R. Giddings, _The Exiles of Florida_ (Columbus, Ohio,
1858).]

[Footnote 36: Diary of Dr. Henry Ravenel, Jr., of St. John's Parish,
Berkeley County, S.C. MS. in private possession.]

More frequent occasions for the creation of vigilance committees were the
rumors of plots among the blacks and the reports of mischievous doings by
whites. In the same Santee district of the Carolina lowlands, for instance,
a public meeting at Black Oak Church on January 3, 1860, appointed three
committees of five members each to look out for and dispose of any
suspicious characters who might be "prowling about the parish." Of the
sequel nothing is recorded by the local diarist of the time except the
following, under date of October 25: "Went out with a party of men to take
a fellow by the name of Andrews, who lived at Cantey's Hill and traded with
the negroes. He had been warned of our approach and run off. We went on and
broke up the trading establishment."[37]

[Footnote 37: Diary of Thomas P. Ravenel, which is virtually a continuation
of the Diary just cited. MS. in private possession.]

Such transactions were those of the most responsible and substantial
citizens, laboring to maintain social order in the face of the law's
desuetude. A mere step further in that direction, however, lay outright
lynch law. Lynchings, indeed, while far from habitual, were frequent enough
to link the South with the frontier West of the time. The victims were not
only rapists[38] but negro malefactors of sundry sorts, and occasionally
white offenders as well. In some cases fairly full accounts of such
episodes are available, but more commonly the record extant is laconic.
Thus the Virginia archives have under date of 1791 an affidavit reciting
that "Ralph Singo and James Richards had in January last, in Accomac
County, been hung by a band of disguised men, numbering from six to
fifteen";[39] and a Georgia newspaper in 1860 the following: "It is
reported that Mr. William Smith was killed by a negro on Saturday evening
at Bowling Green, in Oglethorpe County. He was stabbed sixteen times. The
negro made his escape but was arrested on Sunday, and on Monday morning
a number of citizens who had investigated the case burnt him at the
stake."[40] In at least one well-known instance the mob's violence was
directed against an abuser of slaves. This was at New Orleans in 1834 when
a rumor spread that Madame Lalaurie, a wealthy resident, was torturing her
negroes. A