In some cases fairly full accounts of such
episodes are available, but more commonly the record extant is laconic.
Thus the Virginia archives have under date of 1791 an affidavit reciting
that "Ralph Singo and James Richards had in January last, in Accomac
County, been hung by a band of disguised men, numbering from six to
fifteen";[39] and a Georgia newspaper in 1860 the following: "It is
reported that Mr. William Smith was killed by a negro on Saturday evening
at Bowling Green, in Oglethorpe County. He was stabbed sixteen times. The
negro made his escape but was arrested on Sunday, and on Monday morning
a number of citizens who had investigated the case burnt him at the
stake."[40] In at least one well-known instance the mob's violence was
directed against an abuser of slaves. This was at New Orleans in 1834 when
a rumor spread that Madame Lalaurie, a wealthy resident, was torturing her
negroes. A great crowd collected after nightfall, stormed her door, found
seven slaves chained and bearing marks of inhuman treatment, and gutted
the house. The woman herself had fled at the first alarm, and made her way
eventually to Paris.[41] Had she been brought before a modern court it may
be doubted whether she would have been committed to a penitentiary or to
a lunatic asylum.
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