[Footnote 9: A.C. Goodell, Jr., _The Trial and Execution for Petit Treason
of Mark and Phillis_ (Cambridge, 1883), reprinted from the Massachusetts
Historical Society _Proceedings_, XX, 132-157.]
[Footnote 10: A.L. Cross, "Benefit of Clergy," in the _American Historical
Review_, XXII, 544-565.]
[Footnote 11: _Abridgement of the Laws in Force in Her Majesty's
Plantations_ (London, 1704), pp. 104-108.]
Burnings at the stake, breakings on the wheel and other ferocious methods
of execution which were occasionally inflicted by the colonial courts were
almost universally discontinued soon after the beginning of the nineteenth
century. The general trend of moderation discernible at that time, however,
was hampered then and thereafter by the series of untoward events beginning
with the San Domingo upheaval and ending with John Brown's raid. In
particular the rise of the Garrisonian agitation and the quickly ensuing
Nat Turner's revolt occasioned together a wave of reactionary legislation
the whole South over, prohibiting the literary instruction of negroes,
stiffening the patrol system, restricting manumissions, and diminishing the
already limited liberties of free negroes.
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