandit became some sort of branch of the formal agrarian political structure. Advocating train robberies and bank hold-ups would have prohibited any political movement from making moral statements. Kooistra sees the social bandit as a symbolic figure, though one that lends no real help to organized protest movements.40
Nevertheless, Kooistra views the social bandit as a cultural product who is
fundamentally a political figure. Kooistra argues that, “if the social bandit is to be
fashioned into a NATIONAL cultural hero, he must appeal to more than an aggregate of
36 Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes,” 221. The candidate was William Jennings Bryan, 1896.
37 White, Outlaw Gangs, 396.
38 Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes,” 221.
39 Norman Pollack, The Populist Response to Industrial America (Harvard University Press, 1966), 2-3.
40 Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes,” 222.
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embittered farmers.” In fact, it is “the urban middle class rather than the hapless
peasantry that idolizes the Robin Hood criminal. However, the small town merchant, the
urban laborer, and others must also be able to find some meaning in the actions and
identity of the criminal in order for him to become a national figure. He must express
discontent of a wide spectrum of people.”41 Thus, the social bandit is a political figure
because he represents social justice at a time when justice is felt to be “outside the law.”42
He is not part of a political movement, per se, yet, he symbolizes a struggle against some form of oppression from above; the particular group you belong to, peasant, farmer, and middle-class, does not appear to affect support as long as he symbolizes a revolt against something that oppresses you. Kooistra’s argument is relevant to this study because
Tulare County and San Francisco contained all the elements mentioned by Kooistra for a social bandit figure to evolve.43
41 Ibid., 222.
42 Ibid., 229.
43 Further detail on the economic, political, and social crisis in California is discussed in chapter 2.
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Chapter 3
CALIFORNIA IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Understanding the economic, social, and political crises occurring in the years prior and
during the manhunt in the communities of Tulare County and San Francisco helps explain the
construction of Sontag and Evans into social bandits. For the citizens in those areas to accept
Sontag and Evans as social bandits, the right circumstances needed to be present. Californian’s
resentment toward the railroad was widespread during the late nineteenth-century and was based on years of domination, real or not, by the owners of the railroad. A brief discussion outlining its power and influence will serve as a backdrop to the animosity felt by many California citizens toward the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. It will show that the railroad was the protagonist, the “oppressor of the community,” that made the conditions ripe for social banditry in California.
In the summer of 1892, the residents of California and the rest of the nation remained mired in a period of great economic depression and political and social change.44 During these
depressed times, grandstanding politicians attacked the railroads and their owners. The chief
complaint among California politicians circled around the same refrain heard in previous years—
California and Californians suffered because of railroad corporate greed. Many Californians
believed that the railroad controlled the state of affairs, both economic and political, in California.
44 William Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 137-140.
16
One Californian at the time wrote, "there is a creature lurking amidst the pages of California
history, a beast stalking the good people of the state, stealing their money, threatening their
political virtue, and endangering their lives. This is the dreaded Octopus, the invincible railroad in
all its guises: technological menace, political fiend, corporate behemoth."45 Many California citizens believed that until either the federal or state government brought the railroad under control, the state could not flourish.46 With the nomination for governor only two years away, and the growing dissatisfaction with California Governor, Henry Markham (Republican), the political atmosphere in California was ripe for any type of situation that might exploit in the coming election and draw out the need for political change.47
Several other circumstances made this period notable as an era of heightened railroad opposition. Politically, the People’s Party populists mounted a strident anti-monopoly campaign that focused on the extensive privileges and power exhibited by the railroad corporations; labor unions increased their visibility by demonstrating the power they retained to disrupt business as usual in California; and the transformation of the major political parties threatened to change the
California political landscape for the foreseeable future.48 The upheaval in California proved ripe for a story that could bring all these elements together. Thus, the situation illustrated in California reflects a society under strain, preparing for change. Californians needed someone that could feed their psychological need striking back against the monopoly and political corruption of the
45 William Deverell, Railroad Crossing, 172.
46 Ibid., p. 170-74.
47 Democrat James Budd succeeded Henry Markham in the 1894 state elections. He ran on a ticket that targeted the influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad and proposed a government owned or nationalized railroad. See, Los Angeles Herald, September 23, 1894. Also, Eric F. Petersen, The End of an Era: California's Gubernatorial Election of 1894 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969).
48 Harold Francis Taggart, “The Senatorial Election of 1893 in California,” California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol, 19 No. 1 (Mar., 1940), 59.
17
railroad. Sontag and Evans became heroes during a period of great societal upheaval, a critical
component for hero making.
The construction of the railroad in California solved many of the state’s transportation
problems, but in many cases it vexed California’s political and social problems. In only a decade
following the completion of the railroad, popular discontent with the railroad companies ran rapid
through California society. Much of the discontent centered on the disastrous condition of the
economy. The economy had not made the adjustments necessary after the gold rush in 1849. No
segment of business or agriculture had risen in strength to create the jobs needed for citizens
coming to the state. Indeed, small businesses, cattle ranchers and those who sought capital, found
the state’s interest rates prohibitive. California remained mired in a boom-and-bust cycle that
prolonged a great national depression in 1873. Poverty and unemployment led to dire conditions
in cities without sufficient wages or employment.49
The rural cities and towns struggled too. Those unable to find jobs in big cities like San
Francisco also found few jobs in the country. Many who ended up on a farm found themselves
perplexed by the different farming techniques used in California. Those able to adapt still found
the environment unwilling to cooperate. Drought followed by floods ruined crops causing many
farmers to lose their already precarious hold on their land. Land and water rights often led to
controversy and expensive litigation, which the small farmer could not afford. The circumstances
were such, that the small rancher was “inclined to radicalism.”50
49 Robert Glass Cleland, A History of California: the American Period (New York, MacMillan Co., 1922), 402. William Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 35. For discussion of the 1873 depression see, Andrew F. Rolle, California: A History (New York, Crowell Co., 1963), 401.
50 Cleland, A History of California, 403.
18
California had an expanding rural population between 1880 and 1890. By 1890, the rapid
increase in wheat production made California the second-largest producer and the first-largest producer of all grains. California had many large farms, but also a number of smaller family owned farms that suffered terribly from drought, high mortgages, railroad exploitation, and glutted markets.51 Despite this, Californian political rebelliousness was not a product of poverty.
Instead it grew because of impatience with the growing wealth and corruption among the rich and powerful. California Populism was also strongest in the poorer counties of the state, reflecting the status of the poor farming communities. It did not appeal to many foreign-born citizens because many Populist leaders espoused a degree of nativism. This explains some of the movement’s appeal to San Franciscans, who for years struggled with the question of Chinese immigrants in their state.52 Consequently, in the fall of 1891, the California People’s party
formed to help the plight of the oppressed throughout the state. 53 In Tulare County, where the
Sontag and Evans lived, the Populist movement was said to be diverse. Tom G. Hall studied the case of Populism in Tulare County during 1892. He says the Tulare residents were all opposed to large, corporate famers, the land speculator, and the alien land company. Likewise, they advocated public ownership of the railroads. Tulare County Populists were small farmers led by rural editors and other professional men, frequently supporters of previous third-parties.”54 Thus,
the situation in Tulare County and San Francisco had the necessary elements that Paul Kooistra
argues is necessary for a social bandit to emerge—agrarian protest and economic and social
51 Michael Rogin, “California Populism and the System of 1896,” The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), 6. See also, John T. McGreevy, “Farmers, Nationalists, and the Origins of California Populism,” The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Nov., 1989), 8.
