" Given this background, it can hardly be surprising that hard drinking and the ruthless fighting called "rough and tumble," (which included biting off ears or noses and gouging out eyes) became hallmarks of the Southern backcountry way of life. Nor did it take much to get fighting started among these people, for "even in their poverty they carried themselves with a fierce and stubborn pride that warned others to treat them with respect."372 Vigilante movements were another facet of their violent pattern, and the name "lynch law" has been traced to one of their number named William Lynch, whose followers often flogged and sometimes killed their victims.373 These patterns continued long after Lynch's death in 1820, with most victims being white until the Reconstruction era in the South after the Civil War, when blacks became the main targets. "

― Thomas Sowell , Conquests and Cultures: An International History