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Killings: Folk Justice in the Upper South
The "State Line Country" of this book is a rugged area of small farms on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Historically the area has had a homicide rate more than ten times the national average.
In this gripping and penetrating study of violence and death in the State Line Country, Lynwood Montell examines the local historical and social conditions, as well as the prevailing attitudes and values, that gave rise and support to rowdy behavior and homicidal acts from the Civil War to the 1930s. The area fostered, he thinks, a culture of violence. Drawing from vivid oral accounts, which he recorded from present-day residents, Montell describes more than fifty killings that took place in the area, locating them against a background of farming, moonshining, and sawmilling activities common in that country. In addition to reconstructing the homicides, he analyzes their key features, including the circumstances under which they took place, the relationships of the persons involved, the presence of precipitating factors (such as deadly weapons and alcohol) in the culture, and attitudes toward law enforcement officers and the courts.
This close examination of homicide in the State Line Country, which views the tradition from regional and national perspectives, adds a significant dimension to the study of homicide in the South.
In this gripping and penetrating study of violence and death in the State Line Country, Lynwood Montell examines the local historical and social conditions, as well as the prevailing attitudes and values, that gave rise and support to rowdy behavior and homicidal acts from the Civil War to the 1930s. The area fostered, he thinks, a culture of violence. Drawing from vivid oral accounts, which he recorded from present-day residents, Montell describes more than fifty killings that took place in the area, locating them against a background of farming, moonshining, and sawmilling activities common in that country. In addition to reconstructing the homicides, he analyzes their key features, including the circumstances under which they took place, the relationships of the persons involved, the presence of precipitating factors (such as deadly weapons and alcohol) in the culture, and attitudes toward law enforcement officers and the courts.
This close examination of homicide in the State Line Country, which views the tradition from regional and national perspectives, adds a significant dimension to the study of homicide in the South.
216 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1985
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August 10, 2016
This is a great book on a rather hidden topic -- violence in the backwoods south. Montell studies a 9x10 mile area which overlaps between Kentucky and Tennessee and writes about the 50~ killings that happened there from earliest record and memory, up to the 1970's. His primary focus is on the more violent period between 1910-1950 or so.
The writing itself can be a bit dry, but the oral accounts are anything but that. These stories are really fascinating to those interested in Appalachian stories and lore. There's an occasional ghost story and local folk legend. As one reads them it's inevitable that a sort of pall of sadness falls over it all. Some of the descriptions are quite visceral.
The really short explanation for the violent culture is that the violence was not endemic from the start, but was introduced by the Civil War with it's violent roving marauders. Also there were few ways to survive in the area, except through moonshining which contributed to the violence as well. The attitude toward killings were that if it was justified in the eyes of the community, outside forces shouldn't become involved. Southerners who moved away showed no greater propensity for violence than the average.
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Some notes I took.....
Chapter 1 In the Beginning
Montell tells about the landscape of the study area and the people who moved in. They were extremely isolated and used bartering instead of cash. The Civil War really started it off, creating divisions and bands of roaming marauders. There were many feuds between violent bands and revenge killings, usually done in ambush. Also described are killings done purely for profit, for example; a woman traveling alone with money is murdered and her body disposed of in a cave -- reputed to be haunted afterward.
2 The Self-Sufficient Years
He writes of how families lived from 1890-1920, families lived in very close quarters, courting was done under the eye of family. Religion was fairly scarce, dances and social events were common. Multiple inbreeding between families was common. Two brothers married two sisters, had children, divorced and switched partners, had children with them, then switched back to their original partners! One crazy story of a murderer, caught but released by the local magistrate for $10 and a gallon of whiskey! It's amazing the intricate histories of the murders. One person is killed by another, then years later the killer, or his son for example, is killed by someone else, for something entirely unrelated. Stories of particularly rough families known for violence. One family sold moonshine in a house that was on the state line so they could avoid law enforcement on one side or the other. The Hardcastle family was the most notorious and violent of the bunch. They eventually got tired of sneaking moonshine down country roads and announced they would do it openly, leading to a violent ambush that killed several and broke up the operation.
