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48 stories matching coerc
- The Expulsion at Seattle: Vigilante Committees Force Out Chinese Residents
A report from the Seattle 'Committee of Fifteen' details their campaign to coerce the Chinese population to leave, as local business leaders and the 'Knights of Labor' consolidate power.
- The 'Bullpen' at the Roslyn Mines
When the Northern Pacific Railroad imported scab labor to break a strike in 1888, the local Democratic convention issued a blistering condemnation of the 'armed police' used to coerce workers.
- The Mayor of Gilman's Violent Vengeance
After discovering his wife was coerced into an affair, the Mayor of Gilman took matters into his own hands in a public beating that transfixed the town.
- The Tragedy of Ursula Unfag
In a sensational murder trial, defense attorneys reveal a harrowing cycle of abuse and exploitation behind the death of a local editor.
- The Battle for the Puyallup Reservation
A federal judge rules that the United States government no longer has absolute control over allotted Indian lands, clearing the way for a railroad to cross the Puyallup reservation.
- The Detective’s Trap: A High-Stakes Kidnapping and Coercion Plot in 1889 Seattle
A young woman, under legal guardianship after a landmark trial, is lured into a carriage by a female imposter and delivered into the hands of a desperate man wielding a pistol.
- The Fugitive Bride of Ellensburg
After a coerced marriage and a secret divorce, a local real estate dealer’s legal nightmare ends in a mysterious chase across the state.
- A Young Girl Vanishes from a Spokane Variety Theater
A teenage girl is missing after being allegedly coerced into a variety theater, sparking a public outcry and exposing local police corruption.
- The Sunday Saloon War: When Seattle’s Business Elite Fought for the Right to Rest
In January 1885, a heated civic battle erupted over the enforcement of Sunday closing laws, pitting the city’s liquor trade against a coalition of reformers and weary laborers.
- The Trial of a Seattle Predator
A harrowing look inside the coercive control and exploitation used by a man against his partner, as revealed through their private correspondence in court.
- Masters and Pilots Revolt Against Port Inspector
A powerful local maritime union files formal charges against U.S. Inspector W. J. Bryant, alleging systemic corruption, bullying, and insurance kickbacks.
- The Human Trafficking Trial of Alexander Fanchaut
A Walla Walla man faces federal charges for bringing a French woman to the United States under false promises of marriage and coercing her into sex work.
- The Judge on Trial
A defendant accuses a Whitman County judge of coercion, bribery, and witness tampering in a desperate bid to clear his name.
- The Ghost Town That Only Existed on Paper
How two swindlers and a 'Nebraska Cyclone' preacher conned a community with a townsite located entirely in a duck-filled salt marsh.
- The Dark Secrets of a Deathbed Will
A Centralia druggist claims his arrest on fraud charges is a retaliation for his testimony regarding a coerced deathbed will that disinherited a dying man to benefit his doctor.
- The Opium Conspiracy: How Seattle’s Customs Chief Played Both Sides
A dramatic trial reveals a scheme where federal inspectors smuggled contraband across the border while pretending to seize it, exposing deep corruption in early 20th-century Pacific Northwest law enforcement.
- The Tulalip Residents' Stand
A group of residents of the Tulalip Reservation sign a collective protest against an Indian Agent's interference in their logging operations and relationship with their white neighbors.
- City Hall Under Siege
Mayor Ronald is coerced by a stormy aldermanic caucus into appointing J. M. Wolfe to the Board of Public Works.
- A Midnight Knock, a Bloody Hat, and the Farmer Who Vanished
Charles Gloystein joined an oath-bound farmers’ society near Mica, tried to leave, and disappeared. A bloody hat was all searchers found.
- The Newspaper Letter That Nearly Started a Fight in the Washington Senate
With the U.S. Senate election deadlocked in Olympia, a Pierce County senator read a rival’s letter aloud — and the chamber erupted over money, lobbyists, and borrowed favors.
- A Web of Extortion in Seattle
A defense attorney alleges police and lawyers conspired to coerce a fourteen-year-old girl into testifying against her own stepfather.
- Abandoned and destitute, a woman accuses local fortune teller of exploitation
After collapsing on a Walla Walla street, a young woman details a coerced journey from Boise and a harrowing attempt to force her into sex work.
- The Fight to Regulate Streetcar Conductors
A proposed city ordinance aimed at ensuring worker safety and public protection faces pushback from a company-linked petition.
- The Ice Water Gambit: How a Seattle Drifter Was Framed for Theft
A local vagrant was doused in freezing water and coerced into a false confession by a cunning runner, only to be caught red-handed on Third Street.
- The Unlikely Plea for a Young Man’s Pardon
A convicted man at the state penitentiary steps forward to clear his accomplice, arguing that he was the sole criminal mastermind and his partner was merely a pawn.
Also about this, in other words
- The Pioneer Argument Against Prohibition
An 1854 speech by legislator Mr. Chenoweth argues that legal coercion is a poor substitute for individual morality in the fight against intemperance.
- The Trial of Ursula Boyd: A Labyrinth of Coercion
A woman stands trial for the murder of the man who, according to her testimony and a cache of intimate letters, forced her into prostitution and systematic blackmail.
- The Coerced Vote: A State Official’s View on Compulsory Citizenship
When a worker asked if employers had the right to force registration, the Secretary of State endorsed the pressure, setting a precedent for civic ‘tyranny.’
- A Woman Defies Her Husband’s Attempts at Institutionalization
A Colfax woman successfully defends her sanity after her husband attempts to have her committed to an asylum.
- A Domestic Disturbance on West Street
A local lodging-house keeper faces the fallout of a violent, estranged husband's return after a year of absence.
- The Clerk Who Stole His Boss’s Fortune to Gamble Away
Leander Miller returns from a political trip in Olympia to find his confidential clerk, J.H. Corcoran, has drained his accounts through gambling debts.
- The Divorce Decree: A Seattle Woman’s Fight for Freedom from Willful Abandonment
In July 1876, Eliza Carakaden was served with a summons in King County District Court, marking one of the earliest recorded legal battles for divorce in the young settlement of Seattle.
- Tension Rises at the Cœur d'Alene Reservation Border
Farmers near Fairfield arm themselves as a series of skirmishes leaves both Indigenous residents and white settlers fearing violence.