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.

“Laws ... against the murder or torturing of slaves are about as well observed as might be laws enacted by wolves against sheep-murder.”

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.”

“She seemed to be grieving, 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
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

Displaying 51 - 100 of 642
Name Deceased Description Datesort descending Inquest Location Death Method Inquest Finding
Tom slave July 10, 1824 at the plantation of Mr. Wm. W. Lang, Kershaw County, SC shotgun

do say upon their oaths that William R. Young . . . did by shooting with buckshot kill the said negro man named Tom and we the jury aforesaid find that the said William R. Young was justifiable in shooting and killing the said negro man Tom

Edward slave August 3, 1824 on the main Charleston Road five miles below Camden, Kershaw County, SC

are of the opinion that the fellow Edward has come to his death by causes unknown to them

Joseph Burgess boy October 16, 1824 at the premises of Mrs. Hales[?], Union County, SC gun

say upon their oaths the said Joseph Burgess in manner and form came to his death by a stroke or blows withs with a gun across his right ear and the back part of his head. Supposed to have been effected from every circumstance in our view by George McKnight

Haman Miller October 30, 1824 at Blacks Store, Laurens County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said Haman Miller came to his Death by Violence committed on his sides by a number of Blows with the fist of John Prince and a fall... as a consequence of of Said Blows, and that the said John Prince did then and there feloniously Kill and Murder, against the peace and Dignity of this State.

Maria negro woman slave April 10, 1825 at Mrs. Williams, Union County, SC whip

do say upon their oathes that from a [?] Given by whiping by the aforesaid Thomas Beleu at his own hous on the 6 Inst with Switches[?] & a blow with his fist which was Given in heat of passion by the Sd Thomas Beleu on the thighs loins belly & breast of Sd negroe Maria but not with the intent to homicide

John Rowland August 22, 1825 at the Presbyterian Church known by the name of the Ebenezer meeting house, Fairfield County, SC knife

do say upon their oaths that one John Brown, late of the district aforesaid, on the 4th day of June 1825, did commit a violent assault on the said John Rowland by the infliction of two greivous and dangerous wounds on the body of the said John Rowland John Rowland died, on the 19th instant, then and there feloniously killed and murdered the said John Rowland against the peace of the said state.

John Adamson August 23, 1825 Kershaw County, SC

do find [that] John Adamson came to his death by a gun shot in the right side before the right rib which shot penetrated the body through the intestines and the shot lodged in the left side of the body . . .but who discharged the gun. . . the jurors. . . cannot report

Richard Roberts January 15, 1826 at the union meeting house, Fairfield County, SC bullis vine

do say upon their oaths that they believe the said Richard Roberts came to his death by being hung up to the girder in union meeting house by some persons with a Bullis vine by the neck and feet[?] and there kept until he died.

Abram November 15, 1826 Fairfield County, SC
John Kirk November 28, 1826 near the house of Ezekiel Jenkins, Fairfield County, SC stick

do say upon their oaths that one negro man to wit Harry belonging to Ms. Martha Ann Dickson with a stick about three feet long and the size of the wrist of a man struk and and gave the said John Kirk said stick upon aforesaid occipital bone with three other wounds...so the said negro man Harry then and there feloniously killed and murdered the said John Kirk

Unknown September 6, 1827 near the house of James Walling, Fairfield County, SC

do say upon their oaths that they believe the sd infant came to its death by being struck against a log which lay about four or five steps from the place of its birth on Tuesday morning the 4th instant by Letitia Vaugh, who they believe delivered the child

Cole white infant November 18, 1827 near the house of William Cole, Union County, SC
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

Adam slave December 29, 1828 at the house of Jesse Crook, Spartanburg County, SC large stick

do say upon their oaths that on Saturday night 27 of this instant at the [?] house of Maj. J. Crook ... that Lewis slave of Capt. W. H. Dickee did strike said Adam with a large stick on the left side of the forehead

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.

Micajah Hilliard November 28, 1829 in the house of Joseph Ward, Kershaw County, SC

do say upon their oaths that he came to his death by an affray with Joseph Ward & John Ballard at the residence of Joseph Ward on the 27th Inst.

Reuben Parker August 22, 1830 at house of Edwerd Sherman, Anderson County, SC chair

do say upon their oaths, that in their opinion are that the death of Sd Parker was brought about and occationed [sic] by Edward Sherman who struck Sd Parker with a chair on the left side of the head?.and further that Robert Sherman struck Sd deceased in the forehead with a little wheel...but on the whole we are of the opinion that the wound in the forehead was not of itself alone mortal.

