Part 4 (1/2)
”The body,” says that paper, ”was taken and chained to a tree immediately on the bank of the Mississippi, on what is called Union Point. The torches were lighted and placed in the pile. He watched unmoved the curling flame as it grew, until it began to entwine itself around and feed upon his body; then he sent forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to the tree, not being well secured, drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the sharp ring of several rifles was heard, and the body of the negro fell a corpse to the ground. He was picked up by two or three, and again thrown into the fire and consumed.”
”ANOTHER NEGRO BURNED.--We learn from the clerk of the Highlander that, while wooding a short distance below the mouth of Red river, they were _invited to stop a short time and see another negro burned_.”--_N. O. Bulletin._
Thus we see that burning negroes alive is treated as a spectacle, and strangers are invited to witness it. The victim of this exhibition was the negro Enoch, said to have been an accomplice of Joseph, and was burned a few days after the other.
We have thus given you no less than _six_ instances of human beings publicly burned alive in four slave States, and in each case with entire impunity to the miscreants engaged in the horrible murder. But these were cases which _happened_ to be reported in the newspapers, and with which we _happened_ to become acquainted. There is reason to believe that these executions are not of rare occurrence, and that many of them, either through indifference or policy, are not noticed in the Southern papers.
A recent traveller remarks, ”Just before I reached Mobile, two men were _burned alive_ there in a slow fire in the open air, in the presence of the _gentlemen_ of the city. No word was breathed of the transaction in the newspapers.”--_Martineau's Society in America_, vol. I., p. 373.
But the murderous spirit deplored by the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama, and the ”frightful deluge of human blood” complained of by the New Orleans editor, had no reference to the murder of _negroes_. Men who can enjoy the sight of negroes writhing in flames, and are permitted by the civil authorities to indulge in such exhibitions, will not be very scrupulous in taking the lives of each other. You well know how incessantly the work of human slaughter is going on among you: and no reader of your public journals can be ignorant of the frequent occurrence of your deadly street fights. But, for the reason already given, we meddle not with these. We charge the slaveholding community, as such, with _sanctioning_ murder, and protecting the perpetrators, and setting the laws at defiance. This we know is a grievous charge, and most grievous the proof of it. But mistake not our meaning. G.o.d forbid we should deny that many of the community to which we refer, utterly abhor the atrocities we are about to detail. We speak of the murderous feelings of the slaveholding community, just as we speak of the politics, the manners, and the morals of any other community, freely acknowledging that there are numerous and honorable exceptions. For the general truth of our a.s.sertion, we appeal to the authorities and the facts we have already laid before you, and to those we are about to offer.
You have already seen that the pro-slavery press has recommended the murder of such northern abolitionists as may be caught in the South; we now ask your attention to the efforts made by the slaveholders to get prominent abolitionists into their power.
In 1831, a citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts established a newspaper at Boston, called the Liberator, and devoted to the cause of negro emanc.i.p.ation.
The undertaking was perfectly legal, and he himself, having never been in Georgia, had of course violated none of her laws. The legislature, however, forthwith pa.s.sed a law, offering a bribe of $5000 to any person who would arrest and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, the editor and publisher of the Boston paper. This most atrocious law was ”approved” on the 26th Dec., 1831, by WILLIAM LUMPKIN, the Governor. The object of the bribe could have been no other than the abduction and murder of the conductor of the paper--his _trial_ and _conviction_ under Georgia laws being a mere pretence: the Georgia courts have as much jurisdiction over the Press in Paris as in Boston. A Lynch court was the only one that could have taken cognizance of the offence, and its proceedings would undoubtedly have been both summary and sanguinary.
The horrible example thus set by the Georgia Legislature was not without its followers.
At a meeting of slaveholders at Sterling, Sept. 4, 1835, it was formally recommended to the Governor to issue a proclamation, offering the $5000 appropriated by the Act of 1831, as a reward for the apprehension of _either_ of _ten_ persons named in the resolution, citizens of New York and Ma.s.sachusetts, and one a subject of Great Britain; not one of whom it was even pretended had ever set his foot on the soil of Georgia.
The _Milledgeville [Ga.] Federal Union_, of Feb. 1, 1836, contained an offer of $10,000 for kidnapping A. A. Phelps, a clergyman residing in the city of New York.
