[21]
[Footnote 21: Head's _Tennessee Reports_, I, 336. For lynchings prompted by
other crimes than rape see below, p. 474, footnote 60.]
In general the slaveholding South learned of crimes by individual negroes
with considerable equanimity. It was the news or suspicion of concerted
action by them which alone caused widespread alarm and uneasiness. That
actual deeds of rebellion by small groups were fairly common is suggested
by the numerous slaves convicted of murdering their masters and overseers
in Virginia, as well as by chance items from other quarters. Thus in 1797
a planter in Screven County, Georgia, who had recently bought a batch of
newly imported Africans was set upon and killed by them, and his wife's
escape was made possible only by the loyalty of two other slaves.[22]
Likewise in Bullitt County, Kentucky, in 1844, when a Mr. Stewart
threatened one of his slaves, that one and two others turned upon him and
beat him to death;[23] and in Arkansas in 1845 an overseer who was attacked
under similar circumstances saved his life only with the aid of several
neighbors and through the use of powder and ball.[24] Such episodes were
likely to grow as the reports of them flew over the countryside.
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