Part 38 (1/2)
[Footnote 12: American Historical a.s.sociation _Report_ for 1904, pp. 579, 580.]
[Footnote 13: Charleston _Observer_, Nov. 24, 1827.]
[Footnote 14: _Ibid_., Nov. 10, 1827.]
[Footnote 15: New Orleans _Delta_, June 23, 1849.]
[Footnote 16: New Orleans _Bee_, Sept. 27, 1842, reprinted in _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 121, 122.]
Other examples will show that lynchings were not altogether lacking in those days in sequel to such crimes. Near the village of Gallatin, Mississippi, in 1843, two slave men entered a farmer's house in his absence and after having gotten liquor from his wife by threats, ”they forcibly took from her arms the infant babe and rudely throwing it upon the floor, they threw her down, and while one of them accomplished the fiendish design of a ravisher the other, pointing the muzzle of a loaded gun at her head, said he would blow out her brains if she resisted or made any noise.” The miscreants then loaded a horse with plunder from the house and made off, but they were shortly caught by pursuing citizens and hanged. The local editor said on his own score when recounting the episode: ”We have ever been and now are opposed to any kind of punishment being administered under the statutes of Judge Lynch; but ... a due regard for candor and the preservation of all that is held most sacred and all that is most dear to man in the domestic circles of life impels us to acknowledge the fact that if the perpetrators of this excessively revolting crime had been burned alive, as was at first decreed, their fate would have been too good for such diabolical and inhuman wretches.”[17]
[Footnote 17: Gallatin, Miss., _Signal_, Feb. 27, 1843, reprinted in the _Louisiana Courier_ (New Orleans), Mch. 1, 1843.]
An editorial in the _Sentinel_ of Columbus, Georgia, described and discussed a local occurrence of August 12, 1851,[18] in a different tone:
[Footnote 18: Columbus _Sentinel_, reprinted in the Augusta _Chronicle_, Aug. 17, 1851. This item, which is notable in more than one regard, was kindly furnished by Prof. R.P. Brooks of the University of Georgia.]
”Our community has just been made to witness the most high-handed and humiliating act of violence that it has ever been our duty to chronicle....
At the May term of the Superior Court a negro man was tried and condemned on the charge of having attempted to commit rape upon a little white girl in this county. His trial was a fair one, his counsel was the best our bar afforded, his jury was one of the most intelligent that sat upon the criminal side of our court, and on patient and honest hearing he was found guilty and sentenced to be hung on Tuesday, the 12th inst. This, by the way, was the second conviction. The negro had been tried and convicted before, but his counsel had moved and obtained a new trial, which we have seen resulted like the first in a conviction.
”Notwithstanding his conviction, it was believed by some that the negro was innocent. Those who believed him innocent, in a spirit of mercy, undertook a short time since to procure his pardon; and a pet.i.tion to that effect was circulated among our citizens and, we believe, very numerously signed. This we think was a great error.... It is dangerous for the people to undertake to meddle with the majesty of the jury trial; and strange as it may sound to some people, we regard the unfortunate denouement of this case as but the extreme exemplification of the very principle which actuated those who originated this pet.i.tion. Each proceeded from a spirit of discontent with the decisions of the authorized tribunals; the difference being that in the one case peaceful means were used for the accomplishment of mistaken mercy, and in the other violence was resorted to for the attainment of mistaken justice.
”The pet.i.tion was sent to Governor Towns, and on Monday evening last the messenger returned with a full and free pardon to the criminal. In the meantime the people had begun to flock in from the country to witness the execution; and when it was announced that a pardon had been received, the excitement which immediately pervaded the streets was indescribable. Monday night pa.s.sed without any important demonstration. Tuesday morning the crowd in the streets increased, and the excitement with it. A large and excited mult.i.tude gathered early in the morning at the market house, and after numerous violent harangues a leader was chosen, and resolutions pa.s.sed to the effect that the mob should demand the prisoner at four o'clock in the afternoon, and if he should not be given up he was to be taken by force and executed. After this decision the mob dispersed, and early in the afternoon, upon the ringing of the market bell, it rea.s.sembled and proceeded to the jail. The sheriff of the county of course refused to surrender the negro, when he was overpowered, the prison doors broken open, and the unfortunate culprit dragged forth and hung.