Elizabeth Bowing May 30, 1831 at the residence of Mrs. Ann Bowing, Kershaw County, SC

do say upon their oaths that they believe the said Elizabeth Bowing came to her death by abuse inflicted on her by the hand of Priscilla Robertson

A. infant child January 13, 1832 at the house of John Nelson, Union County, SC

upon their oaths do say, that a certain person unknown did kill and but[?] believe that A was a black woman Slave named [?] the property of John Nelson of said district did kill and homicide the said infant A and the said Jurors upon oaths afforesaid further say that the said person unknown or Palmer at above Said after she had commited the said felony and homicide did flee away

Edom slave November 7, 1832 Spartanburg County, SC whip

do say upon their oaths that. . .the said Edom did come to his death by the [?] Gabriel Cannon[?] striking him on the head with the but [sic] of a whip

Maria Stephens April 9, 1833 at Robt. F Stephens, Laurens County, SC

being charged and sworn to enquire for the State, when, where, how and after what manner the said Maria Stephens came to her death, by the frequent abuses of Exposure, and Beating, Robert F Stephens, in her debilitated State. . . aforesaid say that the aforesaid Robt F Stephens in manner aforesaid the aforesaid Maria Stephens came to her ed, this we believe from Testimony & Visible Marks left on the corps.

infant September 19, 1833 at the home of William Griffin, Spartanburg County, SC

do say upon their oaths. . .that the infant was put to death by violence of Harriet Bagood

William Dillard November 28, 1833 at Pleasant Hill Church, Laurens County, SC rock

upon their othas do Say. That Said William Dillard came to his death by a rock or brick thrown at him by James Dillard in Self defence.

Stephen December 6, 1833 at Ephraim Morgan's house, Fairfield County, SC

do believe that the s'd boy Stephen came to his death by a gunshot wound, inflicted by Ephraim Morgan: and that in accordance with the testimony adduced, we believe that the s'd boy was killed by the sd. Ephraim Morgan in self defence.

Henry Long January 7, 1834 Union County, SC pistol

do say upon their oaths that one Saml P Bailey of Said District not having the fear of God Before his Eyes But moved by the instigation of the Devil did . . .in the House or Store of James R. Nathens . . .with a Pistol wound & Kill the said Henry Long

Rachel February 18, 1834 at the grave of a female Negroe Slave named Rachel near the house of Benjamin Boulware, Fairfield County, SC

do say upon their oaths that they believe that the said negro Rachel came to her death by a blow or stroke on the head from a violent hand which broke her Scull and also from circumstances rest their suspicion on Thomas D Peay owner of said Rachel.

John Wyatt May 25, 1834 at House of Harry Gant[?], Union County, SC

do say upon thare oaths than one Ellis Fowler [?] of said District not having god before his eyes but Being moved and Seduced by the Instirgation of the devil . . .shoot the [?] and give to the said John Wyatt . . .one mortal wound of the breast

Christopher Campbell April 16, 1835 Kershaw County, SC

after hearing the evidence together with the opinion of Doctors DeLeon and Young are of opinion that the deceased came to his death from a disease of the brain hastened by blows on his head inflicted by some person or persons unknown

James Hembree September 24, 1835 at the house of Jesse Hembree, Anderson County, SC knife or dirk

do say upon their oaths that the said James Hembree?was killed and murderd by Nancy Black and Samuel Black by striking with a club or stick on the neck and shoulders and stabbing with a knife or dirk through the muscular part of the left thigh

Howel slave October 3, 1835 at the house of [?] Polk[?], Union County, SC
Marcus April 12, 1836 at Gibson's Neck on the Wateree River, Kershaw County, SC

we find that the negro is Marcus the property of D. A. Brevard but are unable to say whether his death was caused by certain blows inflicted on the head & drowning or by drowning alone

infant July 28, 1836 at the palntation of Mr. Richard Shotford[?], Kershaw County, SC

do say upon their oaths that Nancy Owens of. . .district is living at the house of sd district is the mother and murderer of sd. Child which they have examined but how killed they could not tell.

Hugh Barkley September 20, 1836 in the house of Hugh Barkley, Fairfield County, SC

do say upon their oaths that according to the evidence adduced to them the said Hugh Barkley came to his death by a wound inflicted on him with a dirk or knife by Baby Flemming on the left side above the Pubis which we suppose cut the spermatic[?] artery & caused the effusion of blood into the scrotum

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...

Robert Templeton May 5, 1837 at Benj Puckett's old place, Laurens County, SC

do say upon their oaths, that said negro man Peter property of John Boyd of said Dist not having God before his eyes but being moved and secuced by the instigation of the devil on the fifth day of May 1837 with force and arms at the late residence of Benj Puckett Decd in the dist aforesaid in and upon the said Robt Templeton then and there being in the peace of God and of the said State, feloniously, voluntarily and of his own malice aforethought, made an assault and that the aforesaid negro man Pete, then and there with a certain Knife which the said negro man Peter held in his right hand and aforesaid Robt Templeton about the lower portion of the breast bone or sternum of the said Robt Templeton then and there violently, feloniously and of his Malice aforethough, struck and pierced, and gave to the said Robt Templeton then and there with the Knife aforesaid, in and upon the aforesaid, in and upon the aforesaid lower portion of the breast bone or sternum of the said Robt Templeton one mortal wound of the breadth of an inch...

