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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Namro | negro man | August 11, 1844 | at the house of Rob King Esqr, Edgefield County, SC | club or stick |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid namro a negro man was murdered near the house of R. Kenny Esqr . . .by Tim the property of L. Gomillion with a club or stick |
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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Murian Walker | December 17, 1872 | at or near Highland house, Laurens County, SC | rock |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Murian Walker in manner and form aforesaid Nelson Barksdale then and there feloniously did kill agains the peace and dignity of the same state aforesaid. |
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Mrs. Sue Rushing | January 29, 1912 | at C. P. Rushings, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: that the said Mrs Sue Rushing come to her death By Pistol shot wounds in the hands of C. P. Rushing |
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Mrs. Mary E. Parker | January 9, 1933 | at Patrick, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: Mary E. Parker came to her death from gunshot wounds in the hands of Clyde Parker |
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Moses Blalock | May 19, 1882 | on the Plantation of W G McDavid, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that Moses Blalock Death was Caused by a Gun Shot Wound the gun was in the hands of Mose Lackhart and in our opinion it is wilful Murder |
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Moses | Slave | April 10, 1844 | at Clayton Webb's Plantation...near the Spring Branch, Anderson County, SC | shotgun |
do say that Moses died?we are of the opinion that Sd Moses came to his death by a wound that we have seen below the back bone of the rightshoulder inclining to the right nipple rather downward made by a leaden ball or buck shot shot out of a double barrell gun...by Clayton Webb the owner of Moses |
Mose Lowery | March 16, 1940 | at Chesterfield, S. C., Chesterfield County, SC | pocket knife |
upon their oaths do say that Mose Lowery received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by pocket knife in the hands of unknown hands |
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Monroe Nathan | June 5, 1889 | at Allen Dials, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Monroe Nathan came to his death by gun shot wounds by a Pistol in the hands of Constable Jno D Watts he acting in self defence on the 5th day of June 1889. |
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Milledge Denny | colored child | June 23, 1868 | at Rev. H.T. Baitleys, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say:. . .the elder Child was conscious before it died and did say that a black man, and others say that she (the child) said that it was a yellow man that set fire to the house which burnt her & the other child to death hence we find that the Children were burnt to death but unknown by whom, and if it shall appear that the deceased were wilfully killed by another |
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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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Michael Long | April 17, 1849 | at the house of Michael Long, Edgefield County, SC | shotgun |
upon their Oaths do say, that Michael Long was shot with a double barrel shot gun in the forehead. . .by some person or persons to the Jurors unknown |
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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. |
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Meredith Griffin | February 15, 1889 | at F D Hunters, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That Turner Jones did discharge the contents of a shot gun in the body of Meridith Griffin thereby killing him about 8 Oclock on the Evening of the 14 Feb 1889. And the jurors aforesaid upon their Oaths do say the killing was done in self defence. |
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Matilda H. Posey | February 26, 1849 | at the house of Martin Posey, Edgefield County, SC | stick |
upon their Oaths do say, she came to her death, by violence inflicted on her person. . .by a stick or some deadly instrument in the hands of a negro man name App, or Appling belonging to, or owned by Martin Posey |
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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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Mary Robertson | Fairfield County, SC | bed slat | |||
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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Mary Lipscomb | May 3, 1889 | at Cowpens, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Mary Lipscomb died of apoplexy |
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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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Mary Hicks | May 10, 1881 | at the residence of Widow Lucy Clements, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that ... Mrs. Mary Hicks came to her death by a gun shot and a knife or some sharp tool in the hands of one B. Whitney Hicks, her husband |
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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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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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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 |
Mary | Slave | May 17, 1847 | at the Plantation of A. Perrin, Edgefield County, SC |
Upon their oaths do say, that. . .the said Mary came to her death by being choked, by Joe, a negro man belong to Omey Patterson, who confined to us that he was the murder, and purpetrated said deed on Sunday 16th inst. Showing us where he had Killed her near the above named Plantation |
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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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Marten Lowery | January 20, 1913 | at Liza Lowery's, Chesterfield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said Mart Lowery came to his death from a pistol shot wound in the hand of Henry McKinzy |
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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. |
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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 |
