In the 18th century, two men shared the same second name who got involved with the law.
Charles Lynch was born in an America that was still under British rule. He lived in Bedford County, Virginia. He was a large landowner, a leading citizen, and immensely wealthy as a result of his farming of tobacco and cattle.
Since he was a large business owner, he was approached by citizens to be a part of the Virginia Assembly, which he refused. In 1767, he was appointed the judge of the peace of Bedford County, Virginia. He served the House of Burgesses and the convention for 10 years, starting in 1769 and became a militia colonel.
To put down a loyalist uprising in 1780, Charles Lynch handed down sentences after a summary trial at an informal court. The suspects were handed sentences, including whipping, property seizure, coerced pledge of allegiance and conscription into the military.
His actions were legitimised by the Virginia General Assembly in 1782, and he served the Virginia Senate from 1784 to 1789.
This form of handing punishment came to be known as Lynch’s Law.
In 1780, Captain William Lynch of Pittsylvania, Virginia, led vigilance committees to maintain order during the Revolution. In 1811, he claimed that it was a compact signed between him and his neighbour to uphold their own brand of law independent of legal authority.
Charles Lynch had passed away in 1796.
In 1820, Lynch's Law referred to extrajudicial punishment honouring the wishes of a large number of people. By the 1880s, the meaning of the word Lynch had narrowed to extrajudicial killings of Black people by While mobs. This shift may have been a result of the work of Ida B Wells, who coined the term Lynch Mobs.