Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?What was the impetus for some African nations to participate in the slave trade?Was there a movement for “humane” slavery?What if a slave entered a state without slavery?What degree of choice did slaves have over their sexual autonomy?What portion of Northerners were against slavery for humanitarian reasons in 1860 America?What was the first civilization to ban slavery?Besides armed insurrection what other resistance was offered by American slaves?Was American slavery economically advantageous primarily due to being able to also sell offspring?In historical slave societies, what jobs were left over for poor free laborers?What was John Hippisley's worldview when he advocated for the slave trade?
Can I get the output of a command line program with TeX (using e.g. read18)?
How to draw pentagram-like shape in Latex?
Will this series of events work to drown the Tarrasque?
Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
Why does Taylor’s series “work”?
What is the probability that two cards drawn from a deck are both face cards and at least one is red?
How to customize the pie chart background in PowerPoint?
Is there any deeper thematic meaning to the white horse that Arya finds in The Bells (S08E05)?
Is it possible to determine from only a photo of a cityscape whether it was taken close with wide angle or from a distance with zoom?
FIFO data structure in pure C
I recently started my machine learning PhD and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing
Is it a good idea to teach algorithm courses using pseudocode instead of a real programming language?
Why aren't satellites disintegrated even though they orbit earth within earth's Roche Limits?
Are there any crystals that are theoretically possible, but haven't yet been made?
Why is so much ransomware breakable?
Physically unpleasant work environment
How do I balance a campaign consisting of four kobold PCs?
Who is frowning in the sentence "Daisy looked at Tom frowning"?
Can an airline pilot be prosecuted for killing an unruly passenger who could not be physically restrained?
Why does a table with a defined constant in its index compute 10X slower?
on the truth quest vs in the quest for truth
Sort a section of a file
Why we learn compiler?
Can I pay my credit card?
Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
What was the impetus for some African nations to participate in the slave trade?Was there a movement for “humane” slavery?What if a slave entered a state without slavery?What degree of choice did slaves have over their sexual autonomy?What portion of Northerners were against slavery for humanitarian reasons in 1860 America?What was the first civilization to ban slavery?Besides armed insurrection what other resistance was offered by American slaves?Was American slavery economically advantageous primarily due to being able to also sell offspring?In historical slave societies, what jobs were left over for poor free laborers?What was John Hippisley's worldview when he advocated for the slave trade?
Was there any punishment for killing slaves, and what punishment was given for it, and was it enforced?
united-states 19th-century 18th-century slavery
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
add a comment |
Was there any punishment for killing slaves, and what punishment was given for it, and was it enforced?
united-states 19th-century 18th-century slavery
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
add a comment |
Was there any punishment for killing slaves, and what punishment was given for it, and was it enforced?
united-states 19th-century 18th-century slavery
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
Was there any punishment for killing slaves, and what punishment was given for it, and was it enforced?
united-states 19th-century 18th-century slavery
united-states 19th-century 18th-century slavery
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
edited 2 hours ago
The Z
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
asked 6 hours ago
The ZThe Z
26319
26319
add a comment |
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
Yes, murder of a slave was illegal in the antebellum South, and it was a capital offence.
An example is the case of John Hoover of North Carolina. He was arrested on 28 March 1839 for the murder of one of his slaves named Mira. He was brought to trial on 12 September 1839 before a jury of his peers (i.e. 12 male slaveholders).
At his trial, it was recorded that Hoover had declared that:
“the negro was his own property and he had a right to do as he pleased with his property ...”
Perhaps surprisingly, the jury disagreed. On Friday 13 September 1839, he was convicted on the charge of murder. An appeal was heard at the North Carolina Supreme Court in Raleigh which upheld the verdict.
John Hoover was executed for murder in May 1840.
Details of the case can be found in:
Anthony V. Baker: “for the murder of his own female slave, a woman named Mira...” : Law, Slavery and Incoherence in Antebellum North Carolina
Interestingly, Anthony V. Baker shows how the laws of North Carolina had changed over time. In particular, a 1774 statute which had criminalised the murder of a slave, but which had also ameliorated the punishment for such a murder, such that an offender would:
“suffer twelve Months Imprisonment...” for the first offense and back to the more traditional punishment, “suffer[ing] Death, without benefit of Clergy....” for the second.
