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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1862 | 2 |
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 2 |
| 1882 | 1 |
| 1883 | 1 |
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| 1891 | 2 |
| 1892 | 4 |
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25 stories matching barbar
- The New Order at City Hall
As a new Democratic administration takes control of Seattle in 1892, Mayor J.T. Ronald pledges to end the 'barbarous spectacle' of chain gangs and clean up the city's corrupt contracting practices.
- The Shackles of King County
An editorial plea for a new courthouse and jail to address the 'barbarous' conditions for prisoners, the insane, and the public.
- The Brutal Doctrine of 'Root Hog or Die'
A Seattle newspaper editorial argues for the forced assimilation and dispossession of Indigenous people, mirroring the era's harshest colonial policies.
- The Ghostly Harvest of the North Pacific
A brutal accounting of how 19th-century pelagic sealers, operating out of Washington ports, pushed a species to the brink of extinction through industrial-scale slaughter.
- Three Thousand Pack the Armory to Cheer Debs and Denounce Pullman
Seattle workingmen and their allies fill Armory Hall to hear the strikers' side of the fight — a night of fiery speeches, white ribbons of peace, and one heckler hustled out the door.
- The Shadow Over Seattle's Early Growth
A vitriolic 1881 congressional speech from Thomas H. Brents reveals the dark, exclusionary labor politics that defined the foundations of the Pacific Northwest.
- The Cow War of Brooklyn and Latona
Seattle residents clash over the right to keep livestock in the city, pitting the 'backwoods' life against the sensibilities of the urban elite.
- The Mob is Not a Court of Law
An editorial reflection on the recent lynching of Bill at Colfax, arguing that a community’s failure to maintain a just legal system does not justify vigilante violence.
- The Local Press and the Mob
A critique of Washington newspapers that refused to take a hard moral stand against lynch law.
- The Fight Against Classroom Brutality
After the conviction of two teachers for beating a student in Chewelah, the P-I condemns corporal punishment as a 'relic of a dolorous age.'
- The Futility of the Gallows
One month after Seattle's first judicial execution of a white man, the local press questions whether state-sanctioned violence actually deters crime or simply breeds contempt for the law.
- The Deadly Farce of Frontier Justice
When a Whatcom jury ignored the law to acquit a man who murdered his wife and her lover, the press decried an epidemic of 'momentary insanity' defense.
- The Great Debate: Freethought vs. Orthodoxy in Snohomish
A fiery public debate pits local skeptics against orthodox believers over the nature of God, the morality of the Bible, and the necessity of eternal hellfire.
- The Illegal Slaughter of Cedar River Trout
Industrial laborers are accused of using giant powder to decimate local fish stocks, threatening the future of Seattle's most accessible sport fishing stream.
- The 'Black Hole of Calcutta' in Colfax
A judge declares the Whitman County jail a public health nightmare, forcing the sheriff to find humane quarters for the detained.
- The Battle for St. James Mission
A legal ruling uncovers the history of the Catholic mission at Vancouver and its tenuous claim to the land during the transition from Hudson's Bay Company rule to U.S. authority.
- The Loyalty Test at the Breakfast Table
A Kennewick editor argues that questioning official reports of German war atrocities is tantamount to treason.
- There's "Dough" in Every Street Contract: A Preacher Takes On City Hall
Rev. Napoleon Hoagland reads the nation's municipal record aloud — reeking streets, a million-dollar franchise given away, councilmen who elsewhere would count themselves lucky to stay out of prison — and asks why democratic America breeds more thieves than the Tsar's Europe.
- The Lumber Barons Are Starving Themselves: Why Puget Sound Should Be Feeding Its Own Cows
A local editorial argues that Washington’s reliance on imported dairy is an economic absurdity, urging farmers to switch from beef to Devon and Jersey cattle to capitalize on our unique climate.
- The Secular Send-off
When a Snohomish family rejected the fire-and-brimstone dogmas of the 1880s, they hired a friend instead of a priest to speak at a funeral, sparking a radical discourse on death, reason, and kindness.
- The Old Song of Reactionary Politics
A 1891 editorial draws a biting parallel between resistance to child protection laws in India and the stalling tactics of anti-progressives in the American West.
- A Leaded Revolver and a Restraining Order
Lena Barr’s divorce complaint accused her husband of years of cruelty — and of assaulting her with a loaded weapon in 1890.
- The Football Defense: A 19th-Century Debate on Brutality
Readers spar in the pages of the Post-Intelligencer over whether American college football is a ‘scientific’ athletic endeavor or a barbaric ‘prized-fight’ masquerading as sport.
- Enforcing Liquor Laws on the Reservation
General Alvord moves to protect immigrants while curbing the illegal sale of spirits to Indigenous populations.
- The Seattle Correspondent’s Gaze on China
A disorienting, 1877 report from a Seattle newspaper explores the rigid social hierarchies and gender dynamics of the Qing Dynasty through a lens of Victorian fascination.