3 - A Changing Culture - People subsisted on small agriculture, but the soil was rocky and hard to plant. Many people had stills in the 1910-1940s, often people would get warnings to hide their supply. By the mid-30's most of Appalachia had been logged, the mills turned the area from self-sufficient to a wage-based economy. The work was very dangerous, but paid better than they'd ever made before. Life in the logging camps was rough, men sometimes walking far distances to get there, other sleeping in camp became ill and fought and killed each other. But worse was when the logging industry left during the Depression years, men roamed the countryside looking for work.
4 Violence Between the World Wars - This period was characterized by increasing rowdiness. Most men carried guns everywhere, church, work, etc, typically concealed. One man man recounts sneaking whiskey into court and getting the judge drunk. Another recounts a brutal double murder over a will. One mill managers' son was kept out of jail for multiple shootings and killings, and eventually became a town marshall! One man reported to a sheriff how he murdered a particularly rough man, the sheriff told him to go kill some more of the guy's family(!) who were mutually despised. In one story some lawmen tried to bribe a boy to tell where his moonshining father was, he wanted his money in advance because, "those that goes up there don't come back."
5 A New Generation - Transportation, farm work and education in general remained very primitive until the close of WW2. With the coming of the war some men were drafted, many moved away to work elsewhere. In general the people who moved didn't bring their violent ways with them. Many died in car crashes post-WW2 when the automobile became common. There were a few killings in the 1940's and 50's, including a sheriff who shot a man, and his wife was later shot as she drove his police car. Things were quiet in the 60's, but numerous murders in the 70's. The most notorious criminal was Billy Dean Anderson (given a made up name in the book, but Google makes it easy to find with the details given) who committed crimes through the 60's and 70's across the country and was eventually hunted down near his mother's home. The locals helped him elude the FBI for five years, in defiance.
Conclusion - Killings were considered a legitimate way of resolving disputes between people. There were few instances of child abuse or wife-beating. Most killings were from confrontations, or ambush, and were over property or domestic issues. Almost half were between friends or neighbors. Production or consumption of alcohol was present in 94% of killings. Most killings went unreported to authorities. Often "community inquests" were held and as long as the motives for the killing were accepted, the person was let off. Rape was NOT usually forgiven by the community, and theft was looked down upon strongly. They got use to dealing with such things themselves and saw the often-distant police as intruders. Blood-ties weren't so strong that it led to a lot of revenge-acts as is commonly believed. The culture was still fluid and pioneer-like when the Civil War started, and it made a long-term impression of violence on the culture. Moonshine was once made at home, but when it became outlawed people purchased it and this caused more crime as gathering places for drinking popped up. Also the sawmills made a sustainable people reliant on wages and forced people close together. Some have speculated the south has always been violent, but Montell can find no evidence this was true until after the Civil War, at least for the area he has studied.
The writing itself can be a bit dry, but the oral accounts are anything but that. These stories are really fascinating to those interested in Appalachian stories and lore. There's an occasional ghost story and local folk legend. As one reads them it's inevitable that a sort of pall of sadness falls over it all. Some of the descriptions are quite visceral.
The really short explanation for the violent culture is that the violence was not endemic from the start, but was introduced by the Civil War with it's violent roving marauders. Also there were few ways to survive in the area, except through moonshining which contributed to the violence as well. The attitude toward killings were that if it was justified in the eyes of the community, outside forces shouldn't become involved. Southerners who moved away showed no greater propensity for violence than the average.
===============================
Some notes I took.....
Chapter 1 In the Beginning
Montell tells about the landscape of the study area and the people who moved in. They were extremely isolated and used bartering instead of cash. The Civil War really started it off, creating divisions and bands of roaming marauders. There were many feuds between violent bands and revenge killings, usually done in ambush. Also described are killings done purely for profit, for example; a woman traveling alone with money is murdered and her body disposed of in a cave -- reputed to be haunted afterward.