However, how often these laws were enforced is a different question. Not only that, but the difficulty in obtaining a conviction should not be underestimated. This was illustrated in the relatively well-known case of Eliza Rowand, who was charged & acquitted of the murder of one of her slaves in 1847.
For a wider view of the question, I'd recommend Andrew T. Fede's recent book: Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. This includes discussions around the issues raised by both of the cases mentioned above, and also includes an entire chapter dedicated to The Antebellum States' Law on Slave Homicide (Chapter 11).
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
2
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "324"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);
else
createEditor();
);
function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);
);
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fhistory.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f52650%2fwas-murdering-a-slave-illegal-in-american-slavery-and-if-so-what-punishments-w%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
Yes, murder of a slave was illegal in the antebellum South, and it was a capital offence.
An example is the case of John Hoover of North Carolina. He was arrested on 28 March 1839 for the murder of one of his slaves named Mira. He was brought to trial on 12 September 1839 before a jury of his peers (i.e. 12 male slaveholders).
At his trial, it was recorded that Hoover had declared that:
“the negro was his own property and he had a right to do as he pleased with his property ...”
Perhaps surprisingly, the jury disagreed. On Friday 13 September 1839, he was convicted on the charge of murder. An appeal was heard at the North Carolina Supreme Court in Raleigh which upheld the verdict.
John Hoover was executed for murder in May 1840.
Details of the case can be found in:
Anthony V. Baker: “for the murder of his own female slave, a woman named Mira...” : Law, Slavery and Incoherence in Antebellum North Carolina
Interestingly, Anthony V. Baker shows how the laws of North Carolina had changed over time. In particular, a 1774 statute which had criminalised the murder of a slave, but which had also ameliorated the punishment for such a murder, such that an offender would:
“suffer twelve Months Imprisonment...” for the first offense and back to the more traditional punishment, “suffer[ing] Death, without benefit of Clergy....” for the second.
However, how often these laws were enforced is a different question. Not only that, but the difficulty in obtaining a conviction should not be underestimated. This was illustrated in the relatively well-known case of Eliza Rowand, who was charged & acquitted of the murder of one of her slaves in 1847.
For a wider view of the question, I'd recommend Andrew T. Fede's recent book: Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. This includes discussions around the issues raised by both of the cases mentioned above, and also includes an entire chapter dedicated to The Antebellum States' Law on Slave Homicide (Chapter 11).
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
2
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
add a comment |
Yes, murder of a slave was illegal in the antebellum South, and it was a capital offence.
An example is the case of John Hoover of North Carolina. He was arrested on 28 March 1839 for the murder of one of his slaves named Mira. He was brought to trial on 12 September 1839 before a jury of his peers (i.e. 12 male slaveholders).
At his trial, it was recorded that Hoover had declared that:
“the negro was his own property and he had a right to do as he pleased with his property ...”
Perhaps surprisingly, the jury disagreed. On Friday 13 September 1839, he was convicted on the charge of murder. An appeal was heard at the North Carolina Supreme Court in Raleigh which upheld the verdict.
John Hoover was executed for murder in May 1840.
Details of the case can be found in:
Anthony V. Baker: “for the murder of his own female slave, a woman named Mira...” : Law, Slavery and Incoherence in Antebellum North Carolina
Interestingly, Anthony V. Baker shows how the laws of North Carolina had changed over time. In particular, a 1774 statute which had criminalised the murder of a slave, but which had also ameliorated the punishment for such a murder, such that an offender would:
“suffer twelve Months Imprisonment...” for the first offense and back to the more traditional punishment, “suffer[ing] Death, without benefit of Clergy....” for the second.
However, how often these laws were enforced is a different question. Not only that, but the difficulty in obtaining a conviction should not be underestimated. This was illustrated in the relatively well-known case of Eliza Rowand, who was charged & acquitted of the murder of one of her slaves in 1847.
