Outlaws in American History
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The outlaw is an almost mythical character in American history, and their stories have been told in almost every conceivable format. While the outlaw has certainly been a part of our society from its very beginnings, the greatest outlaws in our history are found during the period from the end of the Civil War to the mid-1930s. This is the period that encompassed the lives of legendary figures from Jesse James to John Dillinger.
The American West produced many of the most iconic outlaws in history, beginning with legends like Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Many of these outlaw legends had their beginnings in the Civil War, fighting on either side of the war, the most famous of these being Jesse James.
Jesse James is often seen as an American Robin Hood, although his motivations for robbery were far from altruistic. In 1863, after serving under guerilla leader "Bloody" Bill Anderson, during which he participated in the Centralia Massacre, Jesse joined his older brother Frank in the ranks of Quantrill's Raiders. In 1866, a group possibly including Jesse, robbed a bank in Liberty, Missouri, marking the beginning of Jesse's criminal life. Yet, it was a bank robbery in December of 1869 that would make Jesse famous when he killed a cashier who he believed to be Samuel Cox, a former Union soldier, as revenge for Cox killing "Bloody" Bill Anderson during the war. By the time of his death in 1882, at the hand of gang member Bob Ford, Jesse had become the most notorious outlaw in America.
Another contemporary of Jesse James who has attained iconic status in history is William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. Although Billy's exploits occurred in a much shorter period of time, he has been immortalized through song, film and literature. The legend of Billy the Kid began with the murder of John Tunstall. When Tunstall was killed in 1876, Billy became one of the leaders of a group of former Tunstall employees known as "The Regulators" during the Lincoln County War. Billy would kill as many as six men during this time. In 1880, he was tracked down and arrested by Pat Garrett but escaped from jail and went into hiding. Garrett tracked him down again, and on July 14, 1881, he killed Billy with a single pistol shot to the heart in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. It was rumored that Billy had killed one man for every year of his life.
The turn of the 20th century brought the introduction of a new type of outlaw, beginning in 1900 with the "Wild Bunch" which included the infamous duo of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Instead of banks, this band had a penchant for holding up trains. Their exploits would later be the subject for one of the most popular films of all time, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
The Great Depression would lead to the return of the outlaw, with crimes perpetrated by such famous villains as John Dillinger, Clyde Barrow (and his gun-toting moll Bonnie Parker), "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Machine Gun" Kelly and "Baby Face" Nelson. These criminals terrorized Middle America for several years in the early 1930s, robbing banks and shooting it out with police from Illinois to Texas. This period also saw the rise of the FBI, who played a large role in bringing all of these modern day outlaws to justice, having a hand in the capture of all of these criminals.
While there have been outlaws in every time period in American history, the 70 years between the end of the Civil War and the end of the Great Depression contains the vast majority of these legendary figures. The outlaw ideal is an important part of the American experience, and while history records these individuals as criminals, there are many who see them as freedom fighters and revolutionaries who stood up to the government and what they saw as the marginalization of the poor.