”These are the facts, briefly and we believe accurately, stated. We do not feel now inclined to comment upon them. We leave them to the public, praying in behalf of our injured community all the charity which can be extended to an act so outraging, so unpardonable.”
A similar occurrence in Sumter County, Alabama, in 1855 was reported with no expression of regret. A negro who had raped and murdered a young girl there was brought before the superior court in regular session. ”When the case was called for trial a motion for change of venue to the county of Greene was granted. This so exasperated the citizens of Sumter (many of whom were in favor of summary punishment in the outset) that a large number of them collected on the 23d. ult., took him out of prison, chained him to a stake on the very spot where the murder was committed, and in the presence of two or three thousand negroes and a large number of white people,[19] burned him alive.” This mention of negroes in attendance is in sharp contrast with their palpable absence on similar occasions in later decades. They were present, of course, as at legal executions, by the command of their masters to receive a lesson of deterrence. The wisdom of this policy, however, had already been gravely questioned. A Louisiana editor, for example, had written in comment upon a local hanging: ”The practice of sending slaves to witness the execution of their fellows as a terror to them has many advocates, but we are inclined to doubt its efficacy. We took particular pains to notice on this occasion the effects which this horrid spectacle would produce on their minds, and our observation taught us that while a very few turned with loathing from the scene, a large majority manifested that levity and curiosity superinduced by witnessing a monkey show.”[20]
[Footnote 19: _Southern Banner_ (Athens, Ga.), June 21, 1855.]
[Footnote 20: _Caddo Gazette_, quoted in the New Orleans _Bee_, April 5, 1845.]
For another case of lynching, which occurred in White County, Tennessee, in 1858, there is available merely the court record of a suit brought by the owners of the slave to recover pecuniary damages from those who had lynched him. It is incidentally recited, with strong reprehension by the court, that the negro was in legal custody under a charge of rape and murder when certain citizens, part of whom had signed a written agreement to ”stand by each other,” broke into the jail and hanged the prisoner.[21]
[Footnote 21: Head's _Tennessee Reports_, I, 336. For lynchings prompted by other crimes than rape see below, p. 474, footnote 60.]
In general the slaveholding South learned of crimes by individual negroes with considerable equanimity. It was the news or suspicion of concerted action by them which alone caused widespread alarm and uneasiness. That actual deeds of rebellion by small groups were fairly common is suggested by the numerous slaves convicted of murdering their masters and overseers in Virginia, as well as by chance items from other quarters. Thus in 1797 a planter in Screven County, Georgia, who had recently bought a batch of newly imported Africans was set upon and killed by them, and his wife's escape was made possible only by the loyalty of two other slaves.[22]
Likewise in Bullitt County, Kentucky, in 1844, when a Mr. Stewart threatened one of his slaves, that one and two others turned upon him and beat him to death;[23] and in Arkansas in 1845 an overseer who was attacked under similar circ.u.mstances saved his life only with the aid of several neighbors and through the use of powder and ball.[24] Such episodes were likely to grow as the reports of them flew over the countryside. For instance in 1856 when an unruly slave on a plantation shortly below New Orleans upon being threatened with punishment seized an axe and was thereupon shot by his overseer, the rumor of an insurrection quickly ran to and through the city.[25]
[Footnote 22: _Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser_ (Savannah, Ga.), Feb. 24, 1797.]
[Footnote 23: Paducah _Kentuckian_, quoted in the New Orleans _Bee_, Apr.
3, 1844.]
[Footnote 24: New Orleans _Bee_, Aug. 1, 1845, citing the Arkansas _Southern s.h.i.+eld_.]
[Footnote 25: New Orleans _Daily Tropic_, Feb. 16, 1846.]
If all such rumors as this, many of which had equally slight basis, were a.s.sembled, the catalogue would reach formidable dimensions. A large number doubtless escaped record, for the newspapers esteemed them ”a delicate subject to touch”;[26] and many of those which were recorded, we may be sure, have not come to the investigator's notice. A survey of the revolts and conspiracies and the rumors of such must nevertheless be attempted; for their influence upon public thought and policy, at least from time to time, was powerful.