Between 1848 and 1879, Mexican Americans across the United States were lynched at an unprecedented rate of 473 per 100,000 of population. Most of these lynchings were not instances of "frontier justice"— out of 597 total victims, only 64 were lynched in areas which lacked a formal judicial system. The majority of lynching victims were denied access to a trial while others were convicted in unfair trials. Mexican Americans had no avenues for justice in the early-American period. As a result, many of the folk heroes of this period were considered to be outlaws: robbers, social bandits, and freedom fighters.