Homicide
In 1827, a slave named Ambrose escaped from his owner Berryman Burger. Like most runaways, Ambrose did not make the dangerous trek north but remained in the area, a practice called ‘lying out.’ In most cases, such slaves kept a low profile, living off the land or from scraps gleaned from friends and compatriots in the quarter. Ambrose, however, took a different path, waging guerrilla war against slavery and local slaveholders. Over the course of more than a year he broke into barns, slaughtered hogs and poultry, pillaged smokehouses, burned outbuildings, destroyed cotton, and generally behaved like a local Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and returning to his fellow slaves. Within months, Ambrose had induced other runaways to join him, and he was regarded by local planters as a “desperate character ... capable of any act of villainy” who should be killed on sight.
Early in the morning of September 24, 1828, a local white man, Kirkland Harmon, surprised Ambrose in his camp and gunned him down as he rose. Ambrose winced as the buckshot “enter[ed] his back loins & hips,” and he bled out on the ground. His one-man rebellion was effectively over. Without the coroner’s inquest convened over his body, however, we would know nothing of his rebellion; the record of his death is the only record we have of his life. How many Ambroses were there? It is hard to know. To its credit, Ambrose’s band picked up his mantle and continued to operate in the area as a plague to local planters.
I was not surprised to learn that such local resistance was quashed and that slaves like Ambrose were routinely murdered. I was surprised to learn how often the coroner responded. In her WPA interview, the former slave Mittie Freeman remembered the coroner as “that fellow that comes running fast when somebody gets killed,” and the coroner is mentioned in quite a few of the most famous slave narratives, including those by Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown. The coroner was often the only magistrate mentioned because he was the only ‘outside’ law the slaves ever saw. We will never know precisely how many enslavers murdered their slaves and effortlessly covered it up. But in cases where the murderer was someone other than the enslaver, or where the enslaver failed to cover it up, there usually was an investigation, at the very least because property had been destroyed, and someone expected compensation.
Reflecting on the South he was forced to flee because of his Unionism, John Aughey noted: “Of course the laws which exist in every state against the murder or torturing of slaves are about as well observed as might be laws enacted by wolves against sheep-murder.” But in the coroners’ inquest there was actually a subtle game of community standards going on. Standing over the body of a slave and surveying the grim damage, a coroner’s jury was often perfectly comfortable recommending that a white be indicted. And at coroner’s inquests slaves were allowed to testify. The actual jury nullification came later, in the courtroom, when the mangled body was not actually present and the murderer was let off. But by then he had been held up to public scrutiny; his judgment and decency had been questioned publicly and legally. It is less than justice, but it is not nothing, a fact which slaves themselves recognized. When the coroner came a-runnin’, many slaves thought he might bring justice with him from some far off, saner place. And in his own Narrative, Frederick Douglass tells the story of an unnamed slave girl whose mistress “pounded in her skull” with a piece of firewood because she allowed a baby to cry uncontrollably and wake the household. “I will not say that this murder most foul produced no sensation. It did produce a sensation. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Mrs. Hicks, but incredible to tell, for some reason or other, that warrant was never served, and she not only escaped condign punishment, but the pain and mortification as well of being arraigned before a court of justice.” It is hard to believe that for all he’d seen of the institution of slavery, Douglass still thought it capable of any justice at all.
What does not make it into many of the slave narratives, including Douglass’s, is the violence that existed within the slave community. Enslavement does not magically transform all who endure it into savvy, self-sustaining freedom-fighters. If we are going to grant the enslaved their full humanity we must grant that, like any other group of people, they occasionally fought, fornicated, and got into petty disputes that sometimes took a murderous turn. To be sure, as historian Steven Hahn has noted, the slave quarter produced one of the most radical and transformative politics ever seen in America, a politics that produced Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass and finally brought down a $3.5 billion dollar interest. But in coroners reports we get a glimpse of the violence that existed within the slave community that we knew had to be there. Thus did the enslaved of the Haile plantation turn their children over to Tamer, the enslaved nurse, on their way out to the fields, little knowing that she liked to punish the children by tying them too close to a fire, a practice that was only discovered when she finally cooked one of them to death. Or take the case of an enslaved man named Dick who became so jealous that he pulled a log from a fire and murdered the man who was staying in the cabin of a woman he wanted to sleep with.
Today, the typical homicide in the United States involves one man shooting another, and this is equally true in the CSI:Dixie database. Comparatively speaking, the CSI:D sample has a higher percentage of male victims and a lower percentage of gun use. Today firearms are used in 68% of American homicides; in the CSI:D sample guns are used 52% of the time. Today 77% of homicide victims are male; in the CSI:D sample 88% are male (and virtually all of the perpetrators are men). Put bluntly, in the nineteenth century south, violent death was a more exclusively male province, and Death had more faces.
