Suicide
On September 3, 1849, Sarah Shacleford was laundering some clothes with a friend when she suddenly stopped, excused herself, took a long handkerchief from the pile and walked into the woods where she hung herself from an unspecified tree. We will probably never know why she was doing laundry one minute and hanging from a tree the next. At the coroner’s inquest a friend volunteered that Sarah’s mind had been “deranged for some time” and perhaps it was.
The word ‘deranged’ comes up a lot in these inquests. Alexander Rogers cut his own throat with a razor, “being in a state of mental derangement”; George C. Mitchell jumped off his roof “while laboring under derangement”; and Elizabeth Greer shot herself because of a “partial derangement.” Such usage probably says less about the psychology of the victim than that of the witnesses. Suicide simply seemed to them a deranged thing to do.
The word ‘deranged’ covers a lot of territory, however. At her inquest, jurors used the same word to describe Jane Soseby, who hung herself on January 12, 1859. “I thought she presented some signs of derangement,” noted one witness. “I have heard of her being deranged,” noted another, or, at least, “[I] think [I have] seen her when she was not altogether alright.” And indeed Jane was not all right. Because her husband was beating her with anything handy. “I seen one [wound] on her as if she had been struck with a stick,” one witness told the coroner, “and one on her eye as if he had kicked her which she said he had done.” Another witness testified that Jane had showed her “some marks or bruises on her body inflicted as she said by her husband.... I should suppose they were done by a good heavy hickory.” (Southerners grimly knew their timber.)
Such spousal abuse is hardly surprising in an age when men were expected to ‘correct’ their wives as they might children or slaves. The indifference of Jane’s community is a little more surprising. Jane showed her wounds to at least five neighbors, admitted to all of them that she wanted to kill herself, and admitted to some that she thought she might “destroy her children [first] as they were suffering and would suffer” worse when she was gone. But the neighbors could not, or did not, intercede. And so, “no satisfaction to herself or any body else,” Jane tried to cut her throat but found the knife too dull, tried to find a river in which to drown herself, but could never find it, and finally gathered up her courage with her husband’s rope and went to the woods. Jane had found her exit strategy; her children would have to find their own.
Suicide rates have often been used by sociologists and historians as a sort of canary in the cultural coal mine, a way of taking the mental pulse of a nation or group at a particular moment in time. (Emile Durkheim pioneered this line of cultural commentary in Suicide (1897), arguing that integrated populations—Catholics vs. Protestants, women vs. men, people with families vs. those without—commit suicide at lower rates.)
Of the 1190 suicides in the CSI:D sample, 928 were committed by men, 262 by women, a ratio of almost 4:1. Whole books have been written on the “gender paradox of suicidal behavior”—the tendency of women to more often attempt, and men to more often succeed at, committing suicide. (In 2013, 79.1% of deaths by suicide in the United States were committed by males.) But the nineteenth-century rural south was a vastly different world from our own, and all comparisons must be handled with humility. Today, most of the gender paradox relates to method: men are more likely to shoot themselves; women are more likely to overdose, giving bystanders and care-givers a chance to intervene. This was true in the nineteenth century too, where men were most likely to employ a firearm, women a poison.
In the inquests collected here, 31% of antebellum men and 7% of antebellum women killed themselves with a gun. Such lopsidedness is notable although it is less than what we see in the United States today where 85% of successful suicides are committed by firearm. In the antebellum CSI:D sample both sexes were most likely to hang themselves, rope being by far the most affordable and familiar ‘technology’ available. This conforms to the latest research suggesting that it is not true that determined depressives will always find a way to kill themselves. Rather availability shapes the outcomes. The classic example is Britain in the 1950s, where for the first half of the decade stoves were fueled by a coal-derived gas with a high carbon monoxide content, making gas inhalation the most common method of suicide. In 1958, when the country began switching over to natural gas, not only did gas-inhalation suicides go down but so did suicides generally. To a degree, a prevalence of means creates a prevalence of ends.
But only to a degree. The ‘why’ matters as much as the ‘how.’ Suicide correlates strongly with unemployment, trauma (including military service), and depression, along with their typical chasers—alcoholism and substance abuse. These forces are clearly at work in these inquests as well, though the victims were not, by and large, living lives of quiet desperation and succumbing to losing battles with what Churchill called the ‘black dog.’ Instead they were living lives of actual desperation in which suicide probably was the only way out.
This is most obvious in the case of the enslaved, and quite a few of these inquests were done over the bodies of men and women who saw suicide as an act of self-emancipation. In June 1847, for instance, an enslaved woman named Nancy was busy shucking corn when her mistress asked her to go to the stable to feed the horse. When Nancy’s baby started crying, the mistress went in search of Nancy and found that she had continued on through the stable and drowned herself in the Saluda River. Nancy had “complained for the last few days, and in one case yesterday acted as if deranged,” the mistress told the coroner, but it is equally likely that Nancy had simply reached her breaking point with enslavement mid-shuck. More typical triggering events, however, were imminent punishment or recapture. The dogs closing around her, an enslaved woman named Lovina plunged into a mill pond knowing full well she didn’t know how to swim. It is hard to quite call this a suicide. Was Lovina choosing to die or choosing to no longer be enslaved?
