Stuart's Stranglers: Difference between revisions

'''Stuart's Stranglers''' was a well-known [[vigilante]] group in [[Montana]] that was founded by wealthy ranchers in 1884 and led by [[Granville Stuart]] in response to widespread [[Cattle raiding|livestock theft]] at that time. They were also less commonly known as the "Montana Stranglers."

Cattle thieves posed a significant threat to the profits of ranchers in [[Montana Territory]]. The rustlers operated well-organized networks that stole stock in one region and sold it in another, often across the Canadian border. By the late 1870s, ranchers began to form stockgrowers' associations to lobby the territorial legislature for legislation to curb the theft. At the 1883 legislative session, the cattlemen successfully lobbied for a bill that placed a bounty on predators such as coyotes and wolves. But the bill they desired most failed. House Bill 49 would have created a board of five livestock commissioners and hired six inspectors. Further, it would have invested the inspectors with the power to arrest suspected livestock thieves without a warrant. Governor [[John Schuyler Crosby]] vetoed the bill on the grounds that it unfairly taxed all property and that it gave too much freedom to inspectors. Faced with a rustling industry unchecked by legal means, many ranchers felt they had no alternative butproceeded to take the law into their own hands.<ref name="Clay">{{cite journal |last1=Clay |first1=T. A. |title=A Call to Order: Law, Violence, and the Development of Montana's Early Stockmen's Organizations |journal=Montana The Magazine of Western History |date=Autumn 2008 |volume=58 |issue=3 |pages=48–96 |jstor=25485736 }}</ref>