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The Notorious Men of the Wild West

Khalid Elhassan December 4, 2019 32 min

9. The Sudden Shift From Lawman to Outlaw

Armed with warrants for the apprehension of accused murders and factional opponents, Charles Bowdre assisted the Regulators in tracking down and killing a number of men for “resisting arrest”. However, the territorial governor decreed that the justice of the peace who had commissioned the Regulators had been illegally appointed.

The governor’s decree meant that the justice of the peace had lacked the authority to issue the warrants enforced by the Regulators. As a result, Charles Bowdre and the rest of the Regulators were transformed from a legal posse to outlaws.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.