This sense of being cornered, literally or figuratively, is a common refrain among the white suicides as well. Doctor John J. Cobb drowned himself in Elkins Mill Pond rather than follow through on a marriage. (The would-be bride’s family was threatening to kill him if he didn’t, so it seems possible that he had impregnated her out of wedlock.) Money pressures too could drive men to the breaking point. E. M. Whatley shot himself in the head, telling his family that “he was not able to work for them and that before he would be a drag to his family he would put an end to him self.” Adam Barker shot himself twice in the chest, saying he would “rather be dead than to be poor and beholding.” There were, however, clearly cases in which internal mental issues, rather than external pressures, played a leading role. Jacob Pruitt, for instance, shot himself in the abdomen because he wanted “out of this troublesome world” and when Solomon Ellenberg gathered up some rope and left his house for the last time, he told his daughter he just “could not stay here any longer.” “I knew he] was gone to kill him self,” she told the coroner, and “[I] never expected to see him alive again.”
NEXT: Accident
Suicide Inquests
Name | Deceased Description | Date | Inquest Location | Death Method | Inquest Finding |
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Jame N. Coleman | May 17, 1879 | at the house of James N. Coleman, Spartanburg County, SC | rope |
upon their oaths do say that the said Jas. N. Coleman in a small house near the residence of said deceased ... hanged himself by the neck with a small rope |
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Carna Blackwood | June 23, 1879 | at the residence of William Blackwood, Spartanburg County, SC | bridle |
upon their oaths do say that the said Carna Blackwood came to her death voluntarily and feloniously herself, did kill by hanging herself with a bridal within the dwelling of William B. Blackwood |
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Adam Barker | August 10, 1879 | at the Residence of Adam Barker Decd, Edgefield County, SC |
Upon their oaths do say that that the said Adam Barker came to his death. . . by two pistol Shots from his own hands each ball entering the left brest and penetrating the left lung |
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Reason Collins | November 26, 1879 | at Greenville CH, Greenville County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that. . . came to his death from the effects of a pistol shot wound in the right temple the ball passing into the brain . . .himself did kill |
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John Southern | February 29, 1880 | at Greenville, Greenville County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that the said John L Southern came to his death by willfully shooting himself with a Pistol fired by his own hand |
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Henry Powell | May 15, 1881 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to his death from wounds mad by a Knife in his throat, by whom inflicted to the Jury unknown |
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William Davis | June 11, 1881 | at Mr. Jeb Davis's residence, Anderson County, SC | pistol |
do say that the deceased came to his death by a pistol shot fired by his own hands. |
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James Moore | September 8, 1881 | at Greenville, Greenville County, SC | anodynes |
upon their oaths do say that the said James P. Moore came to his death from the effect of anodynes administered by himself; but whether with the intention of taking his life or not the jury are unable to say. |
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M. F. Anderson | February 22, 1883 | at the residence of JR Anderson, Laurens County, SC | strychnine |
upon their oaths do say that the said M F Anderson came to her death by taking an overdose of Strychnine and that the said M F Anderson in manner and form then and there voluntarily and feloniously herself did kill against the peace and dignity of the same State aforesaid. |
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William Barrett | March 15, 1884 | at Telephone Exchange in the City of Greenville, Greenville County, SC | morphine |
by their oaths do say that . . . the said William T Barrett came to his death from the effects of an over dose of morphine administered by himself |
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Wesley Barksdale | April 29, 1884 | on the Premises of A W Teague, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Wesley Barksdale came to his death by a gun shot wound by his own hands against the peace and dignity of State aforesaid. |
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John P. Sloan | August 26, 1884 | at Geo Y Youngs place in Laurens County - Known as the Brick house place, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said John P Sloan came to his death on the 26th day of August AD 1884 about 11 oclock AM - and in Laurens County by two pistol shots in the neck the said pistol shots having been fired by the hands of the said John P Sloan and so the jurors aforesaid do say that the said John P Sloan in manner and form aforesaid then and there voluntarily and feloniously himself did Kill and slay against the peace and dignity of the same State aforesaid. |
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S. B. Layton | March 11, 1885 | at S. B. Layton's Store near S. S. Johnson's residence, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said S. B. Layton came to his death by a gun shot wound ... and that the said S. B. Layton ... voluntarily and feloniously himself did kill against the pease and dignity of the state |
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John Webster | November 21, 1885 | at Gaffney City, Spartanburg County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say by a pistol shot in the alley between L. G. Byars lumber house and Dr. W. A. Forte's stables ... caused by the hands of the deceased John H. Webster |
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Isaac Montgomery | March 23, 1886 | at Spartanburg C.H., Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that aforesaid Isaac Montgomery ... came to his death by strangulation at his own hands |
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Frank Little | May 16, 1886 | at G. J. Malloy's Residence, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say: That the said Frank Little, being of unsound mind, did upon the 16th day of May A D 1886 in his house, with a gun, did then and there himself voluntarily and feloniously kill |
