Jesse James: Outlaw, Proclaimed Philanthropist, and His Assassination

In the mid to late 1800s, Wild West outlaws soon became romanticized when their stories hit the pages of early American tabloids and dime-store novels, which portrayed the men as underdogs who fit the American frontier ideals of gutsy individualism and pioneering rebel spirit.

Who is Jesse James?

Born in Clay County, Missouri in 1847—an area known as “Little Dixie” in the western part of the state—Jesse James grew up in a slave-owning family who supported the Confederate cause, and when Jesse was a teenager in 1864, he and his brother Frank became members of a guerrilla outfit known as bushwhackers, who murdered dozens of Union soldiers, leading some historians to speculate that his post-war anger over the South’s defeat led to his violent career robbing trains, stagecoaches and banks.

The James-Younger Gang

By his own admission, Jesse saw himself as a modern-day Robin Hood, who took from the rich and gave to the poor, although no evidence exists that he ever gave money to anyone outside his immediate family. According to the State Historical Society of Missouri, the James-Younger gang worked a broad swath of territory, from Iowa to Texas and even as far East as West Virginia.

From 1860 to 1882, the James-Younger gang committed more than 20 bank and train robberies, pocketing an estimated $200,000, or approximately $4 million in today’s inflated currency. When newspapers began reporting on the renegade band of outlaws, Jesse’s thirst for public attention became insatiable, while his ever-widening legend was fueled by the help of newspaper editor John Newman Edwards, who was responsible for perpetuating Jesse’s Robin Hood comparisons thanks to Jesse’s own words.

“We are not thieves, we are bold robbers.”

Jesse James

Jesse wrote in a letter to Edwards that was later published, “I am proud of the name, for Alexander the Great was a bold robber, and Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte.”

The Assassination of Jesse James

In 1881, Missouri Governor Thomas Crittenden offered a $10,000.00 reward—roughly $200,000.00 in today’s money—for the capture of Jesse and Frank James. On April 3rd, 1882, Jesse was shot and killed by Robert Ford, who was a new recruit to the James-Younger gang.

Having been promised amnesty for their prior crimes if they successfully brought in Jesse James, Robert and his brother Charles surrendered themselves to legal authorities but were dismayed when they were charged with first degree murder. In the course of a single day, the Ford brothers were indicted and sentenced to death by hanging, only to be granted a full pardon two hours later by Governor Crittenden himself.