52 Rogin,”California Populism and the System of 1896,” 6-7.
53 McGreevy, “Farmers, Nationalists, and the Origins of California Populism,” 1.
54 Tom G. Hall, “California Populism at the Grass-Roots: The Case of Tulare County, 1892,” Southern California Quarterly, June 1967 Vol. 49 (2): 193-204.
19
problems among the middle-class.55 Other events in Tulare County also incited Californians
who viewed the railroad corporation as a hostile entity in California.
Residents of a little community in Tulare County felt the heavy hand of the railroad
during a notable incident often known as the Mussel Slough tragedy. In the early part of 1880,
the settlers at Mussel Slough near modern Hanford felt disillusioned about how much control the
new railroad commission had upon the Southern Pacific Railroad. The railroad owned various
tracts of land that many Mussel Slough residents had settled on. They made improvements to the
land, and made offers to buy the land from the railroad. When the Southern Pacific finally
responded to the settlers, they quoted a price far above what the residents had initially agreed
upon. Unable to pay the price, the settlers chose to stay in protest, while the railroad attempted to
evict them. A clash between the two sides ensued, leaving two railroad employees and five
settlers dead. A United States officer arrested seven of the resisters and took them to San
Francisco for trial. A judge sentenced five of them to eight months in a San Jose jail. However,
the climate of popular opinion held that the men were heroes.56
The tragedy at Mussel Slough quickly became a cause that roused the public against the railroad.57 Most Californians viewed the settlers as victims, and cast the railroad as the villain.
Twenty years later, Frank Norris portrayed the Mussel Slough affair in his book, The Octopus, a
scathing account of the railroad corporations. Norris called the railroad:
55 See page 17 of this essay.
56 A summary of the events at Mussel Slough is taken from: William Deverell, Railroad Crossings: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910, 56-57; Andrew Rolle, California, 443-445; Richard Orsi, “Railroads in the History of California and the Far West: An Introduction,” California History, Vol., 70, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), 6.
57 Andrew Rolle, California, 409.
20
The symbol of a vast power, huge, terrible, flinging the echo of its thunder over all the reaches of the valley, leaving blood and destruction in its path; the leviathan, with tentacles and steel clutching into the oil, the soulless Force, the iron-hearted Power, the Monster, the Colossus, the Octopus.58
Although Norris’ portrayal is highly fictionalized, he was able to accurately depict the feelings of
most Californians toward the railroad.59 Another form of media that roused public opinion was
the newspaper industry. Just as Frank Norris’ book inflamed public opinion, the newspaper
industry similarly attacked the railroad and other corruption throughout the state.
The centrality of newspapers in the lives of Americans in the late nineteenth century is hard to fathom in today’s world of mass media. Without radio, television, or the Internet, they were, quite simply, the best sources for information of all kinds for the modern person. In his study, The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms, historian
W. Joseph Campbell found that “American newspapers probably were never more popular or integral than they were in the late 1890s.”60 The popularity of newspapers also led to competitiveness between papers and also helped to provide that paper with a certain character that appealed to some readers. This was most often noticeable in regards to political preference. The
San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Call like other nineteenth-century newspapers, did not hide their political preference or party orientation.
Campbell notes that this was a regular feature of most newspapers at the time. 61 The owners of
the paper also became central figures in the running of their papers. Their views often were
58 Frank Norris, The Octopus, A Story of California (Signet Books, 1964, originally published in 1901), 42.
59 Richard Orsi, “Frank Norris’s the Octopus (1901): Fiction as History,” California History, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Winter, 1999/2000), 4.
60 W. Joseph Campbell, The Year that Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms (New York, Routledge, 2006), 9.
61 Campbell, The Year, 13. 21
reflected in types of stories found in the newspaper. The owners were also involved in the
shaping the content of the paper. William Hearst, owner of the Examiner, displayed exactly this
type of ownership.
William Randolph Hearst became the owner of the San Francisco Examiner in 1887, at
23. Upon his graduation from Harvard where he studied journalism, William asked his father for
permission to take over the Examiner. His father, George Hearst, had originally acquired the
paper after he accepted it as payment for a gambling debt and had little interest in running the
paper. After taking over the Examiner, the younger Hearst revitalized the money-losing daily and
turned it into “one of the liveliest dailies in the American West.”62 Hearst’s style of running the newspaper exhibited his penchant for being a maverick. Historians have called Hearst a newspaper innovator, and one who challenged the status quo.63 When Hearst started work at the
Examiner, he desired to have a paper that rivaled the success and power of Joseph Pulitzer’s New
York World. Thus, he emulated Pulitzer’s journalistic approach and forged new ground in journalism. Hearst’s newspapers eventually became synonymous with a style of reporting that focused on the sensational. Lurid, provocative, and scandalous stories graced the front page daily, and fueled the sales of the Examiner. Though the term “yellow journalism” was originally coined to describe the journalistic practices of Joseph Pulitzer, Hearst proved himself worthy of the title.64
62 Ibid., 72.
63 Rob Leicester Wagner, Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962 (Dragonflyer Press, 2000), Introduction.
64 A classic example of editorial power happened in 1898, when Hearst sent illustrator, Frederic Remington, to Havana in anticipation of a possible conflict there between the United States and Spain. When Remington requested to come home because nothing was happening Hearst cabled Remington and said, “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” 22
Hearst liked stories that involved conspiracies, especially ones in which the public was
the innocent victim, police and city officials the corrupt villains, and the newspaper reporters the
brave heroes. Hearst understood the power of a newspaper and how his paper could create news.
As one biographer of Hearst put it, “An event becomes ‘news’ only when journalists and editors
decide to record it. More often than not, what determines whether an occurrence is newsworthy
or not is the ease with which it can be plotted and narrated so that readers will want to read about
it.”65
Hearst, like his father George, was fiercely anti-trust and big business, as well as, an ardent Democrat. George Hearst’s political career largely focused on battling the Southern
Pacific Railroad, the largest of all big businesses in California. William Hearst followed his father’s path and used his newspaper to battle against the railroad magnates, Leland Stanford,
Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, and Collis Huntington. He hired editorialists Arthur McEwen and Ambrose Bierce specifically because they had no fear of using their caustic wit against the railroad.66
The Examiner quickly became serious competition for San Francisco’s other daily newspaper, the Chronicle. Hearst often complained that the Chronicle often adopted the style of the Examiner and was putting up a good fight for the number one paper in San Francisco. Hearst wanted to win that fight, and so he was always on the lookout for a story that would scoop the
Chronicle and attract more readers.67 The Sontag and Evans affair gave Hearst the scoop he was
65 David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000), 102-103.
66 Ibid., 120.
67 Ibid., 70 23
looking for during the fall of 1892 when he sent one of his reporters into the hills to interview
Sontag and Evans personally.
