CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL BANDITS: THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS, 1889-1911
Ronald Edward Rife
B.A. University of California, Davis, 2003
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
HISTORY
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SPRING
2011
CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL BANDITS: THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS, 1889-1911
A Thesis
by
Ronald Edward Rife
Approved by:
___________________________________________, Committee Chair
Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D.
___________________________________________, Second Reader
Christopher J. Castaneda, Ph.D.
____________________________________
Date
ii
Student: Ronald Edward Rife
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format
manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for
the thesis.
________________________________, Graduate Coordinator __________________
Mona Siegel, Ph.D.
Date
Department of History
iii
Abstract
of
CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL BANDITS: THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS, 1889-1911
by
Ronald Edward Rife
This work chronicles the construction of two nineteenth-century train robbers from
Tulare County, California into social bandits. It presents the context of late nineteenth-century
California as an essential element in creating a social bandit, and suggests the unifying features of
the social bandit for California citizens. This study utilizes local newspaper, biographies, and an
unpublished memoir as source material for examining the construction of these two men as
“social bandits.”
_________________________________, Committee Chair
Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D.
_________________________________
Date
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface………….………………………………………………………………………... vi
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..1
2. THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL BANDITRY…..…………....…………….....5
3.
CALIFORNIA IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY..………………………. 15
4. THE SAGA OF SONTAG AND EVANS………….……………………………….. 24
5. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SONTAG AND EVANS AS SOCIAL BANDITS……..33
6. CONCLUSION.……………………………………………………………………….49
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..51
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PREFACE
This project grew out of my curiosity about the phenomena of “social banditry,” or how
criminal figures become cultural heroes. I became interested in how social bandits often rise
above their criminal activity to reach a status in the public eye as admirable icons. Yet, I was
unsure how this process actually happened. I also wanted to know why our culture idolizes a
character that we define as a social bandit. My curiosity led me through the well known figures
of Billy the Kid and Jesse James. In reading about these outlaws, I came to understand that much
of what we think we know about these men has been constructed by writers, both modern and
contemporary. Legend and fact are deeply entwined to the point where they have become
indistinguishable, yet this not discouraging. We are able to learn a great deal about a society that
attempts to construct a social bandit because historians have found traits common to all the most
well known social bandits.
The outlaws I read about came from places in the Midwest, far from my home in
California. I wondered why I had never heard of a social bandit in California. I thought about
the period of the late nineteenth-century when railroad magnets dominated California politics. I
thought of the farmers who struggled against the railroad’s fluctuating prices for transporting
goods, eventually demanding that the government regulate the railroad’s monopoly. I had heard
an area in the San Joaquin Valley that was known for train robberies and after some research, I
was surprised to learn that California had its own history of social bandits in the persons of John
Sontag and Chris Evans. After finding several articles in contemporary papers about Sontag and
Evans, I realized that the story of these two men had made a significant impact on California
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society in the late 1890s. Yet, while these men were well known in their time, no scholarly
research has addressed their exploits, nor more importantly, no one had attempted to detail the
construction of their climb from outlaws to social bandits. As such, this essay will attempt to
answer this question by presenting the context surrounding Sontag and Evans’ exploits and the
newspaper coverage that helped construct the men into social bandits.
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