Guy Lancaster Livres

The Line between Lawmen and Lawless On December 26, 1910, Oscar Chitwood lay lifeless on the courthouse lawn in Hot Springs, his wrists shackled together, and his body torn by bullets. The deputies on the scene claimed that masked men had lynched their prisoner and that the lawmen were innocent bystanders to the carnage. Newspapers everywhere proclaimed this killing another example of vigilantism run rampant. Within days, however, the official story fell apart, and these deputies were charged with cold-blooded murder. Authors Guy Lancaster and Christopher Thrasher tell the little-known story of accused outlaw Oscar Chitwood, the authorities he dared defy, and the mysterious resort town of Hot Springs, a place where the Wild West met the epitome of civilization, and where the boundaries between lawman and outlaw were never all that clear.

Lynching is often viewed as a narrow form of violence: either the spontaneous act of an angry mob against accused individuals, or a demonstration of white supremacy against an entire population considered subhuman. However, in this book, historian Guy Lancaster exposes the multiple forms of violence hidden beneath the singular label of lynching.

Focusing on the historical context of lynching in Arkansas, this collection delves into the experiences of victims, perpetrators, and those who resisted vigilante violence from slavery through the mid-twentieth century. It uncovers how lynching was used to establish and maintain authority in the state, providing a comprehensive examination of this dark chapter in Arkansas's history.