John Arnold Hargis

The Wrath of Judge Lynch John Arnold Hargis

In December, 1900, three black men were lynched in Rockport and Boonville, Indiana at the hands of a mob. This dark history has been largely forgotten, leaving questions unanswered concerning the hangings and the brutal killing of a Rockport barber. Were the three men who were hanged guilty of the slaying? Were the lawless vigilantes influenced by the recent acquittal of a Negro male charged and tried with shooting the Marshall in the nearby town of Grandview? Why were no members of the mob, none of whom wore disguises, held accountable, or even identified by name, notwithstanding newspaper accounts and coroner and grand jury investigations? Why did state and local officials fail to enforce existing laws criminalizing lynchings? This book seeks answers to those questions, as well as chronicles the race wars (that reportedly were precipitated by the Rockport murder and lynching) which were waged throughout Southern Indiana during that time, reflecting the anti-Negro attitudes of its citizens. Why had those attitudes changed so drastically from earlier times when the Underground Railroad was championed in Southern Indiana, possibly influenced by Abraham Lincoln who boarded a flatboat in Rockport bound for New Orleans where he declared his abhorrence toward the treatment of black slaves?