The severe economic problems throughout the state of California during the late nineteenth-century, and the changing political landscape brought on by the Populist movement, clearly indicate that residents in northern Californian and the central valley were ready for a
symbolic figure to put their hopes in. The railroad company—already viewed as the villain by
most Californians—only added fuel to the fire. Newspaper writers had the elements necessary
for creating a social bandit; they just needed the public to believe in the two outlaws.
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Chapter 4
THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS
Christopher Evans and John Sontag lived in and around the San Joaquin Valley in the
latter part of the nineteenth-century. This happened to coincide with a period of time in which the
Southern Pacific Railroad and the Wells Fargo express company experienced a rash of train
robberies that both worried and excited the press and the people in Northern California.68 Chris
Evans was 45 years old in 1892. He was not a physically imposing man—he stood 5 feet 8 and weighed about 175 pounds—but he was known to have unlimited energy, a spring in his step, and
could easily out-hike the best of men. He and his wife, Molly, had lived in Visalia for a decade.
With their children, the Evans family lived in a ramshackle house by all appearances. Yet stylish
dresses for the three daughters, brocaded mohair living-room furniture, and a fancy hand-tooled
saddle for the oldest daughter, Eva, provided surprising evidence of greater wealth.69
Born in Vermont, Evans grew up near Ottawa and emigrated to the United States. In a story given to a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, Evans stated that he came to the United
States during the “great struggle for freedom.” “I left home,” he said, “to liberate the slave.”
After fighting in the Civil War, Evans stated that his unit was sent out West to fight Indians,
68 Historians have referred to the decade following 1890 as the heyday of the American train robber. Tulare county, California had the distinction of “producing more of these train robbers than any other county in the country.” John Boessenecker, Badge and Buckshot: Lawlessness in Old California ,200.
69 Stephen Fox, “Chris Evans Could Always be Relied on to Pull a Fast One,” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian 1995 26(2), 85.
25
opening the land for settlement by pioneers. It was in the West that Evans left the Army and
found his way to the San Joaquin Valley.70
In the Valley, Evans tried to settle down with his growing family and provide for them in some way. However, he often felt challenged in this quest by local politics. Evans purportedly spoke often about the ever present problem of railroad and its ties to state and local politics.
Several authors have stated that Evans spoke about problems he associated with the railroad
company, and he did not temper his views for various audiences, which gave Evans the known
reputation as a railroad antagonist.71
His wife Molly and her family had lived in the San Joaquin valley for decades and they had felt the power of the railroad corporations first hand. Several authors have written about
Molly’s uncle, who lost his land in the violent struggle between land owners and the railroad in the Mussel Slough affair in 1885, although he was not part of the violence.72 Evans himself had
intimate negative experiences with the railroad monopoly in the valley. Eva Evans recounted to
Wallace Smith that her father struggled to sustain his family because railroad prices made it
impossible for him to earn a profit. In 1885 Evans owned 20 acres of land south of Visalia where
he planted beans. At harvest time, the Southern Pacific raised its shipping prices, causing Evans
to lose money. 73 He also worked for a time as a manager at grain warehouses owned by a local
70 Quotes and information on Evans’ military career, San Francisco Examiner, August 7, 1892.
71 Wallace Smith, Prodigal Sons, 50-55; Hu Maxwell, Evans and Sontag,, 29; San Francisco Examiner, October 7, 1892;
72 Fox, Chris Evans, 86.
73 Smith, Prodigal Sons, 41-42, and Maxwell, Evans and Sontag, 29.
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bank, Evans confirms this in his jailhouse “autobiography,” published in the San Francisco
Examiner. 74
During the years that Evans worked for the granary, he met John Sontag. Sontag worked for the Southern Pacific prior to 1887 as a brakeman. He was injured in a Fresno rail yard when an iron rail impaled his chest, puncturing his lung and breaking three of his ribs. 75 Two months after leaving the Southern Pacific hospital, Sontag asked for a return to work and for light duties, but the railroad offered him a return to his brakeman’s job. Due to his injuries, it was impossible for John to return to this kind of work. After failing to receive a job or compensation, John
Sontag literally limped home to Tulare, furious at the railroad for what he called “a hard turn.”
“When I got hurt in their service,” he said, “they threw me out of work, out of the hospital, out of the world, crippled and without a dollar.” 76 It was then that he met Chris Evans, who took him in and gave him work.
John Sontag and his brother George hailed from Minnesota, and like Evans, struggled to earn a living.77 It would seem like a fortunate circumstance that John would meet Chris Evans.
Evans, it is said, took an immediate liking to Sontag and for several years after his accident, John
lived and worked with Chris Evans in his mining speculations and would eventually marry
Evans’ daughter, Eva.78 George Sontag, brother of John, was a drifter and former prisoner in
74 San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 1892; San Francisco Examiner, February 4, 1894.
75 A brief mention of Sontag’s injury while working for the railroad is mentioned in The Fresno Weekly Expositor, August 31, 1887. All of the northern California newspapers included this information at some point during their reporting. See for example, The Sacramento Record-Union, August 6, 1892.
76 San Francisco Call, June 13, 1893.
77 The Sacramento Record-Union, August 8, 1892.
78 O’Connell, Train Robber’s Daughter, 31; Maxwell, Anne Mitchell introduction, x and Maxwell, 19. 27
Minnesota. Having little or no prospects of employment in the northwest, George eventually traveled to the West to see his brother and meet his brother’s benefactor.
The first of several robberies in the San Joaquin Valley, and the one that established a pattern for future robberies in the area, occurred on a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train, in 1889. No. 17 had left the town of Pixley headed southbound for Los Angeles when two masked men crawled down into the cab and forced engineer Peter Boeslenger to stop the engine.
While one bandit covered the engineer and the fireman, the other went back to the express coach and ordered the express messenger, J. R. Kelly, to open the coach. After the messenger refused to do so, the bandit detonated a bomb made of dynamite, sending splinters of wood and metal into the night. With the safe now opened, some accounts of the robbery claim that the bandits stole nearly $5,000. Their loot tucked away, the bandits mounted their horses and headed off toward the Sierra Mountains with a posse following their trail. The posse, however, lost the trail as it headed into the dense tree covered mountains; this caused the men to suspect that the bandits must be locals familiar with the land.79
The second robbery occurred on January 20th, 1890. Again, two masked gunman stopped a southbound train outside of Goshen with the same method as the Pixley robbery. The robbers’ trail disappeared as it headed toward the Sierra. The last of the robbery came on August 4th,
1892. An overland express train headed south to Los Angeles from San Francisco, its route taking it through the San Joaquin Valley past Fresno and over the Tehachapi Mountains South of
Bakersfield. While no one knew who committed any of these robberies, sheriffs and railroad detectives suspected a local resident or residents.