Interestingly, though, in the CSI:D database virtually none of the gun-related homicides are related to robbery. Most are the product of the highly combustible combination of anger and alcohol. The last words of J. Edward Sims were typical: “Shoot you damed cowardly son of a Bitch.” Or take this poignant exchange:
Tom Rutland (firing): “I will kill you, you son of a bitch.”
William Padgett (bleeding): “You have already.”
In the strange alchemy of the male brain, friends became mortal enemies in an instant, often over trivialities. “How in the hell did you Gap up My ax?” Gus Settler demanded to know of Allen Holmes in March 1882. I hardly know what a gapped-up axe looks like, but I do know that returning a borrowed tool in less than satisfactory condition is no grounds for murder. Settler disagreed and shot Holmes dead.
Infanticide
Life in the Faulknerian world of CSI:D was especially cheap for children. Catherine Berry, a domestic in the R. C. Poole household, was told that she would be terminated if she was indeed pregnant. In an awful feat of endurance, she continued with her chores until, doubled over with pain, she snuck away to give birth in the potato shed. Reeling from the loss of blood, she still managed to strangle the baby and fling it into the Pacolet River, where it washed up at the feet of some fishermen. When Peggy Bedenbaugh felt her first contractions, she went out to a corner of the yard, gave birth in a hole, and covered the baby over with dirt. Luly Collins threw her baby down a well. Nancy Owens swept hers under a brush pile. All had denied for months that they were in the “family way”; all had killed the evidence; all were indicted for murder.
Or take the case of Jane Arnold. On September 7, 1857, Brazeal Cox and his wife found sixteen-year-old Jane Arnold stretched out on the ground with a baby beside her, bleeding from its umbilical cord. When Arnold became aware of the couple she called out to Mrs. Cox, who wrapped the dying infant in Arnold’s apron and took it into the Arnold home. Mrs. Cox then returned and asked the girl why she hadn’t given birth indoors. Because her daddy was “doging” her, she said, and had cast her from the house. “She seemed to be grieving,” Cox told the coroner in a model of understatement, “but [I] don’t know what for, whether on the part of her dead child or the abuse of her father.”
Three years later, at four in the morning, a shivering Jane Arnold knocked at the door of a neighboring farm. She was cold and unkempt, but she couldn’t make up her mind to stay. Instead she returned to the abandoned schoolhouse where she had taken her latest baby, born in the middle of the road, to die of exposure.
The coroners’ office reveals a world where men force women into sex and women pay the price for it, in embarrassing pregnancies, social stigma, and the occasionally desperate attempt to cover up the evidence. In 1829 a fire in Thomas Welsh’s smoke-house revealed a small cubby in which a full term child had been secreted in a jar of lime. It is impossible to know whether this was an infanticide or a child who had been stillborn. Regardless the mother was covering up something. Occasionally that something was an interracial liaison. More often it was simply a pregnancy out-of-wedlock. Many of the cases reveal that the women had been trying for some time to induce an abortion. ‘Home remedies’ for pregnancy mentioned in the CSI:D sample include savin powder mixed with turpentine, red bark bay tea, and the ashes of dried corn cobs. In this sense some of the infanticides might be considered extremely late-term abortions. One unnamed mother, for instance, gave birth to a stillborn child who bore unmistakable marks of abuse en utero. M. Lipscomb was found doubled over a fence having apparently bled out in a botched, self-induced abortion.
Almost sadder is the number of women who were held to account for the ‘murder’ of infants who had most likely died of crib death or SIDS. Often sent back to the cotton field within days of giving birth, enslaved mothers were understandably exhausted, and they often slept with their infants so they could breast feed in a haze and go back to sleep. When they occasionally awoke to dead babies, they were unfortunately as susceptible as their doctors and enslavers to believe that they had smothered their children in their sleep, a phenomenon which only enhanced their reputation as uncaring and unnatural mothers.
