Beginning with the events on March 21, 1841, violence and retribution escalated in the area around the Ogle County seat of Oregon. Illinois, still frontier in 1841, was settled by large numbers of migrants after the Black Hawk War. The settlers were followed to the area by a criminal element. The Banditti of the Prairie were part of the crime problem that plagued much of northern Illinois. As such, the concerned citizens of Ogle County organized and eventually took the law into their own hands.