79 Wallace Smith, Prodigal Sons: The Violent History of Christopher Evans and John Sontag(Fresno: Linden Publishing Inc., 2005), 96-98. 28
Because both Sontag and Evans had made their contempt for the railroad well known to
the people in Visalia, the men became suspects after the August 4th robbery. 80 In the late summer of 1891 Wells Fargo Express detectives had followed George to Tulare County after two
Minnesota trains were robbed at Kasota and Western Junction in July and November, respectively. The detectives who followed George to Fresno were rather positive that they knew who the other two bandits were. Detective for the Southern Pacific Railroad Will Smith arrived in Fresno not long after the Collis robbery. He investigated the scene and then rode a train to
Visalia to arrest the men responsible for the robbery. In Visalia, he telegraphed his employers, declaring, “I have them.” 81 Smith’s confidence led him to Evans’s house and thus began the story
of one of the largest manhunts in the history of California.82
Several railroad detectives patrolled different areas of the San Joaquin valley the night the robbery took place. One newspaper suggests they knew a robbery would take place that night, but did not know the exact location. Will Smith and Deputy Sheriff Witty drove out to the
Evans house on August 4th to find George Sontag. After finding George, John, and Chris Evans at the house, the two lawmen requested that George come into town for questioning. He complied. Detectives interviewed George and quickly charged him with robbing the latest train.
It was after this, that they again left for Evans’ house to arrest John and possibly Chris, the two men who they felt ran the gang.83
80 For newspaper articles see: San Francisco Examiner, September 14, 1892, and September 25, 1892, October 7, 1892; San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 1892, August 12, 1892; San Francisco Call, July 4, 1893; Sacramento Record-Union, August 8, 1892; Biography: Hu Maxwell, Evans and Sontag, 28- 34; Wallace Smith, Prodigal Sons: The Violent History of Christopher Evans and John Sontag, 50-126.
81 Maxwell, Evans and Sontag, Mitchell introduction, xiii.
82 Fox, “Chris Evans Could Always be Relied on to Pull a Fast One,” 85.
83 Hu Maxwell, Evans and Sontag, 18-21. San Francisco Chronicle, August, 8, 1892; The 29
On the day Detective Will Smith and deputy sheriff George Witty came to the Evans’
home, Chris was in the barn located behind the house. The two lawmen came looking for John
Sontag, who they knew lived at Evans’ house. Evans came in through the back door after Eva
told him the men wanted to speak to him. He met the lawmen in the parlor with a revolver in one
hand and an immediate dislike for the two lawmen. Evans inquired of the men, “What the hell do
you want?” They responded that they wanted John Sontag. At that moment, Sontag stepped out
of a darkened room with a shotgun raised. Smith and Witty, recognizing the perilous situation,
tried to squeeze out of the door side by side.84 At this moment, Evans and Sontag could have let the two men go. They had the upper hand, the lawmen had fled in fear for their lives, yet, Evans and Sontag began shooting at the fleeing officers. Evans and Sontag returned to the house, collected a few things—food, ammunition, warm clothes—jumped into the lawmen’s buggy which they left behind, and headed out of town.
Having spent almost twenty years lumbering and mining in hills and mountains around
Tulare County, Evans knew the rough terrain very well. Consequently, Evans and Sontag headed for a mine owned by Evans, located in Sampson’s Flat, near the town of Dunlap in the Sierra foothills. About this time the Southern Pacific and Wells Fargo put a $10,000 bounty on the heads of the outlaws, bringing in men from surrounding areas and throughout California and beyond.85 Two of those bounty hunters, Vic Wilson and Frank Burke, came from Arizona specifically at the request of the railroad, with Apache trackers in tow.86
Sacramento Record-Union, August 6, 1892; San Francisco Call, August 8, 1892; San Francisco Examiner.
84 Henry Bigelow, San Francisco Examiner, October 7, 1892; The Sacramento Record-Union, August 6, 1892; San Francisco Call, August 8, 1892.
85 Smith, 168.
86 San Francisco Examiner, August 11, 1892. 30
Wilson, Burke and the Apache trackers unwittingly found Evans and Sontag at the cabin
of Jim Young, in Sampson’s Flat. The two fugitives had stopped there for breakfast, which they
ordered Young to fix, when they saw Wilson and a nine-man posse coming toward the cabin.
The posse, unaware that the outlaws watched them through the windows, had the advantage. The
cabin lay at the bottom of sloping hillside, lacked a back door, and was surrounded by rocks and
trees that could provide cover for the posse. The fugitives only chance for survival lay in the
element of surprise. Accordingly, Evans waited until the lawmen approached the cabin, poked
his shotgun through the window, and blasted Vic Wilson and deputy sheriff Andy McGinnis.87
Fit for a scene made in a modern Hollywood western, Sontag and Evans then burst out of the cabin, guns blazing, ran past the wounded men, and toward the retreating members of the posse, escaping back into the Sierra foothills. The two men built a hideout behind a waterfall, enlarging a former bear cave, and settled in for a long winter. Eva, Evans’ eldest daughter, often brought them supplies. They also visited locals for a game of cards or perhaps a warm meal, and even returned home during Christmas time for two weeks.88
A trip home finally led Sontag and Evans into a deadly ambush in June of 1893. It would take the suggestion of a family member, one Perry Byrd, Molly’s brother, to catch the two outlaws. Perry told lawmen they should watch for the bandits near a place called Stone Corral.
Fresno deputy sheriff, Hiram Rapelje and three other men went to Stone Corral, waiting eight
days for the bandits to finally appear. After spotting the lawmen, Evans and Sontag dove for the
nearest cover, a pile of straw and dried manure. Rapelji fired fourteen times into the straw as
rapidly as possible. He did not see either of the bandits, and only the smoke from the bandit’s
87 Maxwell, Sontag and Evans,101-103; Smith, Prodigal Sons, 166-172.
88 Fox, 87.
31
guns gave away their location.89 Evans, wounded in the right eye and right wrist, faired only
slightly better than Sontag, who received wounds to his shoulder and forehead. The shoulder
wound would prove fateful. The bullet had crushed his right arm near the shoulder, passed under
both shoulder blades and out on his left side. Evans saw the blood pouring through Sontag’s
shirt, and asked if he was hurt. “Yes, I am done for,” was his reply.90
After saying goodbye to Sontag, Evans waited until nightfall to crawl through the thick grass, making his escape from the bloody battle at Stone Corral. Sontag, covered in straw and blood, fended off the lawmen throughout the night, occasionally calling out for water. By day break, the posse found him in an almost unconscious condition, powder grains covered the left side of his face, allegedly because he had tried to kill himself.91 He was placed in a wagon and taken to Visalia. Evans, however, made it to a nearby ranch delirious, bleeding, thirsty, and disoriented. His wounded arm dangled at his side and his useless eye led him into trees and rocks, causing him to fall repeatedly, forcing him to crawl for some distance.92
Evans went into the home of a Mrs. Perkins, a woman familiar to Chris, and promptly fell asleep in the upstairs bedroom. Mrs. Perkins realized Evans may die any moment. She went into town to inform the sheriff that Evans was at her home. After a doctor amputated his left arm,
Evans was put in a cell next to dying John Sontag.93 Sontag would eventually die from his
wounds and George would spend a number of years in prison. Chris broke out of a Fresno jail in
89 Maxwell, Sontag and Evans, 158.
90 Ibid., 163.
91 San Francisco Call, June 13, 1893; see also, Maxwell, 164-165.
92 San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 1893, see also, Maxwell, 165-167; Fox, 87.
93 San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1893, see also, Maxwell, 165-166.
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January of 1894 with the aid of an accomplice. This story, however, would hold none of the
public’s fascination. The Evans story had run its course, and the public appears to have no longer
needed what Evans provided them. By February, Evans was back in jail; life on the run was very
difficult for the one-eyed one-armed bandit. By April of 1894, Evans was on his way to Folsom
Prison, where he stayed until his release in 1911.
