"The Contemplation of Our Righteousness:" Vigilante Acts

“THE CONTEMPLATION of OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” VigilAnte Acts AgAinst AfricAn AmericAns in Southwest MinnesotA, 1903 Christopher P. Lehman ilantism against African Americans ended, giving residents an ever- had taken place in the South, where present reminder of the South. Afri- n the last week of July 1903, the great majority of African Ameri- can Americans were restricted to such Minnesotans congratulated them- cans lived, but Minnesota’s location in jobs as barber, laborer, and domestic, I selves in newspapers all over the the Northwest and dearth of African but the state was not keeping them in state. There had been at least two op- Americans did not insulate the state perpetual debt as sharecroppers nor portunities between July 18 and July 23 from the ethnic tensions gripping was it lynching them. Minnesotans to lynch an African American man, the nation. Montevideo’s expulsion did lynch European Americans and but they had refrained from doing of its African Americans and Olivia’s Native Americans, but those killings so. Many claimed that he deserved lynching performance initiated Min- were irrelevant to claims of moral lynching because he had robbed nesota’s contributions to the nadir of superiority regarding southerners and attacked a European American African American life— a period that and African Americans. On the other woman in her home near Montevideo reached its most violent point in the hand, both Minnesota and the South in southwestern Minnesota: “As- state with the lynching of three Afri- relegated African Americans to an saulted in Her Own Home at Dead of can Americans in Duluth in 1920.2 inferior social and political status, Night by a Negro Fiend, who Brains Throughout Minnesota history, and the European American residents Her with an Axe” read one headline. its people have distinguished them- of both places were invested in main- Nevertheless, citizens had abided by selves from those in the South despite taining the status quo.3 the law and would let the courts han- that region’s strong influence on the dle the criminal. They would not be state. From the 1820s to the 1850s, the as savage as those southerners, whose U.S. Department of War appointed homas Jefferson, an African vigilante killings of African Ameri- slaveholders to serve at Forts Snelling, American from Kentucky, arrived cans constantly appeared in “Stories Ridgely, and Ripley, and the White Tin Minnesota in 1862, about 25 across the Country” sections of the House appointed slaveholders to years old, and lived all over the south- state’s newspapers. No, Minnesotans positions in Minnesota’s territorial ern part of the state before settling were different.1 government. The slaves of these ap- in Chippewa County. He met Betsy Or were they? Their celebrations pointees remained with their owners; White in Northfield; after they mar- of self- restraint left out incidents of Minnesotans did not use slave labor ried in the early 1870s, they moved terrorism- by- skin- color during that for local businesses such as lumber- to Mantorville. The first of their ten same five- day period. A mob chased yards and granite quarries. When all of Montevideo’s African Americans southerners left the state in 1861 to out of the city on the night of July 19 defend their region in the Civil War, CHRISTOPHER P. LEHMAN is a and, three nights later, residents of Germans and Scandinavians, who professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud nearby Olivia held a mock lynching of comprised the state’s majority, took State University. He was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s W. E. B. DuBois the criminal in lieu of actually killing control of government. Ex- slaves Institute in the summer of 2011. him. Most of the country’s acts of vig- flooded into the state after the war 268 MINNESOTA HISTORY children was born there, and Thomas about money. As he later confessed, Page one of Montevideo’s two weekly papers, started his lifelong profession as a he needed money and so decided to the Leader (left) and Commercial, July 24, 1903; barber. The Jeffersons relocated to rob the house. That decision would newspapers of the era did not mince words. Zumbrota in 1880 and Howard Lake have grave consequences for the in 1885; Thomas found work cutting county’s single- digit African Ameri- until between four and five a.m. to hair wherever the family went. By can population.5 break in. After finding what valuables 1893 at least two family members Thomas Olson, the Norwegian he could on the first floor, he went resided in Chippewa County: the pa- widower who owned the house, was up to the second floor, awakened triarch in Clara City and his daughter not at home. His