Kangaroo, Vicksburg
Antebellum gambling district
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kangaroo, Mississippi was a "red-light district" and/or shantytown located just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States, in a swampy spot where the Glass Bayou entered the Mississippi River.[1] The settlement took its name from its most famous brothel, but no one living knows how that house of ill repute got its name.[2]
Prior to the American Civil War, Kangaroo was notorious for its gambling halls and occasional instances of public disorder resulting from disputes between the players and/or local law enforcement.[3] According to a study of colonial and antebellum Warren County, "The Kangaroo was a constant source of embarrassment and fear for Vicksburg's established residents."[4]
Kangaroo was leveled by a fire in 1834, and "A hundred or so gathered to mourn the death, as one local wit put it, of their 'friend,' the 'celebrated KANGAROO."[4]
Besides the gamblers, other denizens of Kangaroo included "prostitutes, and drunken brawlers."[5]
1835: Vicksburg versus the gamblers
On July 5, 1835, the gamblers of Kangaroo shot and killed Rev. Dr. Hugh Bodley, a Presbyterian minister.[1] Another account says Bodley died "trying to blast the gamblers out of a coffee shop."[4] Consequent to this, the people of Vicksburg hanged a number of gamblers and affiliates, an instance of vigilante violence emblematic of the age of Jackson.[6] This mass lynching is cited as an example of the tradition of "quasi-respectable violence in America. Vigilantes conceived of their violence as a supplement to, rather than a rebellion against the law."[6] Southern authorities (compared to the North) showed a marked and measurable indifference to the repression of white mobs.[6] The lynched gamblers were tavern keeper Alfred North and his barkeeper Dutch Bill, Samuel Smith, Hullams (or Cullum or Holms or Helm), and McCall.[7][8][9][10] Bodley was the brother of a lawyer named William S. Bodley, who had moved from Kentucky to Vicksburg in 1830, and was law partners with John Templeton. William Bodley "acquired and developed considerable real estate."[11]
See also
- DeSoto Island – Vicksburg's dueling grounds
- Natchez-Under-the-Hill
- Narrative of Henry Watson, A Fugitive Slave – describes gambling in Vicksburg
