The Myth of the Hangman: Ran Runnels, the Isthmus Guard, and the Suppression of Crime in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Panama

This essay reexamines a series of events that have come to characterize U.S. involvement in mid-nineteenth century Panama: mass hangings of suspected criminals, including prominent residents of Panama City, by a vigilante group led by a Texan, Ran Runnels, and funded by a U.S. corporation, the Panama Railroad Company. Though scholars, popular historians, and website authors routinely treat the mass hangings as a reality, they never took place. This essay discusses the problem of criminal attacks against U.S. citizens and other travelers crossing the Isthmus in the 1850s on their way to and from California following the discovery of gold and analyzes how crime was actually dealt with by Runnels’s Isthmus Guard in conjunction with the Panamanian provincial government. Then it explores how and why myths about the hangings have proliferated since the 1940s.