2 The Self-Sufficient Years
He writes of how families lived from 1890-1920, families lived in very close quarters, courting was done under the eye of family. Religion was fairly scarce, dances and social events were common. Multiple inbreeding between families was common. Two brothers married two sisters, had children, divorced and switched partners, had children with them, then switched back to their original partners! One crazy story of a murderer, caught but released by the local magistrate for $10 and a gallon of whiskey! It's amazing the intricate histories of the murders. One person is killed by another, then years later the killer, or his son for example, is killed by someone else, for something entirely unrelated. Stories of particularly rough families known for violence. One family sold moonshine in a house that was on the state line so they could avoid law enforcement on one side or the other. The Hardcastle family was the most notorious and violent of the bunch. They eventually got tired of sneaking moonshine down country roads and announced they would do it openly, leading to a violent ambush that killed several and broke up the operation.
3 - A Changing Culture - People subsisted on small agriculture, but the soil was rocky and hard to plant. Many people had stills in the 1910-1940s, often people would get warnings to hide their supply. By the mid-30's most of Appalachia had been logged, the mills turned the area from self-sufficient to a wage-based economy. The work was very dangerous, but paid better than they'd ever made before. Life in the logging camps was rough, men sometimes walking far distances to get there, other sleeping in camp became ill and fought and killed each other. But worse was when the logging industry left during the Depression years, men roamed the countryside looking for work.
4 Violence Between the World Wars - This period was characterized by increasing rowdiness. Most men carried guns everywhere, church, work, etc, typically concealed. One man man recounts sneaking whiskey into court and getting the judge drunk. Another recounts a brutal double murder over a will. One mill managers' son was kept out of jail for multiple shootings and killings, and eventually became a town marshall! One man reported to a sheriff how he murdered a particularly rough man, the sheriff told him to go kill some more of the guy's family(!) who were mutually despised. In one story some lawmen tried to bribe a boy to tell where his moonshining father was, he wanted his money in advance because, "those that goes up there don't come back."
5 A New Generation - Transportation, farm work and education in general remained very primitive until the close of WW2. With the coming of the war some men were drafted, many moved away to work elsewhere. In general the people who moved didn't bring their violent ways with them. Many died in car crashes post-WW2 when the automobile became common. There were a few killings in the 1940's and 50's, including a sheriff who shot a man, and his wife was later shot as she drove his police car. Things were quiet in the 60's, but numerous murders in the 70's. The most notorious criminal was Billy Dean Anderson (given a made up name in the book, but Google makes it easy to find with the details given) who committed crimes through the 60's and 70's across the country and was eventually hunted down near his mother's home. The locals helped him elude the FBI for five years, in defiance.
Conclusion - Killings were considered a legitimate way of resolving disputes between people. There were few instances of child abuse or wife-beating. Most killings were from confrontations, or ambush, and were over property or domestic issues. Almost half were between friends or neighbors. Production or consumption of alcohol was present in 94% of killings. Most killings went unreported to authorities. Often "community inquests" were held and as long as the motives for the killing were accepted, the person was let off. Rape was NOT usually forgiven by the community, and theft was looked down upon strongly. They got use to dealing with such things themselves and saw the often-distant police as intruders. Blood-ties weren't so strong that it led to a lot of revenge-acts as is commonly believed. The culture was still fluid and pioneer-like when the Civil War started, and it made a long-term impression of violence on the culture. Moonshine was once made at home, but when it became outlawed people purchased it and this caused more crime as gathering places for drinking popped up. Also the sawmills made a sustainable people reliant on wages and forced people close together. Some have speculated the south has always been violent, but Montell can find no evidence this was true until after the Civil War, at least for the area he has studied.
June 11, 2009
This book is about ~100 "killings" that took place in the border area between Kentucky and Tennessee, a folk-justice that the law, for the most part, stayed away from. The period began with killings by Civil War "Home Guards" on both sides, revenge upon returning from the war, and a subsequent culture of taking things into their own hands, whether disputes over moonshining, stealing a pig, or the dishonoring of a family member. My own family was heavily involved, and are mentioned throughout the book.
July 24, 2010
youins seen the scrapbook pictur ein the front of this here book killings? Thta was my family. my granny and poppy and their kids. and the big guy in the pictures, that was my poppy too. great book. i love this. it took place close to my hometown, wayne county ky. thank ye'(=
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