NEXT: Suicide
Murder Cases Tried in South Carolina, 1887-1900
Year | Number of Homicides Tried | Not Guilty Verdicts | Guilty Verdicts | Cases Dismissed or Continued | Percentage Found Guilty |
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1887 | 79 | 54 | 11 | 14 | 13.9% |
1888 | 117 | 61 | 36 | 20 | 30.1% |
1889 | 120 | 69 | 30 | 21 | 25.0% |
1890 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1891 | 151 | 76 | 46 | 29 | 30.0% |
1892 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1893 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1894 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1895 | 210 | 112 | 67 | 31 | 31.9% |
1896 | 201 | 110 | 67 | 24 | 33.3% |
1897 | 215 | 120 | 64 | 31 | 29.7% |
1898 | 248 | 105 | 96 | 47 | 44.0% |
1899 | 205 | 83 | 97 | 35 | 47.3% |
1900 | 224 | 127 | 71 | 26 | 31.7% |
Credit: John Hammond Moore, Carnival of Blood: Dueling, Lynching, and Murder in South Carolina, 1880-1920 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 130-131, taken from Reports and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina
Homicide Inquests
Name | Deceased Description | Date | Inquest Location | Death Method | Inquest Finding |
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Holman Smith | May 28, 1855 | at the late residence of Holman Smith, Spartanburg County, SC | ax |
upon their oaths do say [deceased] was wilfully, maliciously, & feloniously murdered at his own residence. . .by Phillis and John, slaves of the deceased, by beating him with an Axe and a stick. . .and that Charley, a slave of dec's'd, was accessory to the murder being present and making no effort to prevent the murder |
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A. G. McDonald | March 11, 1927 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC | ax |
upon their oaths, do say: we the jury find that the deceased A.G. McDonald came to his death by being struck on the head by an ax in the hands of Will Alias Man Dawkins and we recommend that Katie Howard be heald as an accessory before and after the fact |
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Rachel | slave | November 2, 1838 | at the House of Samuel L Martin, Union County, SC | ax |
do say oppon their oaths that wone negro woman name Clansy propperty of Samuel Martin not having got Before his Eyes Being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil . . .with force and arms . . .with a sertain ax did then and there vilently and feloniously with malice of forethough strike and pierce and give to the said Rachel with the said ax in and uppon the front as well as the Back part of the head two mortal wounds |
Mary Jane Dunbar | April 21, 1913 | at Cutarrh, Chesterfield County, SC | ax |
upon their oaths, do say: That she came to her death from the blow of an axe inflicted by Isadore Dunbar |
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Edward Faircloth | March 2, 1855 | at the house of Edward T. Richs, Horry County, SC | ax |
upon their Oaths do say that at a negro House on the primises of the residence of Edward T. Ricks. Was struck one mortal blow with the edge of an ax, inflicting a wound six inches long and throuhg to his hollow on his left brest by the hands of one Tilson a slave belong to James F. Clark of North Carolina |
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James W. Allred Sr. | September 21, 1940 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC | automobile |
upon their oaths do say that James W. Allred, Sr. received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Automobile Collision in the hands of Wade A. Outlaw |
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Lewis Green | free man of color | September 17, 1859 | at the Williamston Hotel, Anderson County, SC | arsenic |
do say that the said Lewis Green came to his death by poisioning with arsnick at the Williamston Hotel. . . on the night of the seventeenth day of September. . . the said poison being administered at the said Hotel somewhere about the thirteenth day of September...the medium of a certain sponge cake or pudding by some person or persons unknown |
female child, white child | female child, white child | January 21, 1881 | at Greenville, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . . the said unknown female child came to her death from violence at the hands of a party or parties to the Jury unknown |
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Robert J. Butler | September 15, 1864 | at Hamburg, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that Robert J Butler sen[?] came to his death by gun shot wound inflicted by Doct J D Twiggs |
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Squire | October 24, 1865 | at the plantation of Saml. Todd, Laurens County, SC |
upon their Oaths do Say that these two negroes came to there death by being shot by some person or persons unknown to us, from the evidence we think one of them is the boy Squire |
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Will Collens | October 20, 1894 | at Gaines SC, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Will Collens came to his death by gun shot wound by the hands of Jack Harrison |
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unnamed infant | unnamed infant | January 21, 1868 | at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say,--That they find the Said Infant to have dead some two or three weeks--that from the evidence before them they belie vethe Said Infant to be the offstriping of Emma Gallard a colored woman now in the Jail . . . and that they believe that the said Infant came to its death by Violence at the hands of the Said Emma Gaillard |
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male baby | male baby | May 24, 1891 | at the Saluda River, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . .he was feloniously murdered and thrown in the Salud River at the hands of his own Mother or at the hands of Some one known to her |
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W. H. H. Richards | February 1, 1884 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said W.H.H. Richards came to his death by a pistol shot, received on 23rd July 184, at the hands fo W B Cash |
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Summer | slave | November 7, 1864 | at the plantation of Burwell Boykin, Kershaw County, SC |