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Chapter 5
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SONTAG AND EVANS AS SOCIAL BANDITS
Through their writings, contemporaries of Sontag and Evans, especially journalists, constructed the pair as more than mere outlaws but as social bandits. Between 1889 to 1911, beginning with the initial train robbery at Pixley and ending at his Chris Evans’ pardon from prison and death in 1911, numerous articles about the pair appeared in the three major northern
Californian newspapers in San Francisco—the Call, the Chronicle, and the Examiner. 94 At the same time, a contemporary of Sontag and Evans, Hu Maxwell wrote a first-hand account of the early days of the manhunt. Maxwell worked as a newspaper reporter and used his knowledge of the event to write his book. His book is filled with invented conversations and unverified statements; yet, he became the first Evans and Sontag biographer and an important element in shaping the image of Evans and Sontag as social bandits. The book fits into the contemporary style of newspaper reporting in the late nineteenth-century, or the dime-novel books written about outlaws such as Jesse James or Billy the Kid.
Wallace Smith’s book, Prodigal Sons: The Violent History of Christopher Evans and John
Sontag is also important to the story because of the source material Smith utilizes. Smith, a trained historian and professor from Fresno, California in the 1930s, wrote his book with the aid
94 Over fifty articles from the three major newspapers, plus, ten to fifteen articles from additional California papers were examined for elements of Myers themes. Several other period newspapers, the Sacramento Union-Record, Visalia Delta Times, and Fresno Republican Expositor, will provide additional evidence. Since the Evans and Sontag affair was covered by almost every paper across California, one could have easily utilized numerous California papers for this study. However, since many of the articles in other papers took their information from the three major San Francisco papers, it seemed redundant to use the additional newspapers. Only where editorials or unique articles on the events appear are other papers utilized.
34
of Eva Evans, Chris Evans’ daughter. Sometime in the early 1900s, Eva wrote an unpublished
autobiography, “An Outlaw and His Family,” which Smith used as the basis of his book. 95
Smith’s account contains little of the sensationalism found in Maxwell’s book. While the narrative contains numerous mistakes with regard to spelling of names and some dates, the author does provide footnotes, and refrains from making explicit judgments of guilt or innocence. Smith
also includes a section on the news coverage provided by the San Francisco papers. Smith
concludes that William Randolph Hearst’s paper, the San Francisco Examiner, provided
favorable coverage throughout the search for the bandits.96 He also discusses the role of
Examiner writers Ambrose Bierce, Henry Bigelow, and Joaquin Miller and their influence on shaping perceptions about the bandits.
One of the most important elements in constructing the social bandit images is that he has to be a “man of the people.” Common people must see him as a figure that stands in opposition to certain “established, oppressive, economic, civil and legal systems peculiar to the American experience.”97 Richard Myer argues that a dynamic confrontation will arise after two sides have clearly drawn a line between the oppressed common folk on one side and a controlling, dominant system of some sort or the other. It out of this confrontation that a defender of the common man, one of their own, emerges up as a “vicarious retaliator.”98 Thus, it is California during the period of railroad monopoly, a period of hostility and resentment from California citizens towards the railroad companies, which finds in both Sontag and Evans a measure of vicarious satisfaction.
95 Smith, 7-8.
96 Ibid., 215-216.
97 Myer, “The Outlaw,” 97-110, Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 9, White, “Outlaw Gangs,” 397, Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes: Linking Symbol to Structure,” 222.
98 Myer., 97.
35
The two men robbed trains, symbols of the forces which kept the common man in California in
economic and social bondage. An editorial in the San Francisco Examiner reads, “The course of
action of the Southern Pacific Company toward the good people of Fresno, Visalia and all that
region has, it is here cheerfully confessed, not commonly had the appearance of having been
suggested by reverent study of the Golden Rule. In many instances indeed, it has seemed
modeled upon the freer and breezier ethics of the mad dog.”99 Resentment for the railroad ran so deep among residents of Visalia that many had difficulty seeing the event in clear terms. The San
Francisco Chronicle found residents in Visalia resentful for much of the negative attention
Sontag and Evans brought to their community, yet many of them still “did not think it wrong to
steal from the railroad company” and “sympathized with the outlaws throughout the trouble.”100
This evidence also echoes Eric Hobsbawm’s belief that the oppression of powerful economic forces creates the social bandit and leads the peasants to admire and protect the bandit, as well as
Richard Slotkin’s description of the battle between labor and capital that elevated Jesse James to popularity in the Northern states. 101 Like James, Sontag and Evans’ crimes were infused with
powerful messages and symbolic meaning. 102
Another Examiner editorial states clearly that citizens in Tulare County and San
Francisco viewed the outlaws as defenders of the common man:
“The attitude of many of the mountain people is favorable to the outlaws and inimical to the officers for a variety of reasons. The bitter feeling against the Southern Pacific Railroad, engendered by the Mussel Slough outrages, has not abated in the years that have gone by, and in any conflict between the railroad and any citizens of Tulare county,
99 San Francisco Examiner, September 25, 1892.
100 San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1893.
101 Hobsbawm, 13-14.
102 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 129.
36
no matter what the merits of the case, the sympathy of a large number of settlers goes to the citizen, be he evicted tenant, ousted squatter or train robber. The fact that Evans and Sontag robbed Wells Fargo & Company, and not the railroad company, is not taken into account, probably is not even thought of by many. It was a railroad train that was attacked, railroad detectives are hunting the robbers, and the railroad offers a reward for them ‘dead or alive,’ and therefore Evans and Sontag are regarded as enemies to the railroad and avengers of the wrongs that the railroad has inflicted upon settlers.”103
Other articles suggest the railroad victimized the two men. According to one editorial,
“In a recent interview with Mrs. Evans Detective Smith was unable to learn why Evans felt so vindictively toward him, but she said it might be because he was in the employ of the Southern
Pacific, as Evans and Sontag got hurt on the Southern Pacific trains, and never received any compensation for their injuries.”104 This idea that the railroad victimized Sontag and Evans is an essential element in creating the social bandit image. Paul Kooistra argues that the social bandit figure must have broad appeal; he must express the discontent of various sections of society to be appealing to the masses.105 In the role of victims by the oppressive railroad, Sontag and Evans became political figures because they represented social justice at a time when most Californians felt the railroad operated outside the law.
According to Myer, the outlaw hero is successful only as long as he retains the loyalty and support of the people. An article in the San Francisco Call found that the bandits did indeed have supporters: “Evans and Sontag had many sympathizers in Visalia and in the mountain camps. These furnished them with supplies and advised them whenever the officers were on their trail.”106 A story in the Examiner by Henry Bigelow, the first person to interview the bandits
103 San Francisco Examiner, October 13, 1892.
104 San Francisco Examiner, 9/16/1892. See also, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/7/1892 and San Francisco Call, September 14, 1892, for similar explanations on why Sontag and Evans were victims of the railroad company.
