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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
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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Mary Grace Aldrich | infant child | August 11, 1856 | at Graniteville, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say. . .that said child came to her death at the time and place aforesaid by having large portions of laudaunum administered by a servant girl the nurse of the name of Clarissa. . .with felonious intent |
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William | slave | November 10, 1856 | near Prospect Church near the line of Richland and on the waters of Wayland's Creek, Kershaw County, SC |
do say that the said negro man William came to his death from a wound in the back caused by a shot gun in the hands of some person or persons to the jurors unknown |
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Irving Stallings | March 3, 1857 | at Court House, Horry County, SC |
upon their Oaths aforesaid do say, that the aforesaid Jeremiah Benson, (Called J. M. Benson) in manner and form aforesaid Irving Stallings, then and there feloniously did Kill against the Peace and dignity of the same state aforesaid |
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Richmond | slave | March 3, 1857 | at V[?] Elbert Blands residence at Edgefield Court House, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say, by a wound in the head inflicted in the left temple, coming out in the left side of the forehead in Mr J.[?] H. Goodes black Smiths Shop . . .by a pistol shot by the hands of Joseph Williams |
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William | male slave, boy | March 12, 1857 | at Doct Milton [?], Union County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that from what testimony they can get they are together with the wounds & bruises found on the body of the boy both on the head & [?] made by one Lewis Jones . . .came to his death that the said Lewis Jones the said boy William by misfortune & contrary to his will in manner & form afforesaid did Kill & Slay |
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infant female child | infant female child | March 31, 1857 | at Turner Duncan's, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the infanct was killed or homicideed by some person or persons, or (by some means) came to its death to the jurors unknown |
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infant, (male) | infant, (male) | April 29, 1857 | at Potterville, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say. . .from the effects of Laudanum. . .administerted by Mrs Matilda Reynolds. . .the aforesaid infant (male child) in manner and for aforesaid, Matilda Reynolds, then and there feloniously did Kill |
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Elizabeth M. Skipper | June 5, 1857 | at the House of Abraham B. Skipper, Horry County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say, That the said Elizabeth M. Skipper, was killed and murdered by some person or persons to the Jurors unknown |
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Jerry | slave | June 6, 1857 | at the residence of Rev. J.K. Mendenhall on Lyttleton Street within the bounds of the Town of Camden, Kershaw County, SC | jug |
upon their oaths do say that the said negro boy Jerry came to his death from a blow on the left side of the head ... inflicted by a jug in the hands of Bob a slave of Thomas E. Shannon |
Wesley | male slave, child | October 5, 1857 | at the residence of Sophia A Tilman, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that they believe that the said male slave Wesley came to his death by blows given by Joe a slave the Property of F Oconner |
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Mary Randall | October 19, 1857 | at the Residence of John Randall, Edgefield County, SC | razor |
upon their Oaths do say, that the said Mart Randall came to her death from a large cut or gash across the throat made by a Razor in the hand of her husband John Randall |
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George Pye | December 13, 1857 | Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that they think he came to his death by wounds inflicted on his person; from the evidence we believe that Gilbert Fleming did feloniously kill the said George Pye against the peace and dignity of the state |
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white infant child, boy | white infant child, boy | March 24, 1858 | at John Thomas Boat Landing, Union County, SC |
the infant Came to it Death by it being Killed and throwed in the River |
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Jim | slave | June 19, 1858 | at the plantation of A.H. Boykin, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said negro Jim came to his death. . .from three wounds inflicted on and across the face by some weapon or instrument to the jury unknown in the hands of Dick a slave of William Sanders |
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Henry | male slave | July 15, 1858 | at Edgefield C.H., Edgefield County, SC | hickory stick |
upon their oaths do say that the said male salve, came to his death from a blow upon the left side of the head, from a hickory stick in the hands of a negro slave name Elbert (said to be the property of Evans Permenter[?]) |
Michael Pertell | August 2, 1858 | at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Joseph J. Rollins feloniously did Kill against the peace and dignity of the same state aforesaid |
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Infant enslaved by William Philson | Infant enslaved by William Philson | September 11, 1858 | at the plantation settlement of William Philson, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said child came to its death at the residence of Wm Philson in Laurens District by the Hands of Naty & Maria Negro women slaves the property of Wm Philson against the peace & Dignity of the State aforesaid. |
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Isaac Matthias Jones | October 14, 1858 | at the house of Lewis Jones (Sr) at Edgefield C.H., Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased I.M. Jones was kill by Thomas Markey, in the Public Square in front of Truman Roots store. . .by a knife in the hands of the aforesaid Markey |
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Warren Kirkland | November 16, 1858 | at Benjamin Bartons, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Warren Kirkland did come to his death by means unknown |
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Tom | negro slave | December 18, 1858 | at Chlo Watsons, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Jim in manner and form aforesaid, Tom then and there feloniously did kill |
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Harry | slave | December 25, 1858 | at Col Arthur Sinkins[?], Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Harry a slave belonging to Mrs Mary Crooker in an affray at Col Arthur Sinkins. . .by a knife or sharp pointed instrument in the hands of Elbert a slave belonging to Col Arthur Sinkins |
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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William Owens | May 28, 1859 | at Wm Owens, Laurens County, SC | stick |
upon their oaths do say that Wm Owens came to his death by blows inflicted upon his face neck and head with a large stick in the hands of Thomas Owens on the evening of the 18th day of May 1859 |
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Warren | slave | July 13, 1859 | at Camden at the residence of John Workman, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Warren. . .came to his death from Lock jaw produced by a gun shot wound in the inner side of the right thigh discharged by John Workman and from his own impudence & exposure afterward |
