Hangtown: The Dark Night

1852 was an election year. At that time, Hangtown was a mining camp in California's mother lode. The Native American Party was popular there because it wanted to make the United States a white, Protestant nation. Opposing the Nativists was Zach Johnson, the owner of the local newspaper. Zach's editorials argued women, Negroes, Indians, and immigrants deserved the same legal rights as native-born men. The struggle for dominance between the Nativists and Zach was unrelenting, and at times, ru...