CALIFORNIA*-- IN A high school in Littleton, two youths randomly shoot and kill 12 fellow students and a teacher, then commit*suicide.In a home in San Miguel, near San Luis Obispo, six young men randomly attack its 11 occupants. With guns, knives, and axes, they kill them all: men, women and children. A pregnant mother is stabbed to death; so is her unborn child. An old man and three boys, ages 3 to 5, die with their heads split open. The bodies are piled in a heap and set on*fire.
One of these events is in the news; the other, long forgotten. The crimes are separated by 150*years.
The shootings at Columbine High triggered national soul searching. Blame has been pointed at everything from assault weapons to computer games and violent*films.In the wake of such a tragedy, it is important that Americans view the Colorado killings, as well as violence in general, in historical*context.
It becomes plain that levels of violence in modern America are infinitesimal when compared with those of the Western*frontier.
The San Miguel massacre, one of the worst U.S. mass murders of the 19th century, took place at the beginning of the Gold Rush. It was an omen of bloodshed to come. The*49ers*who rushed into California created not just a new frontier, a new industry and a new state, but a culture of extraordinary violence. The Gold Rush saw rates of homicide never equaled in American*history.
The annual homicide rate in the United States in the late 1990s is about 9 per 100,000*population.Between September 1850 and September 1851, 31 homicides were recorded in the pueblo of Los Angeles, which then had 2,500*residents.
As calculated on the modern FBI crime-rate scale, this is equivalent to an annual rate of 1,240 homicides per 100,000*population.
During the rest of the 1850s, Los Angeles County continued to experience horrific homicide rates ranging from a low of 110 to a high of 414 on the FBI*scale.
During the same period, the homicide rate in the Tuolumne County mining camp of Sonora was 506 on the FBI scale. This was more than 50 times the current national*rate.Many Gold Rush communities experienced astronomic rates of homicide -Monterey*County, 333; Tuolumne County, 110; Nevada County,*81.
San Francisco was relatively peaceful, with an average annual homicide rate of 49, five times that of*today.
Computer games, violent films and assault weapons played no part in Gold Rush violence. The causes were much more*complex.
The rise in industrialism led many young American men to leave farms and villages to work in urban factories and mills. This caused fundamental breakdowns in social and family life, and disrupted the time-honored master / apprentice system which had previously provided for upward social*mobility.
In the 1830s and 1840s, a bachelor cult of masculinity arose. Young urban males, bored and uninspired by industrial labor, rejected traditional values of work, sobriety and frugality. Without organized sports or recreational activities, young men clustered in saloons, political clubs, militia companies and firehouses. There they drank, gambled and battled each other in violent defense of personal*honor.
Thousands of these young Americans flooded into California in 1849 and after. In the mines they encountered gold seekers from every corner of the earth: Mexico, South America, Europe and*China.
Ethnic, religious, economic and political strife became commonplace. During the first years of the Gold Rush there were no courts, no police and no prisons, so every miner carried a pistol or Bowie knife for*protection.
Men died by the thousands in brawls, mining disputes, bandit raids. formal duels, riots and lynchings. On average, a California resident of the 1850s was 17 times more likely to be murdered than in*1999.
Take heart, America. Things just aren't as bad today as we think they*are.
I blame hip-hop.
did lizzie borden scream "worldstar"?
got that "thug life" embroidered on my vest