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.
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