The Committee of Vigilance of the Parish of East Feliciana, offered in the Louisiana Journal of 15th Oct., 1835, $50,000 to any person who would deliver _into their hands_ Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant.
At a public meeting of the citizens of Mount Meigs, Alabama, 13th August, 1836, the Honorable [!] Bedford Ginress in the chair, a reward of $50,000 was offered for the apprehension of Arthur Tappan, or Le Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the Methodist Church residing in New York.
Let us now witness the practical operation of that murderous spirit which dictated the foregoing villainous bribes. We have already seen the conduct of the slave-holding community to _negro_ offenders; we are now to notice its tender mercies to men of its own color.
In 1835, there was a real or affected apprehension of a servile insurrection in the State of Mississippi. The slaveholders, as usual on such occasions, were exceedingly frightened, and were exceedingly cruel.
A pamphlet was afterwards published, ent.i.tled ”_Proceedings of the Citizens of Madison County, Miss., at Livingston, in July, 1835, in relation to the trial and punishment of several individuals implicated in a contemplated insurrection in this State.--Prepared by Thomas Shuckelford, Esquire. Printed at Jackson, Miss._” This pamphlet, then, is the _Southern_ account of the affair; and while it is more minute in its details than the narratives published in the newspapers at the time, we are not aware that it contradicts them. It may be regarded as a sort of semi-official report put forth by the slaveholders, and published under their implied sanction. It appears, from this account, that in consequence of ”rumors” that the slaves meditated an insurrection--that a colored girl had been heard to say that ”she was tired of waiting on the white folks--wanted to be her own mistress for the balance of her days, and clean up her own house, &c.,” a meeting was held at which resolutions were signed, organizing a committee, and authorizing them ”_to bring before them any person or persons, either white or black, and try in a summary manner any person brought before them, with power to hang or whip, being always governed by the laws of the land, so far only as they shall be applicable to the case in question; otherwise to act as in their discretion shall seem best for the benefit of the country and the protection of its citizens_.”
This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commissioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and death, expressly authorized to act independently of ”the laws of the land.”
The Const.i.tution of the State of Mississippi, which no doubt many of the honorable Judges of the Court had on other occasions taken an oath to support, contains the following clause:--”No person shall be accused, arrested or detained, except in cases ascertained by law, and according to the forms which the same has prescribed; and no person shall be punished, but in virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied.”
_Previous_ to the organization of this Court, FIVE slaves had already been HUNG by the people. The Court, or rather, as it was modestly called by the meeting who erected it, ”the committee,” proceeded to try Dr.
Joshua Cotton, of New England. It was proved to the satisfaction of the committee that he had been detected in many low tricks--that he was deficient in feeling and affection for his second wife--that he had traded with negroes--that he had asked a negro boy whether the slaves were whipped much, how he would like to be free? &c. It is _stated_ that Cotton made a confession that he had been aiming to bring about a conspiracy. The committee condemned him TO BE HANGED IN AN HOUR AFTER SENTENCE.
William Saunders, a native of Tennessee, was next tried. He was convicted ”of being often out at night, and giving no satisfactory explanation for so doing”--of equivocal conduct--of being intimate with Cotton, &c. Whereupon, by a unanimous vote, he was found guilty and sentenced to be HUNG. He was executed with Cotton on the 4th of July.
Albe Dean, of Connecticut, was next tried. He was convicted of being a lazy, indolent man, having very little _pretensions_ to honesty--of ”pretending to make a living by constructing was.h.i.+ng machines”--of ”often coming to the owners of runaways, to intercede with the masters to save them from a whipping.” He was sentenced to be HUNG, and was executed.
A. L. Donavan, of Kentucky, was then put on his trial. He was suspected of having traded with the negroes--of being found in their cabins, and enjoying himself in their Society. It was proved that ”at one time he actually undertook to release a negro who was tied, which negro afterwards implicated him,” and that he once told an overseer ”it was cruel work to be whipping the poor negroes as he was obliged to do.” The committee were satisfied, from the evidence before them, that Donavan was an emissary of those deluded fanatics of the North, the abolitionists. He was condemned to be HUNG, and suffered accordingly.
Ruel Blake was next tried, condemned and HUNG. ”He protested his innocence to the last, and said his life was sworn away.”
Here we have a record of no less than TEN men, five black and five white, probably all innocent of the crime alleged against them, deliberately and publicly put to death by the slaveholders, without the shadow of legal authority.