Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1992 Death at the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Geography of Lynching in the Deep South, 1882 to 1910. Mary Elizabeth Hines Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Hines, Mary Elizabeth, "Death at the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Geography of Lynching in the Deep South, 1882 to 1910." (1992). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5384. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5384 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Order Number 9302902 Death at the hands of persons unknown: The geography of lynching in the Deep South, 1882 to 1910 Hines, Mary Elizabeth, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1992 Copyright ©1993 by Hines, Mary Elizabeth. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, M I 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEATH AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN: THE GEOGRAPHY OF LYNCHING IN THE DEEP SOUTH, 1882 TO 1910 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Geography and Anthropology by Mary Elizabeth Hines B.A., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1981 M.A., University of Kansas, 1985 August, 1992 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the memories of my mother, Genevieve Givler Hines, and my friends, Dorothy Corlett Bardolph and Frances Edith Nungester. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is impossible to adequately thank the people who have given aid and comfort during the course of this long and disturbing study. I can only offer them my deep and sincere thanks for countless consultations, readings of very rough drafts, excellent suggestions (many of which prevented glaring and embarrassing errors of fact and judgement), words of encouragement, tidbits of information, new ideas, and unflagging support. My committee members have been most helpful and patient. I am grateful to Sam Hilliard, my mentor, with whom I share a love of the South, for his guidance and friendship; Paul Paskoff, economic historian and geographer-in-spirit; Carville Earle, historical geographer extraordinaire; Tony Lewis, physical geographer and excellent clarifier; Donald Scott, sociologist in criminal justice, who helped more than he needed to; and especially to Greg Veeck, China expert, economic geographer, statistical guru and editing wizard, who led me out of a dozen blind alleys and kept me from bogging down in a nightmare of numbers and obtuse text. Miles Richardson, cultural anthropologist, offered thoughtful suggestions, unwavering encouragement and iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. understood my angst. James Penn, historical geographer, helped me lay the ground work. Farrell Jones, computer genius, always appeared at critical moments. Mary Scott, of LSU's Research Services, LSU, Linda Tillman, Catherine Paine, and Roger Wojkeiwicz provided excellent technical support over many months of stultifying technical and statistical obfuscation. M. Watt Espy, Jr., Capital Punishment Research Project, provided invaluable legal execution data and information during a fascinating visit to Headland, Alabama in 1987. Roger Thomas, former Assistant Warden at the Louisiana State Prison at Angola, gave me access to convict data that no other source could supply and allowed me to be the first LSU Geography student to spend two weeks at Angola. The staffs of the Mississippi Department of Archives, LSU's Louisiana Collection, the Georgia Department of Archives, and the Alabama Department of Archives gave aid above and beyond the call of duty. Sigma Xi, The Society for Scientific Research, provided money to purchase Mr. Espy's legal execution data and a Robert C. West Field Research Grant and an Association of American Geographers Dissertation Research Grant helped with travel expenses. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I am especially grateful to Professor E. M. "Woody" Beck, sociologist, of the University of Georgia for his immediate and generous responses to my inquiries and for sharing his data with me. Eliza Husband never abandoned hope and spent a fortune on phone calls to reassure me and keep me laughing. Kathleen Kennedy gave liberal doses of sound advice seasoned with hilarity and Greek food. The encouragement of friends, especially Liz Urquhart, has sustained me in ways that I shall now attempt to repay. Finally, Michael Wolfe, my husband, supported me in all ways, read miles of microfilm and at least ten drafts, proved an excellent proof reader and a really good sport, procured the crawfish, fed the cat, and said every time it was needed, "You're doing it, Babe - - you're almost there." Despite this safety net of characters and others too numerous to mention here, but who have my thanks, all the gaffes and errors are mine alone. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Ease DEDICATION .......................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................... iii LIST OF TABLES .................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ...................................... X ABSTRACT .......................................... xiii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................1 LYNCHING AND OFFENSES ................. 10 VIOLENCE AND R A C E ..................... 13 THE AMERICAN SOUTH AND THE DEEP SOUTH ...24 ELEVEN SUB-REGIONS OF THE DEEP SOUTH 27 II LYNCHING IN THE POSTBELLUM SOUTH: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................... 41 III DATA AND METHODS ........................... 77 LYNCHING DATA ......................... 77 CENSUS DATA ........................... 79 LEGAL EXECUTIONS ...................... 98 INCARCERATION ......................... 99 OTHER DATA ........................... 103 METHODS .............................. 107 MAPPING .............. 108 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSES ............ 109 IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.................... 120 CORRELATION AND REGRESSION ............ 120 LYNCHING AND INNOVATION DIFFUSION..... 130 LYNCH-PRONE COUNTIES ..................141 LYNCHING AND COUNTY SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CLUSTERS ................ 168 LYNCHING AND LEGAL EXECUTION .......... 178 V CONCLUSIONS ............................... 195 EPILOGUE ............................. 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 222 Vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS APPENDICES page A LYNCHINGS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1891-1919 ...230 B LYNCHINGS IN THE DEEP SOUTH, 1882-1910 ..... 235 C LEGAL EXECUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1891-1910 ........................... 264 D LEGAL EXECUTIONS IN THE DEEP SOUTH, 1891-1910 ............................269 E COUNTY INCARCERATION RATES IN THE DEEP SOUTH, 1891-1910 ..................... 286 F