Indiana White Caps

White caps were secret terrorist bands operating in southern Indiana in the late 19th century. They became common in the state following the American Civil War and lasted until the turn of the 20th century. They beat or killed numerous victims. They often claimed the victims were either criminals or suspected criminals, but often the victims were simply people of whom the whitecappers disapproved. White Caps were especially active in Crawford and neighboring counties in the late 1880s, according to a report by Attorney General Louis T. Michener. Blacks and others they disliked were forced out; victims both male and female were severely whipped or whipped. Several members of the Reno Gang were lynched in 1868, causing an international incident. Some of the members had been extradited to the United States from Canada and were supposed to be under federal protection. Lynchings continued against other criminals, but when two possibly innocent men were killed in Corydon in 1889, Indiana responded by cracking down on the white cap vigilante groups beginning in the administration of Isaac P. Gray.

Governor of Indiana James A. Mount belonged to one of the white cap groups, and reversed state policy of trying to stop the groups. His successor, Winfield T. Durbin resumed the policy in 1900, two years after the Indiana General Assembly passed a strong anti-lynching law. When a lynching occurred in Vincennes in 1902 Durbin removed several law enforcement personnel from their position, to show that he expected locals to cooperate in stopping the lynching. His plan worked, and when a lynching was threatened in the following year local police notified Durbin who called out the state militia to guard the prison. When the white cap groups attacked the prison, the militia opened fire killing one and wounding at least eleven.

The show of force effectively brought an end to vigilante lynching in Indiana. Only two recorded lynchings have occurred since then, the 1930 murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. Lynching in Indiana was not explicitly racial, but tended to occur against anyone suspected of murder. Between 1860 and 1910, at least 68 people were lynched; twenty were blacks and forty-eight were whites.

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