105 Kooistra, “Criminals as Heroes,” 229.
106 San Francisco Call, June 13, 1893. 37
expressed the ease with which Sontag and Evans moved about the mountain community where
they hid. “The entire district is with them,” Bigelow wrote, “I don’t think there is a man, woman
or child for a radius of 50 miles that would not give them all they wish to eat and drink. This may
not have been the conditions of affairs for a week or two after the train robbery, but when the
posses began to spread themselves around that’s when the trouble began.”107 In an editorial on the same day as the Bigelow story, an Examiner writer noticed a change in the sentiments toward the bandits from hostility to sympathy. “Strange as it may seem to many, the perusal of the remarkable interview [Bigelow’s] has awakened a certain amount of sympathy for Evans and
Sontag. It is the first time their story their side of the blood-stained story was heard. While few people who expressed opinion put any stock in their denial of the train robbery, yet when Evans spoke of his pursuers as blood-hungry, his readers saw It in that light for the first time.”108 Early in the event, an Examiner reporter realized Sontag and Evans’ friends would help protect them.
He writes, “In the light of the recent events it would seem that Evans and Sontag, the train
robbers, have a legion of friends in the mountains. They are aided and sheltered by the people in
the hill and as long as they are in the mountains they will be safer than in any other part of the
United States.”109
Hobsbawm and Steckmesser argue that support for a social bandit requires a loss of trust in the law, or those who enforce the law.110 Richard White agrees, arguing that social banditry
107 San Francisco Examiner, October 8, 1892.
108 San Francisco Examiner, October, 8, 1892.
109 San Francisco Examiner, August 12, 1892.
110 Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 13-14, Steckmesser, 348.
38
becomes tolerable when the line between law and justice becomes blurred.111 In the history of
Tulare County, the Mussel Slough affair is one example of a situation in which the line between
law and justice became blurred. In an article written in August of 1892, the San Francisco Call
made an explicit connection between Sontag and Evans, Mussel Slough, and the people who
helped the bandits in the hills: “There are through that country a number of men who are
personally inimical to the Southern Pacific Company over the Mussel Slough difficulty, and these
men, even if they suspected that the fleeing bandits had been guilty of train robbery, would be
more apt to shield them than give them up.”112 The desire to protect Sontag and Evans is a clear indication that some people in the mountains admired the bandits and sought to protect them from the law.
Often in the construction of a social bandit, the situation that provokes a career of crime surrounds the physical abuse of a member of the hero’s family. In the case of Sontag and Evans, the abuse came against Evans’ daughter Eva and was more verbal than physical. According to
Meyer this is also an acceptable scenario. Meyer states, “In some instances the initial provocation, while still based on a situation involving a female friend or relative of the outlaw, involves not physical injury but moral insult.”113 An example of this motif is found in Eva
Evans’ recollections on the initial confrontation between Evans and railroad detectives at his home. Eva states that detective Will Smith asked her where John Sontag was and she replied that she did not know. Smith then called Eva a “damned little liar.” Eva then fled to the barn and told her father that two men were in the house asking for John. She told him that Smith called her a
“little liar” and her father’s eyes “flashed.” She followed her father into the house because she
111 White, 399-400.
112 San Francisco Chronicle, August 10, 1892.
113 Ibid., 100.
39
wanted to see him “wipe out the insult.”114 Several sources also reported on an incident in which
Chris Evans assaulted a man, almost killing him, after the man had insulted his wife and himself.
This story depicts Evans as a man who did not suffer indignity lightly.115
Richard White’s belief that social bandits appealed to the public because they represented symbols of masculinity would also suggest a situation of provocation or persecution.116 An example of an insult to Evan’s manhood is found in an Examiner article titled “Women Must
Weep.” In the article, the author describes a conversation he “overheard” between two men discussing the Indians who are tracking Evans and Sontag. The man says that he saw a tracker and “three Injuns, and I’ll be darned if one of those Injuns didn’t have on old man Evans’ blue overalls that he picked up at Young’s cabin after the fight the other day.” The man claimed that
Eva Evans appeared at the same time and he said to her, “Say, Sis, there’s your pa’s pants on that there Injun. You see, I wanted to take her down a bit, because she was always stuck-up and she thinks she’s good as anybody. She didn’t’ say nothing, but just walked by hanging her face down. I’ll bet she felt as ashamed as hell.”117 In the first story Eva is shown to be a victim and consequently her father is provoked into defending her. The second story illustrates the authors’ desire to depict a member of Evans’ family as an unnecessarily insulted party, thus drawing the ire of the public who will hope that Evans exacts some revenge.
114 All quote attributed to Eva Evans, “An Outlaw and His Family,” 66. This same account is found in: San Francisco Call, December 9, 1893; Maxwell, Evans and Sontag, 22; Smith, Prodigal Sons, 130.
115 San Francisco Call, June 13, 1893; San Francisco Examiner, February 4, 1894; Maxwell, 32- 36; Smith, 336;
116 White, 399-400.
117 San Francisco Examiner, September 25, 1892.
40
As Eric Hobsbawm and Kent Steckmesser argue, the Robin Hood theme is consistent in the construction of every social bandit.118 Several stories about Sontag and Evans utilized this
theme. In one of the early stories about Sontag and Evans, a writer for the Examiner wrote that,
“The Robin Hood idea prevails to some extent in regard to the two men. They only rob rich
corporations and religiously pay for what they take from poor farmers.”119 In another instance it
was reported that Evans and Sontag held up a stage on the road to Sequoia Mills. The reporter
stated that “they searched the passengers, but, finding they were poor men, they returned what
they took form them.” Chris Evans later claimed they were not “robbing workingmen, but want
to find some of the men who are hunting us.” 120
An editorial in the Examiner also contributed to the growing image of Sontag and Evans
as folk heroes:
The latest exploit of Evans and Sontag has a Robin Hood flavor about it that really ought to inspire Smith and De Koven [theatrical producers] to crib some music and put these picturesque rascals into an opera. For people that like highwaymen we should think that Evans and Sontag would be just the kind of highwaymen they would like. They have not the gloomy ferocity of Jesse James, nor yet the harmless flippancy of Black Bart. They are sure enough desperadoes, with real guns that go off on occasion, but at the same time they have not that tigerish lust for blood.121
The Chronicle participated in this imagery as well, albeit in a commentary that was negative. For example, after Sontag was shot and left in a pile of hay by Chris Evans, the
Chronicle stated, “The shooting and capture of Sontag break the prestige which these two men have enjoyed and destroy their reputation for invulnerability and immunity from capture. They
118 Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 9, Kent Steckmesser, “Robin Hood and the American Outlaw,” 348.
119 San Francisco Examiner, September 26, 1892.
120 San Francisco Examiner, May 1, 1893.
121 San Francisco Examiner, May 3, 1893.
41
sink from the rank of heroes and demigods to the category of plain ordinary ruffians and
criminals, bolder than most, perhaps, but with nothing supernatural or even unusual about
them.”122 On the same day as the previous article, an editorial announced that the end of John
Sontag “furnishes a good commentary on the heroic glamour that has been thrown around the desperados figure by sentimental writers.”123 Despite the negative qualities of these statements,
they both acknowledge the heroic and romantic imagery that a number of people associated with
Sontag and Evans. Thus while denouncing the idea they are heroes, the journalists acknowledge
the spread of this imagery.
