Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an
American outlaw,
gang leader,
bank and
train robber from the state of
Missouri and the most famous member of the
James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the
Wild West after his death. Some recent scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-
Confederates following the
American Civil War rather than a manifestation of
frontier lawlessness or
economic justice.
[1]Jesse and his older brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks and murdered bank employees or bystanders. They also waylaid stagecoaches and trains. Despite popular portrayals of James as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang used their robbery gains for anyone but themselves.[2]
On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was a member of the gang living in the James house and who was hoping to collect a reward.
Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, near the site of present day Kearney, on September 5, 1847. Jesse James had two full siblings his older brother, Alexander Franklin "Frank" and a younger sister, Susan Lavenia James. His father, Robert S. James, of Welsh ancestry, was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky who migrated to Missouri after marriage and helped found William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.[1] He was prosperous, acquiring six slaves and more than 100&_160;acres (0.40&_160;km2) of farmland. Robert James travelled to California during the Gold Rush to minister to those searching for gold[3] and died there when Jesse was three years old.[4] After the death of Robert James, his widow Zerelda remarried twice, first to Benjamin Simms and then in 1855 to Dr. Reuben Samuel, who moved into the James' home. Jesse's mother and Reuben Samuel had four children together Sarah Louisa, John Thomas, Fannie Quantrell, and Archie Peyton Samuel.[3][5] Zerelda and Reuben Samuel acquired a total of seven slaves, who served mainly as farmhands in tobacco cultivation in Missouri.[5][6] The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed the James-Samuel household. Missouri was a border state, sharing characteristics of both North and South, but 75% of the population was from the South or other border states.[3] Clay County was in a region of Missouri later dubbed "Little Dixie," as it was a center of migration from the Upper South. Farmers raised the same crops and livestock as in the areas from which they had migrated. They brought slaves with them and purchased more according to need. The county had more slaveholders, who held more slaves, than in other regions. Aside from slavery, the culture of Little Dixie was southern in other ways as well. This influenced how the population acted during and after the American Civil War. In Missouri as a whole, slaves accounted for only 10 percent of the population, but in Clay County they constituted 25 percent.[7]