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T. N. Owens | April 1, 1887 | near Reidville, Spartanburg County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say taht the said T. W. Owens ... voluntarily and feloniously himself did kill by shooting himself through the head with a pistol |
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Clarissa Couch | September 17, 1887 | near Hobbysville, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say: that the said Clarisa Couch came to her death by hanging on the premises of the Miles Bros. |
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William Belcher | December 2, 1888 | at or near Duncans, Spartanburg County, SC |
uppon the oaths do say we the jurors do say that Mr. Wm. Belcher ... came to his death by taking poison of some kind unknown to the jurors |
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M. Emmitt Bryant | June 25, 1891 | at the Residence of Mrs Caterim[?] Bryants, Edgefield County, SC | rope |
upon their oaths do say the said M E Bryant came to his death . . .by hanging himself With a rope around his neck |
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N. J. Hancock | December 4, 1891 | at R. F. M. Hancock, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: that the Said N J Hancock came to her death form a Pistol Shot wound by her owne hands |
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Lizzie Carson | January 29, 1892 | at John J Carson Coleman Township, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that the Said Mrs Lizzie Carson Came to her death. . .by a pistol ball wound in her own hands |
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Emma Campbell | March 30, 1893 | at Frank Williams residence, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that She came to her death By Drowning, by her own acts. |
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R.Y. Hayne Bell | March 31, 1893 | at R.Y.H. Bell's house, Laurens County, SC | razor |
ipon their oathes do say that he came to his death from a Razor wound on his neck, inflicted By his own hand. |
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James S. Aiton | June 19, 1893 | at J.S. Aiton deceased, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that deceased. . .died. . .from the effects of two pistol shot wounds. . . inflicted by his own hand and with Suicidal intent on his part |
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E. M. Whatley | August 31, 1893 | at E M Whatley's, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the Said E.M. Whatley came to his death from a Gun shot wound inflicted by his own hands with suicidal intentions |
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Warren Richards | August 18, 1894 | Laurens County, SC | train | ||
C. B. Collins | November 4, 1900 | at C.B. Collins', Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: we the Jurors find that the deceased C B Collins came to his death by a gun shot wound inflicted by his own hand |
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Jacob L. Reep | August 16, 1908 | [at] E. J. Graves residence, Chesterfield County, SC |
Do say that he killed himself at the place found near E. J. Graves residence on the night of Aug. 15th 1908 with a pistol shot in the head |
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G. W. Knight | May 27, 1910 | at Residence of G. W. Knight, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That G.W. Knight, deceased, came to his death by a gunshot wound by his own hand |
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Columbus Baskins | December 20, 1912 | at B R Rivers Doer, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: Columbus Baskins came to his death by gun shots inflicted wound by his own hand |
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George Smith | December 27, 1914 | at Mr. Geo. Smith's Residence, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That he came to his death by gun shot wounds. Inflicted by his own hands |
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Massie Robeson | June 18, 1919 | Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC |
we the Jurors find that she came to her death by her own hand by gun shot wound |
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J. T. Hanna Sr. | February 2, 1934 | at Teal's Mill, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: We the Jury find that J.T. Hanna Sr. came to his death by a gunshot wound in his own hand |
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Lonnie Jordan | February 4, 1934 | about 5 miles east of Jefferson, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their Oaths, do say, that Lon Jordan came to his death by gun shot wound in the head, by his own hand. |
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Robbie Hopkins | August 3, 1934 | near McBee, Chesterfield County, SC | automobile |
upon their oaths aforesaid, do say, that the aforesaid Robbie Hopkins came to his death by means of unaviable accident on highway #35 |
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Joseph Spires | January 17, 1935 | at Patrick, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Joe Spires received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by a pistol shot in the hands of Party unknown to us |
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Billie Laney | December 15, 1940 | at Pageland, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Billie Laney received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Pistol Shot in the hands of Insufficient Evidence |
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Nathanial T. Hildreth | October 21, 1941 | at Chesterfield, S. C., Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Nathanial T. Hildreth received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Pistol in the hands of Nathanial T. Hildreth |
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R. Boyd Eubank | September 21, 1942 | at Jefferson, S.C., Chesterfield County, SC | shotgun |
upon their oaths do say that R. Boyd Eubank received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by 12 gauge Shot Gun in the hands of R. Boyd Eubank - Intentionally |
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Richard Airington | October 26, 1942 | [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC | knife |
[No official declaration] |
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Earnestine Rewie | April 19, 1944 | at Cheraw, S.C., Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Earnestine Rewie received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Burns . . . She came to her death by burns - probably accidental |
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Earnest Hammond | October 15, 1945 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Earnest Hammond received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Shot gun in the hands of Person or Persons Unknown |