Joe June 26, 1837 at the house of John Holley, Fairfield County, SC

are of the opinion that he [Joe] came to his death by a wound in his abdomen near his navel about one inch in Length committed on the body of Joe by the Hand of one Robert Freeman on the 22nd of June 1837.

Eldridge Brown August 5, 1837 in Camden, Kershaw County, SC pistol

do say upon their oath that the said Eldridge Brown came to his death by a ball or balls shot from a pistol by Mr. F. S. Bronson in a encounter with that gentleman

William Byers December 30, 1837 at William Z. Ford's blacksmith's shop, Spartanburg County, SC large knife

upon the view of the body of William Byers we the jury say that we believe he came to his death by a stab in the abdomen at or near the navel with a large singl bladed knife inflicted by the hand of Nubell Johnson or Manly Johson at the dwelling house of William Z. Ford

Thomas Smith January 16, 1838 at George Born's[?], Spartanburg County, SC knife

upon their oaths do say that after examining the Body of the sd. Smith they believe that he came to his death by a wound in the throat which appears to have been done by the hand of some person with a knife

Certain Mail Bastard Child Certain Mail Bastard Child January 16, 1838 at the house of Joseph McConathy, Laurens County, SC

do say on these oaths that the said child came to its death either by being smothered or for the want of that attention which was necessary to sustain life and which was Intentionally withheld from it. And that the mother of the child (viz) Martha McConathy was the principle in the crime and that Isabelah McConathy Accessory to it.

Larken Bramblett June 8, 1838 at the House of Newton Bramblett, Laurens County, SC

do say upon their oaths that Hiram Holcombe of the state and District aforesaid, on yesterday evening the 7th Inst. Betweeen sundown & dark, did feloniously, voluntarily and of his own malice aforethough with a certain shot gun shoot and wound the said Larken Bramblett in the breast neck and head, of which said mortal wounds the aforesaid Larken Bramlett then and there instantly died, and so the said Hiram Holcombe, then and there feloniously killed and murdered the said Larken Bramblett, against the peace of this State.

L. Roy Lavender June 9, 1838 at Lucey Lavenders, Fairfield County, SC

do say upon their oaths that one James Sessions[?] feloniously voulantary and of his own malice aforethought made an assault uppon the said L.R. Lavender with a [?] dirk knife made of Iron and Steel of the value of $1.25 [?] Mortal Wound . . . which Mortal Wound by the Stab of Said Knife the said L.R. Lavender came to his death.

Peter negro man June 16, 1838 at a Mr. Azariah[?] Abneys, Edgefield County, SC stick

do say upon their oaths that they believe the said Peter came to his death by blows he received on his head either with a stick or by Stomping in a combat which accured between him and Mr.[?] Caleb Watkins (the overseer)

Henry Purse September 23, 1838 at Camden, on the corner of Market & York Streets, Kershaw County, SC

upon their oaths do say we found upon examination that the Boddy is that of H. W. Purse who came to his death by the discharging fo a gun supposed to be loaded with shot by Franklin Ray. The wound inflicted was mortal, the load having passed into the right breast.

Mary slave October 31, 1838 at the house of Saml L Martin, Union County, SC axe

do say upon their oaths that the negro woman named Clarrasan[?] ... not having God before her Eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigations of the Devil . . .with force and arms . . .and upon the said Mary then and there being in the peace of God and of the said State, feloniously voluntarily and of his own malice ... did then and there with a certain axe did then and there violently feloniously and with malice aforethough struck and pierced[?] and gave to the said Mary with the said axe in and upon the forehead of the said Mary one mortal wound

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

Elizabeth South June 23, 1839 at the dwelling House of William South, Laurens County, SC

do say upon their oaths that some person unknown with certainty not having God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil on the twenty second day of June in the year Eighteen hundred and thirty nine with a murderous weapon in the District afforesaid in and upon the person of the said Elizabeth South then and there being in the peace of God and of the said State feloniously voluntarily and of his own malice aforethought made an asalt [sic] - and that the afforesaid persown [sic] unknown with certainty. Then and there inflict a number of wounds on the person of said Elizabeth South then and there on her throat crosswise one of them passing through to the neck bone of which mortal wounds the afforesaid Elizabeth South did then and there in a short time die...

Isaac Whitworth March 8, 1840 at Isaac Whitworths, Laurens County, SC stick

do say upon their oaths that the said Decd. Came to his death by blow recd. By a stick in the hand of Negro boy named Willis, the property of Jas Watts Esq. on the on the 7th Inst

negro woman negro woman March 26, 1840 at John Garrotts, Union County, SC

upon their oaths do say that . . .they believe she the said negro woman come to her death by drinking too great a quantity of water which they believe caused inward pain and perhaps spasm

Martha Armstrong March 30, 1840 at the house of Archibald Armstrong, Fairfield County, SC

The following jurors on the inquest are of the opinion that Mrs Martha Armstrong came to his death by violence inflicted as they believe by Mr Armstrong the husband of the deceased

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