daughter Helen, the women, and demanded Olson’s Winnie in Granite Falls.4 a milliner in her twenties, was left money. He then dragged her down Joseph Henry Scott, a 25- year- old alone, but her cousin Julia Torgerson the stairs. When she yelled to her African American, came to Chippewa had come to stay overnight. The cousin to get the revolver, Scott struck County by accident ten years later Torgersons— Thomas’s in- laws— had her twice over the right eye with an ax when his train from Sioux Falls was looked after the Olsons since the death handle, smashing her skull.7 sidetracked there on July 17, 1903. of Thomas’s wife in 1883; he and Helen Torgerson escaped through a win- The Kansas City native had just com- had lived for a while with the Torger- dow onto the porch (or kitchen) roof. pleted a 19- month prison sentence sons in Tunsberg, three miles north Scott stepped out of the house to fire for forgery, and he boarded the train of Watson. Eventually they returned his gun at her. He missed and then to start a new life in a new location. home, but the families stayed in fled. She screamed as she descended While stranded, he went looking for touch. By 11 p.m. on July 17, the last of from the roof and ran to a neighbor’s water and came upon a two- story Helen’s visitors for the day were gone. house. Many in the Watson commu- house on the outskirts of the town of She and Julia prepared for sleep.6 nity awakened to her screams, and Watson. He saw people outside the Scott lay in the grass outside the the townspeople quickly spread the house, and he overheard them talking Olson house that night and waited word about the incident. Neighbors FALL 2015 269 Helen Olson (above), pictured in the July 31, 1903, Montevideo Commercial along with reports that she would recover. The Olson house (right), showing Julia Torgerson’s window- and- roof escape route. who came to Olson’s house found her Olson girl at Watson this morning, Henry Halvorson— fired four shots lying on the floor, blood pooled under and I hold every man responsible for from his .38 Winchester. The last her head. She reportedly cried, “O the arrest of the negro. Who will go?” shot hit Scott in the arm, and he my head, my head, be careful of my By noon the sheriff had dispatched surrendered.11 head,” as doctors arrived. They im- posses to the northwest, northeast, First, townspeople took Scott mediately declared that she was near southwest, and southeast. An eight- to a doctor to examine his wound. death, and the community started its man posse from Milan and several Fearing for his safety, Milan officials hunt for any suspicious- looking Afri- others from Chippewa County towns wanted him transferred out of town can American man.8 assisted in the search. Meanwhile, as soon as possible. At 11:30 p.m., The residents of Montevideo, about Watson residents armed with rifles, Sheriff Hartley met the captive and six miles east of Watson, responded pistols, and shotguns scoured the his captors at a farm south of Milan quickly when they heard the news. countryside. The posses dispersed and assumed custody of Scott. As he The marshal rang the town hall bell with a mutual understanding that encountered groups of people while at 9:30 a.m., and residents swarmed whoever caught the perpetrator would traveling with the prisoner through to the building. County Attorney give him “short shrift,” as the St. Paul Chippewa County, he determined that Lyndon A. Smith, who only months Globe later put it.10 he could neither securely take Scott earlier had finished his term as lieu- All morning and afternoon, Scott to jail in Montevideo nor keep him tenant governor, approached the steps walked through the county. At 10 a.m. there. Lyndon Smith later confirmed of the hall and cautioned the crowd to he approached the Peterson house- to Gov. Samuel R. Van Sant, “There use restraint but to find the attacker.9 hold at Big Bend, about six miles were hostile crowds at both Watson As Smith spoke, Chippewa County north of Watson, and Mrs. Peterson and Montevideo, and I am of the opin- Sheriff Charles Hartley drove up in his fed him a meal. When her husband, ion that an attempt to lynch the negro buggy, and his actions set in motion Hans G. Peterson, came home and would have been made had he been a county- wide manhunt. The Mon- heard about his wife’s guest, he rode brought through here on a regular tevideo Leader reported that Hartley into Milan to tell the community. train as was expected.”12 announced, “In the name of the State Meanwhile, Scott hid in a grove and Hartley decided that Scott would of Minnesota, I as sheriff summon then, around 7 p.m., headed toward be safer two counties to the southeast, you and each of you to go with me in Milan.

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