do say that the san Summer a slave came to his deth [sic] by blow or blows inflicted over his left temple and over the nasal bone, which caused inflamation of the brain. . .the blow or blows supposed to have been inflicted by Monroe, a slave the property of T.L. Boykin |
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Willis Rabon | September 4, 1849 | at William Rabon Sen.r, Horry County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say that Abram Rabon Jun'r of the State and District aforesaid did feloneously with a Kinfe stab and Kill the said Willis Rabon and further saith that Abraham Rabon Sen.r and Duke Rabon were Accessories to the same |
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Cesar | Negro, negro boy | July 7, 1843 | at the house of Elijah Watson, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say. . .believe said negro came to his death by a sever blow given him by Jerry one of said Watsons negroes not with the intention to Kill |
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Will Love | January 27, 1891 | Laurens County, SC |
We the Jury of inquest in the case of the state vs the dead body of Will Love find from the testimony taken in the above case that, he the said Love came to his deth from the Effects of gun shot wounds from the hands of Geo Demly, that he died on the Morning of the 27 inst. |
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negro | negro | February 27, 1868 | at or near Pacolet Springs, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say ... that Catherine, a black woman living at Col. R.C. Poole's at Pacolet Spring, called by some Berry, did have and was delivered of said child and that she throwed [sic] it in the river ... feloniously drownding said child against the peace and dignity of the same state aforesaid |
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Charles M. Creswell | August 5, 1869 | at Edgefield CH, Edgefield County, SC |
the said Charles M Creswell came to his death do say that . . .the deceased Charles M Creswell came to his death by a gunshot wound from a gun in the hands of some person or persons unknown |
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Willie Adair | May 25, 1875 | at D.A. Glenns, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that Willie Adair, was killed and murdered at the house of Charley Adairs on the plantation of D.A. Glenns by blows with a large hammer, in left temple, mashing in the skull badly, after the blows, by hanging with a split to a ladder, also by blows with stick, all by the hands of Rachel Fowlers, the nurse of Wille... |
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Sindy Brighthop | August 21, 1898 | on S.W. Gardners place, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that Sindy Brighthop came to her death, from a dislocated neck done by th parties in the house |
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Ambrose | slave | September 25, 1828 | at the house of [?] Duke, Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that the said Negro man slave Ambrose came to his death early in the morning of the twenty-forth of September instant by buck shot discharged from a gun presented at him by Kirkland Harmon ... [the shot] entering his back loins & hips |
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Unknown Colored Man | Unknown Colored Man | July 5, 1892 | at Will Davis, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the unknown man came to his death from Gun Shot wound in the hands of A B Blakely in self defence. |
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Charlie Prince | January 25, 1914 | at R. B. Laney's farm, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: Charlie Prince came to his death by knife wounds in the hands of Gus. Hubbard and that Charlie Williams is an accessory before and after the fact |
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Levi H. McDaniel | March 9, 1859 | at or near the 17 mile Post on the Scotts Ferry Road, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that. . .the deceased came to his death by a Pistol shot in the left side near the region of the heart fired from the hands of one James H. Jones |
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Joseph Butler | October 8, 1836 | at John H. Byrds, Laurens County, SC |
do say upon their oaths, that said Robert Campbell of Laurens District & state afod. Not having the fear of God before his Eyes but being moved and seduced by the devil on the 1st day of October in the year 1836 with force and arms at John H. Byrds in the district aforesaid in and upon the said Joseph Butler then and there being in the peace of God and of the said State feloniously, voluntarily and of his own malice aforethough made an assault; and that the aforesaid Robert Campbell then and there with a certain knife made of Iron... of the Value of Fifty cents which he the said Robert Campbell then and there held in his right hand, the aforesaid Joseph Butler, in and upon the left part of the belly of the said Joseph Butler a littlebelow the navel of the said Joseph Butler then and there feloniously struck and pierced with the knife aforesaid in and upon the aforesaid part of the belly a lttle below the navel of the said Joseph Butler a mortal wound the breadth of one Inch and a half and the depth sufficient to let out his bowels which said mortal wound the aforesaid Joseph Butler after lingering until the eighth day died... |
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Gus Blocker | August 18, 1892 | at the plantion of July Blocker, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say that the Said Gus Blocker came to his death by a gun Shot in the hands of one Isiac[?] Blocker |
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Julius Metskie | June 27, 1887 | at Valley Falls, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Julius Metskie came to his death by a gun shot would inflicted in the head by George S. Turner at Valley Falls |
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G. B. Kelly | December 16, 1896 | at Chesterfield Court House, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said G.B. Kelly came to his death from a gun shot wound on the 12th day of Dec. 1896 in the hands of W.P. Swinnie and died on the 14th of Dec from the effects |