Another instance in which the Robin Hood idea became associated with Sontag and
Evans came from a set of stolen watches and an alleged gift to a local church. The Visalia Delta
reported that George Sontag confessed to detectives that he, John, and Chris had robbed the train
at Goshen, stolen a box filled with watches, and placed the box on the steps of a preacher’s house
in Visalia.124 The Examiner also investigated this and reported on it in August of 1892. Under the headline, “Charitable Robbery,” a writer from the Examiner gave details about a minister who found a box on the steps of his church. Once opened, his “eyes were dazzled with the gleaming of gold and silver.” “Somebody,” the author states, “had determined that there should be no lack of gifts on the Sunday school Christmas tree.”125 “It was later confirmed,” the author stated, that
“the two bandits had left the watches since detectives identified the watches as plunder from the
Goshen train robbery,” which law officials believed Sontag and Evans had committed. As
Meyer points out, the Robin Hood theme, in the lore of American outlawry, is in many respects a
122 San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 1893.
123 San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 1893.
124 Article reprinted in Hu Maxwell, 187.
125 San Francisco Examiner, August 11, 1892.
42
“logical outgrowth of the tensions between the common folk and the symbols of oppression. “ 126
The watches represent plunder taken from the railroad, not the public; they are symbolic of the supposed oppression by the railroad. As Richard Slotkin points out, a social bandit’s crimes have powerful symbolic meaning, especially to the public.127 Technically the outlaw is a criminal, but to the public he symbolizes a romantic hero who avenges wrongs through his charitable gifts.
Historians have also noted that writers often portray social bandits as generally good people and often pious. Meyer argues that this emphasis on religion is present in “some degree throughout the spectrum of American outlaw lore,” but is found mostly in tales concerning Jesse
James.128 Chris Evans also had this aspect of his life emphasized on several occasions by journalists and in the biography written by his daughter. Eva Evans wrote in her autobiography that after her father allowed John Sontag to live with his family, he had one further concern: “I have to particular, on account of the children. I don’t want a man that will swear at my horses, or before my children.”129 A Chronicle reporter quoted one Visalia resident who remembered Evans as a man who never “drank, smoked, gambled, or had any doubtful acquaintances.”130 Most
people would consider these elements as praiseworthy and they indicate a level of idealization of
the outlaw’s character. As Kent Steckmesser argues, this is “understood to be an integral part of
the tradition.” Steckmesser suggests that Robin Hood earned true respect from the people
because of his piety. In turn, Robin’s respect for religion—in folklore he was said to attend 3
126 Meyer, 105.
127 Slotkin, 129.
128 Myer, 105.
129 Evans, “An Outlaw and His Family,” 52.
130 San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 1892.
43
Masses a day—was as devout as Jesse James’ piousness for the Baptist religion, and Billy the
Kid’s willingness to give a friend his most important possessions. Steckmesser finds that
character attributes contribute significantly to the status of an outlaw as either a social bandit type
or just mere outlaw. “Assignment of the Robin Hood tag to any American outlaw,” he argues,
“implies such an idealized character profile, and outlaws who lack these ideal traits are excluded
from the tradition.”131
Another vivid example of Evans’ piousness comes again from the pages of the San
Francisco Examiner. Written as an attempt to “analyze” Chris Evans and explain how the man had become a train robber, the article under the headline “Visalia’s Jekyll and Hyde,” told a bizarre story of a mortally injured woodsman receiving his last rites from Chris Evans. The reporter goes on to reveal that Evans supposedly spoke in Latin and sent the other woodsmen away so that he could hear “the poor man’s confession, shrived him and with the administration of extreme unction, poor Mike’s soul passed out among the pines.” When Chris’ boss heard the story he asked Chris how he learned to “play the padre.” Chris responded, “I studied to be a priest in Canada.”132 Hu Maxwell states that “There was in him a deep sense of religious
obligation, and he had peculiar ideas which some might take for superstition.”133 This
investigation of Evans’ slide into robbery and its attempt to create a contrast in imagery—the
pious, good-natured soul and the murderous outlaw—also helps to explain why the image of
Sontag and Evans had great appeal. As noted above, James Deutsch’s analysis of dime novels
131 All quotes in Steckmesser, Robin Hood, 351.
132 San Francisco Examiner, August 14, 1892.
133 Hu Maxwell, 30. Maxwell also states that Evans converted to Catholicism after he entered jail, 30. 44
explains that contrasting images of outlaws as noble and the devil incarnate both fascinated and
appalled an indecisive American public.134
Hobsbawm, Steckmesser, and Myer all agree that any construction of a social bandit will include stories about his audacity, daring, and amazing exploits.135 For Sontag and Evans, this element often manifests itself in descriptions of Evans’ masculinity and skill as a mountain man.
As a symbol of masculinity, Evans would have appeal to those seeking masculine virtues through hero worship.136 Those that knew Evans boasted of his skill to live off the land, navigate his way
through any forest, and move almost supernaturally along trails at great speed.137 His skills as a
gunfighter were also alluded to. A writer suggested that Evans could “have stampeded the whole
outfit [posse] if he had struck the camp.”138 One person interviewed by an Examiner reporter put
it this way: “Evans is a man who can make forty-five miles a day on foot right along. He will be
mighty hard to catch in those mountains.”139 The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed residents from Visalia who stated, “It is unlikely that Evans and Sontag will ever be brought in alive, Evans is a man of nerve.”140 An editorial, in the Examiner, suggests Evans and Sontag had no equals who can catch them.” “Chris Evans is the greatest desperado turned out by California since
Murietta. This cool man who sits down to a two hour breakfast within twelve miles of his latest
134 Deutsch, 8.
135 Hobsbawm, 13-14, Steckmesser, ”Robin Hood and the American Outlaw,” 348, Meyer, 105.
136 White, 399-400.
137 This summary comes from articles in: San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 1892; San Francisco Examiner, August 7, 1892. Also, Hu Maxwell calls Evans a “famous walker,” 37.
138 San Francisco Examiner, September 20, 1892.
139 San Francisco Examiner, August 7, 1892.
140 San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 1892; see also, August 9, 1892.
45
murder will stop at nothing to accomplish his ends.” The article ends with a sharp rebuke to
detectives and presents Evans and Sontag as enjoying the chase. “In the mean time Evans and
Sontag are going yet. Their peace and pleasure are unmolested. They are having a very
enjoyable outing, with just enough danger to give it spice and enough farce to keep their spirits
up.”141 The San Francisco Call repeats this characterization of Evans and Sontag, calling both
men “brave,” “cool,” and “calculating.”142
As hard as the detectives and deputy sheriffs worked to locate Sontag and Evans, they always failed to find the pair. Yet, had they staked out Evans’ home, they would most assuredly have come across Evans and Sontag returning home during the months after their initial confrontation with detectives. According to Chris and Eva, the bandits repeatedly returned home to visit and met secretly to hear news on the search. Eva tells of a visit by her father and John,
“When the men came home just before Christmas.” They “hid themselves from the smaller
children,” who might tell others of their visit, and “took meals in an unused bedroom, that is how
we could have Christmas together. They stayed two weeks.”143 Such was the ability of Sontag
and Evans to outwit their pursuers and spend time in the same city with many of their pursuers.
