| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Stephen J. Leonard. Lynching in Colorado 1859–1919. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. 2002. Pp. xiii, 246. $24.95.
Lynching stained the historical record of the western region of the United States in a manner different from, yet parallel to, what occurred in the American South. Stephen J. Leonard has uncovered 175 killings in Colorado from 1859 to 1919 that fit the definition established in the 1940s by anti-lynching activists and applied by the southern historian, W. Fitzhugh Brundage. Nearly all the victims died "'illegally at the hands of a group acting under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition'" (p. 3). In Colorado, the frequency of lynchings changed over time, as did the locations and the causes.	1
The 175 victims vary, but the majority of them can be identified. Such is not the case for the killers. Newspaper accounts and any legal investigations after the fact typically ruled that death occurred at the hands of persons unknown or unidentifiable. Members of the local community may well have recognized who did the deed, but very few members of lynching parties can be determined from historical records. This limitation means that Leonard's study relies on problematic accounts from newspapers and local histories that recount the assumed crime and how the accused died. About some episodes we have even less information. For example, an appendix that provides a detailed table of "Colorado Lynching Victims" (pp. 165–72) has no name for forty-three of the people listed. Leonard presents his historical evidence scrupulously and tries to explain the motivations of the anonymous lynchers. He writes with a dramatic, and sometimes humorous, touch. He delights in anthropomorphizing the disorganized mobs and vengeful gangs as "Judge Lynch" who prowled Colorado "like a wolf until 1903, after which he rarely found a victim" (p. 8).	. . .

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