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Mary Belton | at the Sylvia Brice Place, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say, That she came to her death from causes unknown to the Jurors. |
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Robert Jefferson | July 13, 1932 | at the Home of Agnes Smith, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That Robert Jefferson came to his death by gun shot wounds in hands of John Henry Smith Justifiable Homicide |
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Herman Tadlock | December 24, 1932 | at Cross Roads, Chesterfield County, SC |
Herman Tadlock came to his death by a gunshot wound in ride of face from the hands of Sam McCray on Wednesday December 21st, 1932. |
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Robert Williams | November 4, 1881 | at Wilson's Bridge, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased Robert Williams came to his death . . . by hanging at the hands of parties unknown to the jury |
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Leonard Clark | July 3, 1946 | at Jefferson, SC, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Leonard Clark received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by 38 Pistol in the hands of Bill Sowell |
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Joe Weston | January 31, 1895 | in Edgefield County, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Joe Weston aforesaid came to his death from gun shot wounds in the hands of parties to us unknown |
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Harry | May 13, 1822 | at Alexander Wilkinsons, Laurens County, SC |
do say upon their oaths; So the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, Say that the aforesaid Negro man Harry (the servant of the said Alexander Wilinson) that he (Harry) came to his death by the means of and with the abuse that he received (on Sunday Last past being the twelth day of this instant (May))from his master Alexander Wilkinson and by his order, and not otherwise... |
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unnamed infant | unnamed infant | May 18, 1870 | at and near Cools Spring, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say that the said infant came to its death by the Hands of providence |
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A. G. Douglass | May 6, 1889 | at A. G. Douglass', Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say that the Said A.G. Douglass came to his death By a gunshot wound in the hands of W. D. Merriman and A. B. Merriman Bill Merriman & James Pegg Being Acessors to the crime |
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Thomas Waters | April 7, 1866 | on the plantation of Daniel McCaskill on Lynches Creek, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say ... they do believe that the said Thomas Waters was killed ... by a gun shot in the head & that the said gun was in the hands of Elias McLandon |
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John Rhodes | July 13, 1853 | at Feathery Bay, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Although it appears that the said John Rhodes has been missing ever since the day before Fall Court 1852, yet there is no proof to them that the said John Rhodes has ever been murdered |
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Flora Harrison | November 4, 1890 | at Liberty Hill, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Sam Moss the Said Flora Harrison by Misfortune and contrary to his Will in manner and form aforesaid did Kill and Slay |
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Hon. Joseph Crews | September 14, 1875 | at Laurens C.H., Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Joseph Crews came to his Death by means certain gun shot wounds inflicted by person or persons to the jurors unknown |
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infant | November 28, 1829 | in Camden on the lot on which Mr. Thomas Welsh[?] resided, Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that the remains of an infant born at "full time" were found in a smoke house, suspiciuosly concealed in a jar with lime on the lot on which Mr. Thomas Welch[?] resided; but how, or when the infant came to its death we know not. |
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George W. Barker | December 27, 1854 | at Winnsboro, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That the deceased came to his death by pistol shots, received in an affray between the deceased and Richard N. McMaster, from a pistol fired in the hands of Richard N. McMaster on the night of the 26th. |
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nameless newborn boy or male child | nameless newborn boy or male child | January 12, 1885 | at T P Byrds Campbell place, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said nameless boy or male child came to his death on the 10th day of January AD 1885 and in Laurens County by strangulation cause by criminal negligence on the part of Kittie F. Malone. |
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Joseph W. Glover | September 2, 1844 | at Charles Comptys[?] Hotel, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say the he came to his death by the discharge of a pistol in the hands of Lovett Gomillion loaded with [?] Bullets which load of shot entered the said Joseph W Glovers body a little above the nipple on the right side of the breast . . .said pistol was discharged by said Gomillion in a street fight between himself and said Glover in self defence |
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infant | January 8, 1815 | at the plantation of James Leatherwood, Spartanburg County, SC | |||
Will Simpson | July 30, 1894 | at Ella Nelson's residence, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Will Simpson came to his death by a pistol shot on the 29th day July 1894 at the house of Ella Nelson, by W.H. Henderson in self defence and the verdict of the jury is justifiable homicide. |
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George Franklin | of color | December 4, 1866 | at Hush[?] Creek, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . . he came to his death by means of a gun shot which entered about five inches below the right nipple & passed out just above the left [?] bone at Thor[?] Callaway's still house |