Other instances that writers emphasized were Evans’ escape from jail after receiving a gun from
an accomplice, and the shootout at Young’s cabin when Evans and Sontag burst from the house,
sending their pursuers in various directions.144 Kent Steckmesser attributes similar anecdotes to
Jesse James, and points to them as one of the causes for James’ social bandit status.145
141 San Francisco Examiner, August 9, 1892.
142 San Francisco Call, June 13, 1893.
143 Evans, “An Outlaw and His Family,” 99; see also, Smith, 258-261. Smith also provides details on Eva’s meetings with her father and Sontag.
144 San Francisco Examiner, September 20, 1892; San Francisco Call, September 14, 1892. 46
Jesse James was often portrayed as being smarter than his pursuers. James Deutsch
believes James received heroic status because newspaper writers respected him for his ability to
escape clumsy posses.146 This theme is expressed in various statements which discuss the inability of the law to capture Sontag and Evans in the early stages of the manhunt. In general, the articles depict the railroad detectives as bumbling. Several newspaper articles detail this
ineffectiveness. “Smith [railroad detective Will Smith] was too previous. Had he waited for help
the men would easily have been arrested, opined the Chronicle.”147 The Examiner concurred:
“Concerning Smith, Witty’s fellow Deputy Sheriffs and the citizens generally call him all sorts of
names, including coward and fool.”148 The Examiner ran an editorial that openly mocked
detective Smith and the methods he used to arrest Sontag and Evans. The author chides Smith for
“fearing to wound the supersensitive feelings of the train robbers” by declining to have the Evans
house surrounded by armed men. He states that Smith “vomited with fear” and sought a surgeon
for a “puny scratch.” The detectives “hurried and scurried over the plains and returned to Visalia
every few hours to consult and rearrange their plans.”149 Obviously, the San Francisco reporters had little respect for the way the detectives had handled the case. These types of statements fueled the idea that detectives would have to use unconventional means to capture Sontag and
Evans.
145 Kent Steckmesser, The Western Hero in History and Legend, 9.
146 Deutsch, 2-3
147 San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1892.
148 San Francisco Examiner, August, 10, 1892.
149 San Francisco Examiner, August 9, 1892.
47
One of the most universally present and heavily stressed motifs in the folklore of
American outlawry is the “Judas” theme.150 Kent Steckmesser also claims that this is an important element in uniting the Robin Hood and American outlaw legends. The social bandit can only die at the hands of some treacherous turncoat who sold out the outlaw. “For the outlaw to die by any other means than treachery, “says Steckmesser, “is unimaginable.”151 The
Chronicle ran an article in June 1893 that suggested Sontag and Evans had a “Judas” ready to give them up to law officials. The article describes a scene where the author is in a discussion with another man about Sontag and Evans when he sees a local farmer. The man tells the reporter, “There goes the man who is going to betray Evans and Sontag.” When pressed for a reason, the man says the rancher “had been in town arranging for delivering up the outlaws to the officers.”152 In another article found in the Examiner, the writer speculates that the woman who
took care of Evans’ wounds after the Stone Corral fight (and the mortal wounding of John
Sontag), had betrayed the outlaw by calling in detectives to arrest him.153 When Evans escaped
from jail in Fresno during his trial, he was eventually turned in to authorities by a man who
formerly protected him. The Call’s byline for this story read: “The Man Who is said to Have
Betrayed Evans.”154 The implication, of course, is anyone who turns Evans over to the law must be a traitor to the cause that Evans symbolized.
A final example in the creation of a social bandit often comes toward the end of the bandit’s career, either after he is captured or as public interest begins to fade. At this point, any
150 Meyer, 108.
151 Steckmesser, “Robin Hood and the American Outlaw,” 353.
152 San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1893.
153 San Francisco Examiner, June 14, 1893.
154 San Francisco Call, February 22, 1894.
48
of the bandit’s previous attributes could be denied and approval and admiration will decline.155
Chris Evans star had definitely faded by the point of his last capture, as one article in the
Examiner clearly points out.
Chris Evans is no longer a hero. He meanly abused the woman who was caring for his children during the absence of their mother, who went on the stage to earn money for their support and for his escape from justice. Moreover, he did not carry out his oft- repeated threat that he would die before he would be taken. It is more than likely that Chris will now shrink into the dimensions of a very ordinary murderer and convict, and drag out his miserable existence in one of the State’s prisons, execrated by all who knew him and conscious of the degradation to which his children are heirs.156
This is mild criticism to say the least. Chris’ star would continue to dull in the future as other accusations stained his reputation. In 1908, the Call reported on the release of George
Sontag, Chris’ one time partner in crime. At the time, George claimed Evans was nothing more than a common thief who stole money from George and John’s mother.157 Stories such as these
caused Evans to fade into obscurity and diminished his stature. Yet, as Myer points out this is a
common theme among the outlaw-hero type and a necessary element for achieving the status of
social bandit.158
155 Meyer, 111.
156 San Francisco Examiner, February 20, 1894.
157 San Francisco Call, March 20, 1908.
158 Meyer, 112. 49
Chapter 6
CONCLUSION
This essay began with the goal of illustrating how two men, accused of robbing trains and murdering law enforcement officials, came to be constructed as social bandits. Although several writers have written books on John Sontag and Chris Evans, and all of them have referred to the men as social bandits, no one had provided evidence to explain how this progression took place.
The historiography of social banditry makes it quite clear that a general set of circumstances needs to be in place for a cultural icon to be created.
At the outset, for the public to idolize a social bandit, the bandit has to be framed to reflect the beliefs of the people he is being presented to, he has to represent victory in the face of oppression, and he has to represent something meaningful to a wide range of people in order to be a hero. This process of constructing the social bandit takes place when a journalist or biographer recognizes that the circumstances are suitable and a character exists that fits the model set by previous writers.
Sontag and Evans lived during a period of California history when people were ready for a cultural hero to win their admiration. Socially and politically, California was in a state of chaos.
The People’s Party had begun to unify some areas of labor and farmers in rural parts of the state, but the California was still divided and suffering economically. Those in rural areas suffered equally as those in the cities, and Sontag and Evans came along during a time when the state needed a cultural hero, or heroes, to unify them against the political and economic oppression of the railroad. As Richard Slotkin points out, the outlaw hero often represented Americans struggles against contemporary problems in society. The crimes of an outlaw turn into symbolic 50
meaning; they become powerful messages to a society looking for a way to control their changing
civilization.159 Circumstances in California certainly contributed to the journalist’s ability to
construct Sontag and Evans as social bandits. In the end, contemporary journalists and later
biographers shaped the two men into social bandits by presenting them in stories that
sympathetically cast them as Robin Hoods, tricksters, and clever outlaws loved by the people he avenges. Certainly Sontag and Evans had numerous motives for committing their crimes, but in the hands of writers willing to create their image as social bandits, these two men were able to reach the heights of outlawry.
159 Slotkin, 4. 51
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