For a wider view of the question, I'd recommend Andrew T. Fede's recent book: Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. This includes discussions around the issues raised by both of the cases mentioned above, and also includes an entire chapter dedicated to The Antebellum States' Law on Slave Homicide (Chapter 11).
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
2
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
add a comment |
Yes, murder of a slave was illegal in the antebellum South, and it was a capital offence.
An example is the case of John Hoover of North Carolina. He was arrested on 28 March 1839 for the murder of one of his slaves named Mira. He was brought to trial on 12 September 1839 before a jury of his peers (i.e. 12 male slaveholders).
At his trial, it was recorded that Hoover had declared that:
“the negro was his own property and he had a right to do as he pleased with his property ...”
Perhaps surprisingly, the jury disagreed. On Friday 13 September 1839, he was convicted on the charge of murder. An appeal was heard at the North Carolina Supreme Court in Raleigh which upheld the verdict.
John Hoover was executed for murder in May 1840.
Details of the case can be found in:
Anthony V. Baker: “for the murder of his own female slave, a woman named Mira...” : Law, Slavery and Incoherence in Antebellum North Carolina
Interestingly, Anthony V. Baker shows how the laws of North Carolina had changed over time. In particular, a 1774 statute which had criminalised the murder of a slave, but which had also ameliorated the punishment for such a murder, such that an offender would:
“suffer twelve Months Imprisonment...” for the first offense and back to the more traditional punishment, “suffer[ing] Death, without benefit of Clergy....” for the second.
However, how often these laws were enforced is a different question. Not only that, but the difficulty in obtaining a conviction should not be underestimated. This was illustrated in the relatively well-known case of Eliza Rowand, who was charged & acquitted of the murder of one of her slaves in 1847.
For a wider view of the question, I'd recommend Andrew T. Fede's recent book: Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. This includes discussions around the issues raised by both of the cases mentioned above, and also includes an entire chapter dedicated to The Antebellum States' Law on Slave Homicide (Chapter 11).
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
Yes, murder of a slave was illegal in the antebellum South, and it was a capital offence.
An example is the case of John Hoover of North Carolina. He was arrested on 28 March 1839 for the murder of one of his slaves named Mira. He was brought to trial on 12 September 1839 before a jury of his peers (i.e. 12 male slaveholders).
At his trial, it was recorded that Hoover had declared that:
“the negro was his own property and he had a right to do as he pleased with his property ...”
Perhaps surprisingly, the jury disagreed. On Friday 13 September 1839, he was convicted on the charge of murder. An appeal was heard at the North Carolina Supreme Court in Raleigh which upheld the verdict.
John Hoover was executed for murder in May 1840.
Details of the case can be found in:
Anthony V. Baker: “for the murder of his own female slave, a woman named Mira...” : Law, Slavery and Incoherence in Antebellum North Carolina
Interestingly, Anthony V. Baker shows how the laws of North Carolina had changed over time. In particular, a 1774 statute which had criminalised the murder of a slave, but which had also ameliorated the punishment for such a murder, such that an offender would:
“suffer twelve Months Imprisonment...” for the first offense and back to the more traditional punishment, “suffer[ing] Death, without benefit of Clergy....” for the second.
However, how often these laws were enforced is a different question. Not only that, but the difficulty in obtaining a conviction should not be underestimated. This was illustrated in the relatively well-known case of Eliza Rowand, who was charged & acquitted of the murder of one of her slaves in 1847.
For a wider view of the question, I'd recommend Andrew T. Fede's recent book: Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. This includes discussions around the issues raised by both of the cases mentioned above, and also includes an entire chapter dedicated to The Antebellum States' Law on Slave Homicide (Chapter 11).
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
edited 3 hours ago
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
answered 4 hours ago
sempaiscuba♦sempaiscuba
58.5k7206267
58.5k7206267
2
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
add a comment |
2
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
2
2
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
Did the deliberate murder of a slave legally differ from working them until they died, or other forms of causing their deaths through deliberate negligence (e.g. denying health care)?
– nick012000
1 hour ago
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to History Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fhistory.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f52650%2fwas-murdering-a-slave-illegal-in-american-slavery-and-if-so-what-punishments-w%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
