Editing Lynching (section)

==Etymology==
The origins of the word ''lynch'' are obscure, but it likely originated during the [[American Revolution]]. The verb comes from the phrase ''Lynch Law'', a term for a [[Extrajudicial punishment|punishment without trial]]. Two Americans during this era are generally credited for coining the phrase: [[Charles Lynch (jurist)|Charles Lynch]] (1736–1796) and [[William Lynch (Lynch law)|William Lynch]] (1742–1820), both of whom lived in Virginia in the 1780s.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=lynch|website=Etymology OnLine|title=lynch|access-date=January 29, 2022}}</ref>  Charles Lynch is more likely to have coined the phrase, as he was known to have used the term in 1782, while William Lynch is not known to have used the term until much later. There is no evidence that death was imposed as a punishment by either of the two men.<ref name=quinion>{{cite web |title=Lynch |first=Michael |last=Quinion |work=World Wide Words |date=December 20, 2008 |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-lyn1.htm |access-date=August 13, 2014}}</ref>  In 1782, Charles Lynch wrote that his assistant had administered Lynch's law to [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Tories]] "for Dealing with the [[Black people|negroes]] [[Et cetera|&c]]".<ref name =EAAH1>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2006 |title=Lynching and Mob Violence |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African American History 1619–1895 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |last=Waldrep |first=Christopher |editor-last=Finkelman  |editor-first=Paul |volume=2 |page=308|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C&q=lynch|isbn=9780195167771 }}</ref>

Charles Lynch was a Virginia [[Quakers|Quaker]],<ref name="Cutler, James E. 1905">{{cite book |title=Lynch-law: An Investigation Into the History of Lynching in the United States |url=https://archive.org/details/lynchlawaninves03cutlgoog |first=James Elbert |last=Cutler |publisher=Longmans Green and Co. |year=1905}}</ref>{{rp|23''ff''}} [[Planter class|planter]], and [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriot]] who headed a county court in Virginia which imprisoned [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalists]] during the [[American Revolutionary War]], occasionally imprisoning them for up to a year. Although he lacked proper jurisdiction for detaining these persons, he claimed this right by arguing wartime necessity. Lynch was concerned that he might face legal action from one or more of those whom he had imprisoned, notwithstanding that the Patriots had won the war. In 1780, he persuaded the [[Continental Congress]] to pass Lynch's Law to forgive extrajudicial wartime Loyalist imprisonment.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=AndyRice |first1=D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ag-rEAAAQBAJ&dq=Continental+Congress+1780+Lynch's+law&pg=PA137 |title=Political Camerawork: Documentary and the Lasting Impact of Reenacting Historical Trauma |last2=Rice |first2=David Andy |date=May 30, 2023 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-06593-3 |language=en}}</ref> It was in connection with this that the term ''Lynch law'', meaning the assumption of extrajudicial authority, came into common parlance in the United States. Lynch was not accused of racist bias. He acquitted Black people accused of murder on three occasions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=atla;cc=atla;rgn=full%20text;idno=atla0088-6;didno=atla0088-6;view=image;seq=00732;node=atla0088-6%3A1 |title=The Atlantic Monthly Volume 0088 Issue 530 (Dec 1901) |website=Digital.library.cornell.edu |access-date=July 27, 2013}}</ref><ref name=webstersabridged>[http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?action=search&word=lynch+law&resource=Webster%27s University of Chicago, ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (1913 + 1828)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170523010101/http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?action=search&word=lynch%20law&resource=Webster%27s |date=May 23, 2017 }}</ref>  He was accused, however, of ethnic prejudice in his handling of [[Welsh Americans|Welsh]] miners.<ref name =EAAH1/>

[[William Lynch (Lynch law)|William Lynch]] from Virginia claimed that the phrase was first used in a 1780 compact signed by him and his neighbors in [[Pittsylvania County]].

A 17th-century legend of [[James Lynch fitz Stephen]], who was [[Mayor of Galway]] in Ireland in 1493, says that when his son was convicted of murder, the mayor hanged him from his own house.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Mayor Lynch of Galway: A Review of the Tradition |first=James |last=Mitchell |journal=Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society |volume=32 |date=1966–1971 |pages=5–72 |jstor=25535428 }}</ref> The story was proposed by 1904 as the origin of the word "lynch".<ref name="matthews1904">{{cite journal |title=The Term Lynch Law |first=Albert |last=Matthews |journal=Modern Philology |date=October 1904 |url=https://archive.org/stream/jstor-432538/432538#page/n11 |volume=2 |number=2 |pages=173–195 : 183–184 |jstor=432538 |doi=10.1086/386635 |s2cid=159492304 }}</ref> It is dismissed by etymologists, both because of the distance in time and place from the alleged event to the word's later emergence, and because the incident did not constitute a lynching in the modern sense.<ref name="matthews1904"/><ref name=quinion/>

The archaic verb ''linch'', to beat severely with a pliable instrument, to chastise or to maltreat, has been proposed as the etymological source; but there is no evidence that the word has survived into modern times, so this claim is also considered implausible.<ref name="Cutler, James E. 1905"/>{{rp|16}}

Since the 1970s, and especially since the 1990s, there has been a false etymology claiming that the word lynching comes from a fictitious [[William Lynch speech]] that was given by an especially brutal slaveholder to other slaveholders to explain how to control their slaves. Although a real person named William Lynch might have been the origin of the word lynching, the real life William Lynch definitely did not give this speech, and it is unknown whether the real William Lynch even owned slaves at all.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gregorybeamer.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/the-great-debaters/|title=The Great Debaters|date=March 25, 2008 |access-date=March 30, 2024}}</ref>