Killing Black Women: Capital Punishment During Slavery

[jaysunb]

The arm of “justice” came down hard on these slave women who chose to resist their oppression by killing their white owners. “Virginia executed Jane Williams in 1852 for slashing to death with a hatchet her master’s wife and infant. Reportedly, Jane’s owner mistreated her badly and had threatened to sell Jane without also selling her child (p.67).” One can only imagine the anguish that Jane felt in terms of the daily abuse and indignity of her existence, the final straw had to have been the prospect of being sold away from her child.


“Virginia authorities burned alive Eve for poisoning her master Peter Montague with a glass of milk. Executioners afterward quartered Eve’s burnt body and displayed it publicly (p.66).” There is no information as to why Eve killed her master but we could certainly imagine her motives. Sexual control over slave women by white owners was critical to slavery and white owners relied on the routine sexual abuse of slave women as much as they did other forms of brutality. “One southern planter vulgarly declared that White rape of slave women explained the ‘absence of Southern prostitution and the purity of white women (p.72).”

“Seventy-year old Robert Newsome bought 14-year old Celia and forced sexual relations on her immediately and repeatedly. One night when Newsome went to Celia’s cabin to abuse her, she struck him with a stick and killed him instantly. Celia was pregnant for the third time by Newsome and was very ill when he last approached her. At her trial, the court was concerned only with whether Celia had a right to defend herself against her master’s assault. The trial judge made it clear that Celia did not have that right. To the court, Celia had no sexual rights over her own body because she was Newsome’s property and she ought to have submitted to Newsome’s demands. Celia was guilty of murder and hanged 4 days before Christmas in 1855.”


http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/11/09/killing-black-women-capital-punishment-during-slavery/

[GeoWilliam750]

1. There is a good book on the third of these, called Celia, A Slave

Of the case itself, the Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Missouri_v._Celia,_a_Slave

[pansypoo53219]

2. tnx, small lost history. now, what happened to her kids?

[erpowers]

3. This History Needs to be Told

This history need to be told for multiple reasons. First, learning about this information would likely put an end to the myth that black people just accepted the lot in life and did not fight for their freedom. I remember, a few years ago, an Asian guy wrote an editorial criticizing black people. In the article, he claimed black people stayed in slavery so long because they did not fight to be free; they just waited for someone else to free them. I believe he went on to claim that Asians would never have allowed themselves to be kept as slaves so long. It seems his point was that black people were in the state that they were in because they did not have the strength to make themselves better.

Second, it would get rid of the myth that slavery was not that bad and black people were better off as slaves. There are too many people, mainly on the Republican side, who believe black should actually thank white people for slavery in that slave owners gave blacks food and shelter. Stories like this show the brutality of slavery and the fact that blacks did not enjoy being slaves.

Third, it would likely get rid of the myth that if black people had been given guns slavery would have ended years earlier. Reading this information we realize that although blacks did not have guns they used other weapons to kill their slave owners. The only thing that happened is that the slaves who killed their owners were either killed or punished.