Margaret Simpkins | September 21, 1879 | on Jas C Brooks Plantation, Edgefield County, SC | shotgun |
do say that the said Margaret Simpkins came to her death by a gun Shot wound inflicted with a single Barrel Shot gun in the hands of John Simpkins |
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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 |
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March | slave | February 24, 1845 | at Chesnut's Ferry, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by a blow inflicted with some blunt instrument upon the head fracturing the skull for some five or seven inches by some person or persons unknown |
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Male Child | Male Child | January 30, 1809 | at David Cowens, Laurens County, SC |
do believe upon their oathes that. . . by some means unknown to the Jurors and so these Jurors upon their oathes aforesaid Doth say the Jurors also believe that Jane Cowan was accessory to the sd. Murder. . . |
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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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Mahlon Jones | December 25, 1891 | at Landrams Farm, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That Mahlon Jones was . . .killed by a pistol. . .shot in the hands of Henry Scott and that Coleman Maroney was accessoror |
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Mack Kirkland | colored man | October 31, 1868 | at Camden, Camden, S.C., Kershaw County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that the said Mac Kirkland came to his death on Main Street in the town of Camden ... from wounds in the breast from a pistol fired ... by one William Killz |
Mack Byrd | July 20, 1885 | at Duncans Creek Colored Baptist Church, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Mack Byrd came to his death on the 19th day of July AD 1885 in Laurens County near to Duncans Creek Colored Church by a pistol shot in the hand, of Alfred Dean alias Alfred Harley. |
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Lydia McKay | September 2, 1869 | at Burches Spring branch near the residence of Mr. B. T. Ellerbe in Steerpeu township, Chesterfield County, SC | stick |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid [????] Emanuell Cash did confess before the Jury and say That he did strike diseased after striking her several blows with sticks and a Lightwood knot and the jury aforesaid on this oath do say that the aforesaid Emanual Cash in manner and form aforesaid Lydia McKey then and there feloniously did kill |
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Luther Sullivan | October 26, 1898 | near John Stuarts, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Luther Sullivan came to his death from gun shot wounds in the hand of unknown parties |
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Luther Harris | May 26, 1899 | at the plantation of George F Towns, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say, that the Said Luther Harris was killed at John Davis' house . . . by a Gun Shot wound fired by the hands of Hamp Davis. |
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Lula Smith | child | June 22, 1894 | at James A Satcher's Plantation, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: that the said Lula Smith aforesaid came to her death, by a cause unknown |
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Luke Smith | October 14, 1931 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: We the coroners Jury in the case of L. Smith find that L. Smith came to his death by Gunshot wounds of Gun in the hands of Paul Cuffin |
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Lucious Perry | November 8, 1891 | at the plantation of Ben Boatwright, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Lucious Perry came to his death by a gun shot wound in the hands of Ben Curry Willfully and that Henry Robertson was aiding and abetting the same |
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Lucinda Clantice | May 1, 1849 | at the late residence of Lucinda Clantice, Laurens County, SC | stick |
do say upon their oath that one Nancy Morgan late of the District aforesaid not having God before her Eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil on the 29th day of April in year 1849 at Joel L. Andersons Saw Mill in the District aforesaid in and upon the said Lucinda Clantice then and there being in the peace of God and of the said State feloniously voluntarily and of her own laaice afore though made an assault and that the aforesaid Nancy Morgan then and there with a certain wooden Stick which She the said Nancy Morgan then and there held in her hand the afore said Lucinda Clantice; upon the left sideof the head about three Inches above the left Ear together with other wounds to wit one on the left arm one on the left hip one of the left lef of the said Lucinda Clantice... the afore said Nancy Morgan did then and there feloniously kill and Murder the Said Lucinda Clantice agains the peace of this State... |
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Louisa Laudon | October 11, 1869 | at Dorns Steam Mills near Rocky Creek, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say That Louisa Laudon came to her death by a knife in the hands of some person or persons unknown |
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Lizzy | three negro children | October 2, 1846 | at the house of Philip Brogden, Edgefield County, SC | axe |
upon their oaths do say the said Riller Lizzy and Rose were feloniously Killed and Murdered in the negro house of said Philip Brogden on the night of the 1st inst by breaking their sculls with an axe and cutting the throats of Riller & Lizza by the hands of their own Mother named Clarisy the property of said Brogden |
Littleberry Sullivan | July 28, 1808 | Laurens County, SC | |||
Lindsay Adams | August 2, 1933 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC | iron bar |
upon their oaths, do say: that Lindsay Adams came to his death by being struck on the head with an Iron bar in the hands of Arthur Adams |
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Lilie May Dove | November 29, 1943 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Flossie Sellers received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by 22 Caliber rifle in the hands of Lillie Mae Dove |
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Lewis Trabough | July 14, 1913 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: Lewis Trabough came to his death From pistol shot in the hand of Ben Gardner. |