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Enoch Stevens | August 2, 1859 | at Stephens Mill, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Enoch Stevens came to his dith by the wound received from James Huggins and Samuel Taylor one wound on the head the skull bone broke, one wound on the leg and the bone ruptured then and there feloniously did kill the said Stevens |
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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 |
James Duckett | November 9, 1859 | at James Sutton's, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by a wound inflicted by a sharp instrument held in the hands of Boy named Abe the property of H. J. Gilreath |
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John M. Tillman | May 6, 1860 | at Mr J.A Tillmans Steam Mill, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that. . . J. M. Tillman was shot. . .with fire arm in the hands of George R Mays the Ball entering the brest neat the Pit of the Stomac Passing through the right side internily come near out under the right arm |
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James Busby | June 21, 1860 | at J[?]essey L. J[?]eter, Union County, SC | shotgun |
upon their oaths do say that from wounds on the decsd and the evidence before them they do believe decsd came to his death by the hands of one David E Jeter[?] in the yard of Jessey[?] L Jeter ... [?] shooting him with a shot gun |
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Isaah Golden | August 27, 1860 | at Silverton Beach iland, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon there oaths do say that the deceased Came to his death. . .by John Williams sen and John Williams Jr that they did feloniously killed the deceased Isaah Golden with a knife |
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Eli Thompkins | September 5, 1860 | at Conwayboro near the residence of Samuel Bell, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That Eli Thompkins came to his death by a wound inflicted from a knife in the hands of William P. Hughes |
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Joe | slave, boy | September 13, 1860 | at the residence of D. M. Glover, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there Oaths do say the said Joe came to his death. . .from the effects of a gunshot in the hand of G M Broadwaters the shot taking affect in the left leg and thigh thereby producing his death |
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Samuel Posey | October 21, 1860 | at P. B. McDaniels, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon there oath do say that the said Sam Posey came to his death by a Pistol shots in the hand of Henry Williams. . .four balls taken affect |
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Anthony | October 30, 1860 | at Dr. McCoys, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Antony came to his death from Shot wounds of a gun in the hands of John P Templeton on the 29th day of Oct |
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Thomas W. Harrison | November 23, 1860 | At Pendleton, Anderson County, SC | pistol |
do say that the deceased was killed by a pistol shot, fired by Francisco Tapapso[?], at Pendelton. |
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James Reynolds | December 20, 1860 | at the residence of James Reynolds, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said James Reynolds came to his death feloniously at the hand of Joseph Samuel. . .from the affects of a wound inflicted on the head Just above the left ear by a large stick |
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Lewis | negro man, boy | March 14, 1861 | at Charles Hammonds Brickyard, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon there oats do say that the said Lewis did come to his death. . .By the discharge of a pistol on Sunday the tenth ist in hands of Benja[?] Glanton |
Eugene McCarty | May 11, 1861 | at Edgefield Court house, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon there oaths do say that the said Eugene McCarty the deceased came to his death this day by a wound received from a pistol in the hands of William A Murrell |
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Jacob | July 31, 1861 | at the residence of Dr. G.B. Pearson, Fairfield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that Jacob came to his death by wounds inflicted by a knife in the hands of John Murphy, overseer. |
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Charles | slave, boy | September 25, 1861 | at Elijah Watson, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said Charles came to his death. . .from the affects of a gun shot in the hands of Z.[?] P. Claxton the shot taken affect in the samll of the back |
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Bill | September 29, 1861 | at HN Carters, Laurens County, SC | stick |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to his death at Clement Wells on the night of the 27th inst by means of a blow upon the head with a stick in the hands of a negro man slave named Lank the property of John G. Turner. |
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Hardy Boulware | January 2, 1862 | at Hardy Boulwares, Edgefield County, SC |
by the oaths of that Hardy Bolware came to his death by a gun shot wound from the hands of David W. Padgett |
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Mastin Comer | January 6, 1862 | at Mastin Comer's, Union County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say . . .that the deceased came to his death by a wound inflicted in the forepart of the head by seaborn[?] woolbright with a knife |
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Charlotte | February 22, 1862 | at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC |
Upon their oaths do say that Charlotte a slavey here lying dead before us came to her death by a wound inflicted by a six Barreled repeater in the hands of James J. Wortham on the 20th of February 1862 |
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Scipio | slave | April 1, 1862 | at E. J. Youngbloods, Edgefield County, SC | hatchet |
upon there oaths do say that Scipio came to his death by two blows on the head . . .with a hatchet or some sharp instrument in the hands of some person unknown |
Unknown | May 2, 1862 | at the house of Washington Hathcock, Fairfield County, SC |
upon examination of the Infant found its Skull Broken and other Marks of violence, Sufficient to cause death |
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Daniel | slave, boy | May 27, 1862 | at John H. Fair, Edgefield County, SC | shotgun |
upon there oaths do say that Daniel came to his death by a wound in the hipp receive at Edgefield Court House in B. C. Bryant store from a Double Barrel shot gun in the hands of James Bryant |
Alfred | runaway slave | June 16, 1862 | At Williamston, Anderson County, SC |
do say that within the incorporation of Williamston on the night of the 15th of June. . .that he came to his death by some person or persons unknown to the jurors by hanging by the neck until his body was dead. |
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James M. Rhodes | August 27, 1862 | at the residence of James M. Rhodes, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . .J. William M. Brown ... then and there [did] inflict three severe blows upon the head of deceased fracturing his skull in two places |
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Jack | slave | September 4, 1862 | at Mrs. Ann Johnson's residence, Anderson County, SC | pistol |
do say that the said Jack did come to his death from a pistol shot inflicted by George T. Smith the overseer of Mrs. Ann Johnson. . .the act was done by him intentionally for disobeience. |